Doug, thank you for your input. As a matter of fact, this is one issue we are aiming to resolve.
Some have complained that we are coming down hard on anyone who "buys" (as explained earlier, implausible at best, plus we go easy on newbies and under-construction chars) ships and tries to police our space. But others complain that we let independent run too loose. I'm inclined to agree with the latter.
I am myself trying to work with other High Command members to help hold the independents in check. Ideally, the situation would be an RM-like approach where nearly everybody with a Navy ID is a member of the LN, nearly everyone with a LSF ID is a member of the LSF, and nearly everyone with a LPI ID is a member of the LPI. It's realistic, it's fair to people, and it makes sense.
If we can get that done, we can make things fair for people, more evenly and fairly enforce the law and keep our own in check. We are harsh, but fair. And also, if someone is prosecuted for carrying a religious book, that's a violation of their constitutional rights, and the people responsible will be investigated. We are harsh, but we are fair. We need to keep our own in check and reign in independents, and preserve Liberty's image as a fair and democratic nation with liberty and justice for all.
I am one of the offenders of this rule, using nearly all liberty vessels with police or navy AFF and freelancer ID. I was a mercenary escorting traders and other ships before the ban and have always been a staunch supporter, friend and defender of liberty forces. However, I wish to remain an independent while still supporting my home. The problem is that I become a criminal because of these fines. I personally would not pay them because they are ridiculously high which means that I would also be KOS.
To fix this problem I propose just changing a little of the wording. Maximum fine of blah blah blah. Not just a fine of. This way it leaves it to the discretion of the forces implementing this code what the actual fine warrants. This is the best way I can see to keep both sides happy. Now you will probably not get fined 150mil for an infraction but if they catch you doing it with total disregard or repeatedly you may be out of some cash.
Also, it is true that militaries do sell their equipment to Joe Blow citizen, especially in liberty (USA). Flying my liberator is a lot like me driving my ancient crown vic, or perhaps a collector buying a surplus tank. However I cannot see a Liberty citizen flying a Kusari Dragon or bomber. Do you really need to be fined for being in a ship that most likely would be on the surplus market? Fining someone for taking advantage of this or making a general a$$ of themselves would be completely reasonable. That would go along the lines of impersonating a police officer or Military personnel.
My second point is about the tangent that formed earlier it is not LSF or SA who are cap whoreing or using ridiculous numbers of ships to take on say a single outcast light fighter. It is the PVPers (if thats a word) who are meandering around looking for a fight that will flash a kill on the screen with their name on it. //I have rarely come into a fight with LSF or SA (as a different character) that wasnt fun until the compulsory five bounty hunter BC or gunboats show up just to fire at something.
SGTMatt
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
(Disclaimer: The following is entirely my opinion, read at your own risk)
' Wrote:Right ho.. the idea that the military freely sells their ships is, in my opinion, ridiculous. No military in the world sells submarines to civilians, and logically, the Liberty Navy doesn't sell Gunboats or goodness-knows-what-else to anyone with a credit card who isn't blatantly hostile. It's a game mechanic, like non-High Command people being able to use the Alaska jump gate. As some have pointed out, if you can't use the Magellan one, how on Manhattan are you going to get through the Alaska one?
Assuming things like this is true in the world of Freelancer would be a step in the wrong direction. There are plenty of occasions I can remember in FL that civilian (and even pirate) pilots use military/police ships like the Patriot, or the Defender, etc. In the case of cap. ships it makes more sense though, you obviously wouldn't sell something like that to just anybody. BUT there's always the case of RP, you don't necessarily know exactly how or why someone might've gotten a hold of a ship like that.
Now we're moving into the area of "imposed" RP, you're making rules that can very well conflict with people's stories and backgrounds (if they have them, assuming the player who has a ship like that is a responsible disco player, etc). It seems this sort of thing is becoming popular, the mentality that "we represent 'X' faction, we own this place, you must do as we say, no exceptions" is breaking the experience for others.
Don't get me wrong I'm all for these sorts of ideas, it gives you donut munchers something to do after all. But the key is flexibility, you never know what kind of character will come flying out of Manhattan.
Well, I'd say it's realistic for the house governments to act like that. The RM does it, the KNF does it, and we, as part of the same RP "family", do it. People who want to RP pirates are "restricted" by legal penalties or attacks from doing so, but they are an essential part of our RP opposition.
The Rheinland Military is the second oldest faction in Discovery. They prohibit use of their ships and even other players from trying to police their own space and impose harsh penalties for most crimes. They were probably once criticised for it and admittedly they are a fascist group, but as I will later describe, their behaviour is common among fascists and non-fascists. People have gotten used to Rheinland acting like a military, and I think people will get used to us (LN) acting like a Navy.
In Freelancer, Trent was granted access to LSF ships on the basis of working on a freelance basis with them. I cannot remember a single instance in the campaign where a pirate flew a Navy ship or vice versa. I cannot recall a single NPC I have ever encountered which flew in such a manner. Freelancer NPCs use Civilian ships, also.
If you could give me an example of pirates using Navy ships or other such things, I might be able to discuss this more "in context".
Freelancer will differ from our world, but some things are transcultural. Laws against murder, theft, fraud, and the like are nearly universal. Equally, financially successful militaries in the midst of hostility and war do not sell off top-of-the-line ships to people who, if we go by game mechanics, merely need not be outright enemies of Liberty to purchase them for a sufficient price. It's a sort of "common sense law" or "common law", a sort of thing that will apply to the majority of civilizations.
The thing is, now the SA is going to become LN, we'll be the Navy as opposed to half the Navy, like the KNF is the KNF and the RM is the RM. If we don't assert our authority as the Navy, the Navy, and THE Navy, we'll end up with independent-run anarchy, which many have rightly criticised (killing scofflaws and fining people 500k for parking violations is grossly inappropriate and unfair). Neither of these factions permit use of their ships without special permission and neither of them permit attempting to police under their authority. I think this is a good direction for us, for it is a military direction that any RL military, be it libertarian, democratic, socialist, fascist or monarchial would take.
There are two situations, the Raven's Talon and Havok Bomber, both of which are privately manufactured and sold on civilian bases, that will not be considered theft, and may be freely used.
' Wrote:In Freelancer, Trent was granted access to LSF ships on the basis of working on a freelance basis with them. I cannot remember a single instance in the campaign where a pirate flew a Navy ship or vice versa. I cannot recall a single NPC I have ever encountered which flew in such a manner. Freelancer NPCs use Civilian ships, also.
If you could give me an example of pirates using Navy ships or other such things, I might be able to discuss this more "in context".
Well, for instance Blood Dragons flying Kusari military ships. Not Liberty specifically, but it's an example.
Just the fact that these ships are up for purchase tells me this was intended from the start. Otherwise we would have far more civilian ships than faction ones, and none of those faction ships would be available outside those factions. In other words if that were true, Trent wouldn't have been able to buy any official Liberty ships, because he was never actually an officer.
Often a LPI or Navy ship will be one of a player's first purchases, because that's what's available. Fining a player for that and saying they're impersonating an officer is just stepping over the line IMO. As long as those ships are available, and players are using them within RP (Tagged/ID'ed correctly and policing, or Tagged/ID'd correctly and being independent) there really shouldn't be an issue.
Please don't interpret this message as hostile, because that's not it's intent. You raise some good points which I respectfully disagree with, and will argue in response to your excellent civility with the same civility.
We are going soft on newbies and under construction characters, as I stated earlier. We also aim to reign in independents, who many have complained of being overly harsh, unfair to new players and to be making their own laws. People (not directed towards you) complain about it when we let the independents play along with us, and complain when we try and reign them in. It's a can't-please-everyone situation.
The Blood Dragons are a politically well connected group with many operatives in the Kusari government. It is not implausible they could nick a wing of dragons under the noses of the KNF given enough string pulling.
You are correct, Trent was never an officer of Liberty. But he was a freelancer who had worked for the LSF, at one time received asylum from the Lane Hackers, worked with the Blood Dragons, and worked as an Order operative. He received resources from these people, really.
Trent, in SP, probably would have to have worked very hard for the respective NPC factions in order to get access to their ships, realistically. I mean, is it really realistic that a resource starved populace like the Xenos would sell their ships to someone who is one notch above their sworn enemies?
Freelancer was rushed. A lot of things got taken out, a lot of things don't make sense from a logical standpoint, so they are what you call "game mechanics". Game mechanics is like arguing that you can be, in game, friendly with Outcasts and Corsairs at the same time. It's like claiming in a debate about Bowser's armies versus Sephiroth that Goombas can kill people by touching them. It's the sort of thing that, like the console messages, in RP, stand out oddly.
Trent can, with a lot of work, be very friendly to both Rogues and LPI. Does this mean that freelancers or mercenaries could realistically have such a reputation in RP? I don't think so.
But we, as we've stated earlier, are the Navy. We call the shots on who gets our ships (though the LPI and LSF call the shots on who gets theirs), we enforce the law, and these ships are manufactured by DSE in governmental contracts and they are our property due to said contracts. If Rheinland Military Matroses cannot get battleships, I don't see how Joe or Jane Liberty can get a gunboat or a fighter in the midst of a hostile period (remember, at the time of Freelancer SP, the houses did not have the tensions they used to.)
The two best sources for RP inspiration is real life and NPCs. No Freelancer NPCs fly any ships but Civilian ones. In fact, NO NPCs EXCEPT Navy NPCs fly ANY Navy ships, capital or no. No military would sell top of the line equipment to people just above enemy status.
Heh. Trust me, our income system is a lot better. Not to mention, here you can get tax free pot in 500 tons or less quantities.
*Silly mode on*
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well. Which one would you rather have us collect for our income:)
Would you rather live in a house with liberal drug laws, a free market economy, freedom of speech, conscience, and religion, human rights, where Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is a convenience store with a democratic system, or a nation full of militarily dressed people where you must thrust your hand in the air and yell "HEIL RHEINHARDT DER GOTTKANZLER!" at least once every day, worship it's leader, work without complaint or redress to unions at government-favoured corporations and in some cases be forced to join the military?
*Silly mode off*
' Wrote:Is this how the Liberty Government makes its money and funds its fighters and capital ships? With fines? Thats it, I'm moving to Rheinland...
[sarcasm]Wow! Thanks to Praetyre's posts in this thread, I now know that Senya was right that the USA (i.e. Liberty) is full of Nazis.[/sarcasm]
[History Nazi]Apparently, the Liberty authorities have forgotten that they are descended from the United States of America where Liberty actually meant something: Wikipedia definition of Liberty.[/History Nazi]
Praetyre and any other "Liberty" authorities: Unlike you, I actually know and understand the meaning of "Liberty." Obviously, you have no clue about the meaning of the word. I've got two characters with LPI tags. I'm sure you'll want to fine them for that and many other trivial reasons. My response: "Give me Liberty or give me death." Liberty in the previous sentence refers to the word defined in the Wikipedia definition above, not the pale ghost of an imitation that you are trying to sell us. Feel free to make all my characters KOS (see list in my signature, so it isn't hard to find), since I will NEVER pay one of your ridiculous fines, because I think they are OORP.
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