If it takes five people to create a fleet, why does it only take one person to destroy it?
My recommendations:
Top-ranked fleet members cannot demote other top-ranked fleet members without the permission of at least thee other top-ranked members concurrently.
Top-ranked fleet member cannot be kicked from the fleet without the permission of at least three other top-ranked members concurrently.
Make fleets indestructable. Fleets that have lost all members will be "free to claim" for 30 days (claiming would require five team members as is required to create a fleet). After 30 days, the fleet will be deleted from the server.
Make all fleet members non-bootable from the fleet after 90 days unless three top-ranked members approve the boot concurrently. (They will remain demotable and fleets can designate a "make them want to quit" rank.)
Fleet members cannot be promoted to top-rank without the approval of at least three top-ranked members.
Fleet members cannot be promoted to top-ranked within 30 days of joining the fleet. (This rule will be lifted for 48 hours following the creation of a fleet to allow the fleet to establish its desired hierarchy)
Any top-ranked member who is inactive for more than 90 days will be automatically demoted one rank, preventing them from doing damage to the fleet. In the event this leaves no top-ranked members, the five longest serving members will be automatically up-ranked.
All fleets are "saved" to the server on a weekly basis. GMs have the ability to flash a fleet back to these save states when certain conditions arise. (Losing a few days' work is better than the entire fleet)
Require a password for the fleet admin panel. This password will be created when the fleet is formed and GM will have the ability to reset it when the need arises. Have the password automatically expire after 180 days. (Obviously, fleets would need to be sure who owns this password but it would help prevent the odd old account from being used against the fleet).
In the event the number of total top-ranked members drops below three, the longest serving active non-top-ranked member is automatically promoted to the top rank.
All non-founders being promoted to the top rank will have to serve a 30-day probationary period before major fleet details can be changed. (This rule would be void for those promoted automatically due to a shortage of top-ranked members.)
All actions requiring three top-ranked fleet members would follow the same rules as forming a fleet. All three would have to be online at the time of the action.
Feel free to adopt any or all of these suggestions. Obviously, some would render others moot. But at least start here.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
___________________________
In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
If it takes five people to create a fleet, why does it only take one person to destroy it?
My recommendations:
Top-ranked fleet members cannot demote other top-ranked fleet members without the permission of at least thee other top-ranked members concurrently.
Top-ranked fleet member cannot be kicked from the fleet without the permission of at least three other top-ranked members concurrently.
Make fleets indestructable. Fleets that have lost all members will be "free to claim" for 30 days (claiming would require five team members as is required to create a fleet). After 30 days, the fleet will be deleted from the server.
Make all fleet members non-bootable from the fleet after 90 days unless three top-ranked members approve the boot concurrently. (They will remain demotable and fleets can designate a "make them want to quit" rank.)
Fleet members cannot be promoted to top-rank without the approval of at least three top-ranked members.
Fleet members cannot be promoted to top-ranked within 30 days of joining the fleet. (This rule will be lifted for 48 hours following the creation of a fleet to allow the fleet to establish its desired hierarchy)
Any top-ranked member who is inactive for more than 90 days will be automatically demoted one rank, preventing them from doing damage to the fleet. In the event this leaves no top-ranked members, the five longest serving members will be automatically up-ranked.
All fleets are "saved" to the server on a weekly basis. GMs have the ability to flash a fleet back to these save states when certain conditions arise. (Losing a few days' work is better than the entire fleet)
Require a password for the fleet admin panel. This password will be created when the fleet is formed and GM will have the ability to reset it when the need arises. Have the password automatically expire after 180 days. (Obviously, fleets would need to be sure who owns this password but it would help prevent the odd old account from being used against the fleet).
In the event the number of total top-ranked members drops below three, the longest serving active non-top-ranked member is automatically promoted to the top rank.
All non-founders being promoted to the top rank will have to serve a 30-day probationary period before major fleet details can be changed. (This rule would be void for those promoted automatically due to a shortage of top-ranked members.)
All actions requiring three top-ranked fleet members would follow the same rules as forming a fleet. All three would have to be online at the time of the action.
Feel free to adopt any or all of these suggestions. Obviously, some would render others moot. But at least start here.
All of these are great ideas and we've talked about many of them tonight in fleet.
Yeah I really do think that there need to be more protections for fleets.
You can have a super malicious person that could ruin all of the hard work and even possibly real money that could be put into these fleet systems with very little protection.
Of course, an obvious one is if a person hijacks a fleet and is publicly flaunting it, they are banned and the fleet restored to the most recent saved state!
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Have a special Founder Slot, where the player in it cannot be removed by any means other then a deactivation of the account/time limit of inactivity/Fleet Founder leaving the Fleet. So that way no other Fleet member can remove him/her from the fleet.
[06/16 11:51] [Combat (Self)] Your Advanced Dual Heavy Radiant Antiproton Cannons - Hypercharge deals 237970 (113626) Antiproton Damage(Critical) to Tactical Cube.
AHAHAHA! Eat it Borg!
[09/15 11:01] [Combat (Self)] You lose 12187085 Cold Damage from Death.
Death is OP, please nerf. I BLAME KURLAND FOR THIS!
How about they just require that a fleet must have at all times a minimum of five members. This would keep hackers from getting in without a group of people to take it over. It wouldn't seem too difficult to make a minimum fleet size requirement.
I still think there has to be some type of tracking that the GMs or programmers have that would show name changes etc for them to correct this. Nothing that's done electronically is anonymous. This doesn't seem to happen that often that it would be over burdensome for Cryptic to look into when it happens.
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Most of these suggestions are way over the top and I see many potentials for whole new abuses that are worse than the current ones. I agree there needs to be more protection for fleet members, especially at the lower ranks, but all this is way too much.
Personally I'd like to see the number of ranks at least doubled, same with bank slots (we have 2 factions in one fleet coming up!), provision permissions more detailed (can only queue certain SB project slots, limited number of provisions per-day-per-type, limited number of people you can kick/invite from/to the fleet, etc), preventing people from joining and dropping fleets multiple times per day, cancelling fleet projects (needs to be very strict controls) .
by the way currently if all the level 7 fleet leaders are inactive for 30 days, any rank 6 can claim rank 7
Ok ... a problem we have which leads to this is that they don't want to step on the fact that some fleets are private fleets with one person in the top slot.
What I recommend is putting a switch inside the fleet admin module that allows a fleet to start as private but gives the ability to switch it to a "community" fleet.
What this would mean is that once the switch is hit ... there is no going back.
You would have to have a minimum number of fleet admin (say three) with at least two needed to demote or remove another from the fleet leader slots.
This way you have an added level of protection without disturbing the private fleets.
Thanks for the replies. I hope the devs have read over this thread and at least come up with some ideas (even if they aren't as hardcore as I would like them). As long as we can prevent one person from destroying a large fleet, then I'll accept any solution.
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
The best form of protection is thinking, thinking what sort of people you invite to Fleet and promote for certain ranks (that is protection for Fleets), or thinking what type of Fleet you join and what rules are in it (protection for new and low rank players). Well if you give permissions to wrong people or join first Fleet which send you invite an ESD or Academy then any thing bad happens to you or your fleet is only your fault.
If it takes five people to create a fleet, why does it only take one person to destroy it?
I'd have to agree with this statement, at least.
If there is a solution, it should take into account the following factors:
1. The fleet could drop below five active accounts (or even three) for various reasons that have nothing to do with someone trying to form a "solo fleet". They should not be penalized with the loss of their fleet, especially as they may have put resources into fleet holdings.
2. The Community asked for the ability to take back fleets from inactive Leaders, and we got it. The principle should be, once established -- forever established. I kind of like the idea that "empty fleets" could be reclaimed, but there are probably good reasons why not.
3. Demotion and expulsion is a necessary tool for managing fleets and dealing with miscreants. Removing the ability to do this is a bad idea and limiting it will also cause problems. I'm not saying limitation is bad -- it's necessary if you're going to protect fleets from rogue leaders -- but it does mean that we're going to have to put up with whatever they are.
I propose that:
1. The original five founding members be "flagged" as "Founders". As long as they remain in the fleet, they enjoy protection against being kicked from the fleet. They can be demoted only by a Fleet Leader, no matter what permissions are set.
2. Founders can leave voluntarily, at which point they lose Founder protections permanently.
3. Founders should also have the unrevocable ability to call for a Fleet Election. A Fleet Election will allow all remaining Founders to promote one member to the Fleet Leader rank based on a majority vote. If a fleet has only one or two remaining Founders, the vote must be unanimous.
Note that this does not give them the power to demote a sitting Fleet Leader, but the newly-promoted Fleet Leader could do so.
4. Grandfathering for existing fleets: At the time when this new system is implemented, as a one-time action certain fleet members will be grandfathered as Founders. Fleets should be given an opportunity to purge inactive members before this happens. Grandfathering should be in accord with the following:
4A. If a player has multiple characters in the fleet, only the character with the most time-in-fleet will receive Founder status. This assures that one account-holder only gets one vote.
4B. The current Fleet Leader will be grandfathered as a Founder.
4C. If there is more than one Fleet Leader, up to five leaders may be grandfathered as a Founder based on time-in-fleet, subject to the limitation in 4A.
4D. If there are any Founder "slots" remaining, they will be filled by the members with the most time-in-fleet, subject to the limitation in 4A.
I realize that this proposal is not "abuse-proof", but it's more than what we have now. It also assumes that Cryptic has a way to determine time-in-fleet for individual members.
Fleets with a solid continuity of the original members would be protected, as it should be assumed that a majority of the remaining Founders will have the fleet's best interests at heart. Someone could still grab control of the fleet, but the Founders would have the ability to actively oppose it.
Fleets without active Founders will be no more vulnerable than they are now, and they'll have to remain extra-vigilant about permissions and promotions.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I'm also going to propose, in conjunction with my previous proposal for Fleet Founders, that the Fleet Election system I suggested could be extended.
Basically, Fleet Elections would be an optional permission that could be assigned to any rank that would allow them to participate in an election.
(The difference here is that Founders would automatically get this permission and that it could not be removed even by a Fleet Leader)
That way, fleets that choose to operate democratically (or by challenge) could do so through the Election system and it would be useful beyond simply protecting the fleet. There could be voting and non-voting ranks.
The way I envision it working would be a simple right-click "checkmark" option on the roster: "Elect as Leader".
Each account-holder can have this checkmark set on only one member at a time. There would also be the option to remove a checkmark you've set.
At any time that a single member has gotten a majority vote of the available voters (calculated each time "Elect as Leader" is marked), he or she is instantly promoted to the rank of Fleet Leader.
This would not automatically demote any existing Fleet Leaders, though the new Fleet Leader could do so.
Theoretically, an optional Election system could supplement or even take the place of the Inactive Leader Auto-Demotion. The downside is that it would be more abusable than the simple Founder majority vote and could actually prevent Founders from voting in a new Leader if there's a majority opposition. Pros and Cons both ways.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I agree on a few of the ideas, but not the restrictive ones. Half of your ideas are not for the protection of the fleet that was created and you or others joined, but to protect people who have joined and want more stable control of a unified unity. Yes a lot of people/players have been burned and some burned badly from people who don't have what it takes to run a fleet well. Priorities, goals, working together, but with the understanding of personal goals and fleet goals. Tempered with compassion on not everyone has or desired the capacity to grind or give 110% 24/7 team running missions. Fleet leader communication is key with a back up plan for when people need time off for real life events or just a vacation from electronics. For me its all about tempered time management with a slice of communication. Not every fleet works for everyone and not everyone is rite for every fleet.
Their is one thing I'd add to your list of possibility's. That would be a way to track who buys the provisions. Some have to ability/permission (depending on your set up) to buy provisions and from what I've seen it can cripple the trust or foundation of donation to projects when all you can do is control who can or can't buy provisions and in a more open fleet having a way to track is just another way of helping everyone stay above board. So in short add a "provision log". Not just add it to the fleet log. The fleet leaders have enough to just sort the log.
If you didn't like them, then no, you can't use them.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I agree on a few of the ideas, but not the restrictive ones.
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T'kvox
All of my ideas are designed to protect the fleet by making it hard to remove people from the fleet that have been there a while. It protects seniority as well as the founders of the fleet. By requiring more than three other founders to vote down other founders, you prevent the chance of one person destroying the fleet.
That being said, these were meant to be ideas. I fully expect the devs to do something different. This is meant to get the idea juices flowing.
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
[*]Top-ranked fleet members cannot demote other top-ranked fleet members without the permission of at least thee other top-ranked members concurrently.
[*]Top-ranked fleet member cannot be kicked from the fleet without the permission of at least three other top-ranked members concurrently.
So what happens when there are simply not that many, and it is impossible to get them on concurrently, perhaps because they are spaced out for that reason?
[*]Make fleets indestructable. Fleets that have lost all members will be "free to claim" for 30 days (claiming would require five team members as is required to create a fleet). After 30 days, the fleet will be deleted from the server.
So, if I can kill everyone in the fleet, I can claim the fleet for myself?
[*]Make all fleet members non-bootable from the fleet after 90 days unless three top-ranked members approve the boot concurrently. (They will remain demotable and fleets can designate a "make them want to quit" rank.)
And again, what happens when there are not that many leaders, and you happen to be kicking people who have died and not appeared?
[*]Fleet members cannot be promoted to top-ranked within 30 days of joining the fleet. (This rule will be lifted for 48 hours following the creation of a fleet to allow the fleet to establish its desired hierarchy)
[*]Any top-ranked member who is inactive for more than 90 days will be automatically demoted one rank, preventing them from doing damage to the fleet.
Shouldn't people be taking care of this themselves? What happens if that person is me, and I have not bothered to login simply because I don't have any minerals to refine there?
This entire proposal is a poorly thought out attempt to forcibly impose your vision of ideal fleet structure on others.
This entire proposal is a poorly thought out attempt to forcibly impose your vision of ideal fleet structure on others.
More like to make game protect him and other people from their own mistakes. All of this is not needed if fleet leaders/founders think who they promote and what permissions that people get.
One of my alts is Fleet Leader (after being 10 minutes in fleet) because after I was invited to fleet in Academy I full 4 starbase projects with FM and started them. Until people will do such think there will be problems.
More like to make game protect him and other people from their own mistakes. All of this is not needed if fleet leaders/founders think who they promote and what permissions that people get.
Mistakes happen and sometimes the people you trust turn out not to be all that trustworthy.
Could happen to anybody, in any fleet. Sometimes the benevolent dictator has a change of attitude. Or drops out of the game and the next guy with seniority grabs the fleet for himself and does what he wants.
Some kind of safety net to protect investments into fleet holdings might be acceptable. If we can figure out a way to do it that isn't too restrictive and doesn't end up protecting the wrong people.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
All of my ideas are designed to protect the fleet by making it hard to remove people from the fleet that have been there a while. It protects seniority as well as the founders of the fleet.
Ok, aside from whatever's in the fleet bank what are the reasons why someone wouldn't just go join or form another fleet?
1. The Roster --
This is your contact list. It's priceless. And members are worth their weight in latinum.
Workaround: Friend everybody in your fleet that you want to make sure you stay in touch with. Don't depend on the Roster for this.
2. Fleet Holdings Investments --
Fleet credits you get from dumping tons of resources into your fleet holdings don't do you much good when you don't have access to the improvements you bought and can't get access to the same level of improvements in another fleet.
Mainly, it's fleet store access that a lot of people care about.
This strikes me as the big issue. This is the #1 reason why people might need protection from being dumped from the Roster.
So maybe changing the way fleet provisions works can provide at least some of the protection that people want. The question is how.
The solution has to prevent fleet-jumping to unlock stuff or it interferes with Cryptic's interests.
I'm still thinking about this, but haven't come up with a scheme that seems workable yet.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Fleets being stolen happened long before the starbase system. Now, there's a monetary loss when fleets are destroyed. The protections for the players, I think, have to be the most paramount.
As for Fleet provisions, they are the hard one. I would say you can take them with you, but they are group funded. Perhaps Cryptic could come up with a "personal" provisions. These are your share of the provisions and when you leave the fleet, they go with you. Similar to Fleet Credit.
For example: you provide 10% of the material to create 500 provisions for the fleet. Not only does the fleet get 500 provisions, you get 50 of your own. These can be combined with what's in the fleet inventory to purchase what you desire (with your personal provisions being used first). The 1,000 provision project would still provide 1,000 provisions, it would just be split 500 to the fleet 500 to the contributors.
That way you could open the stores to all ranks, it's just you won't have access to the fleet's provisions until you satisfy whatever rules the fleet imposes. But you can still use whatever provisions you have personally earned (assuming you have enough).
It's an idea, anyway.
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
There have been too many horror stories about Fleet leaders being deposed by a supposed trusted friend, it's one thing if you know that friend in real life, so you can go over and pound some sense into the guy, but when these people are somewhere remote there is no way to resolve it other than the faint possibility of getting a resolution by appealing to a GM.
The simplest fix for this is removal of rank access to anyone at leadership level from administrative options, you can still change ranks of lower level fleet members but once a member is promoted to leader their rank is untouchable. Maybe make it so nobody can change a leaders rank except themselves, that way they can demote themselves but another leader can't. This won't fix leaders from doing detrimental things to a fleet but at least it will prevent them from outright stealing the fleet by demoting other leaders.
If something is not broken, don't fix it, if it is broken, don't leave it broken.
There's just as many horror stories about a fleet being trashed by a leader who has run amok. Someone like that needs to be removable as well.
Frankly, all of these plans are terrible and are a bald-faced agenda to impose your nanny-state-belief rulesystem on my nice and orderly fleet, and I reject them completely and utterly. Our fleet thrives on arbitrary lightning decisions and rearrangement.
Frankly, all of these plans are terrible and are a bald-faced agenda to impose your nanny-state-belief rulesystem on my nice and orderly fleet, and I reject them completely and utterly. Our fleet thrives on arbitrary lightning decisions and rearrangement.
WTH are you talking about?
"If you have never used Cello, I'm not interested in your browser opinion."
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Not yet read the thread in full so don't know if these have already been suggested or not.
Some time ago, Cryptic mentioned (in patch notes I think) that players being invited to fleets would be able to view a fleets basic information prior to joining. In recent fleet invitations I've received I haven't seen this option.
A series of 'warning flags' could be introduced. These would be displayed next to a fleets name in the fleet UI, fleet search UI, and the basic info displayed to players being invited to a fleet. Such warning flags could include;
When a fleet has recently changed its name.
The fleet has recently had a change in leadership.
A fleet has recently demoted over X% of its members.
A fleet has recently kicked more than X% of its members.
eBay uses a similar system with its members to warn when a member has performed actions which may be cause for concern. This system would serve as warning for both members within the fleet and those looking to join.
Automated fleet mails could be sent to all members when certain actions occur such as those above, ensuring all fleet members are kept apprised of important fleet activity.
Fleets being stolen happened long before the starbase system. Now, there's a monetary loss when fleets are destroyed. The protections for the players, I think, have to be the most paramount.
As for Fleet provisions, they are the hard one. I would say you can take them with you, but they are group funded. Perhaps Cryptic could come up with a "personal" provisions. These are your share of the provisions and when you leave the fleet, they go with you. Similar to Fleet Credit.
For example: you provide 10% of the material to create 500 provisions for the fleet. Not only does the fleet get 500 provisions, you get 50 of your own. These can be combined with what's in the fleet inventory to purchase what you desire (with your personal provisions being used first). The 1,000 provision project would still provide 1,000 provisions, it would just be split 500 to the fleet 500 to the contributors.
That way you could open the stores to all ranks, it's just you won't have access to the fleet's provisions until you satisfy whatever rules the fleet imposes. But you can still use whatever provisions you have personally earned (assuming you have enough).
It's an idea, anyway.
I'm kind of thinking along the lines of unlocking item access somehow and doing away with the group provisioning projects. Once unlocked, always unlocked. Make provisioning projects an individual activity. The catch is that opens the door for fleet-jumping and makes the whole system crash around Cryptic's ears.
So the unlocks need to be tied to having been a member of a fleet that had access. As long as you are a member of that fleet, or were previously a member of that fleet and did not join another one, you unlock those provisioning projects in your own personal "Fleet Reputation".
If you join another fleet, you'd lose access to the provisioning projects you had and get the unlocks for your current fleet. So jumping around from fleet-to-fleet wouldn't gain you anything... you'd have to stay in (or out) long enough to start all of your projects. And you would still only be able to run so many projects at a time.
So "Fleet Reputation" would not be like normal Reputations, but simply a way to run personal provisioning projects.
From an economy perspective, the personal provisioning projects could be set up to sink currencies and materials proportionately so that Cryptic isn't really losing on the deal. In fact, it could help smaller fleets by allowing Cryptic to reduce the fleet project costs somewhat.
Fleet Marks, however, would need to stay about the same or even higher due to the need to generate Fleet Credits. Fleet Credits would then be used on the personal provisioning projects. This means that the only way to get Fleet Credits is to be a member of an active fleet. Stockpiles of Fleet Credits could be spent on provisioning projects regardless.
It's not perfect, but it goes further to protect access to fleet provisions than our current system does and it also creates a disincentive to engage in fleet-jumping.
Certainly fleets would need other protections against piracy, but something like this would help.
My views may not represent those of Cryptic Studios or Perfect World Entertainment. You can file a "forums and website" support ticket here Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
I think the ultimate problem is that this issue, in the real world, is solved by human decision makers sitting in adversarial tribunals- i.e., people go to court to enforce agreements made between themselves.
It simply isn't practical to effectively automate this system. More to the point, it is almost certainly impractical to come in, halfway through, and impose a totally new system on top.
For example, the fleet I'm in has like 60 members at the highest rank (out of 240). This is almost certainly not optimal, and I don't personally like it, but that's the way it is and it seems fairly stable beyond that. Imposing an elaborate system of voting or shares would impose a structure that our membership has intentionally rejected (multiple times). It would be one thing if the fleet were designed that way from the ground up, but it isn't.
That being said, Cryptic has demonstrated consistently no interest whatsoever in actually adjudicating disputes (and for good reason, to be honest), and I don't expect that to change.
Part of the problem of now imposing additional structures atop what's already there is that it's difficult to decide who gets to set up those structures, based on the current system. Some fleets are dictatorial. Some are democratic. Some have only a nominal in-game structure and are managed from a forum or other out-of-game venue. Each of these organizations would respond differently. A dictatorial fleet might well object to having a voting system.
In a clean-slate world, I would suggest that fleets be organized on a 'share' system. Five members create a fleet, and each gets one share out of five. Each member has the power to give shares to another member, but owning a share and being a member are a one-way correlation (i.e., you can be a member and not own a share, but non-members cannot own shares). Shares allow a 'superset' control of the Fleet, based on simple majority voting. Everyone with a share gets a vote in proportion to that share. Number of shares would be public in the fleet roster. When you leave a fleet in which you own a share, you get to "cash it in" for a proportional share of fleet resources, and when you join a fleet, you can bring those resources with you to your new fleet. (how exactly this works would be more difficult to determine).
This would probably allow everyone to set up their fleets in the way they want, while not directly imposing any particular structure on anyone, as it doesn't change the basic fleet mechanics.
Two problems.
1. The coding would probably be elaborate and time consuming and to no significantly obvious benefit.
2. It would still be impractical to impose on a current fleet without pissing off a lot of people.
The only meaningful solution I can think of to (2) is basically to use the 'share carry' ability to move starbase elements and allow people to therefore reconstitute their fleets within the new system without losing anything, but man would this be tricky to establish effectively and I am not sure I can think of a good way to do it.
(i.e., for a very simplified example, Starbase Alpha has five members, A, B, C, D, and E; each has contributed roughly 20% of the resources to build the fleet up to Tier 3 and therefore gets a starting fraction of 20% of the total outstanding shares of Starbase Alpha. If Starbase Alpha is democratic, this is great and they can continue on that way. If A wants to take his bat and ball and go home to a dictatorial fleet, he can go create Starbase Beta with his 20% valuation. This is immediately sufficient to bump it up to, say, Tier 2; he can then invite B, C, D, and E to join him at Starbase Beta (for no shares). They all join, their contributions are subsumed into Starbase Beta, and Starbase Beta is essentially back where Starbase Alpha was but with A holding all the shares and having all the power, much like what was originally the case.)
This doesn't necessarily solve any problem. But it provides the tools to solve most problems, I think. If you're worried about one person taking over your fleet, split your shares among sufficient members that nobody has more than 50%. Nobody can go around and eject large numbers of high contributors without ruining their starbase- unless those contributors have agreed in advance not to be recognized. And so on.
Don't change a thing. People really need to start taking responsibility for their actions. Don't invest so much into a fleet with people you don't really know or trust. Pretty simple.
Then for God's sake have the balls to live with your consequences without crying for someone else to come fix it.
Maybe this would happen less if there was less regulation and more accountability on the individuals who allow this to happen to their fleet.
I think we would have better, stronger fleets as a whole if it wasn't so common to just willy-nilly join fleets and be instantly be put in charge. There was a post in another thread where a person actual claimed to have a 400+ person fleet with open leadership roles they were willing to give a stranger.
Wonder if this is the guy now crying about losing his fleet now???!??!?:eek:
If you build something so important to you, learn to protect it. I am glad Cryptic does not interfere when someone willingly gives up power to his fleet.
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Comments
All of these are great ideas and we've talked about many of them tonight in fleet.
A. @ handles can be sorted AND a person can have all characters with the same @ handle kicked in one move...this only works if...
B. No person can kick more than 5 different individual @ handles in 12 hours.
You can have a super malicious person that could ruin all of the hard work and even possibly real money that could be put into these fleet systems with very little protection.
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
[06/16 11:51] [Combat (Self)] Your Advanced Dual Heavy Radiant Antiproton Cannons - Hypercharge deals 237970 (113626) Antiproton Damage(Critical) to Tactical Cube.
AHAHAHA! Eat it Borg!
[09/15 11:01] [Combat (Self)] You lose 12187085 Cold Damage from Death.
Death is OP, please nerf. I BLAME KURLAND FOR THIS!
CO noob and STO veteran.
I still think there has to be some type of tracking that the GMs or programmers have that would show name changes etc for them to correct this. Nothing that's done electronically is anonymous. This doesn't seem to happen that often that it would be over burdensome for Cryptic to look into when it happens.
Lifetime Sub since June 2010
Personally I'd like to see the number of ranks at least doubled, same with bank slots (we have 2 factions in one fleet coming up!), provision permissions more detailed (can only queue certain SB project slots, limited number of provisions per-day-per-type, limited number of people you can kick/invite from/to the fleet, etc), preventing people from joining and dropping fleets multiple times per day, cancelling fleet projects (needs to be very strict controls) .
by the way currently if all the level 7 fleet leaders are inactive for 30 days, any rank 6 can claim rank 7
What I recommend is putting a switch inside the fleet admin module that allows a fleet to start as private but gives the ability to switch it to a "community" fleet.
What this would mean is that once the switch is hit ... there is no going back.
You would have to have a minimum number of fleet admin (say three) with at least two needed to demote or remove another from the fleet leader slots.
This way you have an added level of protection without disturbing the private fleets.
U.S.S. Maelstrom, NCC-71417 (Constitution III-class/flagship) --- Fleet Admiral Hauk' --|-- Dahar Master Hauk --- I.K.S. qu'In 'an bortaS (D7-class / flagship)
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
I'd have to agree with this statement, at least.
If there is a solution, it should take into account the following factors:
1. The fleet could drop below five active accounts (or even three) for various reasons that have nothing to do with someone trying to form a "solo fleet". They should not be penalized with the loss of their fleet, especially as they may have put resources into fleet holdings.
2. The Community asked for the ability to take back fleets from inactive Leaders, and we got it. The principle should be, once established -- forever established. I kind of like the idea that "empty fleets" could be reclaimed, but there are probably good reasons why not.
3. Demotion and expulsion is a necessary tool for managing fleets and dealing with miscreants. Removing the ability to do this is a bad idea and limiting it will also cause problems. I'm not saying limitation is bad -- it's necessary if you're going to protect fleets from rogue leaders -- but it does mean that we're going to have to put up with whatever they are.
I propose that:
1. The original five founding members be "flagged" as "Founders". As long as they remain in the fleet, they enjoy protection against being kicked from the fleet. They can be demoted only by a Fleet Leader, no matter what permissions are set.
2. Founders can leave voluntarily, at which point they lose Founder protections permanently.
3. Founders should also have the unrevocable ability to call for a Fleet Election. A Fleet Election will allow all remaining Founders to promote one member to the Fleet Leader rank based on a majority vote. If a fleet has only one or two remaining Founders, the vote must be unanimous.
Note that this does not give them the power to demote a sitting Fleet Leader, but the newly-promoted Fleet Leader could do so.
4. Grandfathering for existing fleets: At the time when this new system is implemented, as a one-time action certain fleet members will be grandfathered as Founders. Fleets should be given an opportunity to purge inactive members before this happens. Grandfathering should be in accord with the following:
4A. If a player has multiple characters in the fleet, only the character with the most time-in-fleet will receive Founder status. This assures that one account-holder only gets one vote.
4B. The current Fleet Leader will be grandfathered as a Founder.
4C. If there is more than one Fleet Leader, up to five leaders may be grandfathered as a Founder based on time-in-fleet, subject to the limitation in 4A.
4D. If there are any Founder "slots" remaining, they will be filled by the members with the most time-in-fleet, subject to the limitation in 4A.
I realize that this proposal is not "abuse-proof", but it's more than what we have now. It also assumes that Cryptic has a way to determine time-in-fleet for individual members.
Fleets with a solid continuity of the original members would be protected, as it should be assumed that a majority of the remaining Founders will have the fleet's best interests at heart. Someone could still grab control of the fleet, but the Founders would have the ability to actively oppose it.
Fleets without active Founders will be no more vulnerable than they are now, and they'll have to remain extra-vigilant about permissions and promotions.
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Basically, Fleet Elections would be an optional permission that could be assigned to any rank that would allow them to participate in an election.
(The difference here is that Founders would automatically get this permission and that it could not be removed even by a Fleet Leader)
That way, fleets that choose to operate democratically (or by challenge) could do so through the Election system and it would be useful beyond simply protecting the fleet. There could be voting and non-voting ranks.
The way I envision it working would be a simple right-click "checkmark" option on the roster: "Elect as Leader".
Each account-holder can have this checkmark set on only one member at a time. There would also be the option to remove a checkmark you've set.
At any time that a single member has gotten a majority vote of the available voters (calculated each time "Elect as Leader" is marked), he or she is instantly promoted to the rank of Fleet Leader.
This would not automatically demote any existing Fleet Leaders, though the new Fleet Leader could do so.
Theoretically, an optional Election system could supplement or even take the place of the Inactive Leader Auto-Demotion. The downside is that it would be more abusable than the simple Founder majority vote and could actually prevent Founders from voting in a new Leader if there's a majority opposition. Pros and Cons both ways.
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Malivistitisa Class (39-century Federation Class)
Their is one thing I'd add to your list of possibility's. That would be a way to track who buys the provisions. Some have to ability/permission (depending on your set up) to buy provisions and from what I've seen it can cripple the trust or foundation of donation to projects when all you can do is control who can or can't buy provisions and in a more open fleet having a way to track is just another way of helping everyone stay above board. So in short add a "provision log". Not just add it to the fleet log. The fleet leaders have enough to just sort the log.
T'kvox
May I use some/all of it in http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=592441 ?
Depends on who you're talking to...
If you liked any of my thoughts, feel free.
If you didn't like them, then no, you can't use them.
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Knock yourself out. But Brandon has specifically pointed people to this thread as one being watched by the devs.
All of my ideas are designed to protect the fleet by making it hard to remove people from the fleet that have been there a while. It protects seniority as well as the founders of the fleet. By requiring more than three other founders to vote down other founders, you prevent the chance of one person destroying the fleet.
That being said, these were meant to be ideas. I fully expect the devs to do something different. This is meant to get the idea juices flowing.
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
So, if I can kill everyone in the fleet, I can claim the fleet for myself?
And again, what happens when there are not that many leaders, and you happen to be kicking people who have died and not appeared?
So how do you EVER get three in the first place? Why this magical obsession with 3, anyway?
Why the hell not, if those people are also me?
Shouldn't people be taking care of this themselves? What happens if that person is me, and I have not bothered to login simply because I don't have any minerals to refine there?
This entire proposal is a poorly thought out attempt to forcibly impose your vision of ideal fleet structure on others.
More like to make game protect him and other people from their own mistakes. All of this is not needed if fleet leaders/founders think who they promote and what permissions that people get.
One of my alts is Fleet Leader (after being 10 minutes in fleet) because after I was invited to fleet in Academy I full 4 starbase projects with FM and started them. Until people will do such think there will be problems.
Mistakes happen and sometimes the people you trust turn out not to be all that trustworthy.
Could happen to anybody, in any fleet. Sometimes the benevolent dictator has a change of attitude. Or drops out of the game and the next guy with seniority grabs the fleet for himself and does what he wants.
Some kind of safety net to protect investments into fleet holdings might be acceptable. If we can figure out a way to do it that isn't too restrictive and doesn't end up protecting the wrong people.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
Ok, aside from whatever's in the fleet bank what are the reasons why someone wouldn't just go join or form another fleet?
1. The Roster --
This is your contact list. It's priceless. And members are worth their weight in latinum.
Workaround: Friend everybody in your fleet that you want to make sure you stay in touch with. Don't depend on the Roster for this.
2. Fleet Holdings Investments --
Fleet credits you get from dumping tons of resources into your fleet holdings don't do you much good when you don't have access to the improvements you bought and can't get access to the same level of improvements in another fleet.
Mainly, it's fleet store access that a lot of people care about.
This strikes me as the big issue. This is the #1 reason why people might need protection from being dumped from the Roster.
So maybe changing the way fleet provisions works can provide at least some of the protection that people want. The question is how.
The solution has to prevent fleet-jumping to unlock stuff or it interferes with Cryptic's interests.
I'm still thinking about this, but haven't come up with a scheme that seems workable yet.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
As for Fleet provisions, they are the hard one. I would say you can take them with you, but they are group funded. Perhaps Cryptic could come up with a "personal" provisions. These are your share of the provisions and when you leave the fleet, they go with you. Similar to Fleet Credit.
For example: you provide 10% of the material to create 500 provisions for the fleet. Not only does the fleet get 500 provisions, you get 50 of your own. These can be combined with what's in the fleet inventory to purchase what you desire (with your personal provisions being used first). The 1,000 provision project would still provide 1,000 provisions, it would just be split 500 to the fleet 500 to the contributors.
That way you could open the stores to all ranks, it's just you won't have access to the fleet's provisions until you satisfy whatever rules the fleet imposes. But you can still use whatever provisions you have personally earned (assuming you have enough).
It's an idea, anyway.
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
The simplest fix for this is removal of rank access to anyone at leadership level from administrative options, you can still change ranks of lower level fleet members but once a member is promoted to leader their rank is untouchable. Maybe make it so nobody can change a leaders rank except themselves, that way they can demote themselves but another leader can't. This won't fix leaders from doing detrimental things to a fleet but at least it will prevent them from outright stealing the fleet by demoting other leaders.
Frankly, all of these plans are terrible and are a bald-faced agenda to impose your nanny-state-belief rulesystem on my nice and orderly fleet, and I reject them completely and utterly. Our fleet thrives on arbitrary lightning decisions and rearrangement.
WTH are you talking about?
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In game: Commadore_Bob; Joined Jul 2009; That post count + 20,000
Some time ago, Cryptic mentioned (in patch notes I think) that players being invited to fleets would be able to view a fleets basic information prior to joining. In recent fleet invitations I've received I haven't seen this option.
A series of 'warning flags' could be introduced. These would be displayed next to a fleets name in the fleet UI, fleet search UI, and the basic info displayed to players being invited to a fleet. Such warning flags could include;
- When a fleet has recently changed its name.
- The fleet has recently had a change in leadership.
- A fleet has recently demoted over X% of its members.
- A fleet has recently kicked more than X% of its members.
eBay uses a similar system with its members to warn when a member has performed actions which may be cause for concern. This system would serve as warning for both members within the fleet and those looking to join.Automated fleet mails could be sent to all members when certain actions occur such as those above, ensuring all fleet members are kept apprised of important fleet activity.
Commander, Starfleet Corps of Engineers • 7th Fleet
Commanding Officer, U.S.S. HEART OF OAK • NX-1759-B • Odyssey class Star Cruiser ( Lexington Tactical Configuration))
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I'm kind of thinking along the lines of unlocking item access somehow and doing away with the group provisioning projects. Once unlocked, always unlocked. Make provisioning projects an individual activity. The catch is that opens the door for fleet-jumping and makes the whole system crash around Cryptic's ears.
So the unlocks need to be tied to having been a member of a fleet that had access. As long as you are a member of that fleet, or were previously a member of that fleet and did not join another one, you unlock those provisioning projects in your own personal "Fleet Reputation".
If you join another fleet, you'd lose access to the provisioning projects you had and get the unlocks for your current fleet. So jumping around from fleet-to-fleet wouldn't gain you anything... you'd have to stay in (or out) long enough to start all of your projects. And you would still only be able to run so many projects at a time.
So "Fleet Reputation" would not be like normal Reputations, but simply a way to run personal provisioning projects.
From an economy perspective, the personal provisioning projects could be set up to sink currencies and materials proportionately so that Cryptic isn't really losing on the deal. In fact, it could help smaller fleets by allowing Cryptic to reduce the fleet project costs somewhat.
Fleet Marks, however, would need to stay about the same or even higher due to the need to generate Fleet Credits. Fleet Credits would then be used on the personal provisioning projects. This means that the only way to get Fleet Credits is to be a member of an active fleet. Stockpiles of Fleet Credits could be spent on provisioning projects regardless.
It's not perfect, but it goes further to protect access to fleet provisions than our current system does and it also creates a disincentive to engage in fleet-jumping.
Certainly fleets would need other protections against piracy, but something like this would help.
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It simply isn't practical to effectively automate this system. More to the point, it is almost certainly impractical to come in, halfway through, and impose a totally new system on top.
For example, the fleet I'm in has like 60 members at the highest rank (out of 240). This is almost certainly not optimal, and I don't personally like it, but that's the way it is and it seems fairly stable beyond that. Imposing an elaborate system of voting or shares would impose a structure that our membership has intentionally rejected (multiple times). It would be one thing if the fleet were designed that way from the ground up, but it isn't.
That being said, Cryptic has demonstrated consistently no interest whatsoever in actually adjudicating disputes (and for good reason, to be honest), and I don't expect that to change.
Part of the problem of now imposing additional structures atop what's already there is that it's difficult to decide who gets to set up those structures, based on the current system. Some fleets are dictatorial. Some are democratic. Some have only a nominal in-game structure and are managed from a forum or other out-of-game venue. Each of these organizations would respond differently. A dictatorial fleet might well object to having a voting system.
In a clean-slate world, I would suggest that fleets be organized on a 'share' system. Five members create a fleet, and each gets one share out of five. Each member has the power to give shares to another member, but owning a share and being a member are a one-way correlation (i.e., you can be a member and not own a share, but non-members cannot own shares). Shares allow a 'superset' control of the Fleet, based on simple majority voting. Everyone with a share gets a vote in proportion to that share. Number of shares would be public in the fleet roster. When you leave a fleet in which you own a share, you get to "cash it in" for a proportional share of fleet resources, and when you join a fleet, you can bring those resources with you to your new fleet. (how exactly this works would be more difficult to determine).
This would probably allow everyone to set up their fleets in the way they want, while not directly imposing any particular structure on anyone, as it doesn't change the basic fleet mechanics.
Two problems.
1. The coding would probably be elaborate and time consuming and to no significantly obvious benefit.
2. It would still be impractical to impose on a current fleet without pissing off a lot of people.
The only meaningful solution I can think of to (2) is basically to use the 'share carry' ability to move starbase elements and allow people to therefore reconstitute their fleets within the new system without losing anything, but man would this be tricky to establish effectively and I am not sure I can think of a good way to do it.
(i.e., for a very simplified example, Starbase Alpha has five members, A, B, C, D, and E; each has contributed roughly 20% of the resources to build the fleet up to Tier 3 and therefore gets a starting fraction of 20% of the total outstanding shares of Starbase Alpha. If Starbase Alpha is democratic, this is great and they can continue on that way. If A wants to take his bat and ball and go home to a dictatorial fleet, he can go create Starbase Beta with his 20% valuation. This is immediately sufficient to bump it up to, say, Tier 2; he can then invite B, C, D, and E to join him at Starbase Beta (for no shares). They all join, their contributions are subsumed into Starbase Beta, and Starbase Beta is essentially back where Starbase Alpha was but with A holding all the shares and having all the power, much like what was originally the case.)
This doesn't necessarily solve any problem. But it provides the tools to solve most problems, I think. If you're worried about one person taking over your fleet, split your shares among sufficient members that nobody has more than 50%. Nobody can go around and eject large numbers of high contributors without ruining their starbase- unless those contributors have agreed in advance not to be recognized. And so on.
Then for God's sake have the balls to live with your consequences without crying for someone else to come fix it.
Maybe this would happen less if there was less regulation and more accountability on the individuals who allow this to happen to their fleet.
I think we would have better, stronger fleets as a whole if it wasn't so common to just willy-nilly join fleets and be instantly be put in charge. There was a post in another thread where a person actual claimed to have a 400+ person fleet with open leadership roles they were willing to give a stranger.
Wonder if this is the guy now crying about losing his fleet now???!??!?:eek:
If you build something so important to you, learn to protect it. I am glad Cryptic does not interfere when someone willingly gives up power to his fleet.
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