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Factions and Production: The Methods for Leveling in Gameplay

bnainz shared this feedback ago

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Points and Levels Vs Resources and Tech

If the game progression is tied to getting 'points', as points rewarded by doing things such as exploring, finding unique encounters, finding ores, contracts, and those points are needed for unlocking blocks, or buffs to your stats, or access to unique gear... that all is a very different progression system than the building of production chains, gathering resources, or unlocking new tech by development.

Unlocking upgrades with points vs unlocking upgrades through building out capability, are two different systems that should be separated cleanly, one for faction advancement, and one for individual overall block/tech progression. Should a player with a higher level beat a player with a bigger ship?

The argument:

A 'level' is a rank in a group, and that group bestows upon you more perks the higher up you go. Think of an army, the higher rank you achieve, the more authority you get. The issue is, that your rank and authority are not your own, but rewarded to you from a higher authority. That key concept causes confusion for game systems that try to 'blur' the two concepts together, one benefits from a higher authority that can enforce them, the other are what resources or skills you develop individually, leading to poor gameplay.

The Problem

A level a character has is a common game concept, and draws inspiration from RPGs, and RPGs get their inspiration from wargaming, and wargaming gets it's inspiration from the military, which is rank based. What this means is that different units under your command have authority based on their unit and abilities. A 'level' is who tells who what to do, and what that level has access to from a faction's resources. When rpg's snagged that idea of levels...they applied it to their -whole- game world. Meaning the entire world is a giant 'faction', with every person born advancing along the world's rank and file, and the -world- giving you perks and resources over everyone else as you progress, whether they want to be in that faction or not.

This leads to intelligibility and arbitrary logical problems for their worlds. For example:

Arbitrary change: "I hit level 10 and got an extra 100 hitpoints!" "Why?" "Because I'm level 10!" "...oh."

Un-Intelligible result: "That level 10 farmboy just defeated that level 2 General in combat!" "Why?" "Because he is level 10!" "...oh."

Experience points are faction loyalty points. You do what they reward for, they give you points. Get enough, you advance. A resource gathering system, on the other hand, rewards you for what you actually do. You want a bakery? Get the money, buy the building, learn to bake, and sell. How well you do is based on your abilities.

Example 1

You have two people, one a Sergeant in the military, the other a local baker. The Sergeant has authority over everyone below him in his 'faction', as given by the military. The baker has what he individually managed to build up, and his skills. He relates to other people based on what he can individually do. Now...say the Sergeant lost all his money and was broke. Has he lost his granted authority? No, he is still a Sergeant. Now say the baker had a fire, and his building burnt down. Has he lost his current ability to bake? Yes, but not his skills. He could try to open another business, or go work for a restaurant. His skills and abilities he unlocked remain with him.

What does that mean for SE2? If block progression, and tech progression, and suit upgrades, and player's stats are tied to a 'level', then no matter what he actually does, as long as he hits those loyalty points, he will have authority(as in military) over every -other- player in the game world. It encourages a different type of progression, and discourages the player actually developing his resource base and personal skill. If those levels were tied to a in-game faction, then it would be fine. He can only do what they can enforce, which would make sense.

Example 2

You have a sergeant who gathers a lot of trade goods, but quits the military. Can he enforce his old authority over people still in the military? No. Can he enforce his military enforcement power over other normal people? No. He can only deal with situations as his personal skill and resources enable. What if the baker joins the military. Can he jump to a Sergeant because of his accomplishments as a baker? No, he starts from the bottom.

If there are different factions in SE2, then those factions can give different perks and resources to a player in that faction. That is a separate progression from general individual game progression, which is tech and block progression. We currently are part of a de-facto 'colonization' faction, and it is a combination of the two. All players -must- do it by points for overall advancement, as they are tied together. This would be like a Sergeant automatically becoming a better baker by becoming a Captain, or like a Baker becoming a Corporal by adding a second shop.

So, the question is:

In a world leveling system, if a player spends all his time earning 'loyalty' points to increase his level, by exploration, running contracts, finding random encounters, etc., while another player spends all his time developing his 'infrastructure', mining ore, building blocks, developing higher tech, and then the two come into conflict...which -should- win? The one who has nothing but a higher level, or the one with more resources?

I like this feedback

Replies (8)

natec ●

Simple. Your progress should be limited only by resources and technologies you have access to. The reputation within a faction can give you access to some specific technologies. One of the best examples would be each faction having a slightly better version of some weapon, and you have a very good reputation for buying some specific components from the faction required to build that weapon.

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bnainz ●

Yes and No.

How do you gate the 'access to'? Faction specific gear unlocks, by all means, are great. But what about the general overall progression for blocks/components?

I have seen several posts with people mentioning ideas on grinding points for 'unknown signals', exploring unique locations, for different types of combat. Not for a faction, but for general progression gameplay.

I say use a gathering/production style system for that. Add in some research trees for the tech, and keep points/leveling progression for the different factions (assuming there are and we can), which was the main idea in the post.

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bnainz ●

The idea being to illustrate how the general 'Colonization Progress', logically, is an over-arching point/level system, with points for the -base- tech progression inside. And then we gather resources and build production chains, which is a different sort for progression, and I think it should be split. Maybe it is just for testing systems...?

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natec ●

You don’t really need to introduce artificial or arbitrary “gates” for progression.

The combination of what you have at any given moment and the sandbox environment itself should naturally create those gates for you.

I’ve described it in more detail in another post, but the TL;DR is:

Access to natural resources should scale in difficulty based on their value and what they unlock
Some items should be non-craftable, requiring you to engage with exploration, combat, or trade
Progression should come from actively playing the game, not grinding arbitrary points or dumping resources into research bars
And ideally, no waiting timers — progression should be action-based

Before adding any “hard gates”, I think the focus should be on balancing core survival systems first.

Only in edge cases should hard limits exist — for example, something like the 300 m/s speed limit. It is a hard engine limit and it’s fine, this is a constant to balance around, just give it a bit of lore explanation and move on.

But for everything else, there are tons of variables that can naturally shape progression:

Conversion rates from mined voxel material to usable ore (balanced for gameplay, not realism)
Ore distribution and availability
Environmental pressure around resources: weather, heat, radiation, wildlife, enemies / aliens
Difficulty of encounters and missions
Frequency random encounters and “unknown signals”, loot tables
Balance between rovers, atmospheric ships, and hydrogen ships
Energy requirements for mining, refining, and production
Energy accessibility (for example, better reactor efficiency near water for cooling)

…and there’s surely much more.

Yes, it’s a lot to balance. No one expects it to be perfect in early versions. It’s an ongoing process of testing and feedback.

But I really believe this approach works — it’s basically how I played SE1:

progression turned off
adjusted world settings
a couple of mods

And it created a much more natural and satisfying survival progression.

It promotes creativity, freedom, and real engineering decisions. Your progress comes from what you build and how you solve problems and in which order.

Personally, I wouldn’t enjoy a system where I unlock things by:

flying an arbitrary number of kilometers
killing a set number of enemies
collecting random items ( please collect these10 flowers :) )
repeating contracts just to fill a bar

That kind of progression feels imposed and disconnected from the sandbox.

I’d much rather have a system where the world itself pushes me forward.

So yeah… a bit longer than a TL;DR 😄

But hopefully you get the idea. 🚀

You don’t really need to introduce artificial or arbitrary “gates” for progression.

The combination of what you have at any given moment and the sandbox environment itself should naturally create those gates for you.

I’ve described it in more detail in another post, but the TL;DR is:

Access to natural resources should scale in difficulty based on their value and what they unlock
Some items should be non-craftable, requiring you to engage with exploration, combat, or trade
Progression should come from actively playing the game, not grinding arbitrary points or dumping resources into research bars
And ideally, no waiting timers — progression should be action-based

Before adding any “hard gates”, I think the focus should be on balancing core survival systems first.

But for everything else, there are tons of variables that can naturally shape progression:

Conversion rates from mined voxel material to usable ore (balanced for gameplay, not realism)
Ore distribution and availability
Environmental pressure around resources: weather, heat, radiation, wildlife, enemies / aliens
Difficulty of encounters and missions
Frequency random encounters and “unknown signals”, loot tables
Balance between rovers, atmospheric ships, and hydrogen ships
Energy requirements for mining, refining, and production
Energy accessibility (for example, better reactor efficiency near water for cooling)

…and there’s surely much more.

Yes, it’s a lot to balance. No one expects it to be perfect in early versions. It’s an ongoing process of testing and feedback.

But I really believe this approach works — it’s basically how I played SE1:

progression turned off
adjusted world settings
a couple of mods

And it created a much more natural and satisfying survival progression.

It promotes creativity, freedom, and real engineering decisions. Your progress comes from what you build and how you solve problems and in which order.

Personally, I wouldn’t enjoy a system where I unlock things by:

flying an arbitrary number of kilometers
killing a set number of enemies
collecting random items ( please collect these10 flowers :) )
repeating contracts just to fill a bar

That kind of progression feels imposed and disconnected from the sandbox.

I’d much rather have a system where the world itself pushes me forward.

So yeah… a bit longer than a TL;DR 😄

But hopefully you get the idea. 🚀

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4Peace ●

@natec

I’ve played several other survival sandbox games where this kind of “natural progression” is implemented really well. I’m pretty sure it’s possible to achieve in SE too, and honestly it would probably be one of the best ways to elevate the survival experience to the next level. It gives you intrinsic motivation to keep playing, trying different approaches, improving your engineering skills, and learning the world around you.

I really like the idea that you might roughly know where certain resources can be found, but that doesn’t mean you can easily get them. There are still many obstacles — or as you called it, environmental pressure. The same applies to rare or uncraftable items and valuable loot from random encounters.

After some time playing, you might already recognize what type of encounter you’re approaching before even reaching it. At that point you can decide whether you’re ready to take it on or whether you need to prepare first. Your knowledge and engineering skills become the key to overcoming these natural “gates”.

Of course, over time players will discover loopholes and shortcuts, and that’s completely fine. I’d actually say that’s a feature. Speedrunners will take advantage of it, people will create content around it, and eventually it can always be patched if needed.

You might also get lucky in the early game and find something very valuable much earlier than expected. And I think that’s fine too — getting lucky once in a while is part of the fun. There’s still another balancing factor: quantity. Maybe you find a few kilograms of gold and can make a couple of advanced components, but it’s still a limited supply. You’re still motivated to explore further and eventually find a proper deposit that allows large-scale extraction.

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Semtex ●

4Peace - That would be something else...

Log entry:

Probe serial number XYZ recovered. Block 14P9 found during disassembly. Purpose of the block unknown; the block self-destructed during disassembly.

Log entry:

Probe serial number XYZ+5 recovered. Block 14P9 found during disassembly. The self-destruct component of block 14P9 neutralized. Four electronic boards found. Boards non-functional. Analysis revealed an unknown technology: "semiconductor on a sapphire substrate." Analysis revealed an unknown material: "gallium arsenide."

Log entry:

Replicated technology: "semiconductor on a sapphire substrate." Replicated technology: "gallium arsenide semiconductor."

Log entry:

Unlocked technology: "Level 2 semiconductor technology."

Increase in computer system speed: +25%.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s not about whether you have a certain technology—or not. The game should allow all engineers to build anything. You can build anything.

The difference, however, lies in how efficiently your systems operate.

For example: A Level 1 hydrogen rocket engine and a Level 2 hydrogen rocket engine shouldn’t look any different on the outside (the player doesn’t see it, but the game has no problem tracking every unit created). Only the Level 2 engine has 10% lower fuel consumption and a faster response to increases or decreases in power... And the Level 3 engine has 20% lower consumption and 10% higher power. And no, it’s not enough to simply “steal” a Level 3 engine to be able to build one—you need to properly disassemble and analyze it, and then develop the technology.

And thus, in how you approach the processing and recycling of loot and trophies.

It’s one thing to carefully examine the wreck of an alien ship and manually dismantle interesting or “suspicious” modules for inspection, and quite another to fly in with a scrap ship and use thirty crushers to turn everything into one big pile of scrap metal...

And the game could and should take this into account—and possibly even reward it.

4Peace - That would be something else...

Log entry:

Probe serial number XYZ recovered. Block 14P9 found during disassembly. Purpose of the block unknown; the block self-destructed during disassembly.

Log entry:

Replicated technology: "semiconductor on a sapphire substrate." Replicated technology: "gallium arsenide semiconductor."

Log entry:

Unlocked technology: "Level 2 semiconductor technology."

Increase in computer system speed: +25%.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s not about whether you have a certain technology—or not. The game should allow all engineers to build anything. You can build anything.

The difference, however, lies in how efficiently your systems operate.

And thus, in how you approach the processing and recycling of loot and trophies.

And the game could and should take this into account—and possibly even reward it.

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Rabiator ●

Also, there is quantity vs. quality to consider. A Level 1 battleship might beat a Level 5 corvette by being much tougher and having the bigger guns, even if the Level 5 guns of the corvette are of better quality.

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Semtex ●

There’s just one thing I don’t understand—why are you trying to introduce an RPG system into the game? Many people are still trying to create SE2 as an MMORPG-style games... Why?

The very existence of the “tree of knowledge” and the way “technologies are unlocked” by completing “pointless” tasks is more of a hindrance than a benefit to the game. (The idea with the brother among the cloned engineers :-) )

Your character is a “space engineer,” so it’s safe to assume that all known and available technologies are hardwired into their brain.

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natec ●

Yeah, Keen and Bethesda are pretty much on the different sides of the spectrum :)

Some hi-tech end game blocks or items can not be common knowledge among all engineers, requiring you to engage with other mechanics like exploration, NPCs, trade and such beyond just mining and production. My favourite example would be jump drive or slightly better faction locked technologies. But this can easily be a world toggle as well.

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Semtex ●

But an RPG system only makes real sense in an open world (or in a world governed by rules dictating what a player’s character can and cannot do—i.e., professions, classes, and castes), and the SE2 worlds are small, closed-off, and isolated on their own servers; as far as I know, there is no “shared world” for all players. At least, I’m not aware of any such plans for the future...

In addition, every "plan" or blueprint should be available to all players, regardless of whether they play on a public server, a private server, or solo — otherwise, the principle of "equal rules for all" is not upheld, meaning the game is not equally fair to all players.

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Rabiator ●

"Your character is a “space engineer,” so it’s safe to assume that all known and available technologies are hardwired into their brain." I hope Keen actually implements that approach in SE2 ;-)

SE1 still has a rather artificial progression where you need to build Block A to get the ability to build Block B. Even if it is not at all intuitive how building A could work as foundation for B. My pet peeve is the interior wall that you need to build once so you can create ramps, ladders and other mechanically simple blocks.

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Semtex ●

And no, if the baker enlists in the army, he’ll still be a baker in the army. And they’ll promote him to sergeant right away. Because the army has plenty of sergeants, but good bakers in army are as rare as hen’s teeth.

A baker and a sergeant... two very different roles and characters.

But let’s replace the baker with an “equally experienced” lumberjack, a master of the axe and saw—and an occasional poacher...

Or replace the baker with the manager of a retail branch or warehouse... Or the manager of a car repair shop...

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bnainz ●

No Semtex, I was military, and a baker cannot join and just become a Sgt.

But that misses the point, really. What I was getting at, is that if he was made a guard, and gained points watching for theft, even if he kept baking a million cookies, his advancement is now tied to 'watching for theft', as decided from above. I was arguing in the generalities, not in the particulars.

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Semtex ●

In my humble opinion, the flaw in this line of thinking lies elsewhere:

How do we determine that a faction is truly a “faction” and not just a group of cooperating characters or players?

What benefits should a faction have?

What benefits should a faction provide? What benefits does a character gain by joining a faction? What benefits does a character lose by leaving a faction? What benefits does a character lose if they are expelled from the faction by a collective decision or by the commander?

Can a faction have a single member? Can a faction have two members? (“Jimi, I can’t be a group if I'm one.”) Can a faction have three members? (commander, political officer, and traitor...)

Or what is the minimum number of members for a faction—and how many players are on one server on average and in total?

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Rabiator ●

With NPC factions it could be a simple as making them a monolithic organization that can be your friend or foe. Being their friend might give you benefits beyond not being shot at. That is a tried and true approach that has worked for many games before.

With player factions, faction politics will be whatever the players make of it. It is neither possible nor desirable to control it. Benefits could be in terms of shared access to resources, which are denied to outsiders. The game could have access control mechanisms implemented that support this kind of game play. ("Hank, you are now supply officer, I'm giving you full access to the cargo bay".)

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CptGorilla ●

This seems to me like a discussion revolving around economics.

In real life, yes: a farm boy is extremely capable of killing a general. It's not a matter of who *should* win. In real life, we all have the same amount health points. However, not everyone has the means of achieving what they want. That's where "Raw Resources", "Technology", "Money" and "Power" (or support from other people) come into play. Corporations can sell their goods. Science nerds can invent new goods, rendering other goods obsolete. A small group of radicals with loads money can buy the most advanced of bombs. And Politicians can create, edit, delete or ignore any rules as they see fit. This is the very real economics of power in the world.

In Space Engineers one and two, these are represented by what materials you have, your technological advancements, how much money (from Contracts in SE1, assuming they carry it to SE2) and your PCU limit, which is actually the "Faction" resource being discussed here, which allows more/bigger ships as a group. The problem you're encountering is that Space Engineers is a sandbox game, where there is no real limits to the economy system (compared to an MMO or RPG game, EVE Online being one of the best case studies for real world economics in video games) and is left to scenario content creators to set the balance of these resources, which is quite frankly, rarely done extensively. But point being, they are already in the game.

The intended audience for Space Engineers 2 is especially the science nerds that love engineering, astrophysics, resource management, programming and other nerdy things. It's one of the few games that is fully built on collaboration to creating a better world, rather than the tyrannical model most games use of blowing other people's stuff up for selfish progression. I bought and love this game for that very reason. If you don't, very respectfully... uNinStaLL PLiZz!!!

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bnainz ●

1. Keen's already in-game factions

I forgot to mention, and I apologize I should have, is that Keen explicitly said that there will be NPC's to replace the Contract Blocks on the stations, and we have seen concept art and background lore for different factions in Algamest System, and in the intro portion of the game, Miro references finding a 'Colonization-Authority-Group-Thingy' reference...

Which would imply that they already have plans and player factions developed for us. And we may very well 'join' that very faction, and then help them settle the System, which is awesome!

2. Player Overall Level

To clear up confusion, when I mentioned Player levels and progression of their equipment, I meant more against the idea of a 'Universal' player level, say '3', and now all your personal equipment and stats and blocks and grids get a 10% boost (or whatever), purely based on that player level.

As far as individual equipment levels, the more the merrier! Individual faction levels, the more and different types, the better! Faction rewards and interesting stuff, the more varied the more awesome!

I was thinking the 'overall, general, default, basic' tech progression should be more aligned with a -causal- type system. Right now, in it's current phase of testing, it's a reward. What else they have planned, I don't know.

3. Semtex and Rabiator and factions

Sure on faction types, compositions, and functions. Factions by nature are arbitrary because they can only access their -own- resources. You are free to try and manage it how you want. However, so are the other people inside :)

Say you do some jobs for a faction, and they give you two chickens. The reward could really be 'whatever' they decide they -can- give. No big deal.

...but now ...

...say you put some copper into an smelter to make wire, and two chickens pop out ...?

That... is bad.

Our production line progression is 'different' from faction progression, it is primarily 'non-arbitrary', i.e. - causal.

4. 'Natural' Progression

Natec- 'what you have at any given moment and the sandbox environment itself'...'balancing core survival systems'...

You and 4Peace have deduced the underlaying progression system that is tied to the backbone of the game-loop, i.e.:

Resource scarcity (limited growth), and accessing those resources (logistical capability)

Which is the 'natural progression' that is already built into the game. I was hoping to incorporate the tech progression somehow into -that-, for the players, thereby making it 'better'. But sure, you can skip it and just use the natural one.

The first step is to grab any similarities that are already self evident in all the blocks. I can see three, easily enough.

1. Blocks are grouped into different families.

2. Blocks are built based off different resources

And a third, that rolls production lines/components in with the block advancement:

...3. Some things require other things to be built first.

So, an easy way to add tech progression to this... and this is just -my- swing at it, would be a research tree, arranged to mirror this relationship closely, that will also feel intuitive to the player.

A research tree gated by the different 'families', or a research tree gated to different 'resources', either one must also be balanced alongside point 3...which is the hardest part.

Then the danger of becoming 'dead-locked' in progression, particularly in a single tree. Could have a tree to each 'family', or a tree per 'resource', then tie them all in together in one giant system. Multiple starting paths that branch adds in variety for repeated playthrough.

Sure, there are other methods beside research trees, and also there are many different methods on how to 'unlock' the actual research paths, but overall... research trees are a pretty basic and well understood choice

If y'all have other ideas in how to attempt to 'try' and incorporate a tech progression into the game, that's production aligned, would be interesting to hear.

Also... some of the ideas posters have made here in this thread also kinda remind me of elements from an 4x strategy gameplay, with a dynamic explore, exploit, expand, exterminate game parts. Keen could work in a grand strategy type of gameplay later on...epic.

1. Keen's already in-game factions

Which would imply that they already have plans and player factions developed for us. And we may very well 'join' that very faction, and then help them settle the System, which is awesome!

2. Player Overall Level

3. Semtex and Rabiator and factions

Say you do some jobs for a faction, and they give you two chickens. The reward could really be 'whatever' they decide they -can- give. No big deal.

...but now ...

...say you put some copper into an smelter to make wire, and two chickens pop out ...?

That... is bad.

Our production line progression is 'different' from faction progression, it is primarily 'non-arbitrary', i.e. - causal.

4. 'Natural' Progression

Natec- 'what you have at any given moment and the sandbox environment itself'...'balancing core survival systems'...

You and 4Peace have deduced the underlaying progression system that is tied to the backbone of the game-loop, i.e.:

Resource scarcity (limited growth), and accessing those resources (logistical capability)

The first step is to grab any similarities that are already self evident in all the blocks. I can see three, easily enough.

1. Blocks are grouped into different families.

2. Blocks are built based off different resources

And a third, that rolls production lines/components in with the block advancement:

...3. Some things require other things to be built first.

A research tree gated by the different 'families', or a research tree gated to different 'resources', either one must also be balanced alongside point 3...which is the hardest part.

If y'all have other ideas in how to attempt to 'try' and incorporate a tech progression into the game, that's production aligned, would be interesting to hear.

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bnainz ●

A final note...

If you dig through the concept art, there is a -ton- of concepts Keen is working on.

Modular weapon parts, modular suits, modular equipment on suits, tools, different suit types, as mentioned npc and npc factions, armor pieces on suits, lore, story, etc.

We only have seen some of the alpha stuff, and I say it already is pretty good.

Going by the concept art they have released, there is a ton of ideas they are working on, just need time and to let them work some more so we can see.

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bnainz ●

On the original topic...

I just finished a new run. Did the contracts as quick as possible to unlock everything. On my first run in SE2, I had built multiple full bases on both planets and space, made multiple mining ships, and finished with a mothership/base/production/carrier ship to knock out the contracts and continue exploring.

On a new run, with the trade station...

I didn't build anything. No need to. I could salvage/scavenge what I needed from contracts, buy from trade, or grab it in unknown encounters or from ships. I only needed to steal an ore detector parts from a prospector ship for a contract.

So, should players be able to do a play-through without needing to setup a base and production line...? Just grab stuff and sell for credits, or just buy complete grids from factions, and doing trade and contracts? Maybe just a Survival Kit hidden away somewhere?

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