Are we killing Discovery?

[Tenacity]

The problem is some players want to express their power over others, even when they dont really have it.

Factions think independents are undeserving of anything above vanilla light fighters, and independents are pissed because they want to have the same rights (and should have the same rights, though I'm a bit biased) as the faction members do.

I'll use myself as an example, with my order pilot Aki.Kimura. I fly a zoner destroyer, with order tag and ID. Before I even got those ships, I had a long and detailed biography of the character and the ship both written up and posted here on the forums. I explained why I have that ship, how my character came to command that ship (she's actually second in command), and what her purpose within the order is.

Now, the biggest problem with independent players is that they -dont- do this. They dont tell the rest of the community what their intent or reasoning for their ship or faction is... so basically, nobody else knows who they are, why they're flying some big powerful vessel, or really anything else about them.

This can be fixed through in-game RP if you RP well with everyone you meet, but it takes longer to do and a lot of players will tend to ignore your RP and just rat you out for not being a faction member anyways.

If you are a non-capship independent (meaning you use a transport, fighter, or bomber) things arent so rough - factions dont pay as much attention to you because capships, whether they're practical and powerful or not, are seen as a status symbol here. They're a measure of your ability RP, and a lot of independents -have no ability to RP- despite having the ship. It's very easy to trade for a couple weeks and buy a battleship, what ISNT easy is explaining why you have that battleship beyond a reasonable doubt.

See, I'm independent because, quite honestly, I didnt want to work upwards from a fighter in black squadron. I'm an absolutely terrible fighter pilot, and they force all new recruits to use a nephthys class fighter for a month or longer before upgrading. Now... for some factions that might be ok, even if you're a bad fighter pilot... but for the order? The nomad and bounty hunter NPC's that plague omicron minor can easily tear up anything without gunboat or stronger level shields, especially if you're an inadequate pilot.

Despite being an independent, I still recognize black squadron as representative of the commanding unit of the order. If they give me orders, I follow them to a reasonable measure - most independents I see will not do that, they remain independent not because of ship restrictions, but because "they want to do what they want and have nobody to answer to for their actions". That's the biggest issue at hand, independents thinking that they can roam without a leash, they dont restrict their own characters and in the end wind up being OORP terrorists, and not respectable players.

The real source of the problem is new players. They come to the server, find out that if they save up a few million credits they can buy a cruiser or battleship, and go "WOW! AWESOME!" and never think about the RP behind such a vessel before buying it. They buy the ship for it's power and size, not for it's RP value.

In truth, I HATE my destroyer. I have turned out to be pretty good in pvp situations with it... but I just dont like the ship. It has low mass and gets bounced around a lot by the rocks in order systems, it's difficult to pilot through asteroid fields, it's a huge target and seems to lack enough firepower to really make any difference against equivalent capships. The only reason I use it at the moment is because it fits the RP story I've developed and continue to develop - that story will eventually lead to using the zoner gunboat, which according to rumors is probably going to be the weakest possible ship for pvp not counting transports/freighters.

Most independents are concerned with flaunting their Epeens and destroying all opposition in pvp, not with RP'ing. there are a lot of good indies out there (and I believe I'm a fairly good one despite how much hate I seem to pull on the forums), but they're by far outnumbered with the bad ones. There really is no solution other than restricting ships to faction guard systems so that player factions can control their distribution.

Make everything bomber level and above sold in guard systems, and the problem wont be as widespread. Any independent using a ship without faction approval can be fired upon by that faction, and sanctioned for using a ship they were not authorized to purchase. Yes, it does make things more difficult for everyone involved, but aside from removing the ships completely that's the only real solution.

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