Merc ID

[Denelo]

Freelancers and mercenaries are the same thing. No, freelancers and mercenaries are NOT the same thing. Freelancers are independant, and mercenaries usually aren't. Both of them work for money. Yes, but again, mercenaries are usually in factions In vanilla all that Trent do is work for money, except in the last missions against the nomads. But fact is: no freelancer pilots gunboats, cruisers and battleships. No, FREELANCERS don't, but MERCENARIES are generally in a group, and thus would have the same kinds of fund as a big orginization, and diplomats and everything. They would be able to, with some negotiation, procure capital ships. Bribes are everything in that regard. Trent dont pilot these ships in the game. Walker pilot a liberty cruiser, because Walker is from the Order. Well, no, Walker was in the Navy, and then changed to the Order, and his crew and cruisers came with him.
So, what I propose about that is: remove entirely the mercenary ID, WHAT?! What about mercenaries, people who work in a group for the hgiest bidder? and raise the freelancer ID to level 50 so that a freelancer can enjoy a very heavy fighter if he wants. Acually, you'd only need to prohibit anything above VHF, and then could make it all levels... but that's not the point of removing it, the point was that people were using it so they could do everything... I mean, would the same person both pirate traders and escort them? But after that, he will have to join a faction, because gunboats, cruisers and battleships are not sold to anyone like you sell goods in a market. Yes... but mercenaries would be able to procure them... bribes work wonders among high officials...
Lets see real life examples: do you see a individual mercenary commanding a navy battleship? No, he need to join some faction. Wow, people look to RL mercs for examples for disco a lot... mercs on this mod are loosly based around that, but that's LOOSLY, and like I said before, MERCENARIES ARE USUALLY IN A GROUP... if freelancers were based on RL freelancers, then half the characters on this server would be writing books etc! For this we have the bounty hunters guild, They're BOUNTY HUNTERS, not MERCENARIES! Mercenaries can be either lawful or unlawful, while bounty hunters are lawful. Mercenaries work at any job, while bounty hunters take bounties... imagine that, a BOUNTY hunter taking bounties only... and other mercenary factions can be created too if someone dont like the BHG. How are we going to create our own merc faction without a merc ID?! The BHG have its own cruisers too, and they have patrols everywhere to help bringing some assistance. What does whether or not there's plenty of npc assistance have to do with a player ID?

All in all, I think I've found more than a couple reasons that that last idea should be utterly refuted... no offence meant F_wolf, but imo, that wouldn't solve a thing, only create more problems.