What changes, incentives, or suggestions do you have for how Companies Tier Up and work?

[Cira]

I know this runs along the same vein as "Do you think it is worth tiering up your company?", but i wanted to do an opinion poll on companies and how they work right now.

What changes, incentives, or suggestions do you have for how Companies Tier Up and work?

I love brainstorming sessions, and while we already have a few good ideas going, I would like to hear from other members who are involved in the corporate game.

 

[Kami Meran]

[member="Cira"] im non too bothered with the way it works now to be honest.
but i wouldnt mind the tire effecting all susidery companies too.

 

[Galven Hansol]

With some companies not object oriented, some companies, such as a financing company, can't tier up. Something along the lines of a more focus on the development of the company than the making of new products maybe.[member="Cira"]

 

[Seris Caine]

Get rid of tiers and change to a system of some sort such as influence. Not only will it work better in RP, but it just makes more sense. A larger company has more influence than a small company. Influence can affect RP as people in one part of the galaxy may know you and in another part they may not. Tiers don't translate well to RP. It would also ICly explain the growth of warship count, as they'd need more to protect their shipments.
[member="Cira"]

 

[Cira]

Get rid of tiers and change to a system of some sort such as influence. Not only will it work better in RP, but it just makes more sense. A larger company has more influence than a small company. Influence can affect RP as people in one part of the galaxy may know you and in another part they may not. Tiers don't translate well to RP. It would also ICly explain the growth of warship count, as they'd need more to protect their shipments.
[member="Cira"]

What is influence?

 

[Cira]

Something along the lines of a more focus on the development of the company than the making of new products maybe.Cira

Could you give examples?

 

[Dunames Lopez]

[member="Galven Hansol"] With Star Tours, I had to replace mass-produced items with Codex subs (it is usually acknowledged that 1 codex sub is worth 1 mass-produced item for service companies) - that's what service companies usually do.

[member="Ignus"] Perhaps a rebranding of tiers so that tiers would actually reflect influence would be an acceptable compromise...

 

[Sanya Val Lerium]

I'll repeat it here but I'm sure in real world when companies get bigger and better they can produce a better product or service.

I think tier 5 and 6 shoulder have a specialization. This is where you pick what your company does best. The specialization let's you make something better that what others would be able to.

Eg

Mr droid workshop (t3)
He makes a droid that is as standard as they come because if he pushed any further it would be a boot denied or told to weaken it down or remove things.

Mr Droid corps (t5)
He makes a droid similar to mr workshop but his is a little above standard. His can do cool things like laser eyes and jump ten meters high because his company is more advance to pull it off.

Just an example scenario

I also think fleet size and company ships should be revised to maybe boost it.

 

[Seris Caine]

[member="Sanya Val Swift"]
That's just now how companies work. As they grow they branch out into other areas. Smaller companies are specialized, usually, not larger ones.

[member="Cira"]
I'll have to get back to you with some more in depth thought on the idea probably tomorrow. Will take me some time to think out a possible way my idea could work, as it were. General gist, though, would be taking the locations of a company already in the submission as being their area of influence, but I'll get more in depth later.

 

[Sanya Val Lerium]

[member="Ignus"]

I meant in the terms of their focused area of production that has been perfected over time.

 

[Judah Dashiell]

Well....I mentioned this in the other thread. Company incentives need to be planets, hyperlanes and/or sectors of influence.


Sectors of Influence :

• Typically around your HQ/Secondary Campus(Large companies)
• Small as the planet to as large as several hexes
• Company does not run government(unless going for the entire "company town" thing) but does have an influence in the area.
• Gives a more "regional brand feel"
• Would require growth/dev, not just handed out.

HOWEVER, [member="Cira"] already does too much with the map. I don't think its fair or wise to add more strain to her if this is put into effect. We would have to have an alternative system brought up.

 

[Darth Metus]

[member="Judah Dashiell"]

Or find a volunteer with Chaos-map editing experience to undertake it.

Someone handsome. Fuzzy. Tall.

#PutMeInCoach

That said, a system that results in tangible chances to a map is plenty of incentive for me. I'd feel like my mountain of posts is doing something with a cloud, as opposed to a singular number change on my company submission.

 

[Matsu Ike]

[member="Cira"]

Alright well as I said in the previous thread. It is honestly a lot of fun getting them tiered up and working on projects and products that can go with the companies. In my opinion something that was a nice bonus and one of the large motivators for wanting to use the factory and codex. The higher your company is tier wise the more it should be able to produce and the more it should come out with. It is an enjoyable aspect and something that would be fun to have improved or tweaked without all of it getting thrown out. The tier up system honestly shows growth and work, it prevents the problem where you can work for months to get one tier up doing the work but someone else can just bypass that because they know the right people to suck up to. THis already happens as some companies can tier up quickly just getting contracts left and right but others are able to do the same just at a different pace comfortable to them. Removing that kind of system would make those who thrive in knowing the right people have the advantage over others who prefer to do the work or are going to scrap and claw for every foot of advancement. I admit I would love to have the connections of Jorus and be able to get companies to tier 6 left and right but I worked on Sasori and got it there eventually. Neither method is wrong just different.

Changes

• Tiering up is alright, I suggested an idea to you about a year ago for it. With major factions not being made left and right or sometimes staying around for long periods. Contracts with them become hit and miss while working on the other parts of it. The changes so you can expand a faction contract with 100 posts was a good idea but being able to replace contracts with increasingly higher levels of expansion threads to show company influence rather then just getting someone else to say you have them on a list. One of the major issues is most companies don't make things for factions, they make things and you can use their stuff but if they dissolve the contract they can just remove all of the things you have bought from them and you no longer have access to it. This is something I don't like about it as it can force factions to bend over backwards to please a company or risk losing things that they use and don't want to make. Or if a company owner is in charge of a faction that faction is only allowed to use their products and any f the other ones are mothballed, put into disuse. I saw this happen with the Republic and dozen's of ships were being replaced but a quarter way through stopped being and there was only a limited manifest. Saw it with the Silver jedi as well where companies just pulled out and took all of their toys they made for the faction mostly because of OOC reasons.

• The threat or risk of losing things or having them locked out is not an incentive in some cases, one of the main reasons why Sasori doesn't demand attention or treatment. It just does what is requested and leaves it there for them to use with or without their approval. If sasori and the silver jedi ever went different ways they would still have all of the stuff just not at the numbers previously. I would honestly tie this into the development of new ways to tier up. Currently it is make new contracts, misc threads, products (which can be for some companies locations over acctual products if they are a type of service company) Another way though is expansion and improvement of current contracts. Show a growth and how you are making for your contracts products, show how you are making locations. Example a starship company with contracts for the sith would make a series line of ships exclusive to said faction, would rp with that faction building their relationship beyond just signing one contract. I would honestly love the idea of building skills and influence with your contracts where you can make it a larger and more intricate relationship in an rp sense it makes it better. In a company sense it shows growth with the people that pay you.

Incentives:

• For incentives it can go several ways tiering up. Gaining new contracts should always be there, more products in general but the idea of expanding and enriching current contracts. FOr a service company if could be their codex subs that are being worked on. For PMC's specialized versions of their soldiers that are exclusive to that faction. Medical companies, not only developing new medical products but making small clinics and hospitals there on the planets. The higher the tier the more work that can go into it as you can combine the misc threads and rebrand them as expansion threads. It builds up as eventually when you need the sponsors and can just do a massive company thread on par with a project. Building up more and more of it for yourself as well as with locations playing a part in where it goes. Some companies might not have all of the funding but for an example. To handling IC funding to its projects Sasori has mining operations for nova crystals, aurodium mines and materials that are rare and they can sell off to other groups around the galaxy. This allows it to fund its projects as it can have a few dozen mines on planets. Sources of income themselves as well for service companies, if they are resorts on Spira or Zeltros they are going to make a lot.

• Now back to what I was talking about as incentives in the feedback thread. For higher tier companies to encourage them to want to tier up beyond just having more ships. Bonuses that can be applied and be unique to the company to help it and others stand out. Tier 4's can have several options when they tier up. Not huge advantages but they get to pick up. Examples were Alchemy shops having access to exotic organic materials easier or they can have more skilled collectors who can get better inorganic materials. Then as they continue to progress and tier up they can get access to tier 5 incentives that further make it more unique and different from others. With an example for said alchemy company. Increased production process allowing their items to have a better chance of higher production limited to one level higher or they can have better alchemical reagents and effects allowing for stronger darkside powers within it. Then you go for tier 6 where you can have something big and special. Much like the bronze, silve and gild tier rewards a tier 6 company would have something big where they might be able to alchemically enhance entire ships or locations they have constructed. Reaching here it would be the penultimate incentive and work that you are able to do.

Suggestions:

• Honestly they are minor things to spice up the company game, have some fun with it and make it so that you can have a dozen or so starship companies, weapon companies and all of them but each one can have its own spin, it can have its own flavor on different things. With the right combination you can make some very fun and interesting things here but revamping it as is you would also need to make it so it can be retroactive in comparison. That way you can experiment with the different ideas to test out how it would look for new companies that you want o be able to do. We have been doing companies for years now some of the people here and eliminating the tier system would be spitting in the face of all the mountains of work some of them have done but it can also be overwhelming as tier 6 companies can come out of no where in auctions and would have the resources to easily beat out anyone else trying to just get started. A balance can work but plenty of different things that can be done with the idea of more options per tier to get up so you can achieve the same result just with another path itself.

• I would honestly love to be able to use my service companies and swap out contracts with other companies (I mean why does the silver jedi need access to resorts and dancers?) for expansion of where they are. Have it be something for them on a planet if it is a service based one that would be tied to locations. Shipping companies might be in trouble but have them work on dedicated routes, lanes and warehouses. Places where they are able to benefit and show what they are doing with their company. Expanding the contracts, beyond the sponsorship requirement for later progression, show how they are making progress and making exclusive products for the companies they have contracts with, show them making their services available to the worlds they are on and not just trying to gobble up as many locations or contracts as possible. Add a little more development to it but also a little more options about how companies can make themselves different, how they can add flavor to their products or their services. Sure we can keep the corporate fleets for them but also have the options for it to do other things and benefit itself better over just fleet works.

 

[Jorus Merrill]

I think the existing system is pretty good.

I'd really like to see the Major Projects go objective-based, on top of or instead of post count, like I'm proposing for the Mastercraft Projects in Workshops.

 

[Isamu Baelor]

[member="Cira"]

To expand on my reply in the other thread:

The system should be overhauled, so as to allow multiple avenues for a company to tier up. Currently, it's just too rigid.

Additionally, I do disagree with dropping the tier system. When you start bringing in concepts like influence, you're making the system far more complicated than it should be. It really needs to be as simple as it possibly can be.

So, with that said, here's my suggestion. One that could be implemented with relative ease:

The primary unit of measurement for a company's growth should be its products. I say that because the products made by a company are the clearest, and most concise, ways to judge how big it is. Things such as dev threads, or misc threads, won't tell me how big a company is. Whereas, I can safely assume that a company that produces 100 products, is going to be bigger than one that produces 10. (I know in the real world this won't be the case, but I feel it's a safe assumption for Chaos.)

Here's a brief breakdown on how I see a company would tier-up:

Tier 1 > Tier 2: 15 products.
Tier 2 > Tier 3: 20 products + 5 products for a Minor Faction.
Tier 3 > Tier 4: 20 products + 5 products for a Major Faction.
Tier 4 > Tier 5: 25 Products + 10 products for a Major Faction.
Tier 5 > Tier 6: 30 products + 15 products for a Major Faction.

Note: Numbers and such are just examples. They would obviously be balanced later, so it would not be too easy, or too hard, to advance. This is just to show the framework of such a system.

How Misc. Threads would work in this system is that they would be assigned a "value", similar to that of a product. For example, a 10-post misc thread would be equal to, let's say, 2 products. This would be there to allow avenues for companies that specialize in things like mercenary work, or finance, to have a clear avenue to tier up. To make it a bit more fair for everyone.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't gone to this idea with a fine tooth comb, so there may be holes in it. Giant holes even. However, any changes to the tiering up process needs to address the following:

• Make it fair so that both object-oriented companies, and service-oriented companies, have clear avenues for growth.
• Don't waste peoples time. Writers shouldn't be forced to do Misc. Threads, just because it's a box that they are required to tick. They should do it because it makes sense for their company. For example, a service-oriented company like a Merc. Group, would use Misc. Threads that they have participated in to grow. An object-oriented company, like a Starship Manufacture, would use the products which they have produced to grow.

Ultimately though, that's just my opinion.

 

[Ardgal Raxis]

I think that there are some fantastic ideas here already. What I would love to add to the table is just a little cannon. In star wars the major corporations owned (and strip mined) entire planets. Sure we all know about the Techno Union, Separatists and all that but I am talking bigger, back during the exploration portion of Star Wars. Businesses like Tagge Co made literal trillions off of their investments. While money isn't everything, that much money can buy you a lot of power and backing in government.

I think that there should be something put in place to provide large business owners this level of leverage. ("Capitalist With a Gun" when the Mandos and Danger went to war against the Republic is a great example of this, but I would like to see more political power given in a more tangible way).

I can't put my finger on what it needs to be (partially because of fighting off a case of strep throat AGAIN in the past 6 months -_-) But I am sure that there are those smarter than me who can build off of this and find the answer.

 

[Kami Meran]

is there any way we can " aquire " abandoned companies?

 

[Eugen Aker]

Like others have stated, it would be nice to get some more flexibility in how we tier up our companies, which would help more service oriented companies.

I'm guessing there's still going to have to be some kind of development requirement for utilizing restricted materials over unique production level, so perhaps higher tier companies would be able to start producing items with restricted materials at semi-unique or limited production level with no dev needed for acquisition of the materials. They may just have to do a single large dev establishing a steady source for the material IC, like a mine. For some fun, the source could be open to attack depending on how it was written up, and possibly taken by another company or group.

Higher tiered companies could produce more powerful subs at a higher production level, the reasoning being they have the resources to do so. They could establish advanced facilities in single large projects for this, but these facilities could be open to attack to rob them of that production bonus.

In short, it's giving people some tangible benefits that can be applied to the new factory system when it rolls out. This is just off the top of my head as I peek in here. I may come back to offer a more detailed response when I've thought about it more.

[member="Cira"]

 

[Cira]

Tier 1 > Tier 2: 15 products. Tier 2 > Tier 3: 20 products + 5 products for a Minor Faction. Tier 3 > Tier 4: 20 products + 5 products for a Major Faction. Tier 4 > Tier 5: 25 Products + 10 products for a Major Faction. Tier 5 > Tier 6: 30 products + 15 products for a Major Faction.

It is a neat idea, but the thing is there are service companies that literally do not do any sort of factory or codex submissions. They simply provide a service.

One of the changes I had put in place the previous company update was to allow service companies to add in "misc" threads or "codex submissions" in the place of the tech sub requirements.

I would imagine that if it went a solely "product" only route, many service companies would feel as if they are pressured to have to use the company to tier up, which is not what I want them to feel.

[member="Jorus Merrill"]

That is something i want to tweak. Most people as, what IS a Major Project? Immense Project? How does one fine tune this to explain that it is a "Masterwork Project" that can be done by both a service company and a production company? How to make it fun but not constrictive?

When I think of a project, I think of companies having to work with other companies to build something great. Not just one writer going ham on creating something big. So how to provide that community, company expansion feel to it?


[member="Judah Dashiell"] [member="Malok"]

The map has always come up as a way to provide incentive, be it planets or some influence cloud thing. The reality of it is that the map itself is kept secure with even just a few of the Admin team for security purposes. That is the blood and work that Tef, Jorus, Alric, and I have all very carefully worked on for the past four years. It would require a great need to share that with anyone outside of the administrative map maker staff.

Along those lines of security, there is also the worry on that it may get too cluttered on the map itself. I do enjoy the idea of influence sectors, but how can one really tangibly hold that without it turning into a massive crayola cloud? (not to mention the psd file takes quite a long time to load even on my own souped up computer )

A proposal on getting companies on the map would have to be very well written out and even then, no promises. It is the same concern people have brought up with minor factions on the map as well.

But, I dunno, what would a properly thought out proposal look like?

 

[Isamu Baelor]

It is a neat idea, but the thing is there are service companies that literally do not do any sort of factory or codex submissions. They simply provide a service.

One of the changes I had put in place the previous company update was to allow service companies to add in "misc" threads or "codex submissions" in the place of the tech sub requirements.

I would imagine that if it went a solely "product" only route, many service companies would feel as if they are pressured to have to use the company to tier up, which is not what I want them to feel.

Hence this part:

"How Misc. Threads would work in this system is that they would be assigned a "value", similar to that of a product. For example, a 10-post misc thread would be equal to, let's say, 2 products. This would be there to allow avenues for companies that specialize in things like mercenary work, or finance, to have a clear avenue to tier up. To make it a bit more fair for everyone."

[member="Cira"]