PMC Campaign Ideas Thread - Vector Thrust

Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries-style campaign, why not?
-You start with a low-tier NATO/Pact lowest tier unit (depends on your pilot's 'origin'/hometown), lowest mercenary rank and limited amount of cash
-World map exists, and it'll take time to travel into other part of the world. Once you accept a contract, you need to travel into specific point to start the campaign (obviously not free).
-Later you could relocate your main base, or even buy your own aircraft carrier or airborne fortress thing (so that you can deploy your own carrier/airborne fortress during battle, but they're obviously not invincible and once you lose it, you lose it forever).
-Missions are represented as contracts (a contract could have more than one mission) from different factions, completing a contract will raise reputation towards respective faction and sometimes lowers reputation towards hostile faction
-Some contracts will give you free repair & resupply
-You can also gain reputation/notoriety towards other existing PMC group (makes them either rival or ally)
-Aside that there's madatory morality points (also known as nobility/infamy points in Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries), will affect what people will talk about you and your team, as well as your relation with other factions (i.e some faction loves ruthless, merciless, highly sadistic mercenaries and will give you special missions for that). Using WMDs and killing civilians will obviously drop morality point like a rock.
-As you progress, you can hire crews (flight crews to make repair faster, wingmen, or even engineers and scientists to help 'salvaging' and 'researching' new stuff, etc) and buy stuff either from legit source/corporation or black market (for cheaper price, but sorta questionable quality/reduced stats). Keep buying stuff from certain corporation will eventually make them your sponsor (and give you access to exclusive weapons/parts and special missions).
-However, in case a faction want you to blow some corporate's facilities, the respective corporation won't offer you their products anymore.
-Wingmen's death are permadeath (not 100% chance though, they still could eject) but you still can afford the new ones (albeit you can't save dead wingman's EXP obviously)
-New planes & gears (including tuning parts) are unlocked as you increase your mercenary rank
-Your goal is to expand your PMC business for 4 years timeline (a contract could take minimum one month, but everything's adjustable before you start the campaign). After 4 years passed, a world war erupts and you must either join forces with a faction with highest reputation or fight independently. This could lead into various different endings depend on what side you're on in the end.
-Otherwise there's endless mode whether either world war never happens or you can still continue your career after the world war.

More explaination coming soon.

Edited by: Nergal01

I like how the goal is the business and not the actual wars.

This more close to a PMC manager than anything else. But it would be ever cooler if the campaign started as chronologically early as possible so the player had to adapt to the evolution of weapons. (for example something like a hundred year range: 1940-2040)

But as usual, I have a couple of questions:
-it is possible to break contract? If yes, what is the cost?
-it will be possible not to participate in the mission itself?
-there will be diplomacy?
-It will be possible to make contracts not publicly known? If yes, it will be possible to make hidden contracts with opposing parties?
-is reputation relevant?
-there will be other PMC groups?

For now I think is everything, but I’m sure I’ll have more questions latter.

timeSymmetry wrote: I like how the goal is the business and not the actual wars.

This more close to a PMC manager than anything else. But it would be ever cooler if the campaign started as chronologically early as possible so the player had to adapt to the evolution of weapons. (for example something like a hundred year range: 1940-2040)

But as usual, I have a couple of questions:
-it is possible to break contract? If yes, what is the cost?
-it will be possible not to participate in the mission itself?
-there will be diplomacy?
-It will be possible to make contracts not publicly known? If yes, it will be possible to make hidden contracts with opposing parties?
-is reputation relevant?
-there will be other PMC groups?

For now I think is everything, but I’m sure I’ll have more questions latter.

There *should* be an option to choose starting era (moreover, you should be able to keep your starting plane, so that even if you start with a prop plane, you can still keep it for next decades. Heh heh)

-it is possible to break contract? If yes, what is the cost? - obviously you can abort current contract, with some penalty on reputation but you still get bounty rewards (but not contract reward)
-it will be possible not to participate in the mission itself? - yes, even if you're a PMC manager you still have to participate in missions, as well as coordinate your crew's actions
-there will be diplomacy? - should be yes, on the other side you can even bribe factions for quick-reputation fix
-It will be possible to make contracts not publicly known? If yes, it will be possible to make hidden contracts with opposing parties? - These kind of contracts will be secret missions that only can be accessed when you fulfill specific requirements. Also some could occur randomly. For accepting contract from opposing forces, of course you can, but that'll obviously severely lowers reputation with the respective faction, and even makes some faction-specific contracts unavailable permanently.
-is reputation relevant? - it will decide which side you can join/align with in the final battles, and some factions have special contracts and even special rewards (parts/planes/weapons/crew/whatever you name it)
-there will be other PMC groups? - sure, I've stated it before. They could be your ally or rival depending on your actions

Edited by: Nergal01

Something like this (though not nearly as in depth with regards to the business/management aspects of it) is in the development stages. Sort of.

Would be cool if once you make enough money you can start influencing the political landscape to benefit your PMC. You could do things like buy elections (the new president would offer you more jobs, and probably some other perks...maybe even a cabinet position if it's your home country), commit industrial espionage, start wars between countries, and more.

Missions wouldn't have to be done for money. Certain missions could be done for equipment or under-the-table favors. Imagine a scenario like this:
An advanced fighter beloning to country A is shot down and wreckage has found its way to an embassy belonging to country B. The government of country A doesnt want B to study the wreckage but doesn't want to cause an internation incident, so they ask you to bomb the embassy (located in country C, think of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia). In return, country A's intelligence services will discredit a human rights org that has been giving you bad press.

If you're feeling ambitious you could also simulate a basic commodities market, since many wars are really about taking resources and land by force. Prices and changes in price of resources could start wars between countries, no scripting rquired

If you have multiple victory conditions (like a really dystopic version of sid meier's civilization) you could give your PMC a hidden agenda beyond profit-you could:

Become a superpower's shadow government through political fraud, assasinations, or lending them a bunch of money.
Orchestrate (and personally spearhead) a coup in some third world hellhole and become the legitimate government. (Bonus if the country has nuclear weapons)
Become eco terrorists and win the game by reducing the world's population to half a billion (or whatever it says on the georgia guidestone). There are many ways to reduce the population, some more visible than others.
Use industrial espionage and boatloads of cash to start your own space program, win by completing a manned mission to the moon. (and rent out your spy satellites until then)
Or just use buyouts, political clout, and dogfights to monopolize the PMC industry. There could be lots of fun ways to win besides just making a bunch of money (although OP's idea would probably support setpiece battles better since it's not as dynamic.)

bornloser wrote:
If you're feeling ambitious you could also simulate a basic commodities market, since many wars are really about taking resources and land by force. Prices and changes in price of resources could start wars between countries, no scripting rquired

If you have multiple victory conditions (like a really dystopic version of sid meier's civilization) you could give your PMC a hidden agenda beyond profit-you could:

Become a superpower's shadow government through political fraud, assasinations, or lending them a bunch of money.
Orchestrate (and personally spearhead) a coup in some third world hellhole and become the legitimate government. (Bonus if the country has nuclear weapons)
Become eco terrorists and win the game by reducing the world's population to half a billion (or whatever it says on the georgia guidestone). There are many ways to reduce the population, some more visible than others.
Use industrial espionage and boatloads of cash to start your own space program, win by completing a manned mission to the moon. (and rent out your spy satellites until then)
Or just use buyouts, political clout, and dogfights to monopolize the PMC industry. There could be lots of fun ways to win besides just making a bunch of money (although OP's idea would probably support setpiece battles better since it's not as dynamic.)

Moreover I'd like to see a 'global PMC domination' ending where the world is no more ruled by government, as your PMC took over the world (sounds familiar?). Well, perhaps by having a significantly larger force than the existing most dominating superpower nation (and elimiate/make them surrender), defeated every other rival PMCs, or something lke that.

And for lulz, there should be random events too, like...
alien invasion? Where you could eventually unite the world under your banner to fight back the aliens, or do some shady deals with first world countries to perform research/testing on captured alien technology so that you and your forces could use it?

Edited by: Nergal01

These are all interesting ideas, but for what is in development now, the PMCs won't be taking over the world. They will be a part of it, but they won't be running it.

I wasn't really thinking "take over the world" so much as simply "transcend beyond being just a private army." That's where I got the idea for a PMC-run space program.

But if you don't want to do that there's still some ways to increase the variety of missions. Once helicopters are implemented you could fly them in disaster-relief missions to get good press. These missions could have mutually exclusive objectives. Will you prioritize high-value objectives (like saving VIPs) that get you the most media-exposure, or just try to rescue as many people as possible?

I discovered this proposed solution for the constrained budget of the post-sequester US military. Apparently, contractors are proposing a fee for use model for UAVs, instead of outright purchase. It'd be interesting if the PMCs rented their aircraft from companies in a like manner. I imagine that this could also result in an insurance premium (from a separate insurance company) that is modulated based on multiple factors, such as casualties within the PMC, cost of the units lost, etc. You get through missions successfully, with few casualties, you get better rates for insurance. You lose too many aircraft, the rates go up. You buy better insurance, you cover less of the total cost of the aircraft when it is destroyed, vice versa.

Also, I found this article about private sector aggressor squadrons, which would probably be a pretty easy route for the evolution of a private company into a mercenary air force.

If you were playing as a n aggressor squadron, how would the game determine whether you had fulfilled your contract? what would make your employers deem the training exercise satisfactory?

I guess it's that the lineage of airborne PMCs would probably point to aggressor squadrons as their roots, not that they'd be introduced to the game beginning as such... though it could make for some interesting missions. I guess it'd be to fly like the enemy when engaging the training fighters. For example, I'm pretty sure that Russian air combat doctrine advocates rippling BVR missiles, and has pretty cut and dry responses to various scenarios. When simulating a modern high end US fighter, it'd probably be conservative missile use, especially for 5th generation airframes. For older generations of US aircraft, like the F-4, you'd probably go back to ripple fire of missiles, to simulate the high failure rates of early generations of missiles.