Beep Boop. Hello fellow sandeaters and fleshies, today I wanted to talk again about NSO. But not about weapons, like in my last posts, but Outfits. After reporting a little bug involving NSO using Outfit resources while freelancing, a fellow NSO lover reached out to me to voice their displeasure about potentially losing access to outfit fun should the bugfix come to pass. And so I got to my little drawing board to figure out, how NSO could get their own special outfits to accommodate their unique role within the game. First let's examine the case for NSO outfits just being a mirror of regular outfits. Obviously given the resource system and attached assets, especially orbitals and bastion, it is obvious that a group able to play all sides for maximum resource gain could very well upset the balance of a continents population. It would also make NSO outside the faction specific weapons the most versatile and possible also most desired "faction" to play as. At the very least regular outfits would probably be very miffed about disloyal robots stealing their glory on the battlefield and having to stare at facilities on two or even three sides held by the same outfit. With that out of the way, let's build something more fitting the NSO role. Basics What was the primary function of an outfit? I would say coordination. It is incredible easy to form a squad by just pressing "Invite Outfit members" rather than having to manage your friend list or look each other up in game while coordinating on a secondary platform like TS or Discord. Of course NSO being able to be spread across three factions due to bound and freelancing operatives, makes it a bit tricky. There are two matters which must be solved here: Outfit Communication. Information is key and playing both sides is always a risk with NSO. This is already reflected with freelancers in a regular outfit, who lose access to chat outside their home faction. Now given the rise of external communication tools, it could be argued that such a ban is already ineffective. If we wanted to bother anyway, the best solution would be to mute any operative outside the sanctuary and VR area, so they can still read/listen but cannot relay information back. Squad Creation. Nothing would be more annoying than creating a squad in sanctuary and then have it ripped apart during the warp process. To resolve the issue, the easiest solution would be to disable invite outfit members for anyone not currently deployed on a continent. From what I've seen, invite all already accounts for NSO characters in every other regard. By design NSO outfits should be only available to NSO characters. Though a case could be made for subscribers to be able to join with faction characters, much like an NSO can choose a home faction to join regular outfits. Such character would always be locked out of outfit provided resources. Gameplay Okay with out of the way, let's get to the meat. Since normal outfits get fancy toys to play with, it should only be fair to give something to NSO only outfits. For that we need to solve two issues: Gaining "resources" and what to use them for. NSO at their core are meant to be a supportive faction, reflected by their default freelance mode. Thus it wouldn't feel right to have them be able to capture bases for themselves to generate resources. On the other hand only getting the single tick for captures would make farming them tedious. I played with different scenarios like being able to get the base capture, but automatically handing it off to the top faction outfit in exchange for a wad of resource ticks, but in the end each had various flaws, beginning with that how normal NSO distribution works, they might always fight rather defensively with a pop disadvantage and whatnot, which in turn would make any farming by aggression tedious. At this point, I put the matter of resource generation aside and looked at potential use cases, to get a better understanding of the problem. Again NSO is meant to be a support for their faction. So instead of something like an orbital strike, they should be brining tech to the battlefield. Right now that would be the anvil, citadel shield and modules. We shall leave those to regular outfits and see other tactical tools. Here is a short but not comprehensive list of possible ideas: The Jump Booster from Siren's call. Basically a way for infantry to mount assault on unusual and new angles. Equipment Printer. Basically a bigger version of the engineer's ammunition package, that acts like a resupply terminal, only it doesn't allow for a max to be pulled and has a limited amount of uses. I imagine this useful during a longer pointhold on the offense, when sunderers and terminals are far away and revive grenades go low or you need to quickly adapt to a new strategy of the enemy. Mini-Javelin. The equivalent to the Flash-XS1 only being a javelin with a single seat and maybe no weapon. They still are great cover and can also boost fly/jump to opportune locations. Special Tool Crates. These would come in several variants and basically would allow character's to pull one type of an already existing tools, like anti-vehicle mines or hard light barriers. Basically quickly allow in field setup without the need of a sunderer to resupply. Repair Drone. See the repair drone from expired content. But this time it can be set down like a deployable with an exclusion zone to stop over stacking them. And no longer exclusive to an engineer, so everyone can support their friendly max in a pinch. Wasp Prototype. Since construction is meant to place a bigger role and this being Nanite System's development, it only make sense this makes a return. I mean it can also refuel colossuses, so even more support. Repair/Ammo Buoy. These two items use the logic and model of the expired Buoy's but with a limited lifetime and not tied to a air vehicle loadout. Basically an emergency resupply/repair option if the relevant supply vehicle(sunderer/galaxy) was lost. Activation should provide an indicator much like an anvil, to prevent stealth resupplies. Aside from the Wasp Prototype, the trend with all these items is that they are some sort deployable, similar to the ordonnance damper or sky shield. When it hit me: Tactical Equipment usually consumes merit, merit is gained by participation of an operation. It can be gained during a defensive and then be expended to aid a push. It allows even a splintered NSO outfit to enjoy the fruits of their labour since it is a personal resource. And we don't steal the glory of an faction outfit for the capture. In short the perfect already existing compromise. Of course their price would be slightly higher than regular merit objects to avoid spamming them given the value of some of these, but that is a simple number crunch. Given that aside from the crate and printer all none code assets already exist, this should also cut down development time dramatically. Extras Okay this were my main points, here some random ideas, that have been floating around and could be also implemented, but are not 100% ready/balanced IMO. Common Merit Pool. Basically if NSO fight for the faction they would have been allocated to as freelancers, their participation in captures provide the outfit with a a tick of resources like a regular outfit. Only these maybe automatically get translated to merits. So 1x Green = 5 Merit, 1x Blue = 10, 1x Purple=20 merit for example. From these merits the various items can be crafted up to a certain weight limit. When an NSO enters the fray, they are supplied with outfit resources before their own merits are used, provided they have permissions to do so. Modified Vehicles. Similar to the Wasp, modified versions of existing vehicles drawn with merits with a logistic focus in mind. Amor Colum Sunderer. This sunderer comes without an AMS, but has the Proximity Repair and Ammo Dispenser upgrade preinstalled using the operatives highest available version of the two. The ideal vehicle to support other outfits colossus or amor column. Supply Harasser. A harasser without a weapon or rumble seat but instead can deploy to be used as a terminal to resupply as infantry with Max Spawn being disabled. This is an alternative to the ammo crate proposed above, which also should make abuse in infantry focused facilities less possible. Superior Logistics Galaxy. This galaxy lacks its top gun, but has an advanced version of the squad logistics, allowing platoon members to join. Basically allowing a single galaxy to provide a forward facing spawn option to a large group of soldiers. Synergy with Anvils. If the modified vehicles become a thing, allow NSO to pull those version from appropriate anvils. Just to make working together between NSO and regular Outfit more rewarding. Sweeper Asset. A war asset using the common merit pool and crafting. Call on a facility to provide location of any vehicle without stealth module for 5-10 seconds as well as all max units and a single blip for moving infantry (like motion spotter). Has a 2-3 second warning time to give infantry the ability to freeze and avoid detection. Very low capacity with long crafting time, the NS equivalent to an orbital strike for "information warfare". Final Thoughts Alright this has been a ton of research into old ps2 content, sorting out ideas and putting it out in writing. So if you made it this far thank you. Much like NSO are but a side faction, they cannot of course be developer focus. As such I tried to limit the overall workload as much as possible, by using already existing systems and assets and simply cramped them into a new perspective. I hope my point about making NSO outfits a tool to further sharpen their overall support idea came across. If I had to look at the negatives, I guess the biggest would be the question of why NSO shouldn't group up into one zerg outfit. Sadly outside of some sort of leaderboard to encourage competition, I cannot really think of a good solution here, but if implemented it can only be improved upon in my oppinion.
