Nanite Systems mercenaries

Occasionally, the tides of war on Auraxis threatens Nanite System's business growth. Should either of the empires become too powerful, they will risk conquering the others. That would hurt Nanite System's bottom line, as market demand for warfare technology will plummet. To prevent this from happening, Nanite Systems may decide to pour a little gasoline on the fire, by deploying mercenaries supporting a challenged empire, ensuring a continuing war.

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I think it would be a nice way to address imbalance, to create a 4th faction, Nanite Systems. The difference is that whenever a player belonging to this faction logs into the game, they will be aligned with the empire with the least players currently online. So one day a NS merc may fight for TR, and another maybe for Vanu, depending on how the population fluctuates. Nanite Systems mercenaries will not have empire-specific weapons and vehicles, but will have access to Nanite Systems advanced prototypes that will aid them in battle.

(I've seen various ideas on this subject, so pls don't shoot me if someone else already has presented this idea.)

Errr we already have 4th faction.

I think you've misread OP (or I've misread your post).
He's not talking about the people who join the faction with the highest pop, but a new faction altoghether.

I like the idea, and not being able to use ES weapons/vehicles but NS weps/vehicles would be a lot of fun IMO.
I'm guessing each time you "switch" to the lowest faction all of your previous weps (that you've bought) will switch with you, but would those weps include the character-wide unlocks too? (NS7 PDW and the new NS wep coming out)

they usually join strongest faction and even fuel imbalance even further.

This sounds good on paper but I have no idea how to put it in practice.

You mean something akin to the black ops from PS1, just having them side with one faction.
How would they be chosen?

Agree .. First thing that comes to mind is why ? .. Why would players want to switch ? A lot play the over pop'd faction maybe because it is overpop'd. So would maybe need some kind of incentive for them to do so ..

I would do it if my faction is overpopulated because joining merc I can get more intense fights without need to go onther server and maybe get certs there ?

I would do it just for the thrill...and maybe wanting to kill some of my outfitmates in the process...I swear the latter is just a mild incentive...really...

Not my original idea/thread, but this is how I believe it would work:

If Sony's developers had a lot of time (or spare ideas/models) I could see it being a whole new faction that only uses "NS" weapons. In character screen the toon would have the NS symbol as it's respective logo, and when logging in, you would join the faction with the least amount of players.
Of course, since the player is basically joining the "loosing" faction, an incentive would be nice (+5% experience or something of that nature).

Sony may re-use the current NS weapons and add in whatever they need. Of course, making new weapons is easier said than done, but I'm fairly certain that they have a few models that they would like to encorporate into the game. With the incentive of 5% more experience, a lot of new players would create a NS toon which would help balance the population.

The toon wouldn't be able to use any empire-specific weaponry, nor would any non-NS toon be able to use the "new" NS weaponry (the "old" NS weaponry being the NS7 PDW and such). Since the toon is only using their 'mecrenary' weapons, there would be no need for resets when the toon switches factions; items simply carry over. The toon would appear like the faction that they are currently with, the only difference being their NS weapons.

A 4th faction to combat the 4th faction.

It's almost poetic xD.

All it need is simple system to control how many mercs can join underpopulated faction and it could really work.

No ty, this was suggested not long ago last time.

Try to have somesort of faction "Loyalty" while rocking an official 4th faction member.

Mind aswell just wipe all factions and just have 3 sides, red&blue&purple with same gear on each.




Talk about intrest killer. 4th faction is allready a problem so definetly dont try to embrace it.

There is that too there is no need to have it first place. But damn I like idea of RedVsBlueVsPurlpe

We're not talking about people who join the largest population, nor are we talking about having people simply automatically join the lowest population. "Loyalty" should be placed second to the quality of the game (and truth be told, a lot of people have alts and play on other factions, I may even go as far as to say that most people don't truly feel dedicated to one faction, though of course I may be wrong).

The premise makes sense, and we're not letting people try or even use every faction's weapons.

Basically, we're talking about making a whole new faction, a new "side" if you will. This new side will help balance the player population.

I'm not sure how many players would be willing to join a faction that forces them to continuously switch sides depending on population.

What if instead NS hired people with contracts from all 3 factions, and paid them (with certs) for temporarily fighting for another faction? When you are part of an overpopulated faction sometimes a little message could pop up and say something like:

"Hello soldier. Would you like to earn some easy certifications? We can give you 50 cert points every half hour if you do us a little favour. Accept [Y] this contract and we will give you some of our prototype gear and send you off to fight for the [name of underpopulated faction here]. For every 30 minutes you fight for them, we will immediately add 50 certification points to your account, and you will also be able to keep the experience and certs you make on the battlefield. Don't worry about betrayal, when you don't feel like fighting for us anymore, just head to your menu and click the "Exit Mercenary Mission" button. We will send you right back to your faction, rewrite some of your battle data, and it will be like your little service for us never took place. Of course, we also reserve the right to send you back when we don't need you anymore, but don't worry. Nobody will ever know.

50 cert points for every half-hour.

Think about it, [player name here].

Your friend,
Nanite Systems.

PRESS [Y] TO ACCEPT OR [N] TO DECLINE."

Make them earn double XP and the earned certs transferable to your main character.

I think there's a lot less 4th factioning then people think. Sometimes people just get fed up and quit or migrate.

We have
-NS Assault Rifle
-NS Carbine
-NS Pistol(s)
-NS LMG
-NS SMG
-NS Dumbfire
-NS Lockon
We get
-NS Sniper
-NS SMG 2
We don't have
-NS Shotgun
->they are all clones anyway, so we just need a NS model. the same actually aplies to snipers

and if you look at the vehicles: NS basicly relies on Air superiority by killing enemy Air vehicles trough ground based weapons (Skyguard&Burster/No A2A Fighter) and then brings the pain from above (Liberator&Galaxy/ No 'Heavy tank')

If i look at that, NS already is the most unique faction in the game

I like this idea a lot. A separate character which uses NS weapons but otherwise the certs are the same.

One issue, is that it will be difficult to support outfits for the NS mercs, assuming that mercs are "assigned" to support the lowest population empire at login. So the consequence could be, that different members of the same outfit are assigned to different empires and thus, end up fighting each other.

Then again, that can very well happen to mercenaries.