Taking prisoners

[Trolltaxi]

In a world where death doesn't mean any loss in manpower it is completly unwise to kill them. They will just respawn and come again with fresh equipment and a vague (or even detailed) knowledge of the actual situation.

So lore-wise it is completly insane that empires still try to kill each other's soldiers.

Using non-lethal methods or taking prisoners seems way more effective to me. And actually we have all used this tactic an a way or other in PS1. Creating an interfarm and holding the base against double the pop (it was possible to hold at 33% vs 66%) technically meant that every defender bound 2 attackers into a pointless fight.

I completly understand that POW gameplay elements would be hard to implement and balance. It is damn hard to maintain intrest for the prisoners to keep playing while they are acting this completly unrewarding role of the underdog.

But it would still be fun if you could force enemies to drop their weapons and raise their hands in situations. You should have to deal with your prisoners, guard them etc. But what gameplay element would promote this?

How about motivating with resources? The captors would gain increased resource flow (both empire and personal) after every prisoners. The prisoners would have an option to make a prison break (say like 1 in every 10 minutes?), meaning that if they can flee (with knives but large numbers against some well armed guards), they take away a good portion of the accumulated resources. Maybe all, or robbing even more? And while fleeing they would cause harm to the base (no shield, or faster hacktime for a shot amount of time...)

The POW camp would be somewhere behind the frontline (not the closest base), so the captors should have to assign some manpower to guard them. The possibility of the prison break would add more tactical options.

They could add skills to the prisoner/guard roles, like faster resource gain, or decreased prison break timer, cyanide capsule to be able to die and respawn

This way there will be an intention both to take prisoners and choose to be prisoners instead of certain death.

Or SOE could make it as an event at least.