The Order - Future Direction

[Tenacity]

Alright, so to preface this... The Order has it's problems, nobody will disagree there. Primarily these problems lie with an abundance of players who are... not motivated to RP... as well as the fact that the faction has completely lost it's original playstyle and purpose. Rather than operating in a stealthy manner as it should, we seem to have become an all out warring faction with it's own fleets and bolstered numbers. We have been discussing these issues within the order high command for months now, and the only true agreement that we've come to is "something has to change".

What follows are numerous suggestions which have been put forward by both myself and others within the order high command, which serve as the possible changes to correct the issues within our faction. While most of these will not go over well with the community, at least those who play within the order right now, the purpose of this thread is feedback and -constructive- criticism of the ideas. Flaming or worthless posting here will be removed, without warning.

Topic 1: The Order-BHG War

Most of us within the high command agree on one thing - the BHG war needs to end. The primary reason for this is to try and cut out at least a portion of the so called "lolwutters" within the order faction.

It is well realized at this point that the BHG war brings very little to us other than pure pvp. The bhg are a large, widespread group, with hundreds of nonfactioned players who strive for little more than to shoot whatever shows up as red on their screen. In turn, this attracts the same kind of players to The Order for one simple reason - it gives them a near constant, reliable target. You can log on almost any time of the day with an order character, and there will be bounty hunter players nearby to go pick a fight with.

Many of us, including myself, believe that the BHG war serves no real purpose. Sure, the BHG are trying to get technology - that gives them a purpose, but not us. Personally, I disagree with the BHG ever getting a capship fleet to begin with, as they were never depicted as the kind of faction which would go to war or require such ships during the singleplayer campaign. However, such cannot be changed now.

Simply put, if we end the order-bhg war, many players within the order will find that they either no longer have a reliable target, or simply do not have enough pvp action to sate their thirst, and will leave. At least, that's what we're hoping for. The order should be focused on dealing with wilde and nomads, no one else.

One fear brought up by this particular change is that instead of leaving the order entirely, the pvp-oriented players will simply begin to harass our liberty enemies (navy and LSF) instead. This is a potential problem with such a change, but there are already some restrictions in place on that front - capships are still not allowed in liberty (order capships, that is), so the bulk of the fighting would end up focusing on alaska, well out of view of the discovery populace. Even then, alaska has it's own threats which we do not encounter in the usual omicron systems, making it even more difficult for these players to survive there.

The idea to end this war is simple - the BHG and Order wind up in one massive battle with the majority of their fleets and forces all in one locale. During this battle, the nomads take advantage of the chaos and destroy both fleets in one blow. With severely reduced forces, the order is forced to turn from it's overt policy back to a covert one, focusing on stealth and intrigue rather than all out warfare. Similarly, with it's own forces depleted, the BHG core would pull back and cut off the order-bhg war, realizing that the technology they hoped to gain is no longer worth the cost. The Core would turn it's focus primarily onto the corsairs and outcasts, going back to traditional bounty hunting in the edgeworlds rather than warfare.

Topic 2: Overt vs Covert Policy

Throughout the campaign, the Order was always a covert organization. It had very few ships, and thus focused primarily on placing spies, collecting information, and making key precision strikes when destructive force was warranted. With Discovery, we've completely strayed from that role, and now seem to be focused on open warfare against both the nomads as well as other enemies, mentioned above.

If topic 1 goes through, then the order will, in-RP, have lost the majority of it's fleets and personnel. Without it's large battlefleets to continue open warfare campaigns against it's enemies, the order will be forced to change it's approach to both the nomads and other groups throughout sirius. Rather than warfare, the order needs to revert to it's original role of stealth, infiltration, and information gathering. Ideally, the order will be 'invisible' to other factions until a nomad or wilde shows up, and then will appear 'out of nowhere' with forces to defend humanity against that threat.

Now, one change suggested by some of the Keepers themselves was to refrain from having an actual 'home system', beyond omicron 100. Instead of having one system which all order players are based out of, we would establish hidden, dockable osiris-class ships throughout sirius, one in each house and several placed strategically throughout the edge worlds, from which the order would operate.

Just like our battleship in alaska, which cannot be detected on sensors and is very well hidden, these other osiris class battleships would, in essence, be 'cloaked', as well as hidden within natural obstructions such as asteroid fields or nebula.

My choice would be to place one of these bases inbetween each of the four houses, as well as one in each of the edge areas (the sigmas, omegas, taus, and omicrons respectively). Some example locations would be:
-Within the dark matter clouds in kepler or galileo
-Within the barrier ice fields of magellan
-In the asteroid field near the lost battlestar in omicron delta
And other such inhospitable locations in systems such as Bering/Hudson, the sigmas, omegas, and taus.

Having such bases placed throughout Sirius allows the order to split up and operate in smaller groups, each with their own area and agenda. Similarly, these bases could prevent capital ships from docking with them, which further restricts the out of control capital ship swarms the order currently experiences. The only area that our capital ships would now be capable of operating from would be Omicron 100.

Topic 3: Allegiances

The majority of the order high command has agreed that our current allegiances neither make sense, nor benefit us. During the campaign, the order allied with numerous groups... the hackers, the rogues, the Bundschuh, the IMG, the blood dragons, even the outcasts temporarily. However, for some reason unknown to us, Discovery has cut off all of these past, reliable alliances and instead allied us with the corsairs and hogosha - neither of which we had any interaction with during the nomad war, and neither of which provide us with any real support any longer.

The Corsairs may have been useful allies early on, when we found ourselves overwhelmed by the nomads - and later the bounty hunter's guild - with no allies in sight. However, recent changes in faction diplomacy have cut off all technology exchange between the groups, and it is a rare circumstance when either one of us sees the other in battle. To further problemize the situation, there is the issue of the dozens of order capital ships which are in use by oblivious corsair players, against the rules at that. It has become tedious trying to hunt down and deal with all of these players, and there are just as many order players using corsair equipment and ships without permission.

The Hogosha alliance in particular makes little sense. We never fight alongside them, they have no interaction with nomads and very little interaction with the wilde, and they offer us no equipment or technology with which to keep the alliance secure.

There is only one thing which these alliances rest on - and that is the artifact trade. It has been brought up numerous times that due to these allegiances, artifacts can be more easily monitored and controlled by the Order. However, any time we try to roleplay this out in-game, by confiscating even a small amount of artifacts from corsair or hogosha smugglers, the response is the same - that we are allies, and that we cannot "pirate" because of that.

So, even if these allegiances were cut, the order would still be more than capable of confiscating artifacts if need be, and without the 'allies' excuse used against us. It only makes sense that we try to re-establish our old allies, whom were pivotal in ending the nomad war of 799-801 A.S., and cast off the allies that we currently have, who are of little use to us.

That brings us to new allegiances - what factions would benefit us most? Personally, I and many others support the return to our traditional allies from the nomad war - the blood dragons and the bundschuh. Zoners are the only allies we have which do not need to change, as there is both cooperative work between the two, as well as technology exchange in both equipment and ships.

Allying with the bundschuh gives us hidden bases throughout rheinland, as well as the assistance of the Bundschuh and Red Hessians when dealing with rheinland wilde. We are already on semi-friendly terms with the Rheinland military, however, and some believe that allying with the bundschuh will only make the situation with the military worse. I do not believe the same - the bundschuh are a political faction, they have some say within the rheinland government, and are not an open pirate or terrorist faction such as the corsairs or hogosha. Similar to our situation with the Hogosha, the bundschuh may even be able to provide an active voice within the rheinland government urging rheinland to help the order, allowing us more freedom of movement throughout the house.

Similarly, allying with the blood dragons provides us an easier path to the sigmas, where we can obtain new resources from the gas miner's guild. The blood dragons also field the only base within the same system as Tekagi's arch - the home of the kusari wild - and can not only provide us docking but also assistance in battle against those enemies, whom they view just as dangerous as we do.

Of course, both of these leave us little in the way of bretonia, but nomad activity is least common in bretonia of the four houses, and we would still have the option of a hidden osiris base there as described previously to maintain a watch on the nomad lair and nomad city within bretonian space.

Topic 4: Keeping the remaining Capships in check

This is likely to be the most controversial of the topics posted here today, but ultimately it is something that needs to be done. The greatest bane of the order right now is the overabundance of 'lolwutter' capital ships - they outnumber factionalized order and 'good' independent players combined, and exist to do nothing more than kill whatever they can with the minimal RP required for their engagements.

Hopefully, ending the BHG war and restricting where such ships can dock will thin most of them out. However, many still believe that even after that, we will need some way to restrict capital ships to those players who have proven they deserve to fly them, and keep them out of the hands of those who dont.

Any time capship restriction comes up on this board, it is a controversial topic that typically descends into flaming one another - so I'll remind you... keep the flames and nonconstructive posts out of this thread, or they will be removed.

Now then; several ideas on 'how' these ships can be restricted have come up. Most of them either put too much stress on the admins, who have other things to do than read 'capship application stories', or simply remove the ability for independent players to obtain the ships after reasonable effort and restraint has been demonstrated.

So far, the suggestion which everyone seems to agree on is this:

-The addition of an item, perhaps a replacement scanner (much like a battleship license) - for the purposes of explanation, this item will be referred to as an "order capship license"

-The "order capship license" is not purchaseable on any dockable base. Instead, a joint 'bank' character is created which all members of Order High Command have access to. This bank is given a number of these licenses by the administration.

-Each time a player requests the purchase of a capship (for the purposes of this discussion, capship is anything of cruiser size or larger - gunboats are still free use for all players), the order high command reviews that player's roleplay - whether it is on the forums or in-game. Not everyone may have good story writing skills or the desire to make exceedingly long forum posts explaining why they should be able to fly a capital ship, which is why we would also take in-game behavior into consideration, in order to determine if a player is responsible and restrained enough to not abuse such a craft.

-If it is agreed upon by the majority of the high command that a player deserves the ship which they are requesting, then the 'bank' character will give that player the "order capship license", and the player will be permitted to purchase the ship they requested. A detailed listing of all permitted players and what ships they were allowed will be kept, so that 'trading' of the license, or changing one's ship after being approved, can be punished.

-Any players who fly an order capital ship either without the license equipped, or fly a capital ship which they were not approved for, may have that ship removed by the admins (deleted or replaced with a fighter) without warning. The order cruiser, carrier, and battleship infocards will be updated to readily state that these ships may not be used without an order capship license, and warning the player of the consequences of purchasing the ship without the license - as well as how the license may be acquired.

Ultimately, the goal is to both restrict the ships from those players who are 'unworthy', while not creating additional workload for the admins by having an alternate group which approves capship applications. The high command consists of 6 players, three of which are in the Order| official faction and three of which are veteran independent players. This setup has, for the past year, worked well in keeping fair decisions by voting amongst one another. Every one of us has a different viewpoint on the order and it's roleplay, and thus we can assess a decision from all angles before a decision is made.

In the end, it's our hope to make the order a more fighter-oriented faction (with all of the above changes), and to keep our few capital ships available for either special RP events, or for circumstances which require a larger craft.

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