Station Based Factions

Now this is just an idea I've been throwing around in discord and would like you, the people(s) input on it.

The basic idea is a multiple persistent, player driven but NPC directed factions which operate on station and have tangible effects on the work environment. What I mean by NPC driven, is that the factions will obviously belong to high level management within NT and will have a general goal, but it's up to the players how they'd like to go about shooting for that goal.

At the moment a rough outline of the factions are two groups of three. The two groups being able to overlap (names a WIP):

Group One-

Purists: Pushing for only allowing Humans, Skrell and Upper Class Tajara into Command roles.

Progressives: Pushing to allow everyone into command roles, yes even those dirty synths.

Traditionalists: Keep as is, everything is a-ok.

Group Two-

NT Minerals: Pushing to increase mining output and sell all goods to CC for profit (all yields go to CC, all research and robotics to develop mining equipment, all workers to be assigned towards the mining effort).

NT Weapons Tech: Pushing to direct all resource to weapons technology research. (all yields to weapons research and manufacture, all staff assigned towards to weapons research effort).

NT Mechanical Research: Pushing to direct all resource to mechanical research. (all yields to robotics and engineering to build mechs, robots and engines/contraptions, all staff assigned towards to mechanical research).

Profit Driven: Pushing to increase all quick yield profits across station (all yields go to CC, all research and robotics to develop mining equipment, all workers to be assigned towards the mining/manufacturing/botanical efforts, use of EFTPOS scanners across all departments, charging for medical care).

People Driven: Pushing to direct all resource to staff training and developement alongside making the station a "nicer place to work" to "boost productivity (encouraging training and making training classes, free medical care and medical care no matter the cost - even if that means compromising a crime scene to clone some one, upgrading hospitality areas and the station, directing crew resource to these ends).

Research Driven: Pushing to direct all resource to research for long term gains from scientific progress(all yields go to R&D, research and robotics to do their own thing, all workers assigned towards research efforts)

Group One and Two can overlap, so you could have a Purist Head of Personnel Njarir’Akhran Tajaran who is also part of the Profit Driven factions. In a shift, this character re-allocates Zhan-Khazan Tajara and other non-crucial staff to mining and cargo "just for this shift" and ensures all minerals go to central command with a light trickle of materials to their friends in R&D to produce more mining equipment whilst ignoring or fast-talking around requests from general R&D and other departments until their hand is forced by the captain to give materials to R&D where this character gives out token materials. Any complainants from the Zhan-Khazan are "reminded" of their contracts by security officers who are also part of the Profit Driven faction. All this time the HoP has to contend with a small sub faction of Progressive Profit Driven folk who are mighty pissed at the oppression of the Zhan-Khazan. This is an example of potential game play.

To my mind, we might introduce events in which factions go up against one another for a boon and depending on how it goes, perhaps one faction might hit their goal.

My main goal is to stimulate interdepartmental RP and IG persistent roleplay.

What are your thoughts on this? If you think it's good why? If you think it's bad why? Give me your ideas and feelings.

This has been suggested before (admittedly this idea seems a little more fleshed out) and my feelings remain the same: this won’t go well, ever. I believe that it would disturb the ideas of the game as a whole and take it in a completely new direction. I’m sure people are up for that new direction but I think it will create unnecessary tension and conflict. Don’t get me wrong, inner conflict is great and all but this idea seems a little too radical, especially the example you gave. It seems like a rev round gimmick except now it’s every round no matter what. I also think that doing this in the way you described would detract from antag actions. It’s a fun idea for, say, a rev gimmick as I said already but for a constant, persistent thing? I’m not so sure it’ll work out. Sorry if I missed any points, just quickly adding my two cents.

For clarity, no one should be doing anything extreme. The above example is at the "realistic but pushing the boundaries" levels. No one should be starting mutinies or whatever. Understand that interdepartment "dickings" occur in real life and in some cases resources are essentially "stolen" from one department to be used by another. No one grabs guns and tries to overthrow senior management, they report the offender's or get an even senior manager to straighten it out.

Ah I see. In that case it could help to add a dash of flavour and bring in some of the outer world into the game rather than locking it away just to happen in fluffs. In the case that it is muted and slyly done then I can see where the idea spawned and I can certainly see its benefits. I think if this does get implemented, it’ll need to be done carefully however because there is a definite line between interesting conflict and just irritating a department full of people. Nobody in science likes not having materials and it’ll be even worse knowing that you could have them but just aren’t getting them because reasons. Overall: I think this could, if done well and carefully both player and mechanic-wise, be an interesting conflict but the line is delicate and I’m not entirely sure it could be pulled off to a degree that it doesn’t just become irritating for those left in the dirt.

+1, would make people think about their character's political beliefs a bit more which could lead to some more interesting rev rounds and some more interesting holodeck extended arrpee.

The way I see it done, and the most realistic way of it being implemented, would be to implemented like Bay tried to implement the various branches of the armed forces aboard a single ship. Essentially, you'd have different groups with different MO and culture working on the same station, with someone holding the reigns. Would allow for subtle tension ICly.

The way I see it done, and the most realistic way of it being implemented, would be to implemented like Bay tried to implement the various branches of the armed forces aboard a single ship. Essentially, you'd have different groups with different MO and culture working on the same station, with someone holding the reigns. Would allow for subtle tension ICly.

That's basically what I'm going for here, but this implies it didn't come across that way for you? Would you change anything re. factions listed?

Would you change anything re. factions listed?

While I realize it is a mining and research facility, I feel like the factions are heavily orientated towards Mining, Research, and the Heads. Thing is, how will this involve Medical? What about Engineering? What about Service? In most cases, it seems like this will involve 2, maybe 3 departments if Security needs to get involved. And how will people be expected to act? In most cases, this seems like it will just result in some people arguing over whether robotics or RnD should get more materials, or people yelling at cargo for shipping things that aren't phoron and platinum, since they get 0 funds from doing so. The first thing is something that already happens to an extent, and the second is just going to mean Cargo Techs wasting materials for 0 funds, or gain of any kind.

As for the Heads thing, speciesists are already a thing. ATLAS is arguably a designated faction for not liking Xenos. I don't see why we need to make one.

Would you change anything re. factions listed?

While I realize it is a mining and research facility, I feel like the factions are heavily orientated towards Mining, Research, and the Heads. Thing is, how will this involve Medical? What about Engineering? What about Service? In most cases, it seems like this will involve 2, maybe 3 departments if Security needs to get involved. And how will people be expected to act? In most cases, this seems like it will just result in some people arguing over whether robotics or RnD should get more materials, or people yelling at cargo for shipping things that aren't phoron and platinum, since they get 0 funds from doing so. The first thing is something that already happens to an extent, and the second is just going to mean Cargo Techs wasting materials for 0 funds, or gain of any kind.

As for the Heads thing, speciesists are already a thing. ATLAS is arguably a designated faction for not liking Xenos. I don't see why we need to make one.

It's difficult to mesh all departments without watering down factions to nothing. You're right about medical and to an extent engineering with those factions. Engineering is still important to the mech research faction.

Also non of those factions are anti alien. I'm specifically avoiding this as, like you say, we have other areas that cover this. The "Purists" are elitist not anti alien.

What sort of ideas would you have for a faction that would include engineering and medical but not break the rule of three and be relevant to station operation?

One of the biggest conflicts in Medical seems to be how patients should be handled. Perhaps a Faction who thinks patients should be denied treatment unless they pay/were injured due to something unavoidable, and a Faction that thinks patient care comes before station profit, and so, for example, would see cloning bodies as more important than a crime scene remaining intact for the FT. And of course a middle faction for the less extreme.

As for Engineering, a big conflict seems to be when there's not enough equipment for everyone, so maybe some Engineers who feel that equipment should not be carried with you unless you know you need it, others who feel engineers should ensure they have enough to do anything on them at all times, and that engineers should order stuff from cargo if they don't have it. So then you have Group A getting mad at Group B for having all the equipment, and getting madder when Group B says "Go buy it", Group B being mad at engineers for not having deployables or Glass+Steel on them at all times.

Really though, I think the best option for a "factions" system would just be to use already existing factions, and have people act based on which they belong to.

I'd like to see this if we could involve everyone in it. Medical, security, and engineering pretty much just get ignored here. As someone who plays security 99% of the time, this idea doesn't seem to add much for me, or the rest of security. Threatening the harmbaton a miner or two for not wanting to work in a job they OOCly didn't pick and don't want to do isn't what I want to spend a round doing, and medical and engineering just get left out completely.

I've changed the group two factions to research driven, profit driver and people driven to reflect you peoples feedback, thoughts on this?

I don't like the idea of medical charging for treatment honestly. I play a character that canonically couldn't pay for that treatment, does that mean I'm screwed if they're the only ones in medical? Am I supposed to break character? The factions need to be more than "unga dunga money/fwinds/science," in my opinion. I'd like if this was implemented, it's a good concept, but the factions should be a bit more unique.

I mean yeah it would mean you'd have conflict with that faction. What's "more" for you? What factions would you like to see bearing in mind the rule of three overall.