Minor Faction Characterization

Hi!

I loved the first game and I am really enjoying following the progress on the second game. Thank you for your great work!

There would be many things to say and I'll probably make a more comprehensive post later on, but right now I would like to focus on minor factions.

Here are a few features that I would love to see to make them stand out more as a feature of the game and in and of themselves.

-It would be nice to see variations on the simple metal-factions and crystal-factions that we have right now. Maybe keep the main theme but give them more flavour and a few variations for both.. the metal faction could be a miner faction but also a ship salvager faction, while the crystal faction could be based on a gas giant or be interstellar traders. This in turn could give slightly different flavours and bonuses for players with high favour with them.

- A simple but nice thing to do would be to give each minor faction a mid-level Capital ship, based on their theme. That would add so much character, and a bit of challenge if one decided to conquer them! For example, the TEC metal miner faction could have a level 5 Marza Dreadnought with a couple defensive components!

- It would also be nice if the top level of favour with the minor faction gave you the option to "confederate" them peacefully, maybe paying a certain amount of credits, resulting in gaining a well developped planet, all their ships and orbital structures.

- While the minor faction absolute neutrality (except for the pirates of course) is an interesting feature, it could be nice if the minor faction didn't tolerate aggression between players inside of their space. The system could work so that neutrality among all factions is the automatic standard in the gravity well, but one could actively attack an enemy faction's ships. This in turn provokes unilateral retaliation from the minor faction forces towards the aggressor, without them automatically going to war with them. The minor faction (who is from a thematic standpoint an economic focused neutral faction, interested mainly in doing business with all parties) would act as a sort of police force inside its own space. I think this would add much thematically and mechanically (especially with a stronger garrison featuring a capital ship), and would strengthen the feeling of diplomatic immunity inside the minor faction's gravity well, especially useful for diplomatic frigates.

 

I may be focusing too much on this feature of the game, but I find that the presence of these minor factions, along with the pirates,  adds a lot to the narrative of each game!

Thanks again for all your hard work, I cannot wait to see and play more (also really missing Dev Journals!)