Empyrion has long been one of my favorite games, largely due to its vast, open sandbox and versatility. The single-player/co-op Survival base and vast creative freedom afforded is rivaled by few other titles, and the multiplayer environment and even PvP aspects allow for even more freedom in how we can all engage with Empyrion. HOWEVER... Like most other sandbox type games, Empyrion also suffers from Sandbox Syndrome. After a time of playing, which can span from a few hours to a few weeks, you reach a sort of Stasis Point - you've unlocked everything the tech tree has to offer, built an impenetrable fortress, a hoard of resources to rival a solar system, a fleet of HV's, SV's and CV's capable of meeting any challenge that comes your way, and wind up going "Now what do I do?". This is often very apparent on multiplayer servers, especially the Official Servers. I offer the following as a means to help alleviate Sandbox Syndrome, and I believe implementing this would both provide an ongoing challenge to the game as well as be relatively easy to implement. The Leaderboard We already have a framework for a Leaderboard, it's been with us for quite a long time, in fact. Simply press "B" (default), and you're presented with a list of players online, and a new(er) option: "Ranking". If you haven't seen it before, it looks like this: You can see my own rather pathetic rankings highlighted in blue, as well as the rankings of other players, in various areas and aspects of the the game. What I propose is an expansion of this leaderboard where this data, along with additional data is composited into an Overall Ranking in three separate areas: Military, Economic and Scientific, and be based on Factions, rather than individual players. This would serve to give a purpose to intra-player/intra-faction competition, and even give a meaning to PvP conflict, beyond the simple "I want to blow things up." Blowing up ships or bases would add to a factions "Military" standing, improving this ranking. Visiting new worlds would add to a Faction's "Scientific" standing, and buying/selling Trade Goods, those odd commodities with no other function but to buy and sell, would add to a Faction's "Economic" standing. The real and genuine challenges here are the following: 1. Territorial Control As a gauge of the "size" of any given Faction, the amount of territory held by that faction needs to be both shown on the galaxy map, and calculated by the ranking function. We can already see the territories held by NPC factions, as colored outlines on the planetary map, as well as by colored bubbles on the Galaxy map. At present our own holdings are not show at all. Establishing a territory and generating a color-field on the planetary map could be incorporated into the function of the Land Claim device. At present, this device's only real function is in PvP, to prevent terrain deformation by other players, and it can keep this functionality, as well as be expanded to create a color-field indicating territory held by a player/Faction, then used to provide a value for the amount of territory held by players/factions, as long as the device exists. If it is destroyed or removed, that volume of controlled territory would then be decreased. This same volume of control could also be used to determine the Controlling Faction for any given system, to determine which color-field is shown on the Galaxy Map. 2. NPC Interaction NPC's play an important role in the game already, be it single player or multiplayer. They are our primary source of trade goods, a means of disposal for unwanted items and a source of credits. They can be hostile, neutral or honor us, depending on our interactions. But this does not mean they would look kindly on our flipping the control state of systems either, and this would need to be factored into this equation. Taking control of a system from a Zirax faction would likely incur their ire, and should - triggering wave upon wave of base attacks, to reduce our influence in that system until they regain control. The same would likely apply to other factions as well. Given the sheer size of the playable universe, it shouldn't be necessary to flip control of NPC-held systems to grow our own influence though, and the primary focus of all of this is really Player Faction vs. Player Faction standings.
