Zoner/Zoner Guard IDs

[Dab]

The Guard ID, in the case of Zoners, was solely designed to weed out those who just bought a Zoner ID with a just over half green reputation and power-traded. (Leaving capital ships our of this, of course.)

Odd, some of us Zoners use the Guard ID because our character's job is to.. Guard Zoners and Freeports. The ID is not solely for weeding out people who bought the Zoner ID. Especially when one can get Zoner guard rep full in half an hour.. Much easier than any other faction.

On that note, all I see from you is words.

Words from rumors of the bar NPCs on all the stations. Do you really mean to insinuate I made them up? I got the rumors via using FLE as it's easier than spending 4 hours flying around, then relogging until I get all of the rumors.

And about your screenshot of them making Arm runs into Hamburg, as Johann already said; No further than Planet Hamburg. Furthermore, those arms are collected by freighters, not transports. And if that wasn't enough, those arms are ONLY bought during the course of collecting necessary goods, such as oxygen, water, etc, as is said here;

Jim Millan, Freeport 1 Bartender
We make supply runs to Hamburg to import essential Commodities like Oxygen, Water, Consumer Goods, and Pharmaceuticals.

1) You can't just buy a Zoner Guard ID on Planet Erie. It's a very long process and requires patience and time. It is the absolute hardest non-request ID to get in the game.

Took me about 30 minutes..

2) There is no trading advantage to being a Zoner. Xoria has done a terrific job of balancing trade routes. Being able to land on many different bases gives you no advantage to making money. It gives you the freedom to explore and trade with almost all factions. That in itself speaks to Zoner neutrality and role play.

Zoners have the greatest trading advantage of any faction. Not only can they run their own routes, but EVERYONE ELSE'S at the same time. The Zoners can run any route they wish. Heck, they could go from Planet Leeds, controlled by Bretonia, to Stokes, controlled by KNF. A BowEx transport can't.

Zoners can also smuggle Cardamine straight to Manhattan.. Outcast ID can't.

Zoners can do any route that exists right now, so there is no way they can be balanced to other routes, for they can do all of them.

And as shown by the rumors from Zoner NPCs in my last post, the Zoners DON'T trade with all the factions. One rumor specifically stated; "... that way we can go where the governments aren't. We survive by trading with other independently minded factions."

4) Bad role-play pretty much extends everywhere across all factions equally so making trade changes to remedy this doesn't seem helpful.

If it's equal, I have yet to see it.. I see countless bad role-play being exhibited by Zoner traders, while most factionized traders I encounter roleplay quite well. The only trading faction that people expect bad RP from that start are the Zoners and Smuggler ID transports. I very clearly remember you flying your Heavy Tanker through Leeds, through Manchester, into Cortez filled with Nomad pilots, not even responding to BAF until you were in Cortez, where the first thing out of your mouth was 'This is Liberty space, you can't hurt me here' (Which was untrue btw, it's independent and the treaty allows both LN and BAF to patrol it). We saw no roleplay there at all. That was only one example of hundreds I've witnessed since the release of 4.85. Not to mention what I've seen since the release of 4.84.

5) If people want to powertrade then it's easy to do with any faction. It's easy for us (myself included) to sit back on our billion dollar reserves and our personal fleet of powerful ships and wag the finger at other people that are trying to do the same. Let's be honest here. We didn't earn our fortunes by doing missions.

Powertrading isn't easy for other factions in comparison to the Zoners. The other factions all have some sort of restriction. Such as Bretonian traders can't take Gold from Dublin to New Tokyo.. Kusari traders can't take Optronics from New Tokyo to New London.. But I see dozens of Zoners doing the same all day. Liberty traders sure can't take Cardamine from Malta to Manhattan, or Artifacts.. Zoner transports can.. So please tell me how it is as easy for a faction trader as for a Zoner one..

If there are bad zoner rp'ers then I think it needs to be done on an individual basis. I think what's being proposed here is to change the nature of a faction. It almost seems like people want to rewrite who the Zoners are. Dab I play online quite a bit and I am flying all over sirius trading. I am really not seeing any abuse issues at all. Are people here really seeing that many Zoner Guard people trading?. The Zoner Guard ID difficulty factor discourages it to such a degree that I think these reports are exaggerated to say the least. I for one would want to see some proof of abuse on a substantial level before any changes are made.
All I've seen is forum gossip so far.

We've tried to deal with the bad RP'ers on an individual basis. It hasn't worked. For two years it has been tried, and it hasn't worked. No one is trying to change the Zoner faction. This proposal is made with only pre-existing Zoner ideals being a factor. If Zoners really did have a history of running blockades between warring houses, than I wouldn't care.. But show me where that is at all in-RP activity for a Zoner.. Show me some evidence that Zoners have been transporting Cardamine for the Outcasts..

You might not see these abuse issues yourself, but they do exist. I see them daily. I see them in Bretonia, in Rheinland, in Kusari, in Liberty, etc. I especially notice the Bret-Kusari blockade running by Zoners. If you sit in Leeds at 'the Tau-31 gate for two hours, you'll see at least 20 Zoner Guard transports filled with Gold, Deuterium, and Optronics heading to and from the system.

In contrary to your statement about the difficulty factor, it is in fact, the ease of which one can get a Zoner Guard ID that makes this problem even worse. The hard way takes 30 minutes, but if you're lucky you can get the rep completely full in 5 minutes, just by flying to Bethlehem and getting a quad bribe. Then you fly to Corinth, buy the ID, fly to Livadia, buy the Whale, fly to Bretonia, and start blockade running.. This is exactly what happens.

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