Too much NPCs

[Grumblesaur]

But the whole point of those law enforcement patrols is to enforce the law and protect civilians from pirates and whatnot.

Just like a corporate ships would be blasted by Corsair NPCs outside of Crete.

I would agree that ideally it should be players doing that and not NPCs, but that's not possible with the minute server population that we have.

If we had around 100000 players online at any given time then we could consider getting rid of NPCs. But now that we have 100 tops it would be silly and harmful to do so.

There is an underlying assumption in this statement that law enforcement patrols cover every portion of lawful space at any given time. Freelancer's distorted, unrealistically small scale compounds this issue. The orbits of planets are huge. Entire star systems are enormous. In the real world, it's impossible to thoroughly keep a city under watch in all places at all times. No Navy can see every square nautical mile of the ocean at once.

Space is far larger than a city or an ocean, and far more sparse. To say that NPCs are there to catch every smuggler or foolhardy pirate is nonsense, and is already contradicted by the fact that we have atmospheric entry points that allow factions hostile to the primary owners of a planet to land there.

Just because somebody can be there does not mean that someone will always be there.

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A way a lone a last a loved a long the riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay,
brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.