Yes, this is another attempt to make Aetherspace matter. Basically, it will make aetherbubbles like villages - they can be influenced and fought over, with a wildnodes-like mechanic.

So, for example: Crumkindivia. It revolts; four organizations bring in their aetherships and drop influencers on the bubble itself. These will work like village revolts: influence the denizens, sway them to your organization. However, campaigns wouldn't work.

Surrounding the aetherbubble of Crumkindivia are a number of nodes (let's say 8). Aetherships will fight over these nodes, since a node tuned to your organization will make your influence attacks to be more efficient, mimicking the campaigns used in normal village influencing. Commanders can TUNE NODE TO , and then RAISE BARRIER. This barrier will prevent opposing ships from taking the node immediately, and it will alert the organization who controls the node that there's an attempt to take it. The offensive ship will be able to hit the barrier with their turrets and eventually destroy it, if there are no defending ships.

If an organization manages to take all 8 nodes and hold on to them for a time period (around two minutes), the aetherbubble will pledge itself to that organization. The bubble can be swayed with influencing, too, if the aetherfight takes too long (and vice versa).

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This is just a rough idea. Yes, I'm aware that certain bubbles have opposing factions in them (such as the Ice Lords and the Snowmen in Frosticia and the Pastries and Candies in Crumkindivia). I'm not sure yet how to approach this.

Anyway, comments, suggestions, flames.

It sounds neat. Keyword is sounds.

Good in theory, terrible in execution.

Oooh...! Azoth likes.

Of course it would be incredibly hard to do in a non-infuriating fashion with aetherspace/ships the way they are. Should look into this after we look into aetherspace, though.

The nodes don't seem worth the manpower, effort, and coordination required to get them compared to using that same effort on the ground. Maybe the nodes should have a different purpose. Perhaps if you capture a node, you can send it to an influencer who can use it to force a denizen to become influenceable even if they're currently considering their loyalties. Then, during the annoyingly long downtime while you're waiting for mobs to reset, you can be fighting over nodes which can be used to get the influence thing moving again. (I think you'd want to change the name too; instead of it being a node, have it be some kind of auroniole which is valuable enough to the denizens of aetherbubbles that if you give one to them, they're willing to listen to you.)

I think it's a good idea, but the biggest problem with Aetherspace is the lack of people able to safely take it on more then anything.

99 times out 100 it seems that the main reason no one is able to go aether hunting or something is they can't find a crew. Or a ship.

This is true, but this idea not only encourages more people to learn Aethercraft and build ships, it also gives new people and city members a way to help. Can't fight or influence? Pilot!

Aethercraft requires lots of lessons, and aetherships require looots of gold. No matter how much 'encouragement' we have we're not going to be able to start popping these things out.

Here's the thing though, Orgs already have 2-3 ships a piece just sitting in dust and cobwebs, I know there are people with Aethercraft specs and it only requires 12 lessons to know how to do everything on a ship, minus siphoning.

It's not the availability of ships, or the cost in lessons, that prevents people from participating. Part of it is the coordination of timing: if you want to go on a group hunt, you don't have the situation where everyone has to be there right from minute one, and no one can leave early, like you do with an aethership. But I think the bigger part is that being an empath is intimidating. There's a) a lot of things to learn, to identify what modules need fixing, fix them all, prioritize them right, and then do trade too, and b) a sense that the entire crew is depending on you doing all that correctly to survive. Not having to invest a lot of lessons only makes the sense of pressure greater. It's one thing to go out and try something where you're the only one who'll see, or suffer, if it goes wrong, but it's another when a bunch of other people are going to get dead if you can't figure it out and move fast enough.

Now if someone made an add-on for Treant or some other freely-available, widely used system that handled being an Empath, just enough for aetherhunting and trade (not ship-to-ship combat), that could go a long way to fixing that. Those experienced in aetherhunting will turn their nose up at this idea: an empath system would do it all for you and that would make it boring. Maybe so, but if it handled the basics of curing a ship and trading, that would get you out there, and the rest of the crew with you, and then you could fall in love with it and do the rest.

The fact that the experience and gold of aetherhunting are a fraction of what you can get staying on prime, or even within your commune or city, is the other big problem. That's an easy enough thing to fix, just turn the knob that got turned down a while, back up partway.