The Corsair issue

[Kambei]

Mind trying to fly them yourself?

Decurion - uhh lf with less turning than BD VHF and way less than Eagle...
Centurion - uhh HF with less turning than Odin or Sabre.... and 8900 powerplant when all others have 9000
Titan - 1 pass missile/nuke/torp free bots for anyone

and? you know very well I am flying in chimaera.... 1 pass missile/nuke/torp/even ram into me without shield is free bots for anyone so what, I am kusarian so I fly in kusarian ships with all their cons and pros. I think thats not argument Mjolnir.

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[Salvager]

- How did these negative views about Corsairs generally behavior begin? Was there a specific "enemy to the corsair" group spreading their bad experiences or was it through actions of specific Corsair players?

- Why does many assume that all Corsairs are frustrating, annoying, flies only capital ships, have no knowledge about roleplay and etc. all the bad traits of a player basically?

- Any solution to fix these problems?
Before answering these three questions, please read the whole post. Thank you for your time.

1- As a Junker trader, the only real hassle I ever get is from the Corsairs. Many independent Corsairs seem totally oblivious to Corsair diplomatic situations with other factions and simply see everybody as a potential pirating target.
Also, dishonesty and disorganisation seems a bit rampant, even in the player factions. A few weeks ago I was stopped in Gamma and accused by a faction player of a past incident of smuggling passengers to one of the Corsair bases. Suddenly I found lots of guns pointed at me because someone got their lines crossed. Even though he had no proof he was absolutely adamant that he saw me doing the shipment, even though said base wasn't even on my nav map. In the end I had to post a screencap of my nav map on their message board to prove my innocence before being allowed to continue my trade with them. They didn't even have the courtesy to apologise.

2- See 1, also in my whole time I've only seen two Corsairs outside of Gamma (excluding event parties) not flying a capital ship.

3- I do believe that faction players should talk more to the independents about how to roleplay their character, and about their diplomatic relations. A lot of the problems that have been arising are caused by general ignorance. A lot of new players seem to see the Corsairs as a strong pirate faction, thus join them for the capwhoring piratyness.

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.:j:.Salvager - Junker Congress (Salvage Frigate) := Recipient of the Yanagi Defense Medal
.:j:.Salvager.VHF - Collector
.:j:.Salvager.B - Recycler
.:j:.Salvager.B2 - Waran

"Good news everyone. I suddenly and unexpectedly have job vacancies for an entire spaceship crew!"

[Wolfspirit]

I myself has only one corsair character with Titan and Salamancas. Agree, a lot of time I see when Corsair Cruiser attack enemmy's VHFs what is simply a noob thing, absolutely against sprtsmanship. But wanna make a notce, 99% of times when a BH or other enter Gamma he dont really there for a real bounty or RP, but for pure fight. So dont be surprise if he get only "Enemy on sight, engaging" message, what is low RP, because his act or reason low too.

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Why good trading with Barge? For this:

[McNeo]

First of all, the Titan is a mine magnet, something not reflected in any other vanilla fighter except the Eagle, which has the speed to avoid it. This is the only reason you will find me fighting very little on my Corsair. For example, a few weeks ago, I was fighting [RHA]Volsung, a falcata, in my Titan in Omega 5.

As soon as I showed up, he headed for the minefield. So, I stopped and stated simply that I wasn't going to fight there. So he came back, and we began a great fight.

Then two idiot Corsairs come and both die within 30 seconds. Considering I'd been fighting for 30 minutes beforehand, and had drained him, this pissed me off. So much so infact, that I just decided to give up and joust. Of course I died about two seconds later, but I just wanted to end it. I didnt want to spend more of my life for the kill, because it simply wasn't worth it.

I've had similar fights in an Eagle and a Sabre (that is, my fighter against a bomber) and the Titan is less adequate than many other fighters against anti bomber activities. I can dance around a Taiidan in an Eagle, but not so in a Titan.

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This thing about hunters vs corsairs I can really understand. Someone said that they thought it was personal between large portions of the groups. I can tell you now, it is.

Personally, I have a huge grudge against all unfactioned bounty hunters including M&S.

Let me give you a situation.

6 BHs attack Gamma, 3 Bombers and 3 gunships. Ok, so I login to the Bombadero, the Brotherhood shared bomber, and start my actions to protect Crete. As soon as I undock, one of the gunships targets me. I give him a quick scan, and he has FOUR basic missiles. Of course, I proceed to shed all manner of equipment very very quickly.

Then the server crashes, just before I die.

When it comes back up, I login the Memoria (dreadnought). One bounty hunter logs back in and gets royally rinsed down by me, the Artemis, the Torquemada and I think another battleship of some discription, plus lots of other smaller vessels. Now of course, I've sworn an oath to myself that if I am to respond to the frequent bounty hunter attacks as detailed in the Corsair Emergency Comms skype chat, it'll be in a capital ship of some description.

With the M&S, I've only had experiences with one of theirs. Now me in my Titan faces off against a Stinger (not a Manta) with a cannonball/sidewinder combo, nuke and Mini razor. Okay then, three different ways to instakill a Titan. To counter this, my Titan has 5 Salamanca's, a Colada del Cid, a nuke and TCD.

Of course, I simply call in a gunboat and I myself run away. No sense in giving someone an extra kill, or "playing fair" with someone who doesn't know what the word means.

However, I've a much better opinion of the S/D even though I dont face them much.

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Gamma itself is a cesspit. Despite my stalwart support for just about anything Corsair, I usually spend as little time and effort as I can with trying to speak in Gamma. Its just so bad.

If I am there, its because:

1) I've got nothing to do on my other characters.
2) I'm dropping off pilots/codes/money on to one of the banks.
3) I'm setting up a character.

I find it much more fun to attack Bretonia, simply because the quality of battle, roleplay and general gameplay is so much better there. There are bad instances in Bretonia too, but its constant in Omicron Gamma.

The reason we dont make an effort to correct things there is because we've been there, done that, and it doesnt work. The player turnover for the Corsairs is too high. By the time we teach one person how to roleplay, he's either gotten bored and isnt playing or he's playing as another faction, usually shooting us. In the second case, it increases the roleplay quality of the whole server. That does nothing for Omicron Gamma though.


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I also have a problem with Corsairs using anything other than the Titan. While I dont exactly blame them for doing so, since flying a Titan only encourages minespam, its not nice to see. I even talked to Mule the other day about getting OPG to fly Titans instead of RTs, and all I got back was "When 4.85 comes out". The most active Corsair faction doesn't set the best of examples, so what do people expect to happen?

Dont take that as an attack against the OPG, because it is, put simply, the truth.

People used to fly Titans much more back in the day when there was only one faction setting the example. However, that is tooting one's horn so to speak, so I wont get into that.

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@Salvager:

1: Completely true. I only ever get real problems with Corsairs, who often tend to shoot first and ask questions later. This isn't true with the many other factions, such as the Outcasts, since they are often willing to engage in some form of talks before the plasma starts to fly.

2: I am not surprised.

3: Impossible with the current situation in Gamma, detailed above.

[Zig]

Well, those of you that own Corsairs yourselves know me - Zak Mason. Yes, practically every horror story about the Corsairs is more or less true. I could list 'em all now, but that'd swell my post to epic proportions, might veer dangerously close to flaming, and would contribute nothing new. Suffice it to say that the Corsair playerbase as a whole has difficulties that are simply enormous and, in my opinion, nigh-on impossible to remedy without a fundamental change in overall Corsair mentality, within the official factions as well as within the indie population. The official Corsair factions have a remarkably low degree of control over the never-ending waves of indie pilots meandering throughout Omicron Gamma - a good deal of 'em outright disobeys directives. Furthermore, the official factions themselves also frequently evidence problematic members - more so than factions from different playerbases, I note. Change here would be a momentous and difficult process and is frankly unlikely to happen without consistent admin intervention.

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Luls:

Role-play is not the be all and end all.

[Jihadjoe]

Gamma is like everywhere with a high population, same is true of alpha.

You have a lot of people, which means there is a lot of competeition to get the kills. This is kinda natural, but sadly it results in ganks. Which is a shame.

I've had some very mixed experiences with my Bounty Hunter (yes I go into alpha with it as well...)

One example. I fly my Hammerhead (it's awesome and I'll hear no-one say anything against it) into Gamma on my hunter and have some really nice RP with some local corsairs, we even join in with insulting the outcasts between us, which was a lot of fun. Then, the battleship (Thank you Quozz) gets some fighters together, and sends them after me. I have a really great fight, claim one bounty and then explode. Fantastic. I left with a smile on my face, and kinda enjoyed hitting the respawn button.

Then a few days later. I'm flying around o41, which is eating at my hull, so I decide to go into gamma and try to make a few bounty claims.

I am greeted by two gunboats, a cruiser with quad missiles, a praetorian with dual cannonbal and dual sidewinder + mini and SN, three titans and an RT. I die before I can say "Oh crumbs" as the swarm of missiles just makes a bigger mess of my paper ship than I thought was possible.

This was done with "engaging hunter" by way of roleplay.

I like the corsairs, I like corsair roleplay... Like everywhere there are idiots, and they do seem to congregate in alpha, or gamma, or NY... wherever has a high population or chance of pvp.

It's not a problem with corsairs, or outcasts really. Nor is it a problem with liberty lawfuls. It's a problem with people who don't understand discovery. Thats all. And those are people who need to be educated. That is 9in my opinion) the duty of the official factions. I spend time on my xeno, LN, outcast dragon... talking to the indies and teaching them about the roleplay for that specific faction, and give them a few guidelines about when to attack and when not to. Not going on endless raids every four hours on the nearest enemy system, etc. That said, the higher the play base, the harder it becomes, and the more a mob mentallity can take over. ASdd on top of that the issue with bounty hunter, which is -exactly- the same, then you can see why hunters get ganked in these systems.

You can't educate people by force... you have to approach them and deal with the respectfully, and calmly. Not getting angry or pissed off at them. Just calmly guide them in the right direction.

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[Caelum]

The below post is in no way meant as a flame war.

Apologies for not reading 3 pages of posts, I'll just share my opinion on the matter.

There are, in my opinion, relatively many unfriendly (I use the term freely; both wtfpwning fighters in cruisers, rule lawyering, and so forth) Corsairs about. I'll share one or two experiences, no names, to elaborate.

Yesterday, my mercenary, passing through Omicron Gamma

Corsair gunboat 1: "Pilot Tanath pls identify yourself."
Me: --"This is Tanath. *Smirks*"

Corsair gunboat 2 approaches.
Corsair gunboat 2: "i got him"
Me: "Well, what is it?"
Corsair gunboat 1: "kill him."
Me: "Oi? Kill me?"
Corsair gunboat 1: "for the insult"
* Caelum resists the urge to say lolwut.

The second Corsair gunboat then proceeded to rule lawyer me and threatened to sanction me for having an armor upgrade Mk VIII. I mentioned he was quite welcome to try and do so and proceeded on my way.

Often, my Keeper, in Omicron Delta, Omicron Kappa, Omicron Minor, etc.

-Corsair, usually (not always, usually) in a gunboat or cruiser, attacks without a word, often re-engages after death, and so forth.

Now, before anyone goes omgomg shun the Caelum, read the rest of this post will you.

The trouble is, the reason I assume that MANY Corsairs are frustrating, annoying, fly only capital ships, have no knowledge about roleplay etc, is because in my experience it is so. I have had extremely little positive encounters with the Corsairs.

HOWEVER

I do not believe all Corsairs are like this. I've seen exceptions (I still applaud some Elders' gentlemanliness, I still love some of the Corsair stories on the forum, etc) and am very much willing to change my mind on this. The mere fact that you posted this shows that not all Corsairs are like this.:P

As said, only reason I find it to be so is because I've had only one or two out of ten or twenty positive or roleplayingish encounters with Corsairs. I'm very much willing to adjust my views on this based on experience.

-Tanath/Keepers.Malam/Wilde.Hreidmar/whatever/Caelum/"that annoying guy with the old House signature"

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[mjolnir]

Well, those of you that own Corsairs yourselves know me - Zak Mason.

You are the one that flies Greyhound or Stinger with as many explosives as you can mount on it and 1 pass noobish Titans yes :yahoo:

The official Corsair factions have a remarkably low degree of control over the never-ending waves of indie pilots meandering throughout Omicron Gamma - a good deal of 'em outright disobeys directives.

Maybe you haven't noticed that 3 Official Corsair factions just recently tried to control one "independent" unofficial faction that went against Corsair roleplay with attacking Zoners and simillar things...

what was the result?

Bastille, sanctions and "war is over" directive.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[Jihadjoe]

Maybe you haven't noticed that 3 Official Corsair factions just recently tried to control one "independent" unofficial faction that went against Corsair roleplay with attacking Zoners and simillar things...

Screenshots of those corsairs attacking zoners perhaps could be sent to my PM inbox...

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[Athenian]

Mind trying to fly them yourself?

Decurion - uhh lf with less turning than BD VHF and way less than Eagle...
Centurion - uhh HF with less turning than Odin or Sabre.... and 8900 powerplant when all others have 9000
Titan - 1 pass missile/nuke/torp free bots for anyone

So if my faction of choice has ships that are weak, I can opt for non-faction ones for a PvP edge? Of course, I would assume that this would only apply when a ship is bugged rather than simply weak. You can't have everything - where would you put it? So I can ditch my Manta because it's vanilla ie 1 pass missile/nuke/torp free bots for anyone - or the Hammerhead because it is like a underpowered eagle and also - 1 pass missile/nuke/torp free bots for anyone. Then it becomes a question of perception. I'd most likely be perceived as someone who is anxious to get that edge to the detriment of RP. I'd get the snide remarks in game. I'd get the "fight using guns and not missiles cowards" and have to face missile spamming nubs the next day. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Of course players are going to look for a PvP edge. Time was, when a RT was a once off and a rare thing at that among certain pirate groups. That plus the missiles plus..blah blah blah..you see where this is going...i.e. nowhere via a pointless series of justifications for everything, much of it simply poor form, unfair play and more like people on a PvP server than a RP one. It's strange to see a feedback thread begin with such a justification. RP or no RP, swarming a single player in the numbers and ships that occurs is, simply put, unnecessary and unfair and only feeds the erroneous notion that all Corsairs are turnips. I reckon it's part of the siege mentality that one acquires in Gamma. And I say that as someone who has been a Corsair and flown a Cruiser, GB and Titan. (I ditched all my Corsair characters out of pure boredom.)

It's a question of attitude and respect for other people. Idiots will always exist on the server, Corsair or no, and being in a faction doesn't make you immune to this.

Now read everything I wrote and substitute the words "Bounty Hunter" for "Corsair". Try ot with "Outcast" or "BAF" or "KNF". See? It's a Disco thing, not a Corsair thing. And not everyone is causing it.

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Former member of "the most paranoid group of people in the community"
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