Posts: 3,574
Threads: 107
Joined: May 2012
Staff roles: Balance Dev
Just to quickly clarify this stuff: the Kusari - Liberty "conflict" that 5.0 worked towards is a corporate one. Ageira versus Kishiro, because of the invention of jump technology by Kishiro and the threat that poses to Ageira's monopoly (ish. I know EFL exists).
Now I will say that Ageira and Kishiro aren't just your regular old corps. They are a huge part of the Houses they're a part of, and the pull they would have over their respective governments would be immense. Let's not forget that Freelancer is a pretty dystopian setting, these supercorporations are insanely powerful.
It's kind of hard to represent this well, though, and I heard a few cool ideas for how a conflict like this could escalate in a way that players could actually play out. Nobody's suggesting openly hostile, military action from one House against another here, but some sussy stuff between the corps directly in the borderworlds (their IDs allow this already) leading to some "incidental" brawls between lawfuls isn't out of the question in my opinion. It is however very difficult to enable this in-game through IDs without it inevitably turning into what every other House conflict has always turned into: massive capital ship fleets clashing in the middle. Which would be a bit silly and not particularly desirable.
I'm okay with Platinum playing a role, but I'll also say that I was kind of planning to just rotate refined HRC prices a little bit to instigate competition / "gold rush" type stuff. It's easy enough to do. @jammi make me that placeholder news article to override on the server end!!
