Some suggestions to make factions and sectors more interesting (including the players')

[amberlyske]

Factions even with the improvement from 2.0 are really boring and pretty much all the same; the player faction kind of is as well. Here's some ways to improve the system.

- First, sector station cap. In the game Empire at War, a Star Wars RTS, some systems are able to build bigger space stations and more orbital defenses. The same concept would make the player faction in Avorion much more interesting. Each kind of station would have a slot value, and each sector has a limit on how many total slots can be fit into it. Bigger stations use more slots. This forces the player to build out like other factions instead of holing up in one single sector, and makes some sectors much more valuable than others (high capacity sectors could be very rare), which could be interesting for especially pvp gameplay. 

- Give players a pool of ships that can be called in to attack or defend sectors. Ships are produced for the pool by shipyards, using a variety of materials. Bigger stations can make bigger ships, and more production makes them produce said ships faster (should still be pretty slow though). Military outposts can have a protection radius where the pool of ships can be called in, and that radius can be increased by increasing the MO's size (logarithmically, to prevent one ultra big outpost defending half the galaxy). Shipyards should use items and resources to produce ships so that item production chains more valuable. Turret and fighter factories arm the ships. More reinforcements should be deployed to more valuable sectors. This can be done with the existing mission system. Players cannot destroy or switch to their defense ships, but can give them orders within the same sector. 

-  Pirate, xostan and enemy faction attacks should be a lot stronger. It makes no sense for a group of like, 3 dinky pirate ships to jump into a sector knowing they'll get pasted before getting the chance to do anything. The chance and strength of attacks can be influenced by how well the sector is defended, what kind of stations it has, how valuable the sector is, etc. Maybe give them reinforcements too, if the battle is going well for them but they need more ships to finish the job. Also, each sector owned by players should have a chance every x amount of time of being attacked. Instead of simulating the ships there, just take the strength of the sector's defenses, including reinforcements, and the strength of the enemies attacking it, then run some numbers every now and then to generate the progression of the battle. When one side's ships are exhausted, the other wins the engagement. 

- Factions should have relations with some of their neighbors. Allied NPC factions may help each other in battle, factions at war will attack until the war stops or until one side is defeated, etc. Players that help one faction may generate rapport in allied factions. Attacking factions may cause their allies to dislike you as well. Info on a faction's diplomatic relations with other factions can be purchased at headquarters. 

- Factions should be able to declare war on other factions, including the player's, of their own accord, if they want to expand into opposing factions' sectors or if opposing factions are harassing allies. They should voluntarily ask for peace if they find that the faction they attacked is much stronger than them. 

- Sectors can already be made more or less valuable with how many stations they can hold, but it could be diversified even more. Perhaps each sector can have certain buffs and debuffs to certain items' production, or ship production. Maybe some sectors can have strange gravitational fields that make jumping out more difficult, limit or improve ship building ability, or affect weapon range. Maybe have microparticles that damage unshielded ships, or radiation that makes shields much weaker. This combined with the station cap can make exploration more interesting and rewarding, as very valuable sectors should be quite rare. 

- Lastly, have context specific npc chatter. A ship that's about to be scrapped shouldn't be worrying about their wallet they thought they left at the equipment dock. They should be begging you for help. Sector defense ships shouldn't make comments about hoping they're not scanned. Just... make the chatter make some sense. 

The vast majority of this stuff is just numbers and should be able to be implemented relatively easily. Most of this might even be moddable. But it'll help make the game feel less static and more alive, and make empire building much more fun.