I fully agree with George Velez.

Stealing more one aircraft to a human faction should have a gigantic lost of diplomacy (-50 or similar) and a warning. A second time is war. The same for resources and techs. After 4/5 missions of this kind, faction enter in war with PP.

This is a different matter of the BUG (or bad programation) that allow player steal resources several time in a row in same haven with no breaktime.

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The creator of this post is using the game mechanics as is (stealing 7 aircraft in under a month or two), and as is going to have an easier time dealing with flying Pandorans then those of us who do not use this “feature”. The challenge of DLC #3 is mitigated when you can get an endless amount of “consequence free” aircraft if you are willing to grind for hours.

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I personally find it an exploit that you can steal aircraft from a faction for basically free and suffer no lasting consequences (same as the endless consequence free raiding). Many people have already commented on this below as to why this is bad for game balance, roleplaying reasons, and as has been discussed on this games Discord and YouTube videos, this can make playing on event the hardest level a trivial thing.

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I play on Veteran level without using these “features” and abusing the system, and the game is much harder (I built one Helios and one Thunderbird, which took a staggering amount of time and resources; didn’t raid any Havens). I have three squads of different levels and equipment. My bases have been bombarded by Berith and Infected Tiamat’s multiple times because I don’t have enough aircraft to defend them, or to reasonably take these enemies out. I have enjoyed my time playing but I am losing interest in my game, to the point that I might quit playing for some months. I feel like a sucker for playing on self-imposed “hard mode” and making my game more difficult than it needs to be, when I can just steel aircraft/raid endlessly consequence free, making my life easier.

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When even the Legendary players must use “self-imposed limits” in order to have a challenge versus an easy milk run, that is a pretty clear sign that the game balance is off. The passive and “feel free to ignore” Faction system is also disappointing, as it feels like a big section of the game is missing (dynamic factions and real choices for creating alliances).

Please DEVS FIX THIS GAME BREAKER!!!!

A dumb diplomacy sistem that allow player to break economy of game (and steal lots of aircraft in first month) at no almost no cost!!!

This and the possibility to steal the same resource in same Haven without breaktime happens since the launch of PP and it's yet to resolve and fix.

This resumes all.... in 19 game days, having 4 aircraft and no penaltys from other human factions!!!!

9 January

(...)Synedrion don’t take the “killing their soldiers” thing too personally. The Helios gets sent back home

10 January

(...)Synedrion happily give me an aircraft despite the fact that I just killed a bunch of them and stole their Helios.

11 January

(...)there’s a Synedrion Helios up in Greenland, so . . . it’s that time again!

12 January

(...)We’re running low on materials, but with two Helios flying around trading, that shouldn’t last long.

18 January

(...) steal a NJ Thunderbird. Due to the silly diplomacy system NJ doesn’t particularly mind.

19 January

With four aircraft we can do a lot more on the Geoscape now. Two Helios are trading and exploring, while my Manticore and Thunderbird do missions as they pop up

Original topic, a good read for open devs eyes and FINALLY correct this exploit:

Totally agree. The penalty for stealing an aircraft is way too low. In fact, I think it should scale up—with the penalty for stealing an aircraft being much higher than it is now—and then the penalty for stealing the second aircraft from that faction should be very sever. And stealing a third aircraft from them will essentially ruin the reputation with that faction.

At the moment, the cost of stealing an aircraft is -6 faction rep. And it is way too easy to recover that. One Haven defence or taking out a couple nests, or one lair will undo that bad deed.

I think that stealing the first aircraft should cause a -20 faction reputation hit. The second aircraft, should be something like a -60 reduction in reputation. The third and all subsequent aircraft theft should reduce faction reputation by -125.

To offset the need to build aircraft, the player should, maybe, have an option to buy aircraft from the faction—at a reduced rate depending on how good a standing the player has. In other words, provide an incentive for maintaining faction rep.

Finally, there are mission in the game to recover vehicles. What can’t there be missions to recover aircraft?

Raiding and kill the defenders is an act of war. It should be possible, but it should have the consequences. Not like it is now that is almost harmless.

And raid ONCE, after it the haven facility who was raided should become inactive for some time, like happens when Pandora attacks an Haven that we successfully defend. Raid the same haven for same resource multiple times in a row was certainly not planned by devs and is a fault in programming of game.

This is a point where devs never should have listen to complaining players…

Farming human civs without consequences is a lame strategy and one of the biggers overpowers in economy of the game.

-15 faction and -30 for haven like it was in the original PP version was an adequate penalty… and it should be impossible to raid more than once an haven for some time (not like it is now that is possible to raid and collect resources multiple time the same haven in a row).

You gain influence with factions mainly by defeating pandorans. This makes it difficult to balance between difficulty levels because on higher difficulties you have more HDs. Which makes diplomacy easier on higher difficulties. It should be other way around. It should be harder on higher difficulties to ally factions, not easier.

I think there needs to be some other system to balance that. Defeating pandorans should not give diplo bonus to factions. Otherwise you fall to point 1. It makes it easier the more you buff up pandorans.

I think factions should be more dynamic. If you ally one faction, the faction that doesn't like that faction should not like player no matter what and ally forth faction to make 2 against 2. It would made a player to choose side and fight other 2 faction. And missions where you fight 2 factions at the same time. In that path you could gain cheap soldiers from your ally faction but from other one should be rare. Some fugitives. Ally factions should give some percent of their income per day. In the game there should be also a path to ally all faction but it should be a separate path. Sort of neutral one that persuade all faction to ally themselves against pandorans. That should happen at the end of the game when population is very low like below 50-40%. At the beginning factions should be warring raiding themselves to make globe more dynamic. And player should choose to get involved by raiding heavily and fighting other factions or stay neutral (doing missions for all factions and only occasional raidng) but not get any free tech. Sort of research agreement that allows you to research tech hard way.

So you could end up with 2+2 against 2+2 and pandorans fighting all. You could also have alternative scenario with a game where all factions end up allying themselves against pandorans. You could have solo game not getting involved and every faction would be on their own and fighting all factions at the same time.

One faction block should raid other faction block havens to gain resorces which would make winning block/factions stronger. Winning side (based on RNG) would build more buildings gain more tech more defences. Losing sides could get oblitarated very quickly depending on rng of mist spawns and pandoran raids. Strong factions should be able sometimes even to defend from scyllas but lose resources. Strong havens should also fight nests and lairs and potentially defend some areas of the globe on their own.

If player would chose losing side it would give some decision to player to abandon ally and sign truce with winning faction or fight to the death with pandorans and other 2 factions.

There could be also some path in which pandorans ally one faction. We would need some creative reasoning for that. Maybe they inject virus in their population to make pandorans not attack them. But they join pandorans as permanently mind controlled or something. Like permanent Mindfraggers and vehicles on pandorans attack.

It would feel so more dynamic. It would give player a chance to destroy wrong faction havens and gain recources. But at the cost of that faction getting oblitarated. Currently you raid and nothing changes. You raid and you defend them. This needs to be adressed. You raid them and you weaken and later destroy them. You don't raid them and they are stronger. They can defend themselves then.

Each game could be more unique depending on your action. Currently whatever you do it's you against pandoran. It's only the doomsday clock that ticks. Factions don't play a role on a globe scope. They are only a cannon fodder. Make diplomacy and chosing path (2+2 / solo / ally all / 1+P - against rest) as the most influantial decision in this game. Make faction play the game! It would change everything. You would never know what would happen. It would be only one thing. It would be a blast. But maybe for mod :) QUICK WAR phoenix point mod with dynamic factions.

Hmm, what about any such act (stealing, base attacking, etc) would reduce your maximum achievable reputation with them, until end of game? By how much would have to be balanced, surely based on gravity of such act.

This could well simulate that trust once lost, cannot be never repaired fully... especially in such grave times -or- Fraction that is perpetual committer of those act is know villain and even though such fraction can be temporarily useful, past cannot never be forgotten.