Return to “Suggestions”

Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#16
In my head it was a little different. "Opting out", as it were, would simply mean that you don't go in for any covert action. I think if you rule out the idea - which I liked, but see how it could be problematic - that Anonymouse proposed of adding false information to a log, then you can simply wander around with your personal log free to read. There would be nothing in there that needs hiding.

I figured that you would have a workspace on your ship called "logs", where you can access your personal log and any others that you have control over based on your position within factions. When you select each log, you can have options to utilise a "log protection module" that is an equip-able (and researchable) item. These modules provide combinations of:
  • Encryption
  • Hack detection
  • Counter measures
They become more expensive the more capable they are.

In gameplay terms, logs are manifested by selecting an NPC ship when "flying", or selecting their name from a list when docked (I'm assuming this is possible, but it doesn't feel like a huge jump). At this point, if the NPC has not employed a protection module you can read their logs; otherwise you have to choose to hack them to see the log - cue some form of hacking mechanic that is TBD.
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#17
I've been mulling over this a bit - particularly the practicalities of making it work. I keep running up against the same question in any thoughts I have, so I think I'll just post it.

Is a ship different from a player, or is it simply the extension of a player?

I can't really see any benefit to splitting ships from players except that it would allow the player to fly a ship that doesn't belong to them. But this raises many different questions and the rabbit hole goes deep. Instead I think it would be better if ships are simply the physical representation of players.

The reason I keep thinking about this is that at some point you would need to get into a ship and perform some action covertly. Clearly, your personal log will track what you did, but there must be some way to appear anonymous in the game. The conclusion I've come to is that instead of the "log protection" module I mooted in the post above this one, you have instead a "privacy" module. This does two things:
  1. Gives you the option to conceal your identity
  2. Gives you the option to protect your personal log and other logs that you control
Thus there are several states you can exist in, during the game.
  1. Identity: public; Logs: unprotected
  2. Identity: public; Logs: protected
  3. Identity: private; Logs; protected
I don't think you'd ever need the Identity: private; Logs: unprotected option, since it wouldn't make any sense.

At the start of the game, you'd always fly around as 1 - nothing concealed from anyone. However once you install a privacy module, you get two new UI elements (or perhaps they were always there, just greyed out and unselectable). The first is when you want to be recognisable to NPCs but want to hide what you've been up to (option 2). The third is when you want to be completely anonymous to do some illegal stuff (good or bad).

Thoughts?
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#19
I quite enjoyed reading about this idea, and fully support it. However, there were a few extensions/possibilities/ideas i had regarding it.

1. the ability to "sell" information. That is to say, you could be very good at "hacking" into the information of a group, and could then sell that information to another group. in this way, you could perhaps operate as (I'm sorry for all the references I make to other games, but it makes the most sense to me in this way) a form of "shadow broker" from the Mass Effect franchise.

2. The ability to hire a third party to potentially protect you from hacking attempts or such, perhaps in the same way you would hire a mercenary, but with the express intention of this individual or group monitoring your information networks and potentially increasing the security of your system. In this way, those who do not want to be hacked but decide to "opt-in" can still enjoy the mechanic without being overly affected by it (hopefully). I can also see some potential for backstabbing or perhaps a double-agent in this setup.

3. In regards to the ability to plant false information or modify information, I would like the ability to send information regarding disparate factions to each other, perhaps indicating threats or some such, in a way that I can manipulate them to go to war, abandon a zone, bake me some cookies, etc. Call it blackmailing, misinformation, whatever, I would love to see it.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#20
Zantai wrote:The ability to hire a third party to potentially protect you from hacking attempts or such, perhaps in the same way you would hire a mercenary, but with the express intention of this individual or group monitoring your information networks and potentially increasing the security of your system. In this way, those who do not want to be hacked but decide to "opt-in" can still enjoy the mechanic without being overly affected by it (hopefully). I can also see some potential for backstabbing or perhaps a double-agent in this setup.
This seems like the most elegant way to handle "opting in" in general - there will always be people who want to hack you and this will scale with your general power and influence regardless of your reputation. If you don't want to be hacked, you simply hire someone else to handle network security for you. I think in general if you want to "opt out" of a particular kind of gameplay, you just hire someone else who's willing to deal with that for you. This is kind of how it works in the real world as well, I believe.
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#21
Hmm, what a fantastic idea for a career path, protecting all your clients from hackers... Sort of like a castle defense game, except that there would be real external consequences if you failed... It may give your clients a reason to kill you if you let their secrets get out, but for an expert network security player, the rewards could be handsome when a faction hires you, and pays 100,000 credits an hour.
Image
Challenging your assumptions is good for your health, good for your business, and good for your future. Stay skeptical but never undervalue the importance of a new and unfamiliar perspective.
Imagination Fertilizer
Beauty may not save the world, but it's the only thing that can
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#22
Hyperion wrote:Hmm, what a fantastic idea for a career path, protecting all your clients from hackers... Sort of like a castle defense game, except that there would be real external consequences if you failed... It may give your clients a reason to kill you if you let their secrets get out, but for an expert network security player, the rewards could be handsome when a faction hires you, and pays 100,000 credits an hour.
Expert network security player:
Image
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#23
mcsven wrote:you have ... a "privacy" module. This does two things:
  1. Gives you the option to conceal your identity
  2. Gives you the option to protect your personal log and other logs that you control
Thus there are several states you can exist in, during the game.
  1. Identity: public; Logs: unprotected
  2. Identity: public; Logs: protected
  3. Identity: private; Logs; protected
I don't think you'd ever need the Identity: private; Logs: unprotected option, since it wouldn't make any sense.

At the start of the game, you'd always fly around as 1 - nothing concealed from anyone. However once you install a privacy module, you get two new UI elements (or perhaps they were always there, just greyed out and unselectable). The first is when you want to be recognisable to NPCs but want to hide what you've been up to (option 2). The third is when you want to be completely anonymous to do some illegal stuff (good or bad).
This reminds me pretty strongly of the discussions we had about every ship (esp. if ship = player) having a transponder that always tells everyone who you are, and what might happen if you could change that transponder code or temporarily turn it off completely.

Is there some useful overlap between these ideas of a personal datastore and a ship's identification signal?
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#24
Is there some useful overlap between these ideas of a personal datastore and a ship's identification signal?
Only if there is a way to be uncovered as being multiple identities, if you can conceal your identity then there has to be a way to be uncovered in order to keep any reputation system relevant to how you play the game. I'm not saying that this is the only way to achieve this but it does seem that without any way to board a ship and capture the player, this is probably the simplest way of ensuring that you can't kill and steal your way to a massive fleet, then change your identification signal and begin a new life. This assumes that no one can recognise you by the ship you are piloting but you have probably discussed the latter point.
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#25
OK, if we're going to open it up, let's find out how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Let's postulate the following (when I say "character" below, this means the player and all non-worker NPCs):
  • Characters are separate from their ships, any character can "captain" any ship
  • Characters possess IDs that cannot be changed
  • Characters have personal logs that track everything they do, but are read-only
  • Ships possess IDs that cannot be changed
  • Ships possess logs that track everything they do, including who piloted them, but are read-only
Then, let's also say that:
  • Ship, faction and captain identification is performed by handshake, rather than transponder - i.e. when you "select" a ship in your UI, behind the scenes your ship requests identification details
  • There are three types of identification: Captain (the character); Ship details; Faction affiliation under which you are currently operating
  • You can choose to turn these ID handshakes on or off at your will
  • The reaction to turning off the faction ID is negligible (though, of course, if you turn on a faction ID that is hostile to the owners of the space you're in...)
  • The reaction to turning off the ship ID is interest from law enforcement
  • The reaction to turning off the captain ID is assumed illegal activity and immediate attack from law enforcement
The latter few points I have basically stolen from Flat's post; but I prefer a handshake system to a transponder, since I don't believe that we'd all be flying around telling everyone where we are.

At this point you now have a system in which the character can fly someone else's ship under a false flag and perform whatever actions they like... but there are two records of that action: the personal log and the ship log.

How is it possible to obtain these logs? This is where the hacking mechanics would come into play. My first thoughts are that there should different hacking "targets":
  • Confirm captain ID
  • Confirm ship ID
  • Download the captain activity log
  • Download the ship activity log
  • Disable the ship
  • Take control of the ship
These hacks are of different degrees of difficulty, depending on the protection that the ship and captain have employed (i.e. encryption and counter measures). I would say that the hardest of all hacks is the one to download a protected captain activity log, since that may well be a serious jack-pot.

This system would allow an incredible amount of gameplay options, but it may also make the game a constant question of "who am I talking to?" That may not be that fun :think: Interested in LT community's thoughts...
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#26
That is definitely the best way for this to work that I have seen so far, but I have a few questions about how some parts of it will work.

1. When a ship gets close enough, will it be able to identify the ship by its hull markings alone?

2. If you go out of sight for a few seconds e.g. heading straight towards a star, does this mean that the NPC will assume that you are a different ship to the one they are pursuing, or will they recognise you by the configuration of your ship and continue?

3. If your communication systems are down, can you still perform a handshake? If you cannot, then will the NPCs still attack on sight?

4. Could a cargo ID be required in some systems if illegal goods/smuggling is incorporated into the game?

5. Does disabling a ship extend to self-destruct(an almost completely useless action unless you can force them to give up something in return for it being cancelled) or does it stop at shutting down shields, weapons, life support etc.?

6. Would taking the goods of a ship by taking control of their vessel, then leaving them unharmed damage your reputation more or less than a normal attack?

7. With space stations, could you do things such as locking the docking clamps to prevent ships leaving? This could damage the local economy if left for long enough, but might work better as a surprise attack method.

Lots of possibilities with this idea and could definitely tie in well with other proposed ideas.
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#27
Even though I wrote it, just a few hours later and I'm still not sure I like the idea that I don't know who's in a ship. It sounds daft, but it's a given in virtually every other space game I know of that you know who's in each ship (perhaps not in X or EVE, but I've not played either). It feels weird to think of a scenario in which you don't know.

On balance I think I may still prefer something closer to what I was thinking of earlier in this thread, whereby the ship is an extension of the character at that time and characters cannot fly ships that don't belong to them (this is also something that is never really even considered for space games). It's simpler and easier to understand and you get most of the benefits if you have a "privacy" module installed.
Anonymouse wrote:1. When a ship gets close enough, will it be able to identify the ship by its hull markings alone?
Visual hull recognition would be really cool. I was thinking about this on my way home from work: that you could take screen captures and post them as requests for information at space stations/planets ("anyone recognise this ship?"). Don't know how difficult it would be to implement.
Anonymouse wrote:2. If you go out of sight for a few seconds e.g. heading straight towards a star, does this mean that the NPC will assume that you are a different ship to the one they are pursuing, or will they recognise you by the configuration of your ship and continue?
I reckon that would just get annoying, don't you? I think a more realistic concept is that, after handshaking, your UI will keep track of the ship until it passes out of scanner range (which includes docking on a station or planet).
Anonymouse wrote:3. If your communication systems are down, can you still perform a handshake? If you cannot, then will the NPCs still attack on sight?
That would probably also be annoying. It would depend on the granularity of the damage system, however, and I've not really seen what Josh is planning in that part of the game.
Anonymouse wrote:4. Could a cargo ID be required in some systems if illegal goods/smuggling is incorporated into the game?
Interesting. Though Freelancer just had the law enforcement "scan" your hold. That seemed to be a decent mechanic, magic though it probably was. It would mean that for smuggling you probably want shielded cargo holds...
Anonymouse wrote:5. Does disabling a ship extend to self-destruct(an almost completely useless action unless you can force them to give up something in return for it being cancelled) or does it stop at shutting down shields, weapons, life support etc.?

6. Would taking the goods of a ship by taking control of their vessel, then leaving them unharmed damage your reputation more or less than a normal attack?
I really like non-lethal methods of getting stuff, so I'd be in favour of both of these mechanics.
Anonymouse wrote:7. With space stations, could you do things such as locking the docking clamps to prevent ships leaving? This could damage the local economy if left for long enough, but might work better as a surprise attack method.
Don't see why not. Hacking a space station is conceivably possible, though you'd need some serious hacking capabilities.
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#28
In general I quite like the direction you've taken this. It might need to be reeled in just a bit for practical development ;), but I don't see any significant gameplay questions with changing from an always-broadcasting transponder to a handshake-mode declaration.

The transponder notion is probably just me expecting my ship's computer to automatically tell me the names of every ship I can see visually. If I want detailed info on a particular ship -- class, homeworld, captain, etc. -- that's when I'd select it in my HUD and activate the "Details" function. By having everyone send the basic stuff automatically, I can choose what ship name I want more info on, rather than having to click every ship I can see until I find one with a name of interest to me.

That said, I'm not seeing any severe harm in the handshake variety, other than maybe a bit more clicking.
mcsven wrote:On balance I think I may still prefer something closer to what I was thinking of earlier in this thread, whereby the ship is an extension of the character at that time and characters cannot fly ships that don't belong to them (this is also something that is never really even considered for space games). It's simpler and easier to understand and you get most of the benefits if you have a "privacy" module installed.
My thinking on this is conditioned by "player characters can't be crew on a ship commanded by an NPC."

So the question for me is whether the player character can be designated as the commander of someone else's ship. If no, then "you are your ship" applies and only the captain's personal datastore is applicable.

If yes, then it's possible that the ship's log and the captain's log might be different... but are there likely scenarios in which players might be interested in what a ship did when it was commanded by someone other than its current skipper? (I know the creative folks here can come up with ways this might happen; I'm asking if there's likely value in it. ;))
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#29
mcsven wrote:
Anonymouse wrote:1. When a ship gets close enough, will it be able to identify the ship by its hull markings alone?
Visual hull recognition would be really cool. I was thinking about this on my way home from work: that you could take screen captures and post them as requests for information at space stations/planets ("anyone recognise this ship?"). Don't know how difficult it would be to implement.
related
(the part about signature collecting)


i personally dont think that broadcast or handshake would make ANY difference in practice.
my boardcomputer should ask every ship in sensor range for its informations
"hey, i just detected you! who are you?"
and store the responses automaticly.

the query for handshake should be toggleable (that your scout ships dont highlight themself)
may just couple it with the toggle that makes your ship respond to such queries (or not)
Post

Re: Unethical Behavior and Information Warfare

#30
I have an implementation question:

How much will these datalogs actually be compressible by the system?

The thing about market info is that it's measuring one variable over time. The price is high or low and you can take an average that says "five years ago, wheat was trading for 40cr per Kg."

However, you can't really take an "average" measurement of "committed an act of piracy against Faction A" "helped Faction B" "double crossed Faction C" "killed player X who worked for faction D."

To me, this seems like the constant logging of every action by every player might well start to create a pretty bloated database pretty early on. This would eventually start to impact on performance.

Is it feasible to do this?

Online Now

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 16 guests

cron