Faction Permissions Rework (Flags)

[Pazz]

This is going to be a really niche suggestion and likely won't affect most players who don't lead (legal) factions or manage the F4 menus thereof, so if that's not something you do, this may not be your cup of tea.

Currently, as it stands, the faction menu is entirely outdated and is more akin to a remnant of a time that once was, that being the Eclipse Roleplay of 2017. The server has taken many strides to move away from being hard-coded and towards being modular and adjustable, prime examples of such for legal factions are the introduction of vehicle, uniform, and weapon management. The faction menu itself, and by extension the management of faction members and permissions, has not been adjusted since the dawn of time.

Take LSPD for example, a lot of permissions are tied to a handful of permission toggles for rank groups, some of which don't make any sense, to begin with, or are unclear. Then, branches cannot be created by faction leaders; instead, they must be created by server management and assigned a certain branch type to get access to specific commands, such as the door ramming for SWAT or tracing for Detectives.

As it stands, you also cannot force a "Specific Rank AND Specific Branch", and instead it ends up being "Specific Rank OR Specific Branch", which does not help with specific vehicles, weapons, or uniforms, and if you were to have a branch for one thing, a branch for another thing, both with different permissions but joinable at the same time through IC means to not restrict roleplay and character development, you'd have to pick one of two branches in F4, which is sort of drawing the short end of the stick.

I am sure that this has been considered by development and will be addressed at some point in time, however, I want to propose a flags system in lieu of group- and branch permissions, to provide more clarity and flexibility to faction leaders.

Instead of having these toggles that allow you to, for example, let specific groups "Manage Invites" (and then some other random permissions for eg. LSPD, which may or may not be entirely unrelated to the toggle at hand), revamp the system to have flags for every permission. The following are examples:

• A flag for MDC access.
• A flag for management menu access.
• A flag for invite management.
• A flag for specific commands.
• A flag for every permission, really
• Flags for faction types assignable by server management, which then grants them access to commands.

You'll notice that this is similar to the current system, except, a lot is currently set in stone. "SWAT" branch types have access to ramming doors, the "Detective" branch has access to tracing, mechanic faction types have access to mechanic services, so on and so forth, none of this being modular. If you opt for a flag-based system instead of these "checkboxes" that have a ripple effect, faction leaders (and server management) have far more flexibility in the management of factions on Eclipse.

This should then tie into the vehicle, uniform, and weapon system, by allowing the attachment of these to flags, just as they are attachable to groups and branches now.

Permission flags should be assignable by faction leaders TO players AND ranks, faction-type flags should be assignable by server management, so on and so forth. Oh, and please let faction leaders make branches if we're getting rid of the hard-coded branch system in this case.

Not sure if this would affect illegal factions in any way, but the closest example I've got is, think of a recruiter for your faction having a similar rank to others who you don't want to give access to invitations. Instead of making a whole new rank group to circumvent giving an entire group access to invitations, you could assign this specific player the flag for invite management, and it's done.

[awp8883]

+50

[HobGoblin]

It would be nice to see different flags for faction leadership to choose what each member can and can't do.

[Chapman]

I agree that the F4 permissions system needs a revamp. Today we found out that several hidden sub permissions were tied to a specific main permission tick in the F4 menu. Each of the faction permissions should have its own tick to allow for a more options for faction leadership to choose what each of their groups or branches can do. F4 should have an admin side for permissions for server management to grant permissions to a faction as a whole which in turn the faction's leadership can choose what permissions each group/branch is enabled or disabled from what server management has approved for a specific faction to have.

Edited August 12, 2024 by Chapman

[JWIT1]

This is a great suggestion that should be implemented.  The SADOC has had to find work-arounds to fix permissions for certain commands due to the current "flag" system.  This would be an amazing patch if implemented that would positively effect and better each faction on this server.

[emythically]

+1

I had created a long winded response to this suggestion, but didn't want to publish it simply due to how specific it got. The long specific breakdown of my thoughts on this suggestion are saved if they are desired.

In short, as someone who is not a faction leader, but handles the day to day operations of the SASG faction, an idea like this would be incredibly useful given how complex our faction can be at times. Anything that would allow us to delegate abilities to others, without releasing sensitive faction management perms is a plus. It would also allow server management to customize a faction based on its needs without always needed DEV intervention.

I also would want to briefly mention support for being a member of multiple branches due to an issue that is somewhat specific to SASG, but I know LSPD & LSEMS may have a use for it based on my IC discussions with them.