Starting a Faction...

[Tenacity]

Well, there isnt a hogosha faction yet, and they're pretty fun to play (I have an independent hogosha character).

Hogosha ID allows all ship types up to battleship, though they have no battleship of their own. In 4.85, hogosha are getting their own unique Very Heavy Fighter, and the farmer's alliance (the hogosha's closest ally) is getting a pretty decent looking bomber to go with it. Past that, you could use corsair capships within the boundaries of the ID, or if you made deals with the KNF you could use kusari capships.

Hogosha have a unique playstyle compared to other pirate or lawful factions. They -are- pirates, but they're lawful pirates to a degree. They have connections within the kusari government, so as long as they only pirate foreign shipping they're safe from reprisal (kusari likes to be isolationist). They also have the outcasts, dragons, GC, and GMG as primary enemies, all of which are becoming quite popular and active factions.

Hogosha are the primary artifact smugglers in kusari space, and can also smuggle other goods like counterfeit software or light arms. They -cannot- smuggle drugs of any kind, as per agreement with the kusari state police dating back to vanilla freelancer. The police and most of kusari considers artifacts to not be contraband, unlike the other houses, and allows hogosha to move them into and out of kusari space, but drug trade is stopped by the hogosha.

Hogosha means "guardian" in japanese. They view themselves as vigilante-style "protectors of the people". Hogosha hate all foreigners, and they hate drugs (cardamine, primarily, synth MJ isnt so big a deal but dont smuggle it yourself). Hogosha work with the kusari government and naval forces to protect kusari and attack it's enemies, but also help the kusari state police within kusari borders in dealing with pirates and drug smugglers.

Hogosha in freelancer are designed after the modern-day Yakuza (japanese organized crime syndicate). They care about the kusari people and maintaining kusari culture, but are also not above illegal activity for self profit. Extortion, blackmail, piracy, smuggling, and terrorism are all parts of Hogosha activity.

Hogosha work very closely with samura, which produces all kusari-made ships. Through this, and in agreement with the KNF, you could use kusari warships as flagships, but I honestly wouldnt use anything larger than a cruiser. Other than fighting dragons/GC/outcasts/GMG, your primary activity as hogosha will be pirating, and you cant pirate in anything larger than a gunboat anyways.

You could definitely build up a military hogosha fleet of fighters/bombers/capships in order to wage war against the blood dragons, golden C, and outcasts, though. That would definitely spice kusari space up quite a bit.

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