A Rule Ammendment - a poll with a point :)

[jimmy Patterson]

well - its much about dimensions here. - the police ( in its very original state ) deals with freighters. - the dromedary as the fastest of the freighters and the most efficient one - aswell as the rheinland freighter ( forgot the name ) which is the toughest.

thats the smugglers ships that the police has to deal with. - but that was vanilla 1.0

now we have transports, ships that were exclusive to the NPCs - and we do have warships that were exclusive for npc use, too. - the common police is not equipped nor appropriate to deal with one of those flying fortresses. - full wings of policecrafts ( like 4 ships ) are no match for even a dromedary with a lvl6 30k shield.
i think that is reason enough for the military to step in. - its the same difference like catching a smuggler in a car at the mexican border, who tries to smuggle heroin into the USA - or intercepting a heavily armed submarine in open waters filled to the rim with drugs. - the police is not equipped to take on the later one. - maybe the coast guards are ... but really, it is reason enough to call in the guys that are better equipped than the common police.

so - again ( like to many times ) smuggling and preventing smuggling is a responsibility that lays on both sides. - while i think that a battleship will not chase a smuggler - it will most certainly FIRE at a smuggler when he is stupid enough to fly into weaponrange.

a transport like a container transport or a liner is a formidable foe for a gunboat even - compared to a gunboat, utterly undergunned, but still able to take it down. - a liner can even withstand a single bomber, cause a liner isn t exactly easy to hit when its flying straight while firing its weapons ( provided its a good gunner ) - as a matter of fact... harder to take down than some huge battleships, cause on those, its harder NOT to hit them than to hit them.

so - i believe that a cruiser or a battleship can go after the big transports. - the question is ... why are those HUGE transports smuggling anyway. - from the point of view of the lawfuls, i d find it much more plausible when .... contraband ( the original, not the one made up by the factions ) was only allowed to be hauled in freighters, but the profit would be adjusted so that up to 499 cargo wielded as much profit as a big transport. - then a freighter would be a smugglers vessel and the police could take it ... without military support.

for example - make the profit span like 60.000 credits - but set the purchase value to 300.000 or so. [ so, purchase 300k, selling 360k ] - why so high? - the profit is supposed to be high, but also loosing the cargo should be a pain. ( that gets rid of those "kill me then" guys )

but as long as we allow those 220.000 armoured ( possibly Cap armoured ) transports with 100.000 shields and up to 12 guns carrying ships with up to 5000 cargohold to haul the same things - we ll NEED capships to counter them.

anyway.. i think the situation was mostly about "what a capship does when he faces a smuggler and there is simply no small ship around to stop it" rather than "if its allowed at all"

Angel of Mercy, please tell me you're joking. The Admins frequently ban people for violating the letter of the law when their actions follow its spirit. Just look in the sanctions threads, I can point out several very harsh but entirely unnecessary sanctions.

As is, several entirely stupid rules exist now, the capship-piracy restriction being one of them. Any trader in a Container Transport can murder anything short of Gunboats or the toughest bombers, and if a group of traders fly together, you need a capital ship to stop them.

Besides, if an outlaw has a capital ship, he's gonna use it. He's not going to IRP ignore a juicy cargo shipment right across his nose for any reason. A pirate won't stop pirating just because he's got a ship that can beat a Container Transport in a one-on-one. It's going to make him bolder.

As is, Traders are using the piracy limitation as an OoRP shield.

Not good RP? You sure about that? Historically, Military ships have been used to prevent contraband from reaching friendly shores. One example that immediatly springs to mind was the US Navy's African Squadron, which interdicted the trans-atlantic slave trade in the years leading up to the American Civil War. In our modern times, the Navy is still the one dealing with pirates. In the US, the Coast Guard deals with smugglers, and they're a branch of the military. Viewed in that light, it's not so OoRP for military ships to be interdicting smugglers. At least that's how I feel about it...

Back on topic, though, I voted Yes. I do believe that Outcasts and Corsairs should enjoy the same rights as lawfuls to enforce their laws. Denying them that right creates a double-standard, which really isn't fair for anyone.

i agree completly just look at today and yoy get proof all those us coast guard comersials with the freigate or the helocoptor and the sniper rifle

---

kudos tommeh for sig