Unused Ports Turn Neutral

[Slamz]

Thought of the day:

 

Ports should have a "faction" rating, like from 0 to 1000.

 

Ports will slowly lose faction and turn neutral if nobody uses them.

 

"Use" could be measured by products bought and sold, unique persons visiting per day, missions completed or maybe even battles nearby or "number of times reinforcements called".

 

 

Port takeover cost could then be a factor of the port's current faction rating, with 0 faction having some minimum cost to buy the port attack flag (50k?) and maximum faction rating being maximum cost. Capturing a port sets it to 500 faction rating and then if nobody ever goes there, it will go neutral in about 10(?) days.

 

 

 

For that matter, maybe neutral ports should turn into a faction without a port battle, if that faction uses it enough to generate enough faction points.

 

 

This is mainly stemming out of thoughts of ways to reduce the number of "PvTower" battles this game has. Taking empty ports nobody cares to defend (or, if neutral, is able to defend) is expensive and boring. If those ports simply drifted to neutral on their own, there might be a lot less pressure to run around playing "colored dot pac-man" just to eliminate empty "enemy" ports.

Edited March 2, 2016 by Slamz

[Galileus]

Well... if the ports change to neutral, there would be much more pressure to go PvT... because you cannot just "cap and forget".

 

And neutral ports, even if not useful for economy, can be PvP staging grounds. You don't want them in your territory.

 

Ergo - your idea actually promotes MORE PvT and forces MORE boring busywork...

[maturin]

Some variation of this idea could be useful for pirate gameplay if they get a unique RvR role.

 

Corrupting ports to obtain bases, instead of conquest, mixed with raids.

[Admiral 8Q]

I like the idea.

[Slamz]

Well... if the ports change to neutral, there would be much more pressure to go PvT... because you cannot just "cap and forget".

 

And neutral ports, even if not useful for economy, can be PvP staging grounds. You don't want them in your territory.

 

Ergo - your idea actually promotes MORE PvT and forces MORE boring busywork...

 

The threat of people basing out of neutral ports for PvP is pretty minimal. Your nation would just wipe them out the next day because they would not be able to defend the port. The other 364 days of the year your nation would just ignore the neutral port because there's no reason not to. Recapturing a port that nobody uses over and over would be a complete waste of time. (Not that players don't frequently engage in complete wastes of time, but that's their problem.)

 

Anyone wanting to do serious PvP raiding will stage out of Free Ports precisely because they cannot be taken.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Slamz