The Truth about Zoners

[Tunicle]

Not zoner ID that is at fault but again players who ignore it and keep getting away with it.

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[Sabru]

Not zoner ID that is at fault but again players who ignore it and keep getting away with it.

actually its both. the ID is too loose and easily ignored and abused. you restrict the ID (in this case, caps restricted to the 'crons) and have the admins come down hard on violators then the problem is not so much of a problem.

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[Tunicle]

Not sure it is that loose

Pilot carrying this quasi-lawful ID is a Zoner, who:
- Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.
- Cannot dock Cruisers and Battleships on any base within any house, except on Zoner bases.
- Cannot dock transports with more than 3,600 cargo within any House, except on GMG, IMG or Zoner bases.
- Cannot participate in unlawful actions except as described above.

plus the House Laws on top.

The problem is "easily ignored and abused" like virtually all the ID's, picking one out is spurious, the problem is the mentality behind the abuse.

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[Sath]

- Cannot dock transports with more than 3,600 cargo within any House, except on GMG, IMG or Zoner bases.

The most violated law in the Zoner history. If this is sorted out, then there wont be much of a problem as far as I can think of.

[Lythrilux]

Not sure it is that loose

Pilot carrying this quasi-lawful ID is a Zoner, who:
- Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.
- Cannot bring cruisers, carriers or battleships into house space OR into systems containing a jump gate
- Cannot dock transports with more than 3,600 cargo within any House, except on GMG, IMG or Zoner bases.
- Cannot participate in unlawful actions except as described above.

Edited a line for you, Zoner caps should not be in house space full stop.
I also added the latter part about Zoner caps not coming into systems with a jump gate. From experience, it is extremely annoying trying to pirate a miner or trader in a borderworlds system only for his 'buddy' to come charging at you in a zoner capital ship as security. Even if the piratee doesn't have a Zoner ID.

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[Trogdor]

So, can anyone tell me, how Zoners are different from Freelancers and why do they deserve different treatment than those Freelancers traders?

Freelancers are independent traders and mercenaries of varying allegiance.

Zoners are settlers. People looking to build new communities because they were dissatisfied with the rule of the existing houses. With that comes the need to defend what they've built, and an allegiance to each other that goes beyond mere convenience. With that allegiance comes rule of law and societal structures that allow bases to function.

Now, here's the thing. If there was one community of those people over here, and another community of similar people over there, but the two did not consider each other part of the same group, they would not share the same name - Zoner. In this way, the Zoners have much in common with the Junkers. Even though they are a diverse group of people with their own very different stories going on, and their communities are scattered all over Sirius, they are all considered part of the same whole.

It is only through this concept of being part of the same whole that the technology lines both factions enjoy are justified. Otherwise, the stuff group A is using would be different than the stuff used by group B. Or alternatively, it would all be civ tech.

The presence of capital ships takes this concept to the next level. In vanilla, only the houses, the Order (because they stole it), and the nomads were capable of fielding capital ships. Then along comes Discovery, and now many groups who didn't even have their own ships before are now fielding capital ships, Zoners included.

Therefore, we must assume that these factions have experienced success, prosperity, and expansion of scope sufficient to produce these ships. To say the Zoners shouldn't because of their humble origins is therefore unfair because all of these factions had humble origins in Vanilla.

However, here's where what Acolyte and Garrett said comes in. What the ingame assets and these other factors suggest the Zoners are, and what the community wants the Zoners to be, aren't necessarily the same.

The problem with the unified Zoner idea, is that Zoners are their own worst enemy. Except for the shipline redo proposal, they have difficulties coming to an accord on anything. And, even with the shipline, there was dissension to an extreme degree. I'm afraid that a unified conference of Zoners is a fantasy dream unless they can learn to work together.

This is very true. We are our own worst enemy. As I've said before, the community is split on what the Zoners are. There are many different opinions, but I think we can boil down those opinions to 3 forces pulling in different directions.

A) Some (like me) want the Zoners to be a faction with political, strategic, economic, and storyline significance. A group that has influence on the story of the mod. Not its focus, but a player in the greater narrative of Gallia V. Bretonia and Liberty, and the chaos in the edge worlds.

B) Others want the Zoners to be irrelevant. A completely neutral part of the game that puts money in their pocket, so they can /givecash to fund the things they'd rather be doing. To these people, any sort of conflict with any group is to be avoided at all costs, because it impedes their ability to gather credits.

C) Still others want the Zoners to be relevant, but only insofar as it allows their subfaction to be relevant in the area of Sirius in which it lives. Or, they want to use the Zoners as a platform on which to run their completely original stories. And so like group B, they campaign for neutrality.

It is B and C that influenced the CoZ and ZA to dissolve, and the new era of loose association amongst Zoners to begin. And like I said, we've been fighting a war to justify our technology ever since, because the current state of the faction doesn't support the concept of Zoner technology. At all.

This is a problem because people tend to be stubborn and selfish, and only care about what -they- want the Zoners to be.

Here's the thing, though. If we commit the Zoners to the design of group A, groups B and C can still do their thing. It may not be exactly the way they want it, but they can still do their thing. But if we go the way of group B or C, it would be logical to remove most of the Zoner assets, and group A's desires would be crushed.

TL,DR: Since the powers that be voted to preserve Zoner caps, I think we should adjust the lore to fit. That means we need a council, or an official Zoner faction, or something, that represents the governing body that manages inter-freeport cooperation and policy. Since we have them, someone has to be funding the R&D and industry that propagates Zoner technology and ships, and it's not the shipyard, since we're not selling our capitals to others. This body also ought to be responsible for diplomacy and where/how to commit our defensive assets.

Furthermore, we need to stop resolving diplomacy issues by whipping out our faction rights and smacking people across the face with them, and start resolving them with rp and gameplay. OORP, we need to encourage people to attack and pirate us so we have people playing those escort and defensive roles.

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[Trogdor]

Not sure it is that loose

Pilot carrying this quasi-lawful ID is a Zoner, who:
- Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.
- Cannot bring cruisers, carriers or battleships into house space OR into systems containing a jump gate
- Cannot dock transports with more than 3,600 cargo within any House, except on GMG, IMG or Zoner bases.
- Cannot participate in unlawful actions except as described above.

Edited a line for you, Zoner caps should not be in house space full stop.
I also added the latter part about Zoner caps not coming into systems with a jump gate. From experience, it is extremely annoying trying to pirate a miner or trader in a borderworlds system only for his 'buddy' to come charging at you in a zoner capital ship as security. Even if the piratee doesn't have a Zoner ID.

It may be 'extremely annoying' for you, but that is one of the few things he's allowed to do with his cap, as nonsensical as it may be. Now you want to take even that away, and also make quality of life even worse for players who follow their ID and roleplay.

If we give such players opportunities to more appropriately use their capital ships, these sorts of 'problems' will go away. Do you see LN caps escorting traders?

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[Appelflap]

Not sure it is that loose

Pilot carrying this quasi-lawful ID is a Zoner, who:
- Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.
- Cannot bring cruisers, carriers or battleships into house space OR into systems containing a jump gate
- Cannot dock transports with more than 3,600 cargo within any House, except on GMG, IMG or Zoner bases.
- Cannot participate in unlawful actions except as described above.

Edited a line for you, Zoner caps should not be in house space full stop.
I also added the latter part about Zoner caps not coming into systems with a jump gate. From experience, it is extremely annoying trying to pirate a miner or trader in a borderworlds system only for his 'buddy' to come charging at you in a zoner capital ship as security. Even if the piratee doesn't have a Zoner ID.

There's no need to try to change the rules all the time as an attempt to make life easier for your JM characters, since the first rule already says:

Code:

Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.

Which means a Zoner capital ship can only protect his trader buddy if that buddy has a Zoner ID. If the ship is obviously protecting his non-Zoner buddy then you could file a rule violation report I guess.

Also, if you don't like seeing Nephs in house space, then why don't you let your JM characters defect and join the Navy? With your rule changes, entering a house system becomes a rule violation instead of an opportunity for RP.

[Lythrilux]

...

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It was only a simply suggestion to act as a form of damage control.

There's no need to try to change the rules all the time as an attempt to make life easier for your JM characters, since the first rule already says:

Code:

Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect another Zoner ship, or in defense of Zoner bases.

Which means a Zoner capital ship can only protect his trader buddy if that buddy has a Zoner ID. If the ship is obviously protecting his non-Zoner buddy then you could file a rule violation report I guess.

That's doesn't stop them. Zoner indies don't follow their ID, they just buy a cap that they think they can fly wherever and don't see the need to provide RP as well as reading their ID before shooting.

Also, if you don't like seeing Nephs in house space, then why don't you let your JM characters defect and join the Navy? With your rule changes, entering a house system becomes a rule violation instead of an opportunity for RP.

I don't see how making JM join the Navy has any relevance to the zoner cap argument.
And it's completely ooRP for deep space exploration and colony ships to come to house space. And if by opportunities for RP you mean that Zoner caps can look ridiculously out of place, then yeah, it's RP. Oh and FYI, Zoner caps aren't meant to be in house space in the first place. It's against house laws.

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[Thyrzul]

Now, here's the thing. If there was one community of those people over here, and another community of similar people over there, but the two did not consider each other part of the same group, they would not share the same name - Zoner.

As far as I know Zoners did not name themselves, and were named after their tendency to dwell and roam the "Zones" which are anything far from House space. In any direction. That is the reason why two groups on the opposite edges of Sirius can happen to be called the same. Zoners. Doesn't necessarily mean they have anything else in common.

In this way, the Zoners have much in common with the Junkers. Even though they are a diverse group of people with their own very different stories going on, and their communities are scattered all over Sirius, they are all considered part of the same whole.

Not even Junkers come close to how scattered Zoners are. Junkers have two bases in Rheinland, two in Bretonia, just to extend their ZoI, but overall centered in and around Liberty. But Zoners... you know.

Therefore, we must assume that these factions have experienced success, prosperity, and expansion of scope sufficient to produce these ships. To say the Zoners shouldn't because of their humble origins is therefore unfair because all of these factions had humble origins in Vanilla.

You are right, Zoners aren't the only ones who have barely justifiable caps, I am still yet to be convinced Hessians really need their caps, or IMG their cattlebruiser, but you know, in my book two wrongs won't make a right. Others having caps won't justify Zoners having them too, and calling it unfair to take them away won't melt my heart, sorry.

This is very true. We are our own worst enemy. As I've said before, the community is split on what the Zoners are. There are many different opinions, but I think we can boil down those opinions to 3 forces pulling in different directions.

A) Some (like me) want the Zoners to be a faction with political, strategic, economic, and storyline significance. A group that has influence on the story of the mod. Not its focus, but a player in the greater narrative of Gallia V. Bretonia and Liberty, and the chaos in the edge worlds.

B) Others want the Zoners to be irrelevant. A completely neutral part of the game that puts money in their pocket, so they can /givecash to fund the things they'd rather be doing. To these people, any sort of conflict with any group is to be avoided at all costs, because it impedes their ability to gather credits.

C) Still others want the Zoners to be relevant, but only insofar as it allows their subfaction to be relevant in the area of Sirius in which it lives. Or, they want to use the Zoners as a platform on which to run their completely original stories. And so like group B, they campaign for neutrality.

It is B and C that influenced the CoZ and ZA to dissolve, and the new era of loose association amongst Zoners to begin. And like I said, we've been fighting a war to justify our technology ever since, because the current state of the faction doesn't support the concept of Zoner technology. At all.

This is a problem because people tend to be stubborn and selfish, and only care about what -they- want the Zoners to be.

Here's the thing, though. If we commit the Zoners to the design of group A, groups B and C can still do their thing. It may not be exactly the way they want it, but they can still do their thing. But if we go the way of group B or C, it would be logical to remove most of the Zoner assets, and group A's desires would be crushed.

Others throwing in the question about the difference between Zoners and Freelancers earlier made me rethink the whole a bit differently. (Ow, goddamn wall-o-text O.O) If we look at generic (Freelancer, Pirate, Miner, etc.) and non-generic groups/factions (all the rest; the classification itself is used for IDs), we notice that the biggest difference between the two is that generic ones have a vague description, not even a lore, so the character of that kind is basically unrestricted, can be anything within that boundaries, while non-generic ones are set tightly with an exact lore and set of attributes, goals, means, etc.

Except one. The Zoner ID and lore has been designed in a way to allow open interpretation beyond their hatred/distaste towards the Houses, an unparalleled degree of freedom, effectively making it a semi-generic "faction". The astrographical spreading of Zoner stations resulting in different sets of local relations are also supporting this.

Now, if one would want to try out a unique idea no existing (non-generic) ID represents at that time, what to do? Of course they are directed towards the generic IDs to use as a basis until they develop themselves, acquire officialdom, and then their own ID, as far as I remember VR used Pirate ID at first, for example. Now let's look at Zoner official factions we have currently. All three started with Zoner IDs, and by now all three have acquired their own ID. Developed, evolved, and thus required their own ID for further advancement. All three went into directions, exploited ideas no ID represented before, basically using the Zoner ID as a basis. Almost like a generic ID.

I think I realized what is the fuel of all these zonerzonerzoner threads. Despite it's unique nature we still view Zoners as a non-generic entity, and treat it as such, expect the faction to have a complete, unified lore, set guidelines, to support what we already have, a complete shipline and an ID contradicting that. But Zoners seem to have no lore and many at the same time, we try to fill the gaps ourselves, and believing only one can be right, we argue with eachother about our rights and their wrongs like religious folks of middle-age crusades. The reason of these threads to pop up periodically is that we treat non-generic a faction, which seems to be pretty generic.

And if we would treat it like what it is (in my opinion), a generic basis to expand upon and develop from, all these arguments would become moot, as everybody would be right. Zoners are said to be diverse, but we seemingly don't want to accept anything but our own concept of Zoners. That's not diversity. If we would accept eachother's concept equally, yea, that would be diversity. If the Zoner ID would be considered generic in the same sense as Pirate, Freelancer, Miner IDs are, A, B and C could happily develop from it to the point of officialdom and own ID. And exist without contradicting eachother.

Would this turn it into another Freelancer ID? In a sense, all generic IDs are Freelancer IDs, the one called Freelancer ID is the all-rounder, Pirate is the unlawful-oriented/aligned, Miner is the lawful/cash-oriented. Zoner could be the semi-lawful expansionist. And as such, anything you could imagine.

TL;DR: Zoners should be treated as a generic ID like FL, Pirate, Miner IDs, if they are diverse and already open to interpretation to the similar degree.

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