Faction Spacecraft Lend/Lease

[ShadowOblivion]

Overview:
The player is granted the option to enter a contract with a faction for a starship or a large reward in exchange for fulfilling any and all missions that faction assigns to the player.

Explanation:
This feature would make it possible for a player to obtain a wider variety of starships earlier in the game, at the expense of fulfilling a large number of missions(20-30 or even more, depending on the starship used. the difficulty of the missions would gradually increase) and suffering and political infamy. The player locates a possession of a faction that has a large supply of ships, such as a Shipyard or a Trantor World and then enters into an agreement with the faction in which they allow the player to use the starship to run missions for them, or to pilot their craft in exchange for a monetary reward, perhaps. The player then receives that ship along with all of its equipment(unmodifiable except for repair or re-armament; whether the player would have to pay for this would be dependent on the agreement). The ships available to the player would also be dependent on the player's relations with the faction at the time of the making of the agreement. The ship that the player receives will have the markings of the Faction that gave it to the player, hence the player will often be tasked with eliminating the faction's enemies, and also become a target for the faction's enemies. This would make it much more difficult for the player to attempt to "run away" with the ship into alien territory. If the player does "run away" then the Lender Faction will place a large bounty on the player, and send a few fighters to retrieve the ship, or kill you. As the player fights for a faction, their relationships with other factions will have to change in order to accommodate the Lender Faction's missions(as a result of killing factions the player may ordinarily not touch), but every other faction will treat them as they would the Lender Faction. In order to resupply, the player would have to visit Lender Faction's bases or ships. The missions given to the player may need to be timed to enforce completion, and would depend on the type of the ship the player borrows(fighter vessel would garner more Bounty/Cleansweep missions while a merchant vessel would require heavy Cargo missions). Upon the completion of the missions the pilot would receive the starship that he has been piloting as a reward, if that was stipulated in the agreement.

Example(s):
A starting player makes a good relationship with the Confederation and visits a Shipyard. There he makes an agreement with the Confederation for a Pacifier. The Confederation gives the player the Pacifier and a Mission. Upon the completion of the first mission, the player is given another, and another, up to twenty or thirty, which the player must complete without losing the spacecraft. Upon the completion of these missions the player will notice large negative relationships with the factions he had to fight for the Confederation, but also receives the Pacifier he wanted.

[MC707]

Sounds like a good idea to me. However, ships available to these lease contracts should have a limit, definitely. For instance, a Goddard would definitely be an overkill, as would a Clydesdale. Plus, it would cut the lifespan of a career (campaign, SP game, you call it ), since getting ships would be plain easier...

If the player does "run away" then the Lender Faction will place a large bounty on the player, and send a few fighters to retrieve the ship, or kill you.

Retrieve the ship? Yep, nice step. Kill you? Only if the kill is done while you are in the concourse of a base. Destroying the ship would beat the purpose of the lease... thus, there currently are weapons available for neutralizing the ship, so it can then be tractored and finally have the ship retrieved and the pilot (you!) sold to slavery! xD Unfortunately, current neutralizing weapons are completely and utterly useless IIRC. They need to be fixed.