I was thinking the other day about Gangs and the direction they've taken as well as the myriad of changes they have gone through over the last 3 years. I think they have developed quite a few uses with things like Combat bonuses and a way to generate a bit of cash for their members. I thought that it might be nice to have an alternative to Gangs however, if for no other reason than to offer a bit of variety and additional depth to gameplay. The idea I came up with was, Corporations.
These would be groups similar to Gangs, users wishing to join would send an application to be approved by the CEO. Their sole function would be generating cash and Influence. More on influence later. The CEO would have several options as to what type of business they are going to run and would compete with other corporations for Market Share. Based on your employees Skill and Career levels you would generate more or less cash per week to spend on salaries and improvements to your business. The difference is, Corporations would not be allowed to accept money from their members like Gangs, all improvement spending money must be generated through the Corp this prevents someone from simply "donating up" their Corporation. However instead of combat bonuses, corporations would provide skill and career bonuses such as extra hours to study per day or bonus career points.
Corporations could even arrange business deals with other corps they were not in direct competition with. For example, Corp1 is focused on Weapons Manufacturing while Corp2 focuses on shipping consumables, the two could arrange to reduce each others costs for protection and office supplies. To prevent any kind of abuse there would be limits set on how much each member could earn based on their skill and career levels and money can not simply be withdrawn from a Corp account (thats embezzlement you naughty monkey!) They could also allow the sale of Shares to help increase their value and give nonCorp members a piece of the pie. Competing Corps could purchase said shares even, possibly resulting in a hostile takeover. Corporations could even generate items based on their area of focus, this would have to be handled in a manner not damaging to the game economy, so no creation of 100 T450s a week or anything of that nature. Corps would be ranked according to their total assets in the Pantheon much like gangs are now.
Influence would be the other currency being generated by Corporations. It would be usable to hire Gangs to commit crimes against competing corporations to hinder their cash output for that day or stop them from gaining influence while a police investigation is going on, as examples. As an added abuse prevention measure, no one can be in both a Corp and a Gang.
Honestly, the possibilities for this are endless, but this is a short rundown of things I think would be really cool. What do you think? |
