So I jacked a craft from a faction today - and they barely gave a damn. Seriously - an act of war and they just treated it like I prank-called their mom. Makes me really look at the game and the diplo and how weak it really is.
Can I suggest that instead of just telling us ‘raid - steal tech - steal craft’ , etc. you give us enough information to make a sound decision. Such as ‘raid: lose 5 points support from this faction; gain 1 point with other factions’ or 'defend haven; gain 5 points from defending faction - lose 10 points from attacking faction. Etc.
Along those same lines - why are factions only attacking each other for total annihilation? Why do they not raid each other for tech or resources? It would seem to make more sense - especially early game. It should take them time to build up a military strong enough to obliterate a haven. Raiding should be a much more common event.
I think the purpose is to increase pressure to the player to finish the game.
Also each of these 3 factions have their own idiology this causes conflicts, until they hate each other, that cause them to kill each other. This is more like a mirror of the real world. Humans are more likely to kill each other before aliens have the chance to do this.
that is a canned answer and does not reflect my primary point in that there is zero information given about the diplomatic ‘cost’ of a raid or other hostile act to a haven. If they want us raiding haven’s they certainly don’t give us adequate information to show us that doing so won’t destroy relations with that faction. Seriously - just go rob your neighbor with a home invasion and see how that affects your relationship with them (though I bet you can guess). Yet in PP it apparently works much differently. How differently? Fuck if I know - they don’t give us any information until after we do it.
In addition, Mr. Knowitall, - exactly how many ‘havens’ have been obliterated in any modern wars the US has participated in? Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Every other attack has been a raid. Obliteration is not easy. Go visit Hiroshima and see - they are still there.
More information would indeed be good. But I find the “and they barely give a damn” part the real problem. I have a ticket on canny about this, attacking factions should have way worse consequences:
I’m sure the devs are aware of this, but it does not seem to be on the high priority list. I wouldn’t bet on this being taken on before the steam release in December, they’ll probably focus on more content and shinies.
I don’t necessarily agree that the consequences should be worse - I believe that the devs actually want us doing it - which is why the penalties are not high. If they were to actually TELL us what the diplo cost of doing so, more players might be willing to undertake that. Unknown consequences will prevent most players from pursuing any activity - be it launching a wildly inaccurate rocket or stealing a technology.
It probably still has weight in the overall planning and balancing. I don’t get the feeling that devs have locked their answer yet, they just responded to earlier complaints that doing one Steal Research or something unnecessarily destroys the faction relationship. They might also overhaul faction mechanics / diplomacy in a broader sense, and this issue is likely to be under consideration at that point.
I just wanted to mention that historically the penalties already were (a lot) harsher. And I agree, if nothing else about diplomacy changes, the final numbers should be somewhere in between and probably dependent on what exactly you’re doing (sabotage vs. espionage etc).