Contractors explained, kinda

[WeGotDeathStar]

There has seemed to be quite a stir as of late with a alleged contract bug. I don't think there is one as from talking to toonces his system works exactly as he designed it to.

But the confusion starts when you have third party mutual contractors involved.

Here is the scenario...Player A and Player B do not like each other, the both have corps that do not have any contracts directly between Player A and Player A.
But if player A and player B are contracted both to Player C's corp then they become contracted inadvertently as do all the other players on Player C's corp contract list. It will always assumed that all players involved are members of a corporation.

Now when Player A and Player B's corpies are corped with Player C's corp then sometimes Player A and Player B become also become corped even thou they do not wish to be. What can happen is a players lasers may shoot at Player A but Not Player B and Player A will be yellow to Player B but Player A will be blue to Player B. This creates a problem when a conflict arises and in a life and death situation Player A will clear his entire corp contract list in hopes of Player B turning yellow to him. Doesn't always work out that way because of cross contracts between other corps Player A and Player B may be contracted to.

Also when a corpie of Player A and Player B are also contracted to a third party mutual corp the same phenomenon may occur again. The only way to solve this in a life or death situation is to clear all of Player A's contract list in hopes of engaging Player B in battle. But again sometimes Player A may still be blue to Player B but on the flip side the opposite occurs.

In a space battle it is not time efficient and contour productive to start looking at your show my employers box to figure out why your opponent is blue to you when you wish to kill him. Fastest way to solve this is to clear all contracts in your own corp but again it doesn't always work because of cross contracts with third party mutual corps.

Now when you start having a fourth party and fifth party mutual corp then things start to really get messed up.

Just because Player A is contracted with Player B's corp does not not mean that the two corps lasers will be friendly to everyone in the corp as per toonces design. That was his original intention but when mutual third and fourth party corp contractors are contracted things get confusing for everyone.

All I have seen is if Player A and Player B are directly contracted then lasers will be friendly to them and they will be both blue to each other while both being able to land on others colonies. When other members of Player A and Player B's corp become involved in a conflict or if they want to invade with each other then space lasers will shoot at corpies and they will not always be blue to each other. Again when you have a third party mutual corp that Player A and Player A are contracted to then a unintentional consequence occurs. If Player A and Player B are contracted to Player C's mutual corp and a member of Player A or Player B's corp is also contracted to Player C's mutual corp then everyone that is on Player C's mutual corp become contracted inadvertently.


I have explained this the best I can, anyone else that can further clear this up please speak up on this matter.

[River:]

Works for me...

[LordSturm]

I thought people knew this already... Guess not

[Henry]

Should be a /friendlyfire command that uses the same toggling abilities as /ignore

/friendlyfire Player A
Player A can now be hit by your weapons
/friendlyfire
Friendlies who you have registered as targets are: Player A
/friendlyfire Player A
Player A is now safe from your weapons

[Toonces]

I think that would still be complicated, Henry, and i'm not too keen on adding too many more /commands at the moment.

My proposal to help with the confusion is a two-part proposal:

#1: List on player profiles, publicly, the corporations they are employed as contractors by. If you are affiliated with this corp two, it can be highlighted in blue.

#2: Allow corporations to have NAP agreements with other corporations, thus allying all members of corp 1 with all members of corp 2 a priori.

Will that help and is it enough?

[omlow]

why not simplify? why not make it so that the only people that are blue to corp A are members of the corp, individuals that are currently contracted to the corp, and all members of any corps that a member of corp A is contracted too. perhaps even simplify it more than that.

and give CEOs or possibly all members of a corp an "uncontract all" button, that simply un-contracts all contractors of corp A, and un-contracts all members of corp A from any corps that they were contracted too.

[Toonces]

if i did something like that you wouldn't be able to contract both person A and person B to your corp without having A be enemy to B.

anyways, i think you'll like the two solutions i mentioned above.

[Manilla]

The situation that caused the problem is as such.

Corp A was contracted to Corp B,
Corp C was contracted to Corp B,
Corp A and Corp C went to war,
Corp C's defenses would ignore a portion of Corp A's members due to sub contracting

Sub contracting elaborated -
When one corp contracts another it creates a peace between then. when two corps contract the same third corp they also share a certain peace.


i've used this system multiple times to create large alliances through the contracting of CEOs.

If i as the ceo contract into corp B, and the CEO of corp C contract to Corp B. Both Corp C and my corp share a peace and can not fire on ANY members of eachothers corps, however if the contracting is meerely done by a member only each individual member that is sub contracted is immune


Short version

Dragonz was not the one who contracted so he was still hostile, but his lasers were read as CORPORATE lasers which reverted to his member's contracts list who were subcontracted to some of the players that attacked him.


i agree with adding a remove all contracts button, as the CEO it is by all means your authority who your corp has relations with. but i want the sub-contracting emchanic to remain as it allows up top at least 15 corps to form a non-firing function between all their members at once.

[teyla]

i agree with toonces

[phantomdan]

"#2: Allow corporations to have NAP agreements with other corporations, thus allying all members of corp 1 with all members of corp 2 a priority"

I think this option would be great.

[Toonces]

No, manilla. Corps don't contract to other corps. The contractor relationship exists only between an individual and a corporation. That is why the NAP is proposed for the case of entire corps wanting to band together. I'm working on it, please be patient...