Ansty
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Willard Networks V3
Suggestions on Resistance Gameplay
29/10 2025
Pier reviewed by @Cocohop @Goulashnikov
Introduction
The Resistance gameplay throughout V2 has gone through numerous changes. In the early days, acquiring anything required the collective effort of an entire group. In its current state, however, rebel gameplay feels like something reminiscent of Escape from Tarkov, with “gear tiers” and a video-game-like opposition levelling system — starting from Civil Protection and escalating all the way to Synths and GM-controlled vehicles.
This suggestion aims to analyse the the good and the bad from V2 and present new ideas for V3, compiling them into a comprehensive proposal to improve the rebel Gameplay. The goal is to make the Resistance enjoyable not only for the rebels themselves but also to encourage meaningful interactions with other factions — or at least limit meaningless hostile encounters that result in excessive curfews and the Combine sprinting around the map and killing everyone.
The suggestions outlined here do not suggest changes to any other factions to make it work.
What is a rebel
Before moving forward, we must acknowledge what we mean by the term Rebel and how we want to support the playstyles in V3
Rebels are Militants
One of the most successful forms of rebellion on the server.
Militant rebels seek to oppose the Combine through acts of violence against personnel or infrastructure. At the forefront stands a charismatic warlord both IC and OOC. The Liberators are an example of this. (Yeah I wrote this part before the Liberator hardcore metagame was revealed it does makes it really easy to win through such a method)
Rebels are Mercenaries
This type of rebel was never common with the players themselves. This narrative is usually pushed by the GMs that reward participants of their events with chip payments. While most rebels will not refuse roleplay opportunities because the pay is not good enough with the exception of missions with a high risk of Pks in a non-GM overseen environment, Such as the Shepards Fabricator bounty. Any rebel that accepts chip payments is an example of this
It should be noted that you cannot draw the comparison to modern PMCs. Unlike modern PMCs, Willard’s rebels lack foreign sponsors or financiers. They must purchase and maintain all their own equipment. A more fitting comparison would be that rebels are Greek hoplites
Rebels are Organized Criminals
An opposite of the mercenary rebel, this playstyle is primarily pushed by the players. These rebels are motivated by greed rather than ideology. Although not currently prevalent, organized criminal groups have appeared often throughout V2 — it was a major theme of the city 51 event for example.
Rebels are Terrorists
These rebels are again primarily player driven. They focus on instilling fear and undermining public confidence in the Combine’s control to achieve political goals. Examples include RDT or Clinic bombings and the Liberators administration shooting.
Rebels are Infiltrators
Frequently discussed on Discord but rarely seen in-game, mainly due to OOC restrictions against rogue behaviour and a lack of awards for infiltration
Rebels are Lone Wolves
Mainly solo shotcoppers without any deeper motives for what they do. I am not really focusing on them in these suggestions
Main Issues in V2
Having defined what the rebels are, we now examine the key issues they face in V2.
Lack of Endgame
A common complaint is the lack of an endgame. Regardless of rebel actions, the Combine must remain in control since Half-Life 2’s events have yet to occur. As such rebel victories cannot achieve anything truly significant with the greatest possible achievement being to force a map change to a different Combine controlled city. After killing the first group of Civil Protection their opposition is quickly replaced with endlessly respawning OTA. Whose defeat does not reward them in any way beyond some script items and another wave till the crime timer runs out and you can log off.
Shotcopping as the Only Viable Strategy
Due to OOC restrictions and the lack of incentives for infiltration and the higher rewards for S2K rather the Roleplay. It is seen as the primary method of rebelling.
Rebels Are Overpowered
The inclusion of OTA, Synths, and the difficulties of Expeditions forces the server into “Standardising” gear for the resistance capable of handling such threats which Civil Protection cannot keep up with as such expectations are not placed on them. By consequence of this the server runs into the issue of Rebels being overpowered.
Proposals for V3
The following proposals aim to address these issues in a manner that supports the aforementioned rebel playstyles and making heavy use of the world map in a way where it turns it more into a text-based Discord RPG to ease the work load required from the GMs.
Shared Currency
A straightforward change: introduce a shared currency for both factions.
Workshift attendance and job salaries should yield a much greater income than selling trash to the smugglers. This would encourage rebels to engage with the city more and be rewarded for it with things they care about.
May however run into an issue with an increase in citizen muggings as they will now carry items that the rebels likewise care about.
Rebel “Classes”
To balance the divide between Civil Protection and Rebels which are forced to scale to OTA this suggestion suggests the idea that in V3 rebels should be informally split into “Classes” of sorts.
City Rebels
Most rebel characters should fall into this category. These rebels lead double lives (Even if it is simply assumed as Off-screen workshift attendance and sleeping in the apartments)
The reason for this is the in-universe implication that there is nothing for you beyond the Cities walls. Only death in the form of Starvation, Zombies or Antlions. As such most rebels no matter how much they despise the Combine are smart enough to maintain their citizenship and parasite off the Combine who provides them with essentials like Food, Water, Healthcare, Safety or a running shower tap.
In their secret life they take their bandanas, melee weapons and handguns to engage in smaller scale errands for their groups such as controlling infestations of small groups of zombies or antlions within shadier parts of town from which they operate or short walks to the abandoned outskirts beyond the Cities walls where they can still get back home in time before an assumed Off-Screen scheduled Identity check. Failure to attend will result in a BOL and further instances may result in the revocation of one’s Citizenship and thus death.
Even those who are members of groups with an outlands presence will not run off without their leader’s approval for without the necessary equipment to sustain themselves thus resulting in them being a liability to their group who is just another mouth to feed beyond the cities walls.
To make this work from a GM perspective, events involving City Rebels should be smaller in scale and less explosive. This does mean moving away from these massive Expo adventures for a large-scale audience that feel like a Helldivers mission. This does not mean I am hating on GMs that do Expos like this I understand that they take a lot of work to make but it will be necessary to make this suggestion work. Half Life Alyx for example had its story told entirely within the city itself.
In terms of the grind, it should not necessarily be harder but more limited in what an individual can achieve on their own. Helsings should be the “stock” ranged weapon available. The pinnacle of what you can get on your own without interacting with anyone else through Grinding alone should be the Bastard SMG and the Popper and by the time you would be purchasing the MP7 from a BMD is the time when you will be getting the Makeshift AKM.
Ammo should be much harder to acquire through grinding for anything beyond the Hellsing. It be impossible to acquire a quantity where you can fight offensively. It should be limited to having enough ammo on your person to dispatch a lone poison headcrab or antlion worker NPC you get jumped by in the sewer for example.
Outland Rebels
These rebels are not required to necessarily be better equipped than their city rebel counterparts, but it is generally expected because of how they act. They have provided possessions for themselves to the point where they no longer need to parasite off the Combine to survive and can afford to venture further away from the city in their rebel pursuits as they do not need to worry about their BOL status. But without a legwork of outposts to rest and resupply at they will still not be walking halfway across the world.
A minority elite of sorts that willingly chooses to “Demote” Their characters to event appearances or from behind the scenes running of their faction more akin to a mixture of senior CCA characters and OTA. These rebels will have the tools to bash horns with Civil Protection and a decent chance of beating OTA when they themselves are on the defensive. There will however be ways to retain your Combine citizenship even if you engage in outland rebel actions as explained further as well as solutions to ensure these 2 rebel classes cooperate with each other. It is important for events to not be treated purely as the High Pk risk areas and to remember that the City Rebels should still be the main audience of the rebel scene.
It is possible to maintain your citizenship through cooperation with infiltrator rebels who may be able to arrange a “sick-day” or similar fabricated excuse to explain the characters lack of appearances in offscreen identity checks. Such abilities will be limited to a group of 4 rebels maximum, it will be beyond the Infiltrators abilities to arrange a sick day for an entire platoon of rebels.
Infiltrator Rebels
The points that the infiltrators provide will mainly be brought up further along in the World map section however the suggestion aims at giving infiltrators rewards from the rebel side of things rather than forcing the faction leads of the Combine to change their own factions to accommodate them.
The way Infiltrators would work is that a rebel group that employs at least 2 “Infiltrators” can apply to give one of their senior group members, the one who is assumed to be the spy handler a “Spymaster” status for their group. Which will grant them the out of universe currency of “Influence” which can them be used to activate abilities on the world map. Such as generating an Intel report from a GM on a particular world map area that player Rebels would not be able to deploy to normally due to the fact player characters cannot venture beyond the playable map areas outside of events. “Influence” can never be used to effect areas and characters on the main server directly
To qualify for an Infiltrator the rebel in question must be active as either a store owner whitelisted member of a Combine faction or hold a senior position in a loyalist party. They are not required to engage in any overt acts to be considered as Infiltrators and are assumed to be building a network of associates even off-screen which may overtime grant the group NPC Agents which may be used for actions on the world map allowing them to do things that would normally be impossible in roleplay such as interacting directly with other towns or districts.
Cooperation Between Rebel Classes
A big issue that should be averted with what this suggestion proposes is to ensure the classes work together. Otherwise we will run into classic issues where there is no such thing as a city rebel class due to an absolute lack of weapons for them to utilize whilst the Outlands rebels are a group of OOC friends that do not interact with the citizens since they can offer nothing to them at best and at worst are an annoying “Can I be a rebel” minge.
This will be explained in the World map section.
Introduction
In the current iteration, the main way high-tier weapons are introduced into circulation is through expeditions. Upon completing a Helldivers-style expedition, the GMs decide to award players with a complimentary high-tier weapon for their efforts.
This update proposes a higher quantity of player settlements that are much easier to create and manage day-to-day through responses to text RP prompts on the Discord radio rather then forcing GMs to work long to prop up event box areas or reserve the Event servers for themselves. These settlements will serve as a primary method for introducing mid-tier weapons, script items, and supplies needed for characters to sustain themselves offensively with script items, rather than being limited to self-defence.
Starting Your Settlement
To create a settlement, a group of at least five active players must decide to participate in this aspect of the game and apply for it on the forums. They will receive a shopping list of items needed to establish and build up their first settlement, along with a small GM quest to acquire the first batch of NPC refugees to staff the site.
A settlement does not necessarily have to be a large, self-sustaining village in the Outlands. A simple basement workshop or drug lab on the city outskirts, outside the playable areas of the main server, is also valid. Settlements may be equipped with Modules which are Add-ons that give them further abilities. The most commen module OOCly labeled “Practical Production Site.” Players may flavour it however they wish, but it will require five refugees to operate.
Once the first settlement is established, no more settlements may be built through main server script grinding. All subsequent settlements rely on acquiring construction components from your current settlements’ production or purchasing supplies from the Black Market.
The Three Bars
To measure your group’s status on the world map, three bars will be tracked. Each provides fixed benefits or penalties, allowing GMs and Combine factions to reward or penalize rebels in ways other than simply handing out high-tier weapons or organizing OTA sweeps.
Population Cap
This represents how large your group is and how many NPC refugees it can support. It’s based on the hard work of your player members who for their hard work and willingness to put themselves in harms way for your goals are considered your “best guys.” The harder these player rebels work the more outland populations your group is able to support. This bar encourages rebels of all classes to work together and motivates group leaders to recruit lesser-equipped rebels, as they too increase the number of NPC refugees your group can support.
Your population cap relies on the number of players your group employs and is multiplied by your Appeal to Refugees level:
If your group loses players or Appeal level, existing refugees are not lost — however, no new ones will be awarded, and no additional settlements may be built until the previous level is restored.
Appeal to Refugees
This bar represents how well-known and appealing your group is among city residents — how aware they are of your existence, and how willing they are to defect and work at your settlements.
Appeal is increased through GM-awarded RP, including propaganda, humanitarian efforts, or notable acts of resistance.
For example, the Liberator administrator shotcop could incur a large penalty to your group’s Appeal, reducing your ability to attract refugees.
Appeal does not necessarily reflect how loved or hated your group is — even a feared terrorist cell might attract desperate workers or pissed off extremists that want to kill everyone who associates with the Combine. Meanwhile a group offering food, safety, and fair treatment to ex-Combine citizens may attract a much bigger audience of defectors.
During the monthly tick update, Appeal to refugees grants a passive income of refugees. GMs may also award additional refugees for event completions.
Overt Level
This bar measures how overt your group is in its opposition to the Combine. The higher your Overt Level, the more measures the Combine will take against your group and its settlements. Such as increased deployment of patrols within areas your group is known to operate within and increased intelligence efforts against you. It may be changed by GMs based on how aggressive your actions on main server are. This does not mean in the endgame you will not be able to shotcop at all it merely means that if you do not engage with other aspects of Rebbelion to insure and support such a playstyle you will find your settlements quickly blown up by the Combine. You will lack Appeal to Refugees to staff your settlements and as such you will lose access to your ammunition productions and other groups which may sponsor settlements production may instead choose to invest into groups whom they can trust to not reckleselly lose their settlements and thus allow their settlements to contribute to the rebel economy.
Each month, settlement detection is rolled with 1d6 for each settlement:
Rebels can take defensive measures — such as NPC-manned outposts, counterintelligence efforts, or relocation attempts — to avoid total loss.
Practical and Exotic Production
Each settlement can be equipped with up to 4 production modules. 3 Common and 1 Exotic. These modules serve to introduce script items into circulation that cannot be acquired on main through Grinding and should introduce them at around the same time that they may appear should an grinding option exist. As such items will arrive into circulation at around the same time whilst allowing your characters to continue roleplaying.
Practical Production
The most basic and common type of settlement production. All updates occur during the monthly tick. During a Monthly tick update a GM must tally the Groups productions and award such products to the group or the black market.
Example Production Catalog:
Exotic Production
Exotic production sites are unique and GM-awarded — they can’t be grinded or built through normal gameplay. Examples include:
Exports – The Rebel “Gears of Industry”
Refugees in your settlements are not your slaves — they must sell or use goods they produce themselves to sustain themselves. This means only a portion of your production returns to your group directly.
During each monthly tick:
Outposts – S2K NPCs for Rebels
Outposts are another type of module that a settlement may be equipped with, separate from production sites. They provide defensive NPC Rebel fighters that player rebels may take control of if a settlement is detected and attacked. These events are usually resolved through narrative deathmatches on event servers or Outlands maps. For example, the NPC Rebels may be tasked with destroying or forcing Combine artillery to disengage long enough to allow the settlement to evacuate the area.
Outposts are expensive and don’t guarantee rebel player participation every time the Combine attacks — but they create S2K scenarios where the stakes are lower, as players control NPCs defending territory rather than putting their own characters on the line. In certain circumstances player rebels may also use their own player characters in settlement defences. But they should be wary as in such a battle the GM is not expected to play nice for the Rebels and give them a narratively achievable battle.
Rebel Infiltrators and Agents
Groups employing at least two player infiltrators within Combine organizations may apply for access to espionage abilities and NPC agents. These agents operate outside the main server’s playable area and perform missions through text RP.
They cannot directly impact main server areas or characters.
NPC Agents
GMs may award up to three types of NPC agents. These require significant buildup — agents don’t just appear overnight.
Unlike NPC Refugees which may be non-descript an Agent should have a short biography. Such as a reference picture, a name and their skills.
Agent Types:
Support Staff
Support staff are made up of NPC Refugees and require special expensive settlement modules awarded by GMs.
Signals Station: Signals intelligence specialists that may attempt to intercept and decrypt Combine data, whether Radio wave based or Cyberspace based.
Drone pilots: Operate reprogrammed Scanner drones for aerial reconnaissance.
Influence
For every two agents (player or NPC, not counting support staff), the group’s Spymaster gains a monthly income of 1 Influence. Influence is an out-of-universe currency used for world map actions that are otherwise impossible to do in Regular roleplay due to the fact players cannot move to areas on the world map. It cannot directly affect the main server or player characters.
Influence Abilities
Influence can activate the following abilities. The ability must be assigned to a specific NPC agent or support staff. The same agents cannot be assigned on multiple missions per the same monthly Tick. The GM’s response should consider the agent’s biography and position within the Combine to give a response that makes sense based on which agent is activated for such a mission. Their skills and their connections.
Complication Chance
Espionage is dangerous — agents can suffer complications on missions. These are determined based on a 1D6 dice roll.
Roll 1d6:
Complication Severity (1d6):
Suggestions on Resistance Gameplay
29/10 2025
Pier reviewed by @Cocohop @Goulashnikov
Introduction
The Resistance gameplay throughout V2 has gone through numerous changes. In the early days, acquiring anything required the collective effort of an entire group. In its current state, however, rebel gameplay feels like something reminiscent of Escape from Tarkov, with “gear tiers” and a video-game-like opposition levelling system — starting from Civil Protection and escalating all the way to Synths and GM-controlled vehicles.
This suggestion aims to analyse the the good and the bad from V2 and present new ideas for V3, compiling them into a comprehensive proposal to improve the rebel Gameplay. The goal is to make the Resistance enjoyable not only for the rebels themselves but also to encourage meaningful interactions with other factions — or at least limit meaningless hostile encounters that result in excessive curfews and the Combine sprinting around the map and killing everyone.
The suggestions outlined here do not suggest changes to any other factions to make it work.
What is a rebel
Before moving forward, we must acknowledge what we mean by the term Rebel and how we want to support the playstyles in V3
One of the most successful forms of rebellion on the server.
Militant rebels seek to oppose the Combine through acts of violence against personnel or infrastructure. At the forefront stands a charismatic warlord both IC and OOC. The Liberators are an example of this. (Yeah I wrote this part before the Liberator hardcore metagame was revealed it does makes it really easy to win through such a method)
This type of rebel was never common with the players themselves. This narrative is usually pushed by the GMs that reward participants of their events with chip payments. While most rebels will not refuse roleplay opportunities because the pay is not good enough with the exception of missions with a high risk of Pks in a non-GM overseen environment, Such as the Shepards Fabricator bounty. Any rebel that accepts chip payments is an example of this
It should be noted that you cannot draw the comparison to modern PMCs. Unlike modern PMCs, Willard’s rebels lack foreign sponsors or financiers. They must purchase and maintain all their own equipment. A more fitting comparison would be that rebels are Greek hoplites
An opposite of the mercenary rebel, this playstyle is primarily pushed by the players. These rebels are motivated by greed rather than ideology. Although not currently prevalent, organized criminal groups have appeared often throughout V2 — it was a major theme of the city 51 event for example.
These rebels are again primarily player driven. They focus on instilling fear and undermining public confidence in the Combine’s control to achieve political goals. Examples include RDT or Clinic bombings and the Liberators administration shooting.
Frequently discussed on Discord but rarely seen in-game, mainly due to OOC restrictions against rogue behaviour and a lack of awards for infiltration
Mainly solo shotcoppers without any deeper motives for what they do. I am not really focusing on them in these suggestions
Having defined what the rebels are, we now examine the key issues they face in V2.
Lack of Endgame
A common complaint is the lack of an endgame. Regardless of rebel actions, the Combine must remain in control since Half-Life 2’s events have yet to occur. As such rebel victories cannot achieve anything truly significant with the greatest possible achievement being to force a map change to a different Combine controlled city. After killing the first group of Civil Protection their opposition is quickly replaced with endlessly respawning OTA. Whose defeat does not reward them in any way beyond some script items and another wave till the crime timer runs out and you can log off.
Shotcopping as the Only Viable Strategy
Due to OOC restrictions and the lack of incentives for infiltration and the higher rewards for S2K rather the Roleplay. It is seen as the primary method of rebelling.
Rebels Are Overpowered
The inclusion of OTA, Synths, and the difficulties of Expeditions forces the server into “Standardising” gear for the resistance capable of handling such threats which Civil Protection cannot keep up with as such expectations are not placed on them. By consequence of this the server runs into the issue of Rebels being overpowered.
Proposals for V3
The following proposals aim to address these issues in a manner that supports the aforementioned rebel playstyles and making heavy use of the world map in a way where it turns it more into a text-based Discord RPG to ease the work load required from the GMs.
A straightforward change: introduce a shared currency for both factions.
Workshift attendance and job salaries should yield a much greater income than selling trash to the smugglers. This would encourage rebels to engage with the city more and be rewarded for it with things they care about.
May however run into an issue with an increase in citizen muggings as they will now carry items that the rebels likewise care about.
To balance the divide between Civil Protection and Rebels which are forced to scale to OTA this suggestion suggests the idea that in V3 rebels should be informally split into “Classes” of sorts.
City Rebels
Most rebel characters should fall into this category. These rebels lead double lives (Even if it is simply assumed as Off-screen workshift attendance and sleeping in the apartments)
The reason for this is the in-universe implication that there is nothing for you beyond the Cities walls. Only death in the form of Starvation, Zombies or Antlions. As such most rebels no matter how much they despise the Combine are smart enough to maintain their citizenship and parasite off the Combine who provides them with essentials like Food, Water, Healthcare, Safety or a running shower tap.
In their secret life they take their bandanas, melee weapons and handguns to engage in smaller scale errands for their groups such as controlling infestations of small groups of zombies or antlions within shadier parts of town from which they operate or short walks to the abandoned outskirts beyond the Cities walls where they can still get back home in time before an assumed Off-Screen scheduled Identity check. Failure to attend will result in a BOL and further instances may result in the revocation of one’s Citizenship and thus death.
Even those who are members of groups with an outlands presence will not run off without their leader’s approval for without the necessary equipment to sustain themselves thus resulting in them being a liability to their group who is just another mouth to feed beyond the cities walls.
To make this work from a GM perspective, events involving City Rebels should be smaller in scale and less explosive. This does mean moving away from these massive Expo adventures for a large-scale audience that feel like a Helldivers mission. This does not mean I am hating on GMs that do Expos like this I understand that they take a lot of work to make but it will be necessary to make this suggestion work. Half Life Alyx for example had its story told entirely within the city itself.
In terms of the grind, it should not necessarily be harder but more limited in what an individual can achieve on their own. Helsings should be the “stock” ranged weapon available. The pinnacle of what you can get on your own without interacting with anyone else through Grinding alone should be the Bastard SMG and the Popper and by the time you would be purchasing the MP7 from a BMD is the time when you will be getting the Makeshift AKM.
Ammo should be much harder to acquire through grinding for anything beyond the Hellsing. It be impossible to acquire a quantity where you can fight offensively. It should be limited to having enough ammo on your person to dispatch a lone poison headcrab or antlion worker NPC you get jumped by in the sewer for example.
These rebels are not required to necessarily be better equipped than their city rebel counterparts, but it is generally expected because of how they act. They have provided possessions for themselves to the point where they no longer need to parasite off the Combine to survive and can afford to venture further away from the city in their rebel pursuits as they do not need to worry about their BOL status. But without a legwork of outposts to rest and resupply at they will still not be walking halfway across the world.
A minority elite of sorts that willingly chooses to “Demote” Their characters to event appearances or from behind the scenes running of their faction more akin to a mixture of senior CCA characters and OTA. These rebels will have the tools to bash horns with Civil Protection and a decent chance of beating OTA when they themselves are on the defensive. There will however be ways to retain your Combine citizenship even if you engage in outland rebel actions as explained further as well as solutions to ensure these 2 rebel classes cooperate with each other. It is important for events to not be treated purely as the High Pk risk areas and to remember that the City Rebels should still be the main audience of the rebel scene.
It is possible to maintain your citizenship through cooperation with infiltrator rebels who may be able to arrange a “sick-day” or similar fabricated excuse to explain the characters lack of appearances in offscreen identity checks. Such abilities will be limited to a group of 4 rebels maximum, it will be beyond the Infiltrators abilities to arrange a sick day for an entire platoon of rebels.
The points that the infiltrators provide will mainly be brought up further along in the World map section however the suggestion aims at giving infiltrators rewards from the rebel side of things rather than forcing the faction leads of the Combine to change their own factions to accommodate them.
The way Infiltrators would work is that a rebel group that employs at least 2 “Infiltrators” can apply to give one of their senior group members, the one who is assumed to be the spy handler a “Spymaster” status for their group. Which will grant them the out of universe currency of “Influence” which can them be used to activate abilities on the world map. Such as generating an Intel report from a GM on a particular world map area that player Rebels would not be able to deploy to normally due to the fact player characters cannot venture beyond the playable map areas outside of events. “Influence” can never be used to effect areas and characters on the main server directly
To qualify for an Infiltrator the rebel in question must be active as either a store owner whitelisted member of a Combine faction or hold a senior position in a loyalist party. They are not required to engage in any overt acts to be considered as Infiltrators and are assumed to be building a network of associates even off-screen which may overtime grant the group NPC Agents which may be used for actions on the world map allowing them to do things that would normally be impossible in roleplay such as interacting directly with other towns or districts.
A big issue that should be averted with what this suggestion proposes is to ensure the classes work together. Otherwise we will run into classic issues where there is no such thing as a city rebel class due to an absolute lack of weapons for them to utilize whilst the Outlands rebels are a group of OOC friends that do not interact with the citizens since they can offer nothing to them at best and at worst are an annoying “Can I be a rebel” minge.
This will be explained in the World map section.
The World Map – Settlements, Map RPG, and the “Rebel Gears of Industry” Update
Introduction
In the current iteration, the main way high-tier weapons are introduced into circulation is through expeditions. Upon completing a Helldivers-style expedition, the GMs decide to award players with a complimentary high-tier weapon for their efforts.
This update proposes a higher quantity of player settlements that are much easier to create and manage day-to-day through responses to text RP prompts on the Discord radio rather then forcing GMs to work long to prop up event box areas or reserve the Event servers for themselves. These settlements will serve as a primary method for introducing mid-tier weapons, script items, and supplies needed for characters to sustain themselves offensively with script items, rather than being limited to self-defence.
Starting Your Settlement
To create a settlement, a group of at least five active players must decide to participate in this aspect of the game and apply for it on the forums. They will receive a shopping list of items needed to establish and build up their first settlement, along with a small GM quest to acquire the first batch of NPC refugees to staff the site.
A settlement does not necessarily have to be a large, self-sustaining village in the Outlands. A simple basement workshop or drug lab on the city outskirts, outside the playable areas of the main server, is also valid. Settlements may be equipped with Modules which are Add-ons that give them further abilities. The most commen module OOCly labeled “Practical Production Site.” Players may flavour it however they wish, but it will require five refugees to operate.
Once the first settlement is established, no more settlements may be built through main server script grinding. All subsequent settlements rely on acquiring construction components from your current settlements’ production or purchasing supplies from the Black Market.
To measure your group’s status on the world map, three bars will be tracked. Each provides fixed benefits or penalties, allowing GMs and Combine factions to reward or penalize rebels in ways other than simply handing out high-tier weapons or organizing OTA sweeps.
This represents how large your group is and how many NPC refugees it can support. It’s based on the hard work of your player members who for their hard work and willingness to put themselves in harms way for your goals are considered your “best guys.” The harder these player rebels work the more outland populations your group is able to support. This bar encourages rebels of all classes to work together and motivates group leaders to recruit lesser-equipped rebels, as they too increase the number of NPC refugees your group can support.
Your population cap relies on the number of players your group employs and is multiplied by your Appeal to Refugees level:
- Level 1: Multiplier ×2
- Level 2: Multiplier ×5
- Level 3: Multiplier ×10
If your group loses players or Appeal level, existing refugees are not lost — however, no new ones will be awarded, and no additional settlements may be built until the previous level is restored.
This bar represents how well-known and appealing your group is among city residents — how aware they are of your existence, and how willing they are to defect and work at your settlements.
Appeal is increased through GM-awarded RP, including propaganda, humanitarian efforts, or notable acts of resistance.
For example, the Liberator administrator shotcop could incur a large penalty to your group’s Appeal, reducing your ability to attract refugees.
Appeal does not necessarily reflect how loved or hated your group is — even a feared terrorist cell might attract desperate workers or pissed off extremists that want to kill everyone who associates with the Combine. Meanwhile a group offering food, safety, and fair treatment to ex-Combine citizens may attract a much bigger audience of defectors.
During the monthly tick update, Appeal to refugees grants a passive income of refugees. GMs may also award additional refugees for event completions.
- Level 1: +5 Refugees per month
- Level 2: +10 Refugees per month
- Level 3: +20 Refugees per month
This bar measures how overt your group is in its opposition to the Combine. The higher your Overt Level, the more measures the Combine will take against your group and its settlements. Such as increased deployment of patrols within areas your group is known to operate within and increased intelligence efforts against you. It may be changed by GMs based on how aggressive your actions on main server are. This does not mean in the endgame you will not be able to shotcop at all it merely means that if you do not engage with other aspects of Rebbelion to insure and support such a playstyle you will find your settlements quickly blown up by the Combine. You will lack Appeal to Refugees to staff your settlements and as such you will lose access to your ammunition productions and other groups which may sponsor settlements production may instead choose to invest into groups whom they can trust to not reckleselly lose their settlements and thus allow their settlements to contribute to the rebel economy.
Each month, settlement detection is rolled with 1d6 for each settlement:
- Level 1: Only detectable if GM grants the Combine the knowledge as a penalty.
- Level 2: 1d6 per settlement; on a 6+, detected and may be destroyed.
- Level 3: 1d6 per settlement; on a 4+, detected and may use heavy support (helicopters, artillery, Striders, suppression guns) in its destruction.
Rebels can take defensive measures — such as NPC-manned outposts, counterintelligence efforts, or relocation attempts — to avoid total loss.
Each settlement can be equipped with up to 4 production modules. 3 Common and 1 Exotic. These modules serve to introduce script items into circulation that cannot be acquired on main through Grinding and should introduce them at around the same time that they may appear should an grinding option exist. As such items will arrive into circulation at around the same time whilst allowing your characters to continue roleplaying.
Practical Production
The most basic and common type of settlement production. All updates occur during the monthly tick. During a Monthly tick update a GM must tally the Groups productions and award such products to the group or the black market.
Example Production Catalog:
- Weapons: 5 Makeshift AKMs/month
- Ammo: 100 magazines of a chosen type/month. Cannot produce pulse ammo.
- Armor: 5 Tier 2 armors/month
- Explosives: 1 RP explosive or 10 grenades of a designated type
- Electronics: 20 radios or 5 Lock Breachers/EMP devices/month
- Food: Large quantity/month
- Medical Supplies: 20 first aid kits/month
- Drugs: 50 units/month
- Construction Materials: 1 unit/month. This resource is used for the construction of new settlements or modules
- Revenue: Generates funds via trade, sales, or services (bars, markets, casinos.) Due to a lack demand due to limited population that may have acceas to such estabishmeants each group is only limited to one production site of this type.)
Exotic production sites are unique and GM-awarded — they can’t be grinded or built through normal gameplay. Examples include:
- Pulse Production: 5 magazines of pulse ammo/month
- Extract Production: 1 Vortigaunt extract/month
- Fuel Refining: Restores expired old-world fuel for vehicles
- Mounts: Produces small quantities of mounts (horses, bikes, etc.)
- Static Weapons: 1 heavy weapon (HMG, mortar, etc.)/month
- Vehicle Workshop: Maintains GM-awarded vehicles for expeditions
Refugees in your settlements are not your slaves — they must sell or use goods they produce themselves to sustain themselves. This means only a portion of your production returns to your group directly.
During each monthly tick:
- You choose two productions from each settlement to receive directly.
- The other two go to the Black Market which BMDs may then purchase themselves from the BMD manager to distribute the on main server to the wider underground. Thus ensuring a group that maintains settlements does not have a monopoly on Black Market productions.
Outposts are another type of module that a settlement may be equipped with, separate from production sites. They provide defensive NPC Rebel fighters that player rebels may take control of if a settlement is detected and attacked. These events are usually resolved through narrative deathmatches on event servers or Outlands maps. For example, the NPC Rebels may be tasked with destroying or forcing Combine artillery to disengage long enough to allow the settlement to evacuate the area.
Outposts are expensive and don’t guarantee rebel player participation every time the Combine attacks — but they create S2K scenarios where the stakes are lower, as players control NPCs defending territory rather than putting their own characters on the line. In certain circumstances player rebels may also use their own player characters in settlement defences. But they should be wary as in such a battle the GM is not expected to play nice for the Rebels and give them a narratively achievable battle.
Rebel Infiltrators and Agents
Groups employing at least two player infiltrators within Combine organizations may apply for access to espionage abilities and NPC agents. These agents operate outside the main server’s playable area and perform missions through text RP.
They cannot directly impact main server areas or characters.
NPC Agents
GMs may award up to three types of NPC agents. These require significant buildup — agents don’t just appear overnight.
Unlike NPC Refugees which may be non-descript an Agent should have a short biography. Such as a reference picture, a name and their skills.
Agent Types:
- Passive Agent: Common citizen or worker with none or limited access to restricted areas. As such they will be unable to provide extensive intel or services beyond giving the group a point of view of the common citizen from another District or City.
- Active Agent: Holds a mid/senior position in Civilian Organizations or a line position in CCR or Civil Protection. As such they can access restricted areas and engage in far more mission types.
- Outland Agent: A resistance fighter without an allegiance to a Combine organization. They are a ranger capable of traveling through harsh terrain and scouting outland locations or get in touch with other groups operating from the outlands. Their performance will significantly improve if they are equipped with vehicles.
Support staff are made up of NPC Refugees and require special expensive settlement modules awarded by GMs.
Signals Station: Signals intelligence specialists that may attempt to intercept and decrypt Combine data, whether Radio wave based or Cyberspace based.
Drone pilots: Operate reprogrammed Scanner drones for aerial reconnaissance.
For every two agents (player or NPC, not counting support staff), the group’s Spymaster gains a monthly income of 1 Influence. Influence is an out-of-universe currency used for world map actions that are otherwise impossible to do in Regular roleplay due to the fact players cannot move to areas on the world map. It cannot directly affect the main server or player characters.
Influence Abilities
Influence can activate the following abilities. The ability must be assigned to a specific NPC agent or support staff. The same agents cannot be assigned on multiple missions per the same monthly Tick. The GM’s response should consider the agent’s biography and position within the Combine to give a response that makes sense based on which agent is activated for such a mission. Their skills and their connections.
- Intel Report (1 Influence): Provides situational intelligence from target areas.
- Arrange Sick Day (1 Influence): The agent gets in contact with the local CMU or similar organizations and bribes or otherwise manipulates them to create a fabricated excuse for a player characters lack of attendance during an assumed Off-screen Identity check. This permits characters to go on long Outland expeditions without being rendered BOL upon their return. Limited to a maximum of 4 players.
- Local Favour (1 Influence): Contacts local underground groups operating in off-map areas for support or parallel missions. Depending on the groups relation to yours they may be mercenaries that demand payment or other concessions.
- Supply Cache (1 Influence): Positions a cache ahead of a player rebel operation allowing the player rebels to resupply. Players may need to supply its contents.
- Target Identification (3 Influence): Reveals a vulnerable facility, infrastructure, or individual to strike.
- Resource Identification (3 Influence): Locates valuable resources that may not be acquired easily on the main server such as: CWU motor pools, Combine tech, storage sites. The agent may be able to deliver this item to the player group themselves, or the players may be tasked with recovering it.
- Settlement early warning (2 Influence): Certain agents such as Outlands, Active Agent or Signals station may attempt to warn of threats to settlements. Should a settlement be detected by the Combine such an agent may make a Saving throw. On a roll of 4 or Higher they are able to warn the settlement in advance of the attack. Thus, saving it from destruction by allowing them to evacuate in time.
Complication Chance
Espionage is dangerous — agents can suffer complications on missions. These are determined based on a 1D6 dice roll.
Roll 1d6:
- On a 1, the agent suffers a complication.
- If Overt Level is 3, complications occur on a 2 or less.
- If an Agent is tasked with the same mission type from the Influence abilities twice in a row the Complication chance increases by 1 for each roll due to their actions becoming predictable to Combine CounterInteligence
Complication Severity (1d6):
- 1 – Captured: Agent is captured and interrogated; Combine gains intel.
- 2 – Killed: Agent is dead; mission failed, no intel leak.
- 3 – Compromised: Identity exposed, may trigger a rescue mission.
- 4–6 – Aborted Mission: Agent withdrew safely but failed the mission. Remains usable.
Closing notes
Thank you for taking the time to stick through this suggestion whether you understand it or not. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to reply if you wish for me to elaborate further on a particular point of the suggestion.
Thank you for taking the time to stick through this suggestion whether you understand it or not. Any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to reply if you wish for me to elaborate further on a particular point of the suggestion.
