Thoughts about IFF on discovery

[Decerebrated.Individual]

Hello.

Again.

Today I would like to draw your attention on something that has been buggin me for a long time.

It is the discovery mod's handling of the IFF (Identify Friend or Foe).

1. First of all, it is one of the central In-Role-Play (IRP) elements, and is the first thing that people see of your character, far away, on radar.

So it is a very important thing for role play. Like the ID, except that it is a IRP thing, which exists in role play.

2. Second of all, it is not at all well described ingame or in forum how to handle one's IFF. There are lots of ways to affect it, how to see which one you have. Bribes, missions, npc murderings, rules for having this and that one.

Thing is... it is not at all described in the mod or rule section how to get it. Double bribes. Droprep. Missions. How much to drop it before it changes?

All of this has to be time-consumingly explained to a noob.. who is like 80% sure to have the wrong IFF and who needs your help... EVERY TIME you see one. And almost EVERYONE needs this explained to him before he gets this vital thing right. There is really no place you can send someone... that someone being pretty much every new person there is... to jsut read up on it. BEcause there is no good ingame or inforum summary and explanation written down.

That needs to change, drastiscally, in my opinion. Because like this its very annoying.

3. There is a tech chart telling you what tech you can use with what ID. But waht about an IFF chart? Freelancer IFF is something that seems logical for every faction to be able to get, if they want to hide their real identity. Pirates. Smugglers. IFF is something like "I am this" transponder code. Freelancer should be easy to get for everyone and every faction, since any civi-idiot can get it. Navy IFFs should be harder to get. High encryption and so on. Probably Wilde who are posing as infected that and that faciton should be able to use that factions IFF (like KNF, RM, and so on) to get the idea across what they are posing as, even if they have an ID (which doesnt exist IRP) which tells that they can do more.

I hope you get what I am saying.

There needs to be more help for noobs explaining what is an IFF, and there needs to be more clarity.

For issue number 3 I would now liek to ask: What IDs are allowed to use Freelancer IFF? Admin statement please.

[ProwlerPC]

I won't argue against tutorials about IFFs. It's a fairly routine chore when dealing with new members in the faction. We have several methods of obtaining the GMG IFF that takes into account some player backgrounds and Death's Overture has a step by step method to get a GMG Guard ID/IFF without firing a single shot. Dealing with the IFF in RP too I've only approached it when a member brings it up. It would be quite the job to do it in detail and objectively. Maybe someone is up to the challenge.

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[Cannon]

I've wondered if we should just force the IFF once you get the right ID. I'm not sure about Merc, FL, Trader and Miner IDs though. We could force those to a Freelancer IFF.

This would make things a lot simpler for new players.

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

Old Avatar #2 | Old Avatar #3

[n00bl3t]

An Order Agent with an Order ID and an Order ship should not use a Freelancer IFF.

An Order Agent with a non-Order ID and non-Order ship should be able to use a Freelancer IFF.

This is related to the topic at hand.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[Ingenious]

I bet someone is going to tell you to use the search button for IFF/rep guides, so I'm going to preempt them: stop being pretentious, a rep guide is a good suggestion.

[Snoozzzer]

I've wondered if we should just force the IFF once you get the right ID. I'm not sure about Merc, FL, Trader and Miner IDs though. We could force those to a Freelancer IFF.

This would make things a lot simpler for new players.

Would there be a way to, if not force, nudge (akin to how FR5's work in not being permanent) the other reps into an appropriate setup once a faction ID is mounted too? For example...the LPI ID rephacks the LN and all Liberty corps to full green, so as to prevent the all too common problem of friendly stations turning hostile.

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[ProwlerPC]

It would be interesting if such nudges did exist with certain options that depended on ship and id combinations so that if the default IFF isn't preffered a drop rep command can move it to one of the options standing by with full rep.

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[Huhuh]

An Order Agent with an Order ID and an Order ship should not use a Freelancer IFF.

An Order Agent with a non-Order ID and non-Order ship should be able to use a Freelancer IFF.

This is related to the topic at hand.

What about an Order agent with an Order ID but a non Order ship?

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[n00bl3t]

What about an Order agent with an Order ID but a non Order ship?

Is it a red cell with SRP? Is it a white cell with permission obtained? Or is it a green cell?

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[Echo 7-7]

What about an Order agent with an Order ID but a non Order ship?

Sorry, what? Everyone with an Order ID is too busy flying an Osiris.

Topic at hand: a combined ID/IFF guide would be great. Something that explains having an IFF is more than just "I did missions for these guys so I could get their guns". Probably the mentality left over from vanilla SP.

Now that I think about it, aerelm's quick repping guide is out there somewhere. It got locked, though, I can't remember why. Possibly since those methods are designed for speed and not "roleplay honesty".

I've wondered if we should just force the IFF once you get the right ID. I'm not sure about Merc, FL, Trader and Miner IDs though. We could force those to a Freelancer IFF.

This would make things a lot simpler for new players.

This sounds like a smart idea, actually. However, some IDs can be acquired without maximum reputation to certain factions (corporations, non-guard lawfuls, etc). Would this mean that a ship would have acquired an IFF without first maximising the rep with that particular faction?* NB: this could be solved by making all IDs, except for generic IDs, only acquirable at maximum friendliness.

*Yes, I know that your rep can drop after acquiring an IFF while still keeping it. That's not the point.

I support Merc, FL, Trader, Miner IDs flashing a FL IFF, but the main problem is the generic Pirate ID. While these kinds of pirates are obviously independent of the major pirate factions, I feel that the Freelancer IFF misrepresents them - the person is 'playing the system', not 'playing the character'.

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There was a sig here, once.