BHG Warships. A flawed concept?

[Carlos_Benitez]

I recently read through yet another topic about BHG capital-ship PVP whores ruining everyone's fun, and I've been thinking to myself, is the idea of BHG warships, in itself, completely flawed anyway?

It seems to me that the Bounty Hunters Guild is just that; a Guild, of free agents working for their own profit. How could so many people get organised together to crew a capital ship? Surely they would need paying, and NO bounty in Sirius would pay for over 50 officers, when each one of them could be out there, in fighters and bombers, winning their OWN bounties.
Who would build BHG capitals? Do they have a shipyard? Do they have the resources? Most importantly, why on earth would they want battleships? Pursuing enemies through unlawful space in a capital ship is totally impractical, and as previously mentioned, the cost of running and crewing a battleship, cruiser or destroyer greatly outweighs any profit that could be made by using the ship to collect bounties!

As far as RP is concerned, it seems to me that Bounty Hunter pilots would much rather work in smaller groups in fighters and bombers, and get a decent cut of any bounties, rather than work as one of 50 or more people as part of a crew of a Battleship. As far as RP is concerned, I can't see why Bounty Hunter capitals should exist!

Then, we come to the OORP issues surrounding them. By it's very nature, the BHG is not one organisation and is made up of independent players. That means that any regulation of such players is next to impossible. I'm well aware of this, as we Corsairs sometimes have similar issues.
Thus, it seems regulation of every individual Bounty Hunter begins and ends with the ADMINS.
In truth, it normally begins with them getting a capital ship, and ends with a ban.

The Bounty Hunter's Guild ID is the only ID in the game which suggests you can go anywhere, fight anyone, and use a massive ship. This is why it attracts PVP-whores that don't belong here.
Other than clan-organised BHG, it seems to me that most BHG players (most, not all) are out to score as many kills as possible, and use their bounty winnings to get bigger and BIGGER ships, so that they can score MORE kills.

Is it EVER appropriate to see a Bounty Hunter Battleship/Cruiser in criminal systems? If the BHG could do such a thing, so could any of the House navies!
Of course, if people understood this, all the BHG warships would be stuck in house space, either fighting unbalanced battles against tiny house-criminal-ships, or sitting around, redundant. People are always complaining about BHG capital-whores ruining everyone's fun...but sometimes I wonder, is it POSSIBLE to fly a BHG warship and NOT upset people?
Either you're fighting unbalanced battles in house space, or you're invading places you shouldn't be going, and even then; with too much metal than would seem to be appropriate. Perhaps these players dreams of owning huge ships turn sour when they get them, because their ships cannot be used for anything but EVIL!?

Sorry...going a bit melodramatic there...but you get my point.
In short, I'm beginning to wonder weather we should have BHG warships in the game atall.

• The RP of the existence of such ships is dubious at best.
  
• The use of such ships, in RP, should never be profitable for an organisation who's sole purpose is to score kills in an economical manner so as to make profit.
  
• The BHG lifestyle and ship-set attract the wrong sort of player.
  
• It may be impossible to use BHG capitals without voluntarily, or involuntarily screwing up other people's RP and PVP experience.
  

Certainly, If I where one of the Disco team looking back, I would regret ever introducing BHG warships to the mod at all.
The gunship (once it's balanced) and the Orca Gunboat could be used well, but I don't see much hope of the warships ever benefiting the community. If it where possible to do so without considerable techno-faffing, Id have them removed from the mod.
To make up for it, I'd probably give the Orca a bigger power plant and more armour, making it a technologically superior (but RP practical) capital ship in-keeping with the rest of the state-of-the-art BHG ship line.

Glossary:
Capital Ship=Gunship, Gunboat, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Battleship.
Warship = Destroyer, Cruiser, Battlecruiser, Battleship.

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