Harvester

[Dusty Lens]

Good day!

I've spent a fair amount of time lurking about in this thread. Reading the various grievances that people have brought forth and the responses that have been returned in kind over the last few weeks. I've mostly stayed out of it because other people were raising the same points that I was thinking of and far more eloquently than I could possibly hope to provide. But now it seems like you reckon the time for talking is over and you want your stamp of approval. So I'm gonna drop a few thoughts.

They've been raised before, most of them, but I'll have my say regardless.

So far I have to say that I've not been terribly impressed with the manner in which the MA has responded to the issues that various persons have raised, that response generally being an explanation of why you chose to perform whatever issue caused offense and informing them you've no plan to deviate from that chosen path, but thanks ever so much for their time.

Since its inception we've all seen many factions come and go through this part of the forum, those who've moved on to the official faction list have satisfied the following criteria:

1) They fit the mold of their proposed faction or, if deviating from that role they have a logical explanation
as to how said faction is going to remain true to the spirit of that faction.

Examples I'll cite are the XA and the DPL. The XA are, pure and simple, a Xeno faction. We set down our proposal for faction guidelines, ship list and so on 100% in accordance with what is accepted as the Xeno norm. We got the stamp of approval from the community with virtually no issue following several harried pages correcting minor grievances and small explanations concerning a few matters, shortly there after we were official.

The DPL is a Liberty Rogue faction that is decidedly un Rogue like. However they're confined to the same operating area, ship list and operating perimeters as the Rogues. They have a unique RP, means of doing things and so on that the community looked upon, found to be good, and the next thing you know they're official.

The MA is using a Junker ID and doing so in a decidedly unjunky way. A few days back I undocked from Cali base to find a Talarca and two gunships firing on said base with holds full of Kusari admirals. Junker tags and ID happily in hand. That aint right.

A time before that saw two Talarcas and a "binary" Corsair Huntress squatting by Fort Bush telling a lone LSF in a fighter where he could put his demands that they vacate the area. That aint all that Junky either.

Many IDs grant great powers under the premise that they also come with restrictions. The Liberty Navy can field whatever class of warship it pleases, vape transports with battleships and generally do whatever they dang well please so long as they remain within their very strict ZOI, keep to their ships and guns and don't do anything unlawful. Essentially it grants power, but with restraints.

Junkers have an ID that comes with similar freedoms. You can field up to any class of warship, have an exceedingly free ranging ZOI (though outside of smuggling I've a hard time imagining Junkers having many concerns out in the Taus, for example.) and the ability to conduct piracy, however this is held in check by the RP associated with that ID. They're not a group at risk of becoming universal pwn warriors of helldeth because the RP associated with the Junker ID prohibits it.

IDs such as 'pirate' and 'military' exist to provide a little wiggle room for factions that wish to embark on RP that doesn't conform with a specific ID. Agnus Dei is a sterling example of that. They took up the Military ID, told folk what they were going to be doing with it and everyone agreed that it sounded like a right good plan. Next thing you know, they're official. True they can't use anything above a gunboat, but aside from putting in locks to prevent pvp whoring with an easily abused type of ID that's because they're a free ranging independent organization without the infrastructure to support it.

The Junker ID isn't a battleship and cruiser friendly 'do whatever you please' license. It doesn't fit your RP at all, to be honest. It doesn't fit your goals, it doesn't fit your diplomacy list and it doesn't fit your ships.

2) They don't simply fly whatever's awesome.

It may be small, it may be trite. But people want to see you in the appropriate ships. People want a semblance of balance. The Dragons get Dragon ships and they're awesome, but the GC don't get to fly Dragon ships without everyone yelling, regardless of how friendly they may be. This is because people wanna see you in what fits. Ships are important to getting your faction through.

I'll cite the Rogues here again. They have some of -the worst- ships in the game. They have a rocking gunship, of which they have one. Their bomber is the joke of the server. However they could pull off being a Sabre squadron vicariously through their love with the Outcasts, or simply fly Eagles. But they stick with what they've got because they're rocking their RP and faction mad hard.

Your awesome ship of choice is the BHG Gunship, the least balanced gunship on the server. The running joke is that you guys salvage them rather than pick up ships from your neighbor and chum the Corsairs. I suspect the actuality of the situation to be closer in line with you guys talking it over and deciding that the BHG funship rocks the party and was the one to contrive yer story for.

People aren't going to dig that. They haven't dug it. One can't reach into the candy jar of available ships and pull out whatever one wants to equip an entire faction with and tell everyone they have to live with it. Well, actually, you can but then you have to deal with them flailing their arms and shouting. Especially when it's the best ship of its class. Especially when it belongs to a faction that's so red to you in every conceivable way that you might as well use the status bar as a heat lamp.

Then there's the Talarca. The Junkers have a cruiser that sells on one of their bases, curiously enough, but it doesn't come with a slim profile and epic strafe force. It does come with a really big box strapped to the back of it that one could put a mammoth computer into, but that aint the point. The Talarca is hailed by many as being the optimal cruiser for fighting it out with other caps, and cruising in general. It's sold on a planet in a system that's dead hostile to Junkers and on your unfriendly diplomacy list. The story is that you're building it, but I've a strong feeling that if it has 2 turrets and no CD you'd be building something else regardless of aesthetics.

The Liberty assault battlecruiser speaks for itself. There aren't any generic battlecruisers that I'm aware of, so why not take the one with the best turning speed. Might as well have salvaged some more Bounty Hunter BCs, they're pretty good too.

The list is constructed more from RP and useing large amounts of fighters would be simply ooRP for us. It makes little since for us to have tons of fighters. Sorry i know folks like to bash cap pilots as whores all the time then brag about how easy they are to kill the rest of the time. But I cannot let our RP suffer over the "cool kids ship". This is not the bar I use for our RP. We require ships that can operate independently, as the ships are our bodies. This means that we require a strong balance of cargo, offensive and defensive capabilities. Our machine adapts to situations and builds tools to facilitate success. We are a different creature than the Xenos. So it would be unfair to judge us against Xenos. Its like compareing an orange as being to citrus laden next to an cucumber. Or saying the Liberty navy has too many caps because the Xenos dont.

Attitude aside, this is what people don't like. You're mad heavy with cap ships. Your people can fly whatever class they want up to gunship and that's peachy with you. In fact, when everyone has enough gunships the faction SOP is to then get more cruisers.

You may say that's "oorp" for you to fly anything that doesn't mount at least a class 8 shield, but you're the one inventing that RP and asking us to accept it, not pointing your finger at something well established that we simply have to suck up and accept.

3) Diplomacy

Some factions are taking a little liberation with their diplomacy as of late. The Mollies and the Brets are sweeping up the fighting sand and putting on dancing shoes to do a little jig together, the =CR= are being chummier with the Corsairs than the IMG are typically known to be due to their mutual dissatisfaction with Bretonia. The XA don't touch Universal ID'd vessels to expand on the premise that we're receiving small amounts of funding to harry the competition and leave the home grown corp in peace.

Your diplomacy is mushy, doesn't support your ID and is apparently bound to be changed at any time given the evolution of your RP story. I read over your faction proposal and I missed why you guys are friendly with the Corsairs, not so friendly with the Oucasts, not friendly with Liberty and yet perfectly fine with Bretonia. This is confusion as Bretonia's diplomacy is the exact opposite of your qualifications.

If there is an RP reason for it, it needs to be made available in such a way that doesn't require me to slog through 50 pages of RP threads. Excellent writing or no.

In conclusion, it's my opinion that there are some things here that need changing before this can be accepted as a credible official faction. I personally feel that you're making liberal use of the community's willingness to support your endeavor by asking them to look the other way in respect to your many questionable choices of vessel, ID and diplomacy. Within the bounds of your desire to complete a story that seemed to be acceptable enough to not warrant any significant questioning.

But if you're asking to be an official 'junker' faction under the provided guidelines, I'm going to be voting no.

This reply, not unlike my last response to a Junker faction, that one being the Junker mercenary faction, is somewhat harsh. I think it's important to note that I'm not saying no to the MA becoming an official faction, I'm saying no to this faction proposal.