Gameplay uniqueness on Police IDs: An observation

[sindroms]

Yo.

If you are a regular player of Discovery Freelancer, chances are you have a set of both unlawful, lawful and ''grey'' characters which you log for different reasons. I did some asking around TS some time ago and upon asking which character people would log for random roleplay encounters ingame they (Upon getting the ''lol what random roleplay'' joke out of the way) mostly gave preference for a ''grey character''.

It makes sense when you think about it, really:

When it comes to unlawful characters, they mostly interact with other lawfuls - usually through the medium of piracy or raids, both of which involve guns and do not necesseraly give many chances for high quality roleplay. Also I am sure that if you are an active pirate, you know how untalkative and annoying traders can be.

Then we have lawful characters. Their potential for random roleplay is a bit better than unlawfuls, since they can interact with other lawfuls during idle times and unlike unlawfuls, they do not get shot by surroundings while they do. And yet, at the end of the day the lawful IDs are used primarily to shoot either unlawfuls or hostiles in the form of houses your own is at war with.

And then we finally have the quasi-lawful IDs such as Freelancers, Junkers and Zoners - which seem to offer us much more roleplay encounters, if we are to believe from those responses. It does make sense, after all, when you do not have any innitial enemies based upon your ID, there is a larger chance for you to talk your way through interactions and not have them ending up with a blue message. The fact that these IDs can interact with either side of the lawful scale clearly work in their favor and most people you see with extensive forum roleplay for their characters will seem to prefer these IDs.






And..then you have the Police IDs.

Now, before I go into more detail about this, most of my experience so far comes from the LPI ID in specific. The reason I make note of this is to give context of the roleplay tendencies of that faction and how they are portrayed in their lore as well as the more oorp aspect of where they operate in in terms of activity as well as player-quality-wise.

So far I have gained the impression that a Police ID could be the one strictly lawful ID that offers the same amount of random ingame roleplay as a ''grey'' ID.

And this is why:
The inherent idea behind the Police ID is to, unlike their Naval and SpecForces ID counterparts, is to focus on their interactions with other lawful players such as traders - performing scans, informing them of problems and other. In Liberty in particular, the LPI ID also acts as a psuedo-Angel ID, where you can interact with new players and inform them of ID or ship/tech related issues within roleplay.

I would also like to mention that new players seem to absorb such information and suggestions much more eagerly than what I've seen chilling with the Angels on TS - my guess would be that the LPI IFF is ''green'' by default and thus gives a sense of friendliness and trust - a suggestion that has already been given to the Angels faction.

From personal experience as a primarily unlawful character player, it is very interesting to see the usually mute traders stop when you ask them to - without having to shoot out lanes or fire CDs, just so you can scan them. And there are many of them around, so there is always someone to talk to and encounter. And if they do not meet your expectations, you can simply tell them that they are free to go.

But it does not stop there either. The unique part is interacting with unlawfuls. Due to what the Police are, they are usually flying ships that one would not prefer to use in most situations. A liberator, a freighter. Heck, the regular VHFs and Bombers are considered as ''swat'' material and are not a daily driver. It means that you are free NOT to engage things that you feel are above your paycheck.

And the fun thing is - most people know that and it seems as though unlawful players are much more willing to trade words - even if they are just insults, with an LPI rather than an LN. They are also usually not the first to attack.



So what else?
Well, there's TLAGSNET. A fun little system that makes the LPI the most voyeuristic ID to the point of being classified as a kink.
And if you apply for any of the official Police factions, you also get a neat little command called /nodock, that has been useful in dealing with both troublesome people OORPly and IRPly so far.


So basically I am saying - go make a police IDed character and try it out yourself. It was a neat little surprise for me as a person who has never really flown those much and it was interesting to learn something new after being here so long. It is a nice and very relaxing experience, so go check it out yourself.

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