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I purpose that a system that could be set up to simulate the Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission. This system would allow House/Clan units and loyalists to offer contracts to any Merc unit willing to accept them.
In terms of gameplay I envision something along these lines. House/Clan A is having a good deal of trouble with House/Clan B. A's own forces are either unable (not enough manpower) or incapable (don't have the skill) to overcome B's forces. So they go to one of the Mercenary's Stars ( http://www.sarna.net...cenary%27s_Star ) and put out a contract for help.
There are 2 types of contract, unit specific or general. The unit specific are contracts offered to a particular unit for a variable amount of time and pay. Whereas the general is available to any unit that is willing to accept it and has a set payout and a one week length.
Once a unit specific contract is posted and accepted the funds earmarked from the House/Clan unit's coffers are then transferred to the coffers of the Merc unit in effect creating a signing bonus for the Merc unit. The House/Clan units gets to set amount of pay, and the lengths of the contract (except permanent). It would then be up to the Merc Unit commander to either accept the contract or not. Merc Units can still get their own contracts if they wish but would receive no signing bonus.
The MRBC should also be a listing of the all of the Merc units in the game and their current allegiances and remaining time left on their contracts. It should also give two ratings to each unit one based on win/lose ratio (number of worlds captured or lost for the House/Clan). A win or lost is only counted for worlds that a unit 's members have fought on. If the House's/Clan's units won or lost a world the Mercs shouldn't be rewarded/punished for actions that they took no part in.
The other rating is based on number of times a contract has been fully honored or broken. These ratings will help the House/Clans unit to determine the best amount of funds to offer in a particular unit contract. Or which units to avoid because of their losing record or disloyal natures.
Obviously the best units in terms of wins and loyalty will be able to command quite a large amount of funds. This might make some Units unattainable to poor a House/Clans Unit. The general contract would be cheap alternative by comparison because the maximum amount offered and length would be capped, and any unit not already under contract can accept them.
There are a few drawbacks. First and foremost as it stands right now is there is nothing to spend funds on. But I'm sure that is something the Devs will have worked out by the time phase 3 is live.
Second as of right now the Houses/Clans loyalist don't have a coffer to draw upon. Perhaps a central bank of sorts could be set up where X amount of funds are added to the coffer on some type of time schedule hourly/daily/weekly whatever, to be used for general contracts only. Or maybe the funds can be added based off what a loyalist earns per battle. For example if you earn 100,000 cbills in a drop 10% would go into the coffer these funds will not actually come out of your pay but would be generated by the server to fill that coffer.
The third and in all likelihood most problematic issue is who or what among the loyalist determines weather or not to offer a general contract. Maybe there will be a set amount of general contract a week. Or perhaps it could be based off number of worlds lost by a faction. If that faction is having a bad week more contracts are available, on a good week less.
Well that is most of my idea it is still a little rough and I'm sure could use of refinements. Let me know what you think, and as always I welcome your thoughts, comments, and recriminations.
Edited to fix some bad grammar.
Edited by Mao of DC, 18 December 2014 - 12:55 PM.
