How to make official factions better?

[Dab]

- restrict capship purchases to factions (enforced by admins in some manner)
- as above but only for the very biggest capships

I think it would be best to limit only the largest capital ship that faction has access to. For example; Outcast factions can restrict the use of Battleships (this includes both the BS and the Dread) by indy OCs. Red Hessians can restrict the use of cruisers by indy RHs. GC factions can restrict the use of gunboats/gunships by indy GC. Basically the largest ship the ID allows is the ship the official faction can restrict the use of. OC wouldn't be able to restrict a cruiser or smaller, just battleships, for it allows BSs. Since the Hessian Guard ID only allows cruisers, no battleships, cruisers are the largest ships they can use, so that is what they are allowed to restrict.

Note; Indies would be allowed to buy those 'largest' capships, but would need the faction's permission. This doesn't mean that only faction players can use them. There are factions where it wouldn't work to force faction play. The biggest example would be the Zoners. Many Zoners believe in working for one's self only. Some are more faction-oriented. It's a difference of RP opinion. So make it available with faction permission. The same is true for the idea below; With faction permission.

Another idea, instead of making official factions get a 'discount' on trade goods (which would require faction IDs and would NOT be compatible with other servers) we could simply restrict 5,000 cargo transports to official factions only. If you are not in an official faction, you can't use a transport with 4,500 cargo or more. That will give the official factions that trade edge and increase the amount indies join trading factions.

- restrict access to bases (through some sort of flhook thing I guess), i.e. LPI locking down Manhattan.

This could be very prone to abuse. Official faction players aren't always great.. They abuse stuff as well, so handing them this much power would be a bad idea.

- post in game news items

Definitely for this.

- allow factions to have one/some custom ships

Against this. Especially if the 'largest' cap restriction is put in place. Would also increase the size of the mod. Along with that, it'd increase the difficulty in making everything balanced.

Brainfart incoming:

Create a new set of "Leader" IDs for each and every faction. For example: "Liberty Navy Admiral ID", "Liberty Rogue Boss ID", "Corsair Elder ID", "Red Hessian Commander ID", "Kishiro CEO ID" etc. These IDs would be given out to leaders of official factions by the admins. Normally they would be a carbon copy of the normal faction ID, however these IDs would enable their "wearers" access to a bunch of nifty flhook commands, like for example:
- A repfix applicable to any player that will turn them to hostile/neutral/friendly for his own faction and/or guard faction.
- An ability to lock down select bases.
- Anything else that you can think of (within reason).

Good idea? Bad idea?

I very much like this idea. An ID only for the leader and maybe the High Command of official factions, with the three listed abilities in FLHook. Earlier in this post I noted that locking down bases could be abused. However, I am for this ID getting that ability. Faction leaders are oftentimes more responsible than their members, and can't be on 24/7. The possibility of abuse is much lower when only select people have the power. Furthermore, faction leaders are scrutinized much more severely than the faction members, so they are unlikely to do something that will get them in a lot of trouble.

Thumbs up to this idea, best one yet.

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