New player looking for guidance

[SigCorps]

Hello, I am a player who played freelancer in 2004, beat it single player and loved it. Then me and my friends moved on to WoW,CSS...newer games. My friends and I decided to play freelancer again, and after reading these forums for a few hours, quite frankly i cannot wait to get started. My friend and I are going to either pirate (which is robbing freighters right?) or smuggle, either way something illegal. We both relish combat and love to fight, but are going to involve ourselves in the RP side as well. I am here looking for guidance and or answers to various questions.
1.Although it may seem trivial, because of our WoW heritage we always like to aspire to become the most powerful;essintially, what are some of the best ships around in the different classes, and what is a bomber?
2.Considering we will ALWAYS be playing together, and hopefully with friends we make playing this game, what are some factions or what I have gathered reading (clans) or whatever the smaller more defined groups are called. Which of these groups will fit our illegal,robbing, fighting style of play.
3.Although it will be hard being attacked at the early stages, what is the best way for me to acquire one of the ships you hopefully listed above, and how fast can me and my friend do so?

Thanks very much for your help everyone!
-Milamber

Well your questions are heard very often. Your first question will give some folks pause. We are an RP server. That means Role play is more important, to some if not most, then power. PVP is secondary here. As for the best ships. Well since your faction dictates which ships you can use, it is best to find out which faction you want to play before choosing a ship type. Information on all the NPC and most of the Offical factions can be found here

Discovery Wiki

Since you want to be pirates then you are really looking at the Corsiars, Outcasts, Blood Dragons, Mollys, Red Hessains, Unioners, LWB, Hogosha, Golden Chrysanthemums (Female only), Gaians, Libery Rogues, Xenos and Lane hackers. (Sorry if I missed any). The two biggest groups are the Corsairs and Outcasts. Now they all have established RP and diplomacy. Not saying that you can not do your own thing but going against what has already been brought forth will put you at odds with the rest of those folks and will see you hunted down. So do your research first.

Now within each Freelancer NPC faction there may be several Official and Unofficial player factions. Official factions have gone through a process and have the Admins blessing on their RP. Unofficial factions can be a groups of folks who just like to play together to a group going for official status. Again the Wiki can also help you there. Also the forums will also have information about all the different PC factions

Here is the Forum for the official faction recruiment

Official faction recruiment threads

In these threads you can see what type of sips each faction flies. You can also find some of the ship info on the Wiki but since we are currently in a new beta the information there has not yet been fully updated and will most likely not be until the official release of version 4.85.

As for getting those ships, well first you have to trade to get the cash or run missions. At this time trading is the best bet. You start with your Starflyer and work your way up from there. Mining is bine worked on and to get the best bonuses you need spcific ships with specific tags and ID's. We have hundreds of ships to choose from but each ship has restrictions on it's use.

Last but most importantly please read our rules. If you break the rules you will be hit with sanctions.

I know I did not really answer any of your questions but the information I did give you will help you with your time here.

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Formerly Sam Nichols, creator of OSI