Note on The Order policies

[Magoo!]

Once the 500 is paid, no matter how much you are denied, you are welcome to continue altering yourselves/trying to change peoples' opinions until your Request thread is locked.

[Niezck]

This is my final post in this thread owing to the fact that, as those who care to open their eyes will see, it's pointless. Nothing will change.

Anyhow, factions can get their own system and have the power to influence their parent NPC faction, right? Except, well, not really. They can't enforce anything non-canon. They have no authority over those that choose to powetrade for a day, buy a ship and call themselves lord admiral of all. They can't change from the steretypical grunts of vanilla, lest they be going against canon! ( shock horror ! ) All in all, I see no point. You can dress up their "liberties" ( or lack thereof ) until the cows come home, but the point remains. The reward isn't proportional to the work involved. Not in the slightest. So until the work involved decreases or the reward gets upped (ie, actual authority), it won't be worth it.

Ho hum.

[Eppy]

Aknowledged power to represent the NPC faction in role-playing. Aknowledged right to own a system.

But representing the NPC faction doesn't give you the right to police other members, as an NPC faction would, apparently, thus invalidating the statement.

But you do not have full control over the system in the same manner that you do not have full control over the independent players.

Look. I don't have an issue with indies. I like them, I was an indie Outcast captain long before I took over the 101st, and I know how it is to be an indie. For the most part the indies will do whatever the faction asks; they're cooperative, and they look up to the factions as the senior members of the NPC Faction playerbase as regulators and policymakers (Hell, I just got a PM from a player asking for permission for an OC Dessie, despite the fact that he knew full well that sales are currently not regulated, and kudos to him, if he reads this). The issue comes when you get an indie that decides to make himself Uber Admiral Chamragnajer of Faction X and put himself above all the factions. We are going to blow him up, because as far as we're concerned he's trampling on all of our RP and the RP of all the indies who take cues from us (most all of them). It gets more difficult when you get somebody who says "NAU! U CANT MAIK ME!" and throws a hissy fit, dragging an Outcast Dreadnought (as is the constant in all of my scenarios) through space, trampling all over everybody, raiding solo in caps, starting wars, and being so barely in-roleplay it's painful. You can't have them sanctioned, and your repeated attempts to explain to them what they're doing wrong are ineffective, so what do you do? Roleplay them into exile, generally by the Big Stick method. We can't even stop him from entering our sovereign space, the sovereign space we paid for control of, to walk out with a huge warship an become the last example, just because he has his tag and ID straight. I think that's a really big problem. Allowing the factions the power to police their own indies is a positive thing; the only issue is in cases like Black Squadron, where the regulation exceeded the limits of Canon. That's where the Admins come in and establish that the faction is out of bounds and reign it in. It shouldn't usually happen because there are rarely instances where a faction has to go outside of its canon, but denying the right to police the playerbase (as any military force, policial force, and the things in between are expected to do) outright isn't the way to go.

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Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.

[Zero755]

This is my final post in this thread owing to the fact that, as those who care to open their eyes will see, it's pointless. Nothing will change.

Anyhow, factions can get their own system and have the power to influence their parent NPC faction, right? Except, well, not really. They can't enforce anything non-canon. They have no authority over those that choose to powetrade for a day, buy a ship and call themselves lord admiral of all. They can't change from the steretypical grunts of vanilla, lest they be going against canon! ( shock horror ! ) All in all, I see no point. You can dress up their "liberties" ( or lack thereof ) until the cows come home, but the point remains. The reward isn't proportional to the work involved. Not in the slightest. So until the work involved decreases or the reward gets upped (ie, actual authority), it won't be worth it.

Ho hum.

Nicely put. And IMO true on all counts.

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[Unseelie]

That is another potential benefit of official factions: They have the opportunity to get a Special RP Request OK'd for the entire group, rather than for individual characters. That's a big deal if you're playing something even remotely non-standard.

Also, something I've noticed in my time here: People tend to take official factions more seriously.

Wait...Groups cannot apply for special RP? You have to be an official faction to apply for special rp in a group?

Moreover, I just raised 500 million, personally, for a faction proposal. I'm looking at paying it out. The purchase seems completely unworthwhile. And I could use that money. Oh, and what Gnito said.

Why should we form official factions? Whatever for?

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[ryoken]

I like what has been said by the staff.
500 mil is nothing. I have over the year's purchased 12 BS's,and a whorde of cruiser's/GB's/trader's/bomber's/fighter's. My total worth right now is around 3bil between 15 char's. I do not power trade,and have never done the diamond run.
Saying this... Why should a faction be able to dictate anything just because they have money,and purchased a system.
My old faction(actually DUDE42's i was second)Became official,and purchased the junker guard system back in 4.83. It took our member's 2 days to raise 1.5bil. It is not hard with 10+ player's in adv train's.
People also say you have no power? hell you can kill any ship no matter what it is(trader/under level) if it has a diff ID then your faction.Even if you are in a BS against a starflee. THAT IS POWER!!!
Come on peep's. Let's just play the game,and have fun, with out ruining it for other's.

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[Drake]

Lets wait and see what Igiss and the Admins decide about the rights of system owners. As it stands, it appears that you're allowed to do anything to anyone in your system, it's just that you can't prevent properly tagged/ID'd characters from going there to buy ships/equipment which isn't available elsewhere. The way I see it, you're still allowed to threaten them, and even resort to force, if they loiter around and are a pain in the arse. They can come in and buy the stuff, but don't get to hang around unless you say so.

Edit:

Wait...Groups cannot apply for special RP? You have to be an official faction to apply for special rp in a group?

The way I understand it, unless your faction is official you can't apply for special RP as a group, you have to do it separately for each individual character. I could be wrong.

[swift]

Well, there is a simple solution. If only the indies would stop viewing the factions as enemies it'd all be fine. For god sakes just listen when someone gives you friendly advice on your RP, and don't barge in with your cap fleets, without checking out the enemy's defenses. It's not fun if both sides don't have some sort of a chance to win. This being said, communicate more in both ways. Try to understand what we're trying to do here - have fun, and don't do it at others' expense.

For example, this afternoon there was a nice fight in Tau 37, everyone(indies and factions) were behaving nicely. A bit after, another outcast(indie) approached me and asked me for a fight over private comms. I said well sure, some Rp first and ok.
What I didn't know is that he was in a destroyer. I didn't scan him, cause I knew he had outcast tag and ID. I went, prepared to joust him, when I realized it was a destroyer. I of course ran away with my viper, only to have him yelling in sys chat with capital letters how I was a coward, stupid, and what not. Not the way to go man, not the way to go.
There are indies that are good, and ones that don't care and are douchebags. All I ask is that indies and factions of the same ID and IFF behave like they're from the same faction, only the indies aren't limited in some ways. Bye.

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<span style="font-familyalatino Linotype">

<span style="color:#000000">All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

</span></span>

<span style="color:#33FFFF">The CFF</span>

<span style="color:#33FF33">CFF Communication Channel and RP Collection</span>

[ryoken]

Well, there is a simple solution. If only the indies would stop viewing the factions as enemies it'd all be fine. For god sakes just listen when someone gives you friendly advice on your RP, and don't barge in with your cap fleets, without checking out the enemy's defenses. It's not fun if both sides don't have some sort of a chance to win. This being said, communicate more in both ways. Try to understand what we're trying to do here - have fun, and don't do it at others' expense.

I do not want to point anyone out,But this is a lesson liberty forces need's to learn. I was taunted into a 1on1 in Alaska by an LSF last night,and when i arived 6 cruiser/BC's jumped in with 4 bomber's, and kicked the crap out of my cruiser. Then they bragged on open channel's lol we pawned the order again. This was not indie's. In fact every single ship was LN/LSF/LPI/BHG. I am both indie, and faction. I see this as power gaming,and i know for a fact the true RP player's frown on this crap. No fun fighting huge odd's,and/or being tricked into a slaughter,and laughed at. I have a tough hide,but i have seen other player's leave for less.

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[Tenacity]

THANK YOU for your time, Igiss. This is really what I was looking for from you or the admins, somewhat of a guideline on what the players are allowed to do so that we dont have conflicting opinions on the matter.

Now to specific replies:

Still I don't see a way how Order capital ships can get to NY. Through Alaska space? Passage to NY is supposed to be heavily guarded. Even if Order could break through, they would hardly waste their scarce capital ships for fights they cannot truly win. So, there's no actual RP ground for capship assaults against NY by The Order.

Order fighter raids both in Liberty and in other places of Sirius can be considered logical.

This is the main thing I was pushing for, I'm fine with fighter/bomber raids on NY if the players really want to go into NY to pvp - there's no reason we cant fight liberty in alaska if capships need to be involved. I think this is a small step towards helping clear NY of problems - they already have dozens of capship raids every day from numerous other factions (outcasts, rogues, hackers, etc.), we dont need to be part of that problem.

2) Player factions cannot rule over other player groups and indie players affiliated with the same NPC faction.

Selected players may have special RP for them, player faction on the whole may also have some differences in RP from what NPC faction does. But this doesn't mean that other players should follow this example.

Some unofficial diplomacy changes may get hardcoded into the mod, IF they don't contradict official story and IF they are logical and suitable for further development.

Neutrality between Order and Liberty does contradict official story, and can be approved only for specific characters or groups, but not for The Order as whole.

As for The Order leadership, I'll leave that matter for future discussions. It should be clear enough acts of The Order players should be determined by Order's diplomatic status (hardcoded into the mod) and Discovery RP rules prior to everything else.

This is fine, the only reason there was a dispute before is because we were trying to get players to stop invading liberty in battleships, and doing so was getting US sanctioned because of this rule. Now that there is an admin-posted restriction on order caps in new york, there will be no further problems with attempting to control player RP.

3) Player factions cannot prevent other players affiliated with the same NPC faction from using the guard system.

Another complex issue, and also requires further discussions. This will limit the rights of a player faction in their home space. However, it seems to be unavoidable for the future 4.85 release, since many capships are getting moved into guard systems.

Our general opinion is that player factions, regardless of their participation in server events, should not dictate how other players of other groups are playing. Special RP that differs from/expands on what's present in the mod is OK. Enforcing special RP for players who don't want it, and are not even supposed to be aware of it, is no good. Also, the fact that we allow this special RP does not guarantee that it will get hardcoded into the mod for future versions.

This part i'm still going to dispute.

Take for example the Order Light Carrier being added in 4.85. It's infocard states that it is a very rare ship, that only a small handful will be in operation. Black squadron and most Order Indies have agreed that we do not want people waltzing in and buying such a ship just for the lulz and pvp, it needs to be restricted to approved players - but with this 'rule' we're unable to enact such restriction.

Next thing you know we'll have dozens of carriers spammed all over sirius, going directly against the infocard of the ship and what most of us have reached in consensus should be the number of them in operation.

There's got to be some way to enforce that, because it's going to be a bit frustrating when we end up with more osirises and carriers than we have fighters or gunboats.

I must protest. You are rendering our extremely sizable investments largely worthless so as not to impinge on the rights of minorities, yet you're placing capships in Guard systems so as not to make them as easily accessible to lolwutting morons who haven't even read the rules. You're removing the legal basis for that method's strongest pillar, the player faction! If a player wants to fly a Dreadnought within the confines of vanilla Outcast RP he is welcome to do so, all he has to do is inform us of what he wants to do and list the basic parameters of his ship and crew. To my knowledge the only faction with harsher restrictions is the RM, as anything stronger than that is impossible to enforce. It's not like we're asking the world, here, we're trying to keep the server less clogged with pvp whores. Restrict what the factions can restrict, but don't outlaw it and strip us of our largest and most prized power, the sovereignty over our own space.

I agree with eppy here, basically factions are charged half a billion credits to purchase a guard system (after already paying half a billion just to become official), and for what? So they can point at a system and say "yea, thats mine... even though i cant enforce anything there"?

I can see where it would be a problem if factions were saying "nope, no indies can buy any ships from our system, or any equipment from our system, you're SOL" - but that generally isnt the case - all they want is for the player to prove that they are capable of RP'ing, and arent a blatant pvp whore, before purchasing the vessel.


Here's one solution: Make fighters, bombers, and gunboats sold outside of guard systems, and make cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships sold in guard systems (and require a guard ID) - then let the factions control distribution of those. Players who dont want to even ask a faction if they can use a capship can still use the gunboats.

In the case of the order, we really only had plans on restricting the carrier and osiris heavily, the destroyer and gunboat were going to be more like "ok, give me a brief rundown of your RP and promise you'll at least talk to the enemy before shooting them, and you can have the ship." - I guess the admins cant trust them to hold to that?

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