Civil War

[JazHaz]

I had this plan that the Corporate State Worlds would actually be in the control of one of those hundreds of companies from YAH, and occasionally they would descend to Anarchies while a "hostile take-over" happened, before the system settled back to being a (newly rebranded) Corporate State from a different company.

Just thought also that CS worlds should have branded ships flying about, similar to the branded defenders you get with YAH.

[Switeck]

I had this plan that the Corporate State Worlds would actually be in the control of one of those hundreds of companies from YAH, and occasionally they would descend to Anarchies while a "hostile take-over" happened, before the system settled back to being a (newly rebranded) Corporate State from a different company.

Or...alternately...

Yes, Comrade!
You too can help us in our glorious revolution to drive the capitalist oppressors off [insert corporate state name here]!

[Killer Wolf]

lmao at the sitcom concept. i wonder if the Pros would make a sitcom about the civil war, just to annoy the Antis!

[Ganelon]

Actually changing the government of the systems might affect too many other game dynamics. But fleshing out the sort of extra ships one might see as a result of ongoing wars that are already a part of the game canon descriptions of the systems sounds like an intriguing idea.

Smaller scale things, like having a system or two where the oxp deals with specific adventures or missions that are for or against a revolution or etc should be possible enough.

Even back when playing Elite, I always thought that the descriptions should have a bit more bearing on gameplay. Other than the civil wars, plagues are also mentioned. It seemed to me that systems suffering from plague would want medicines (the only category we really have for that being "narcotics"), and so running contraband "narcotics" to those systems should be more profitable or maybe some missions available flying escort for hospital ships.

[Switeck]

A place with plagues might want untainted imported food and liquors/wines.
...And luxuries for the rich, to make life a little easier -- not that luxuries can be made more expensive.

A place in a civil war will definitely pay more for firearms...possibly even 80-102 credits/ton. Gun running to them would only be about as profitable as taking computers from a rich industry to a poor agricultural world...and it'll screw with your legal rating if you're getting the guns from a main station. Civil wars will likely make food, liquors/wines, and luxuries go up at least slightly in price as well because transportation of these semi-vital items can be hard in wartime. The catch being, perhaps you only make a really big profit selling directly on-planet rather than at the main station?

[Killer Wolf]

for added colour, the civil war/Anarchy places could have more dead hulks drifting in space. might be pretty atmospheric to jumpin and find twenty or thirty burnt-out carcasses drifting in space in the aftermath of a big dogfight.

[Arexack_Heretic]

Liking it. Always thought the same about descriptions having no influence on gameplay (besides player roleplaying).

Before JS it would not have been easy to select scripts for description strings...it would have required retroengineering the seed and universe creation-description code. With JS though, it is possible to sift the description string for keywords and use them.

Rather than a single corporation owning a single system or several,
though also an option, I did rather imagine them like W.Gibsonesque Shadowrun corporate run worlds. Full of intrigue and pretty anarchic on the human level, but severely regimented for the wealthy few. (the employed/suits)
Interstellar trade would not be allowed to be disrupted at any cost, hence the relative safety of corporate run systems.
Save sporadic terrorist attacks from the disenfranchised.

[Commander McLane]

Definitely like they idea of doing something from the description strings, and not because of government or tech level.

So from me it's a "Right On, Commander!"

[Eric Walch]

Definitely like they idea of doing something from the description strings, and not because of government or tech level.

One thing was already changed in Oolite 1.74. When you look in the planetInfo.plist, you will notice there are special entries for systems that have some sort of description about the main planet in their description. So, when the description says that the planet is pink, it will be pink. And when it says it has vast oceans, it will have much water. (At least in plain Oolite; redux and demux still ignore these descriptions)