Ship Cripple on Death

[Diomedes]

I see merits to both sides of this. One note however is that implementing this will pretty much mean that I never get a cruiser, liner or above. I trade and smuggle enough as is to support trying out new ships, loadouts and just for the fun of it. Freelancer is a game not work. I'm taking a long time to find the bankroll to even consider a cap, let alone pay for repairs any time I lose at PvP.

RP wise, I see the point and adding some fear of death is a good idea. However, in RP the captain of the capital ship doesn't pay for it, the state does. Moreover, snub pilots for most factions would get a salary. Most have argued the point that the RP advantage is a fear of death with will drive trade. But the driving of that trade is OORP. In any case, the point is the state will produce however many capital ships it feels its war machine needs, and will punish rash use of them through military discipline. Heroic and admirable use of the ship however, usually gets rewarded even if the ship is lost (not often, but does happen) or severely damaged.

I guess my point is that I can see this change limiting as much good RP as it creates. What if someone plays a suicidal or thoughtless character that is supposed to engage anything he sees. The SCRA SCUD squads were pretty fun to encounter, why should we punish that with the bill for repairing their nova launchers? I've had one or two positive responses to my Marauder Hegemon (inspired and adapted from the Reavers in Firefly), which if it came across a battleship would very clearly attempt to pirate it and attack (unsuccessfully I'm sure).

My final point, and perhaps more of a consideration than anything else I've written is simply about the server atmosphere:

Any change must consider the player base. Any change that favours established players with big ships and bankrolls will lessen the intake of new players and lose more casual players. And I'm talking about RP worthy players who could contribute something interesting, but aren't interested in spending 60% of their time on Disco trading. It's a balance that has to be kept in mind.

Finally, personal stress level on the server is a good thing to keep low. This may not be the worst thing, but surely won't help.

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