This is my first post on here, so I'd just like to say 'Hello
Everyone!' first!
I'm a planets 4 newbie (VGAP3 veteran). I haven't actually got to the
point of playing a game of planets 4 as I feel that I haven't learned
enough about the game yet!
I have also got a bit distracted by the idea of designing my own race
(I know, I know, I probably should play the game a bit first!).
Anyway, while pondering my own race design I came up with a completely
different concept for a race. This is just a sketch at the moment and
I thought I would share this and gather some feedback before taking it
any further. I doubt I will have the time to completely flesh this
out on my own, so if anyone thinks it's an interesting idea I'd be
happy to share this task. It might well prove to be completely
unworkable or unbalancing - please let me know what you think!
***
The Guildmasters
The Guildmasters run a mercenary Guild. They do not have 'regular'
crew, troops or high guard and don't build their own ships, they hire
mercenary ships and mercenary troops (collectively 'mercenary
companies') instead.
Once a mercenary company has been engaged by the Guild, the Guild is
then able to re-hire it out to other empires in the galaxy (if they
want to). They charge a bit extra for this service, and this is how
the Guild makes a lot of it's money. A mercenary company that has
been engaged by the Guild is referred to as a 'company'. When hired
out to another empire they are referred to as 'mercs' or 'mercenary
groups'.
The Guildmasters can hire as many companies as they want - or they can
afford! Other empires can only hire one mercenary group at a time.
Other empires can only hire mercs via the Guildmasters. The benefits
of hiring mercs are many - they will often have ships with devices or
abilities that are lacking in certain Empires. They may have
freighters that are lacking from your ship list. They may have
hyperjumping scouts. Etc. There are some potential problems with
hiring mercs too... (read on!).
Companies work a bit like Exotic Tech - the Guild needs to pay a
'maintenance fee' turn by turn. Mercs hired out to other empires work
in a similar way, except they also have a 'signing on fee' - a one-off
payment that goes to the Guild's central bank, and the turn by turn
payments are also a bit higher - this is the Guild 'tithe', i.e. the
difference in cost also goes to the Guild. Companies can be hired by
the Guild for as long as the Guild likes. Mercs are hired out to
other empires for a fixed ten turn contract. This can be renewed, but
another (half price!) signing on fee will be required.
The Guild have a special building - the Guild Headquarters. This
increases happiness at it's base. It also allows the Guild to hire
and fire companies, and offer mercs out to other empires. The Guild
can have more than one Guild Headquarters, but only one at any
particular base.
Mercs (and companies) when hired will appear in the hiring empire in
question 1 to 3 turns (random) after the mercs have been hired. They
will appear in orbit around a random planet with one of your bases.
They don't have to be paid until the turn after they have arrived.
While 'in transit' they don't need to be paid for by the Guild
either. Once they arrive they will 'belong' to the race that hired
them, for ten turns.
The Guild also offers an interesting mixture of transparency and non-
disclosure services. The Guild operates a very strict set of non-
disclosure contracts that the mercs must sign up to before being
allowed to offer their services to other empires. The Guild will
inform all empires if a particular mercenary group has been engaged,
but not who by or where there are operating. In theory this should
prevent anyone (including the Guild itself) knowing the exact location
of a particular merc group. However, some of the mercs are drawn from
other races, and there is always a small chance that such a group
might have a spy or two on board, who might pass information back to
their 'parent' race. That's one of the 'small' risks you take when
hiring mercs
. The Guild runs the same risk with the mercenary
companies in it's employ. Bird mercenaries are notorious for this.
Another of the risks running mercs is that they occasionally will not
take orders - or may even take matters into their own hands! Some
companies are more notorious for this than others. Some companies
have a known hatred for particular races, which might be considered an
advantage but can be unpredictable if don't actually want them to run
off and attack on their own!
The mercenary companies are a mixed bunch. As mentioned earlier, a
lot of them are drawn from 'defectors' from the other races and
empires. These companies are not willing to go and work for their
original races. It's also difficult to get mercenaries to go and work
for the Borg - only those companies made up of races that are immune
to assimilation are willing to do so! Mercs (and companies) also take
payment in various forms - for example Stormer mercs will often only
take payment in Grecken Blood Wine. Some mercs take cash. Some only
take metals. Whatever the form of payment is, this needs to be
transferred to the Guild the turn before payment is due (i.e. every
turn). The guild 'tithe' (10%) will be dispatched each turn to the
nearest base with a Guild Headquarters, the rest goes to the mercenary
company and 'disappears' into their private accounts. Money will be
transferred to the closest Guild Headquarters instantly. Other forms
of payment can take between 1 and 4 turns to arrive by 'interstellar
mail'. The Guild can use this feature to get a rough idea of where a
particular merc group is operating.
Once a company has been hired out to another Empire the Guild no
longer needs to worry about the turn by turn payments - that's now the
responsibility of the client Empire. Defaulting on payment is a
serious business. If this happens to a hired-out merc group all the
ships will instantly revert back to Guild ownership, wherever they are
on the map. The contract is considered 'void', and the Empire in
question will not be refunded any of the signing on fee, regardless of
how much time is left on the contract. The Guild have the option of
either setting the company in question to 'in transit' (in which case
it will take 1 to 3 turns to return to a random Guild-owned planet),
releasing the mercenary company (they will disappear), or making use
of the mercenary company where it is. An empire can choose to
terminate a merc contract early. There is no refund for this
either.
A mercenary company that has been released by the Guild will not be
available for rehire for between 5 and 10 turns (random). Of the
available (but not yet hired) companies, some will also (randomly)
disappear from the list for up to 5 turns if not currently hired by
any Guild. The companies will use this 'down time' to replenish their
numbers, fix their damage, and possibly also upgrade their weapons,
shields, engines, hyperdrives and point defenses too.
There are (will be!) a lot of available mercenary companies. Some of
these cost very little. Some are very expensive indeed. A few may
offer completely unique ships and abilities - these are usually very
pricey! The interesting thing is that the list of available companies
is generated randomly from the master list of all possible companies
at the start of the game. So each game with the Guildmasters will be
a bit different - for them and for everyone else in the game
too...
All empires will be able to see the list of available merc
companies, and are free to contact any Guild and ask them to engage a
particular group of mercs for hire. The decision on whether or not to
do so lies with the Guildmaster.
Merc ships can't be refitted with other equipment. You can provide
them with repair units to repair damage. They will use their normal
race modifiers to repair damage. Merc ships can be captured by
boarding, and will lose crew to various devices (subject to the usual
race restrictions). There could even be some Borg mercs, who might be
vulnerable to being 're-assimilated'
Designer notes
I've been trying as much as possible (!) to stay within the existing
host facilities. I was thinking that the Exotic Tech window (or
something very similar) could be used for hiring companies and mercs.
I was hoping to reuse the 'Emperor' function for arriving companies
and mercs. In many ways I think the most complex bit is having an
empire made up of multiple races... I'm not sure how workable this
would be.
There will need to be one new structure (the Guild Headquarters) which
would need some special implementation. I think this should be a
fairly high tech building, and possibly 'uncapturable'. I'm hoping
the 'companies' can be created by volunteers (I think it would be fun
dreaming up interesting new companies!). I think the 'master list'
could reach hundreds of companies, and there would need be a
restriction for how many would be available within a particular game.
The companies would need some kind of 'level' (kind of like a tech
level) and only a limited number of top level companies would be
hireable to avoid unbalancing the game. Maybe there could be a new
tech level stream for this - a mercenary tech level - which the Guild
has to pay for before being able to hire (and hire out) companies at
that level.
I'd like the Guild to be able to offer a particular band of
mercenaries to just one empire, or to all. 'Bidding wars' might also
be fun - if for example the Empire wants to stop a rival empire from
being able to hire grav mine laying mercs... The Guild could make a
lot of money from backhanders this way.
Merc behavior is another 'nice to have' feature. I like the idea of
Stormer mercs randomly getting plastered on blood wine and being
unable to lay the barbitic minefields they have been hired to
provide... or lay them in the wrong place
I realise this would
take quite a bit of implementation, maybe a simple 'reliability' value
could do for starters.
There will need to be some kind of mechanism for paying for mercs.
While just paying cash (via HQ accounts) would be the simplest way I
think it would be more fun allowing the mercs to be paid for in
contraband, supplies, food, med units or metals as an alternative.
I'd like to see 'multi-ship' companies. It would also be nice to have
'unique' ground units or whole 'troop battalions' as well. These
ideas might require too many host changes though. There could be
problems if the Guild ground attacked an enemy base using a mixture of
bird and stormer troops, that kind of thing. I'm not sure how (if!)
this would work.
I'm not sure at this point how colonists would work within the Guild.
While it would be nice in some ways to restrict most of the Guild
income to hiring out mercs, this would be open to manipulation (the
other players could all agree to refuse to hire mercs which would
cripple the Guild players) so I think the Guild will need other
regular sources of income as well (colonists, taxes, cities etc).
The Guild would have no ship list at all, and no ship/part/engine
building facilities whatsoever. They wouldn't get training centers.
I was thinking about not allowing them to upgrade any tech levels at
all except planetary tech and mercenary tech (or maybe have a very low
cap on most tech levels for the Guild). So even capturing ship
building facilities from other races wouldn't help them much. They
could build their own fighters and ground attack units, and could
possibly hire companies with mobile fighter factories at higher 'merc
tech levels'. They could also agree to take delivery of ships from
other races (as backhanders). And of course they can at any time
simply hire more companies to do their dirty work.
I thought the mercenary companies might also make an interesting 'test
bed' for other new races (particularly ship designs) that have not yet
been released yet.
***
That's where I've got to so far!
Thoughts?
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