I posted this earlier on the board, but I just think it should be at the top so everyone can see it.
Please dont give crap about being idealistic, I just think sometimes it's fun to fantisize about things that'll never happen.
Oh the possiblities are endless:
The Government problem could be solved by moderators, when ever they're on they have the ablitiy to give certain missions to different players. And if your a mercenary pilot, and you have enough money, you can purchase your own planet and set up your own government with ship designers (for defense and sale purposes), own technology (defense and sal purposes) , own comodities (trade). When you land on a planet it shows the other people that are landed on the planet (there could be a command to talk to the person), the outfits, the ships, the commodities, the mission computer, and the bar (which could be used as chat, and recieving missions. In space there would be a list of people on the planet, and in the system, there would be commands to give other players amounts of cargo and credits. And if you have your own government you will be on a mailing list and every day you will be mailed who took what mission, who shot down who in your system, who bought a ship, outfit, commodity, on your planet, who accepted missions from your mission computer (another thing you could have the ability to moderate). The there could be longrange commands, to who is online and where. Demanding tribute could be done by how much money your government has (that would be determined on how many ships/outfits were bought, missions successfully accomplished from the mission computer) the more mony your government has the more ships you can send out, and if the player successfuly defeats your fleet you have to pay the player a small amount of money, then you have the ability to hire player bounty hunters, to hunt down the enemy player, once the player is destroyed he or she won't get any money from you. Death is another thing, once you die from a computer you go back to starting planet, once you die from a player you loose half your money which goes to the player that destroyed you. The ship designer i mentioned before, will design ships for your government, each of them have thier own unique themes of Heavy Fighters, Light Fighters, Medium Fighters, Heavy Warships, Light Warships, Medium Warships, (Heavy, Med., Light) Transports, and (Heavy, Med., Light) Frieghters. You can choose the ones you want from that designer, and then Outfit them with Weapon and Outfit designers. Unfortunately this will probably be the most expensive part of the game to play. It will have to cost a lot to prevent all players from doing this, as your government gets older prices increase, so its harder to maintain the empire. There will be certain disasters that happen to your planet (the stronger and bigger your empire is the more disasters it'll have). When you have the oppurtunity to choose 1 of 3 races and then that'll determine the type of ship designers (when or if you own a government) your starting point in the game, and of course your allies and enemies, once you purchase a planet all that is forgotten and you can choose who to side with (or remain nutral), and if you offer help to other governments they'll give you benefits. If your the leader of a planet and you want to go somewhere in the galaxy it'll be the same as if you were a regular player. The only difference between being a government leader, and being a regular leader is the government leader will have a ton of commands to regulate thing at his own planets.
... as I go on, the more I realize this'll never happen, but it's always fun to fantisise
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