Help with the Xeno plan

[Mímir]

I'd look at it the other way round:

Rather than having an appealing concept, nice graphics and so on, you would benefit from looking at how your faction will play in-game:

The thing about Xenos is that everyone will be shooting at you. Everyone. So from my experience you need either A) Lots of players (like Spazzy's Allertons) to swarm your enemies / scare them off or B) Pros (like the XA- of old). It simply gets boring flying around getting trashed by hordes of lawful (and unlawful) players all the time. Once you don a tag, you will get the attention of everyone - traders, navy, hunters, hostile unlawfuls, you name it.

Another factor is the piracy encounter. When I trade, I do kind of hate meeting a Xeno, because I know no matter how many lines of text I type, I will get blown up - it makes the encounter somewhat frustrating because the outcome is given in advance - it is especially frustrating if the Xeno is in a combat ship leaving no chance to the trader. If you use transports for cargo liberation, however, it gives the feeling that there's been some purpose to the trader's trip even if he died - those wares are going to get delivered somewhere afterall, and it wasn't just a summary execution by a blue-hungry player in a combat ship, too weak to fight anything but transports. A combat-fitted transport with heavy armor will outclass 9/10 of all trade transports, so you'd still have the upper hand PVP-wise, as it should be.

To summarize: I'd focus on creating a faction that can hold its ground in-game, and make sure there are doctrines for PVP (transports v transports, bombers v caps, ganks v gunboats, etc.). If you can pull that off, you'll have a great faction IMO.

My 2 cents, good luck and remember to have fun!

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[Gulryz]

I'd look at it the other way round:

Rather than having an appealing concept, nice graphics and so on, you would benefit from looking at how your faction will play in-game:

The thing about Xenos is that everyone will be shooting at you. Everyone. So from my experience you need either A) Lots of players (like Spazzy's Allertons) to swarm your enemies / scare them off or B) Pros (like the XA- of old). It simply gets boring flying around getting trashed by hordes of lawful (and unlawful) players all the time. Once you don a tag, you will get the attention of everyone - traders, navy, hunters, hostile unlawfuls, you name it.

Another factor is the piracy encounter. When I trade, I do kind of hate meeting a Xeno, because I know no matter how many lines of text I type, I will get blown up - it makes the encounter somewhat frustrating because the outcome is given in advance - it is especially frustrating if the Xeno is in a combat ship leaving no chance to the trader. If you use transports for cargo liberation, however, it gives the feeling that there's been some purpose to the trader's trip even if he died - those wares are going to get delivered somewhere afterall, and it wasn't just a summary execution by a blue-hungry player in a combat ship, too weak to fight anything but transports. A combat-fitted transport with heavy armor will outclass 9/10 of all trade transports, so you'd still have the upper hand PVP-wise, as it should be.

To summarize: I'd focus on creating a faction that can hold its ground in-game, and make sure there are doctrines for PVP (transports v transports, bombers v caps, ganks v gunboats, etc.). If you can pull that off, you'll have a great faction IMO.

My 2 cents, good luck and remember to have fun!

+Players having patience

[Shelco]

I actually planned to have a trader with us when pirating. I have asked spazzy if he would be okay if we take his old XA and revive it, a concept is there already and then the threads and work he did wouldn't be for nothing.

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