Goodness Barbra, have you seen Constance since she changed departments from accounting? She's got biceps the size of her head now!
This RECRUITS! Is your typical resident of Red Sector: A MIXER! Note the illegal firearm in hand, the yellow staining of the sclera, the bits of DOG MEAT in between the teeth. And worst of all... THE STOLEN PRI PROPERTY IN HIS HANDS!
JOIN CORPORATE SECURITY TODAY! ARE YOU DOING YOUR PART?
This is a pretty radical proposal. What if, instead of simply having cloak and dagger intelligence officer style corporate agents, we had the ability to play the paramilitary might section of corporate security? And what if, playing one of those types of characters entailed semi-frequent, open combat against rival corporations, corporate assets and properties, in the warzone that is the mix? The final hypothetical I'll list is: What if gains and losses in corporate stocks were the result of successful campaigns, not just in media or PR, but also in tangible assets and losses?
I think this could be accomplished using quite a number of existing assets we already have. Reimbursements could be operated under the same budgetary codes, using the same terminals. A new ranking progression/job title progression could be added in parallel to Corpsec Agent. Perhaps use of 'old school' military ranks, the likes of which certain corporations use. I.E. PFC -> Corporal -> Gunny -> Sarge Major. Each rank has a pre-defined list of cyberware, weapons, armor and consumables they have access to, and reimbursement rights to those rank entitlements. Each rank has a pay and benefits schedule. All pre-defined and laid out. There's no questions as to who can reimburse what, when, how, where, etc.
Orders come down from each corporation's respective directors. There's been megacorp conflict sparking up around the globe and within the system, and it's sure to make it's way here soon. Guidlines have been drafted up at the council level to keep the city from descending into chaos.
(These are an example)
1) No open or armed conflicts on Green or Blue sectors, full stop. Full WJF purview as if you were an everyday citizen. Be prepared to do the time, if you're caught doing the crime.
2) Conflicts in Gold sector to be restricted to corporate sovereign soil exclusively. No chucking of weapons into or out of the buildings, no use of weapons in ways capable of endangering the public (keep the gunfire indoors, baka!) Kidnapping and non-lethals strongly encouraged. We're civilized people topside.
3) Open season on Red sector and outside city gates. Corporate shipping convoys, cargo drops and transports, personnel, assets, armed vehicles & IP are all valid targets. Capture or destruction of goods & personnel are valid.
4) Captured assets in the form of personnel can be held for data extraction no more than 24 hours from time of imprisonment. Assets can be ransomed or sold off internationally to the benefit of the 'winning' team.
5) Use of mixer forces, mixer body shields, contractors, PMC's and criminal enterprises is fully endorsed and encouraged so long as above rules are followed.
6) Employees lost to active operations in the mix are subject to reimbursement. Employees that are lost due to negligence or their own actions in the mix are not subject to reimbursement. All employees are subject to reimbursement of clones from any activity resulting in loss of life on Gold, Green or Blue.
PROPOSED BENEFITS:
-Immediate integration of mix and corporate players into domewide conflict.
-Corpsec escorts and transports actually being meaningful.
-Lowering of perception/reality of topside as the carebear zone.
-Exposing risk-adverse players who prefer topside to some level of risk in a themely way, 'gentle' way and in a manner in which they'll be 'taken care' of by parent corp.
-Potentially a way to stem the long-time issue of bored corpsec combat-specialized players ''falling'' to the mix and being able to punitively slap around a significant percentage of the existing playerbase.
-Significant boost in theme, specifically: Class warfare, utilization of all kinds of mixers, a significantly more open and direct method of moving flash around the economy between sectors.
-Addresses the issues that occasionally arise where significant amounts of 'combat' gear are sitting underutilized topside.
-Holy shit, logistics might actually be an awesome and important job.
-Way more potential RP for the WJF.
-Topside.. medic.. RP? Wha-wha-what game is this anymore?!
-Another system similar to the ganging system that allows people to break into red text and PVP without entirely paying out of pocket. (I see this as a pure win, ganging has been an all-star revamp.)
-More gear moving and changing hands.
-Blowing shit up is cool. Blowing up corporate property is extra cool.
-SIC and bedroom PVP gets old. Hiring solos to slap around mixers isn't fun for most parties involved. Addressing of spooky no-RP, no-reason-given necksnaps (You got gunned down in the street by VS goons, chum. Maybe shut up next time on SIC.)
PROPOSED DETRIMENTS:
-Less of a source of solo minded players. Often these characters have corporate or other topside organization history.
-People are going to be scared of getting killed by rival corporations at their job
-Staffing corpsec will be fairly important.
-More direct means of manipulating corpshare prices...? (Is this even an issue?)
-Logistics chain issues for topsiders. There's very few specialists that stick topside long-term. Possibly and added benefit of more evenly distributing business to active players vs. NPC's, though.
-Probably take some re-jiggering of existing systems, terminal wizardry.
-Corporate properties and holdings in the mix would need to be more clearly defined for all parties. Not every corporation currently has a stake in the mix with big glowing signs declaring it as such.
-Likely going to need some lift on the part of the build team. Some corporate properties aren't able to really be effectively secured very well against intrusion. Would need to either label corporate properties in the mix as such, or work on having one 'main' pvp location for each corporation.
-AH KNARRR! CARPIES INNA MIXXXXX! Likely going to be the initial kneejerk reactions for a bit until people get a bit more accustomed to fairly regular raids and skirmishes. Expect some growing pains similar to how the ganging rework took time to smooth out.
-NPC mobbing is going to have to be something addressed. Having 2-3 corpsec agents get into a fight with 2-3 other corpsec agents, or rival corporation friendly targets, only to have a piece of shrapnel or a stray bullet hit a NPC and ruin it for everyone would be an issue. Possibly an easy issue to fix w/ RP ala CODE OF DA MIX?
I'd love to hear feedback on this. We have the existing lore. We have the players and almost all of the systems in place. We have that sweet corporate loot and goodies sitting around, only collecting dust. We have a ton of kitted and specced out combat characters mostly idling topside.
Just a matter of seeing if this is something people would find exciting and engaging, and if staff would be on board with a fairly big shakeup to the long-since established 'way of things.'
P.S. Honest to god real, live corporate wars would be the single most cyberpunk thing I've ever seen in any games in our genre. You dudes got a cool X, Y, or Z, but Sindome? They got AV's and tanks rolling around blasting the piss out of each other, and the entire game invested in a unified conflict, brugh.