I wish rebelling against Empire was a viable game path

[eugeneb]

Currently siding with Empire gives you powerful permits and a reliable source of psylinks that are not for sale otherwise. Opposing the Empire, however, removes all that and gives you nothing in return, making a join-vs-oppose dilemma a no brainer.

I wish this was balanced better and there were some incentives to oppose them. Perhaps fighting empire makes pirates friendly and Empire essentially becomes the new pirates for you? And then pirates have black marker of psylinks and other goodies which you can use to quickly level up psylinks with cash as opposed to bother with honor and stuff. Which obviously would come at the price of powerful raids from Empire. Another way to balance it a bit could be making the tribute collector an actual tribute collector. It always puzzled me a lot that scary-sounding "imperial tribute collector" just hangs around begging for a donation and then leaves empty handed.

[kclace]

I think what really needs to happen is to have a second faction that allows you to attain ascendancy through the Royalty Mechanics. Then make the Empire and the other faction diametrically opposed to each other. This could be a new modded faction or just implementing royalty ascendancy mechanics for an existing faction.

The only MOD I've seen that pulled this off was MegaCorp but we at least know that it's possible. Modders, you have been challenged!

I came out with a fun Custom Scenario on Steamworkshop called Insurgents. Combine that with some cool mods like preemptive strike and suicide vest and you can have a good playthrough fighting the empire even if you cant get ascendancy.

[eugeneb]

Yeah, another faction with its own lore and flavor could be an excellent solution too. Not sure what it would be - maybe some luddites rebelling against Empire's technology, or an archotech AI who led to the demise of Empire and who keeps hunting them down (would explain all the mech action going on too!), or plain old pirates opposing all the honor and order nonsense. I think anything can work really, as long as it fits into RW lore well, and gives you access to psylinks and all the usual stuff if you fight Empire.

[AileTheAlien]

I think a pirate faction would work; Either re-using one of the existing ones or making a new one. If you're enemies with the empire, then there should be some quests to hunt down small caravans which are carrying psylinks, or raiding some supply-depot or warehouse, that has them in a vault. They could give you different permits too, like calling in supply-drops of stolen medicine, drugs, or guns.

[Canute]

Pirate faction wouldn't work well, since you never can neutral with them. So you still have no source of Psy technology.
A rebell faction would work much better. A counter to destroy the empire and turn it into a something else. With own special quest to harm the empire or support the rebells.

[eugeneb]

Yeah, the way pirates are implemented right now, it definitely won't work but this can also be changed. Gameplay-wise pirates seem to serve the purpose of making sure you always have a high-tech enemy. If they were made into the opposite of Empire where allying one of them guarantees that the other side hates and starts raiding you, that would serve the purpose pretty well IMO. It can also be made into two fun non-symmetrical choices where Empire is honor, order and slow grind of doing quests to advance in rank; and pirates would be more of anarchy and yolo advancement (sell a bunch of slaves, buy a bunch of psylinks on black market, upgrade everyone to max level, get punched back by Imperials in power armor, raid their caravan, run away from reinforcements arriving in shuttles, etc.).

Rebels would work well too, my only concern that this adds a new "entity" and I don't know if this will end up as a soup of random factions with lore and flavor getting lost. While pirates are already there and can be repurposed into rebels (rebelling against law). And we also have mechs - we don't know if it's just this planet or it's normal that murderous mechs are constantly raining down from the sky. And this could also be repurposed by alluding that they have something to do with the fall of this planet or even the fall of the Empire. And remember that the whole psy thing has something to do with archotechs so it's a chance to expand on this further and give them a reason to hunt Empire, where they ally with you to simply divide and conquer, in the meantime tempting you with psylinks and archotech body parts.

[dearmad]

Outlier here, but I appreciate the fact that there's a path that isn't equal, but more free than "belonging" to the Empire. Not all things are equal, and the different manner of play it demands is something I like.

Not taking away from a possible 4th path as you all are describing above, but right now I like the stripped down, sort of rogue screw the Empire path as an option.

[kclace]

I hear you man. I really enjoy playing as rough outlanders or even pirate types, just moving from place to place looting and killing stuff. , not bothering to research technology. I guess the dissatisfaction comes from not having to leave the planet to "win."

[dearmad]

I hear you man. I really enjoy playing as rough outlanders or even pirate types, just moving from place to place looting and killing stuff. , not bothering to research technology. I guess the dissatisfaction comes from not having to leave the planet to "win."

Now we're talking!

New win scenarios beyond what we have? I am totally for that!  Would be cool if there was a way to endgame by becoming some sort of Bandit King of the Planet, or luring in the Stellarch and murdering him, or ransacking the Stellarch palace that is on your world- like it's across the other side of the planet, and is a set-piece (with some randomness to it) set up of a massively defended palace. Maybe even with one map being the above ground, and then a transport area where you steal shuttles to go board and attack his ship in orbit in terrifying close combat with wall breaches leading to spacing people.

Or murdering some other arch nemesis of yours who is very very close to the Emperor, so you have to somehow get in close without alarming everyone, and kill him without others seeing- maybe this gets you the info you need to locate the final Stellarch palace you're gonna tack out. IDK- those scenarios would be totally cool to me.

Or just cornering the Luciferum (sp) market by eliminating a group of crime lords who produce it on your world, while you have to significantly produce it in large quantities, or the Empire comes down on your ass for not supplying them (the way to produce L would be only available to you as you decided to go the Rogue route...)

[kclace]

It's possible with Modding. Just check out MegaCorp MOD and you will see a new way to win. Corporate Ascendancy.

I'm hoping we see some other similar MODS in the future.

[dearmad]

that looks really cool, except nothing for 1.2? which means when the next patch comes out it will likely break. I'm personally maintaining about5 mods for my personal use... I don't want to adopt any more.