' Wrote:there is a difference between a war and the codes of honour associated with the concept of duelling.
it is true that, the raw essence of war is to win and ther eis no concept of unfairness or fairness.
but in later ages, as man came to appreciate the need to value true skills in combat, a code ofhonour did evolve in whcih men did pay respect to the individual skills each had developed. hence in France we saw the Musketeers, and in later years the gentleman's duelling code. Especially after the Dark Ages, mankind did come to appreictae that wars were ugly, but need not be dishonourable and leave a bad taste behind it if at all possible.
So for example: the most skilled fencer in the world could be most pitiably slain by a archer 30 yards distant. But it is the archers name which shall be forever tainted by his choice of way to defeat his opponent.
What is a combatant int he position of an archer to do? Sometimes, they call for a time and place for mutual combat and forewarned choice of weapons. Other times, the archer would merely cripple the fencer and then give him the chance to retreat alive, preserving their honour.
Dn't forget the code of honour, in times of hardship, it is all that divides men from animals.
And this is the reason why France doesn't win any modern wars - their soldiers are good, but their generals aren't... <dons flameproof coat>
Anyway - keeping in mind that this is a game and NOT real life - in a game, you can pretty much do whatever you want. If you choose to handicap yourself, then more power to you. Quite honestly, I play this game for the RP perspective only, the PvP activities are completely secondary to me. That's why I tend to die in combat against players - I'm also physically quite a bit older than nearly all of you, and I don't have fast reaction times, either. (For that matter, my KIDS are older than a lot of you...)
In real life - you can, as an individual, have a code duello. From a survival perspective in a space combat environment such as the game simulates - you'll have a great legacy for your obituary. In actual combat, there is no such thing as a fair fight. You can show mercy to the person you're beating or that you've beaten, which is perfectly fine. You're either out there to stomp the crap out the person you're fighting, or you have no business being out there in the first place.
And yes, I do have experience in the real world military, so I DO know what I'm talking about. For that matter, in the Freelancer world, you'd need something like the convention from the Honor Harrington Universe - otherwise wars between the house systems would be over pretty quickly. Who needs missiles and beam weapons when there are such lovely things as kinetic energy strikes available?
