This is rather simple to accomplish, but I still wanted to share the idea with you guys. You know how in EVN you're able to fly from the Federation to Auroran territory unchallenged? (If you have good ratings in both territories.) I decided that in an actual situation far into the future with ships that have superluminal flying capabilities that the governments formed would want the ships coming into their territory to show or buy passports from them in order to keep track of who's coming in and out of your territory. We can do this in EVN using some trickery with governments and ranks.

Let's say you have two factions with systems in their domains and a central government. We'd make four govt resources, two for each faction; one govt would be friendly towards the player when he/she didn't have a passport and one would attack the player when he/she didn't have a passport. We'd place the government that was friendly towards the player all the time in border systems where the player could buy a passport from either a station or a pers ship via a mission and the government that attacks players without passports in core systems so the player can't progress past the border systems without a passport.

Now, the passport would be a rank granted through the Kxxx command with either an outfit or a mission. Either way, the rank would have the ID of the govt the passport modifies in the government field and have the "This government will not attack the player" flag and the "Deactivate if the player commits a crime against this government" flag both checked. This way, the player will be let peacefully through this governments space and will be attacked if he/she tries to board/destroy a ship.

This could be modified so that the rank is deactivated when the player's legal record falls to a certain level with a mission or so that the player can't land on planets with a passport. (This would probably be more practical.)

I admit that the way governments would treat the player if he turned into a pirate is a little shaky with this method, but none-the-less comments and death threats are all welcome.

Sounds good to me. I'll see if I can sneak past through a wormhole.

@guy, on Dec 28 2007, 05:08 PM, said in Intergalactic Passports:

Sounds good to me. I'll see if I can sneak past through a wormhole.

Funny idea, Guy. Perhaps you could.

I have a question: could this rule apply to hypergates as well? You know, like if you didn't have a passport and you were in Auroran space, and at that very moment you were chased by Abominations telling you you don't have a passport, and you try to enter a hypergate, then feel doomed as you find that you need BOTH the hypergate code and a passport to escape?

It's just an idea.

In Stock Nova, the Hypergate Access scheme is achieved by the use of a "Hypergates Government" that won't let anybody land without the "Has Access" rank.

The Hypergate Code works exactly this same way, but since One Spöb can't belong Two Governments at once, only the "Hypergates" government rank would matter.

Interesting... I don't think I'll use this specific idea, but it has got me thinking...

@guy, on Dec 28 2007, 06:08 PM, said in Intergalactic Passports:

Sounds good to me. I'll see if I can sneak past through a wormhole.

Heh, nice idea. I have no come-back for that.

As for the hypergates... It could be possible, using 3 ranks, 3 NCBs, one cron and an extra government for each territory demanding passports, to make it so you have to have access to hypergates and a passport in order to use them certain territories. This is under the assumption that you can hypergate between two hypergates of different governments.

Let's say you have a passport and hypergate access. These ranks would activate 2 NCBs which would make the running of a cron possible. This cron would give the player an invisible rank which would allow the player to land on hypergates belonging to a third government that is only for hypergates in the territory the player is in. This would allow the player to hypergate out, but unfortunately, if the player doesn't have a passport for the hypergate he or she is warping to then the player will get trapped there.

@eugene-chin, on Dec 29 2007, 01:30 AM, said in Intergalactic Passports:

In Stock Nova, the Hypergate Access scheme is achieved by the use of a "Hypergates Government" that won't let anybody land without the "Has Access" rank.

There are other possible methods, though — well through beta, it worked instead by swapping the spöb for a deactivated hypergate with the spöb for an activated one using VisBits, though this wasn’t quite as reliable as the current method.

As an interesting side-note, I was searching through my e-mail archives today to check my response to another topic, and I came across this in an e-mail from six years ago:

David Arthur, on 8 December 2001, said:

It may be a bit late for this idea, but I thought I'd send it in anyway. Making the hypergates available by swapping systems seems to be rather delicate; I think it's mostly working for the Sigma storyline now, but I haven't even tried it for the Rebels yet. Might it not be easier to make all the hypergates owned by a specific government that has a certain require bit set that is only matched by a rank or outfit that is given to the player at such point as the hypergates should become available?

Just build a fence.

It really is a good idea, though. I like the idea of forged passports, too.

I'm definitely intrigued by this passport idea. I agree, I always thought it somewhat silly that one could just fly through Auroran or Fed space without so much as a how-do-you-do. I'd love to integrate this feature into our plug; right now the best I can do is not offer missions in each government's space unless you complete the intro mission for each faction.