Smuggling Is Not Unlawful

[Username removed]

So, we take a situation- Your character is a captain of a 5Ker ship. He has made nice career, he loves his job, nice salary, package bonuses, premium health care. He is respected among his friends and family, and a son of the guy living next door to him, wants to become a ship captain too, when he grows up. Nice, don't you think? Would he risks with everything he have achieved, by taking part in some "shady" business? Yes? I guess your IQ is around 30...

You're making a lot of assumptions about how corporations in Sirius treat their employees for someone with an IQ higher than 30, almost as if Xenos, Unioners, Hessians, Molly's, all these revolutionary factions gave up that "luxurious corporate life" because they're masochists, amirite?

Either, your captain and whole ship's crew (what a unity!) decided to go rogue, operating outside of employer's company legal general operations. In this case, everyone on board would be considered as criminals, and are going to charged for: Unauthorised and illegal acquisition of corporate asset & conducting illegal transportation operations - smuggling. Your character can say "goodbye" to his previous life.

Implying they get caught, and every cop in Sirius is an unbribable paragon of justice.
Happy are those simple of mind.

If your ship was caught smuggling while being authorised to do it by your employer, company should face a lot of problem, your captain shall be still charged for smuggling, and possibly being thrown into jail.
So that how it would be inRP.

Implying a mega corporation that makes transactions in the billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions with their own monopoly of 5k transport factories can't afford an army of lawyers to bail them out for outright murder. Implying Liberty would destroy it's own economy to make a company like DSE "face a lot of problem" -as you put it because every now and then some employees decide to go the extra mile...as if the governments would even find out that they were authorized by the employers cause surely someone transporting Jump Gate parts as casually as Kyushu rice doesn't have measures against corporate espionage.

It would be great to give something like that to every major shipping corp, with having a line written in their ID.

Government contracting corporations to transport questionable stuff is a thing, you know, just get the parties involved to write the RP up and there you go transporting human organs with your ALG Waste Disposal 5'ker.

[Mick]

Or give us smugglers use of 5kers cause i can guarantee if i ever spotted a Lawful smuggling i'd class that captain as stealing my turf and he'd end up a Target no doubt inRP!

---

[Lonely_Ghost]

So, we take a situation- Your character is a captain of a 5Ker ship. He has made nice career, he loves his job, nice salary, package bonuses, premium health care. He is respected among his friends and family, and a son of the guy living next door to him, wants to become a ship captain too, when he grows up. Nice, don't you think? Would he risks with everything he have achieved, by taking part in some "shady" business? Yes? I guess your IQ is around 30...

You're making a lot of assumptions about how corporations in Sirius treat their employees for someone with an IQ higher than 30, almost as if Xenos, Unioners, Hessians, Molly's, all these revolutionary factions gave up that "luxurious corporate life" because they're masochists, amirite?

Not everyone becomes a 5Ker captain you know. Someone should be doing more "grounded" work. And therefore, those who are lucky enough to climb into 5Ker captain's seat, would surely be valuing their current status.

Either, your captain and whole ship's crew (what a unity!) decided to go rogue, operating outside of employer's company legal general operations. In this case, everyone on board would be considered as criminals, and are going to charged for: Unauthorised and illegal acquisition of corporate asset & conducting illegal transportation operations - smuggling. Your character can say "goodbye" to his previous life.

Implying they get caught, and every cop in Sirius is an unbribable paragon of justice.
Happy are those simple of mind.
[/quote]

Indeed, not everyone. You can be lucky once, twice, might be even five times in a row... But how it usually happens: "Last time, things went rly wrong". Once upon a time, you can run into "unbribable" one.
Therefore, reference to first argument.

If your ship was caught smuggling while being authorised to do it by your employer, company should face a lot of problem, your captain shall be still charged for smuggling, and possibly being thrown into jail.
So that how it would be inRP.

Implying a mega corporation that makes transactions in the billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions with their own monopoly of 5k transport factories can't afford an army of lawyers to bail them out for outright murder. Implying Liberty would destroy it's own economy to make a company like DSE "face a lot of problem" -as you put it because every now and then some employees decide to go the extra mile...as if the governments would even find out that they were authorized by the employers cause surely someone transporting Jump Gate parts as casually as Kyushu rice doesn't have measures against corporate espionage.
[/quote]

Well, let's dig it deeper then. Let's assume, that corp, like DSE is caught authorising not very legal operations. And they are caught doing it.

Sure, company would not be dismantled right away, and will continue to operate, paying 0.0001% of their annual income as fine, might be.
But in same time, company would be caught in scandal- which would definitely impact on company's image, stock price and other intangible assets.
Company's shareholders won't be happy with that. Possible "inter-house" contracts could be threatened by this scandal, additional attention from foreign law enforcement groups is also going to be guaranteed.

Rly, for such purpose, if the DSE would ever be interested in doing any "gray" stuff, they would hire some freelancers, who are going to be completely unaffiliated with company, and even if getting caught- they never going to be able to prove anything. Simple like that.

It would be great to give something like that to every major shipping corp, with having a line written in their ID.

Government contracting corporations to transport questionable stuff is a thing, you know, just get the parties involved to write the RP up and there you go transporting human organs with your ALG Waste Disposal 5'ker.
[/quote]

If the government needs to move some indeed "shady sh*t", there are special services to answer the call. No extra questions, much lower probability of information leak, generally safer.

Speaking about special requests/RP, the several can rly soon became Discovery Special RP server, with Outcast "defected" capital ships patrolling Manhattan's orbit, Nomads engaged in farming, and bounty hunters are pure pacifists, prohibited to mount guns on their ships, using only power of conviction.

[Username removed]

Well, let's dig it deeper then. Let's assume, that corp, like DSE is caught authorising not very legal operations. And they are caught doing it.

Sure, company would not be dismantled right away, and will continue to operate, paying 0.0001% of their annual income as fine, might be.
But in same time, company would be caught in scandal- which would definitely impact on company's image, stock price and other intangible assets.
Company's shareholders won't be happy with that. Possible "inter-house" contracts could be threatened by this scandal, additional attention from foreign law enforcement groups is also going to be guaranteed.

I think this is something that the mod actually needs, corporate warfare.

There is a reason why trading corp ID's can fly fighters and bombers, and that's not just as escort, but also to blast away at the transports of an enemy corp.

We really do need a corporate scandal in this mod.

[Stewgar]

Would you not be a pretty bad smuggler if you tried to smuggle contraband while ID's/IFF'd as a pirate to Manhatten?

That makes sense and has shifted my thinking on this. You don't see cars plastered with "I'm hauling cocaine!" along the freeway.

However, this opens up a debate about other lawful IDs (police, military etc.). There are still bad police officers and military members, after all. If that is the case, what is even the point of IDs?

Using the idea of lawfuls and corporates hauling contraband, let's look at a realistic point of view. Surely at each docking bay planet side there are scanners that can pick up what the cargo is, weight etc. There are manifests and flight plans. If Freelancer was real life, it would be near impossible for a lawful to haul contraband unless it was pre-approved by authorities for a situation (police killed a smuggler, local transport picked up artifacts and hauled to Planet Manhattan under police escort ex.). It's why in the real world smugglers haul using unmarked cars and trucks.

Freelancer is not real life, which is why we have IDs. At least for me, it's to identify friends and foes so that I can interact accordingly for the sake of fun. If server rules will not back ID and house law rules, it adds a new element to the server that I'm not sure will be entertaining.

Better to make the most profitable sell point for contraband an unlawful base in the destination system (so like Buffalo/Rochester for Cardamine instead of Manhattan).

That brings up an interesting scenario of POBs that I want to add to this. It would be interesting to have POBs, that are unknown to military and police factions, that will be buying contraband items at a premium. The ultimate destination can still be Planet Manhattan etc... but that is where smaller, faster transports come in. It can still be profitable, but the runs will have to be smaller and faster to avoid detection. RP, to sell to private vendors.

This topic introduces a variety of changes that can be made to smuggling, potentially for the better.

---

It ain't about what you are capable of, it's about what you're willing to do.

[Username removed]

However, this opens up a debate about other lawful IDs (police, military etc.). There are still bad police officers and military members, after all. If that is the case, what is even the point of IDs?

ID's don't exist in the role play environment. They exist as an out of roleplay limitation system because without them, everyone could fly any ship with any loadout and shoot everybody and that kills the purpose of this being a role play server. ID's with their do's and don'ts are good guide as to how you're supposed to play a certain character, but a lot is left to the imagination of the player.

For example I used to play mainly on a Pirate ID.

Does it mean I MUST go "yarr harr ye ain' taking ma bounty ye polike skoom!" whenever I am approached by a lawful player? Hell no, there was one instance when I was in a indie pirate faction and me and a few buddies ended up having to fly in CR space, a CR patrol stopped us and threatened to kill us for being pirates, so then I went like "What makes you think we are pirates? We haven't bothered anyone in your space, you don't see us pirating anyone, do you?"

A discussion followed and then CR agreed that we can stay in their space as long as we don't cause any trouble. Bam. Role play has been had, and neither CR nor we did go robotic mode on our ID's, people had fun and no rules were broken.

[Lonely_Ghost]

So, we take a situation- Your character is a captain of a 5Ker ship. He has made nice career, he loves his job, nice salary, package bonuses, premium health care. He is respected among his friends and family, and a son of the guy living next door to him, wants to become a ship captain too, when he grows up. Nice, don't you think? Would he risks with everything he have achieved, by taking part in some "shady" business? Yes? I guess your IQ is around 30...

You're making a lot of assumptions about how corporations in Sirius treat their employees for someone with an IQ higher than 30, almost as if Xenos, Unioners, Hessians, Molly's, all these revolutionary factions gave up that "luxurious corporate life" because they're masochists, amirite?

Not everyone becomes a 5Ker captain you know. Someone should be doing more "grounded" work. And therefore, those who are lucky enough to climb into 5Ker captain's seat, would surely be valuing their current status.

Either, your captain and whole ship's crew (what a unity!) decided to go rogue, operating outside of employer's company legal general operations. In this case, everyone on board would be considered as criminals, and are going to charged for: Unauthorised and illegal acquisition of corporate asset & conducting illegal transportation operations - smuggling. Your character can say "goodbye" to his previous life.

Implying they get caught, and every cop in Sirius is an unbribable paragon of justice.
Happy are those simple of mind.

Indeed, not everyone. You can be lucky once, twice, might be even five times in a row... But how it usually happens: "Last time, things went rly wrong". Once upon a time, you can run into "unbribable" one.
Therefore, reference to first argument.

If your ship was caught smuggling while being authorised to do it by your employer, company should face a lot of problem, your captain shall be still charged for smuggling, and possibly being thrown into jail.
So that how it would be inRP.

Implying a mega corporation that makes transactions in the billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions and billions with their own monopoly of 5k transport factories can't afford an army of lawyers to bail them out for outright murder. Implying Liberty would destroy it's own economy to make a company like DSE "face a lot of problem" -as you put it because every now and then some employees decide to go the extra mile...as if the governments would even find out that they were authorized by the employers cause surely someone transporting Jump Gate parts as casually as Kyushu rice doesn't have measures against corporate espionage.
[/quote]

Well, let's dig it deeper then. Let's assume, that corp, like DSE is caught authorising not very legal operations. And they are caught doing it.

Sure, company would not be dismantled right away, and will continue to operate, paying 0.0001% of their annual income as fine, might be.
But in same time, company would be caught in scandal- which would definitely impact on company's image, stock price and other intangible assets.
Company's shareholders won't be happy with that. Possible "inter-house" contracts could be threatened by this scandal, additional attention from foreign law enforcement groups is also going to be guaranteed.

Rly, for such purpose, if the DSE would ever be interested in doing any "gray" stuff, they would hire some freelancers, who are going to be completely unaffiliated with company, and even if getting caught- they never going to be able to prove anything. Simple like that.

It would be great to give something like that to every major shipping corp, with having a line written in their ID.

Government contracting corporations to transport questionable stuff is a thing, you know, just get the parties involved to write the RP up and there you go transporting human organs with your ALG Waste Disposal 5'ker.
[/quote]

If the government needs to move some indeed "shady sh*t", there are special services to answer the call. No extra questions, much lower probability of information leak, generally safer.

Speaking about special requests/RP, the several can rly soon became Discovery Special RP server, with Outcast "defected" capital ships patrolling Manhattan's orbit, Nomads engaged in farming, and bounty hunters are pure pacifists, prohibited to mount guns on their ships, using only power of conviction.

[Squad]

While the inRP viability/desirability of lawful smuggling is a different issue, the original topic concerned applying server rules to inRP laws:

4.4 - Every char must have only one type of ID equipped and they must play to that ID. Ship and equipment infocards which specify their use on a specific ID or specific ship must only be used on that ID or ship. In all other cases where these restrictions and allowances conflict with the server rules, the ID overrides the rules (except 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7).

So the question becomes whether carrying what one house considers to be contraband (and others may not or may allow licenses for) is sanctionable. I don't think the server rules are meant to be used to enforce inRP laws for many of the various reasons already pointed out; they vary between houses, they can change, and they have their own player development behind them. Enforcement is also specifically provided for under various IDs in the game for a reason, and it's arguably the most important purpose of police factions, so having the rules take care of an RP issue would be superfluous. The same logic extends to every prohibited action here as they would also be "unlawful" (maybe? it depends? sometimes?), and frankly I think most people would agree that adding 20-some pages of "server rules" to the game would be nuts.

TL;DR - Smuggling is only unlawful according to RP laws, not server rules.

---

[Binski]

ID's don't exist in the role play environment. They exist as an out of roleplay limitation system because without them, everyone could fly any ship with any loadout and shoot everybody and that kills the purpose of this being a role play server. ID's with their do's and don'ts are good guide as to how you're supposed to play a certain character, but a lot is left to the imagination of the player.

For example I used to play mainly on a Pirate ID.

Does it mean I MUST go "yarr harr ye ain' taking ma bounty ye polike skoom!" whenever I am approached by a lawful player? Hell no, there was one instance when I was in a indie pirate faction and me and a few buddies ended up having to fly in CR space, a CR patrol stopped us and threatened to kill us for being pirates, so then I went like "What makes you think we are pirates? We haven't bothered anyone in your space, you don't see us pirating anyone, do you?"

A discussion followed and then CR agreed that we can stay in their space as long as we don't cause any trouble. Bam. Role play has been had, and neither CR nor we did go robotic mode on our ID's, people had fun and no rules were broken.

ID's were ruled as inrp items. Some exceptions seem to be necessary, nomads, wilde, AI, and pirates. I always considered the pirate ID more of a pirate flag. It should probably have the jolly roger from the sanction notice item instead of the ship, would make more sense.

I used to like ID's being oorp but most players you came across didn't get how it worked, that you were (and still are) expected to treat people by their IFF, until you can get proof of their ID. So Freelancer IFF'd people should usually be treated as such until you get scans they are something else, like a pirate. When ID's were out of roleplay, you could make people treat you by IFF until you took an action proving you were more, perhaps in intel agent/special operative or pirate. So you could fly around as a spy with an intel ID, but not have people call you out until you break an inrp law.

But no one understood it and everyone was doing something different, and if you tried that you got acknowledged for your ID anyways and it wound up being inrp or you had to ignore many people or constantly explain your intent oorp.

Basically ID's have to be inrp because its just too confusing for new players who haven't done much rp'ing.

[Username removed]

ID's don't exist in the role play environment. They exist as an out of roleplay limitation system because without them, everyone could fly any ship with any loadout and shoot everybody and that kills the purpose of this being a role play server. ID's with their do's and don'ts are good guide as to how you're supposed to play a certain character, but a lot is left to the imagination of the player.

For example I used to play mainly on a Pirate ID.

Does it mean I MUST go "yarr harr ye ain' taking ma bounty ye polike skoom!" whenever I am approached by a lawful player? Hell no, there was one instance when I was in a indie pirate faction and me and a few buddies ended up having to fly in CR space, a CR patrol stopped us and threatened to kill us for being pirates, so then I went like "What makes you think we are pirates? We haven't bothered anyone in your space, you don't see us pirating anyone, do you?"

A discussion followed and then CR agreed that we can stay in their space as long as we don't cause any trouble. Bam. Role play has been had, and neither CR nor we did go robotic mode on our ID's, people had fun and no rules were broken.

ID's were ruled as inrp items. Some exceptions seem to be necessary, nomads, wilde, AI, and pirates. I always considered the pirate ID more of a pirate flag. It should probably have the jolly roger from the sanction notice item instead of the ship, would make more sense.

I used to like ID's being oorp but most players you came across didn't get how it worked, that you were (and still are) expected to treat people by their IFF, until you can get proof of their ID. So Freelancer IFF'd people should usually be treated as such until you get scans they are something else, like a pirate. When ID's were out of roleplay, you could make people treat you by IFF until you took an action proving you were more, perhaps in intel agent/special operative or pirate. So you could fly around as a spy with an intel ID, but not have people call you out until you break an inrp law.

But no one understood it and everyone was doing something different, and if you tried that you got acknowledged for your ID anyways and it wound up being inrp or you had to ignore many people or constantly explain your intent oorp.

Basically ID's have to be inrp because its just too confusing for new players who haven't done much rp'ing.

You reckon this issue can't be helped by a line on top of the ID description that goes something like "This "I.D" is NOT a roleplay item. It exists merely as a personal guide for what the character carrying it can and cannot do." ?