Delta Hammer
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Posted - 2006.06.27 06:56:00 -
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Factional Warfare and playing as career military personnel. well I hate to let real life leak in but I'll make a few comments from my time in the military. You should make players equip mopping mods and send them out to spit-shine the station ;)
Well, basically you're trying to take real organized warfare and condense it down to the parts that civilians find fun and exciting, the combat. One important thing to remember is that warfare is not simply running amok with the trigger held down. There has to be an overall political goal of the nation at war, even something as simple as national survival. It's important for the soldiers to know what the goal is so they can relate their work to it, and for the political leaders to keep it in mind so the war doesn't degenerate into an aimless slugfest.
Now, from the grunt's perspective, or at least one of them, war consists of getting assorted different missions anywhere from a week in advance to "go right now", but generally 12 to 24 hours in advance. Missions can be short or long. To generalize, offensive missions either have a point objective (such as raid, ambush, deliberate attack or point recon) or a more general area objective (such as zone recon, patrol or movement to contact.) Defensive missions can include guarding a gate (usually lots of that ;) convoy escort, patrols again, or building and reinforcing defenses. We once went to the same gate roughly once a week for two months b/c every idiot officer that inspected it wanted to add or change something.
The time element is important. Some missions just have a completion date, some just have a start time, others have a detailed timeline for every step. Sometimes you have to change your timeline, such as when you expect to spend two days building a concertina wire fence only to discover that the route for the fence runs along a slope and is overgrown by giant thistles that are sharper and thicker than the concertina wire.
Missions change as rank increases. As your rank goes up, you get bigger tasks, or tasks at a higher level, and generally more assets to perform it with. As a junior soldier you drive your vehicle or man your weapon and watch for targets. A squad leader will have to shepherd his men through the mission, while a platoon leader will have to plan it out. Eventually you get high enough to select weapons, vehicles, tactics and timelines. At very high levels you get to set the objectives. You can climb the information chain from binoculars to night vision goggles to an unmanned drone, and the weapon chain from a grenade launcher to an airstrike... or the creepy SF guys who wear whatever they want and say all the things to the Colonel that you wish you could say. You know, Eve factions could use some sort of elite strike force. If you complete enough missions and reach high enough rank you and your star brigade could go on a mission with the Fed Rangers to knock out a station in Jita or wherever.
One thing about FW is that players will have to interact both with other player/soldiers and the NPC Navy. Eventually high ranking players would need a way to control and send orders to NPC ships under their command, preferably something a little more involved than the drone interface.
IMO (not that that means much) the simplest way would be to allow people to enlist in Empire Navies, for a day, week or month, and run missions for their faction. The longer they stay in, the better their chances of promotion They log in and get orders to lay a minefield and sentry drones at a certain gate, or patrol a specific constellation, or rush to mount a hasty ambush of an enemy recon. The Navy would provide the tools you need, sentry drones or racial ECM or scan probes or NPC ships to command.
As for creating missions, the simplest way is to rip them off. Play the Medal of Honor games or any 1st person shooter, and imagine the missions in ships. Just remember that some of us want to be generals ;)
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