About balancing RP on the server

Hi

Good suggestion.

Silver Arrows has already adopted the 'lawful mercenary' position.

I am sure Arrow will post more on this topic.

Kind Regards

Without trying to "blow up" your idea.

Whats the meaning of "lawful" regarding to mercenaries?
Stop criminal activities on sight? - only when contracted by police (law authorities)
fining for criminal activities, when spotted? - only when contracted by police (law authorities)
just examples.

on the other hand, if you consider to make them having those "rights", because they are lawful, then you will have other mercenaries starting to complain sooner or later (clans or FL doesnt matter)
On the other hand, you also might have the "lawful" ones acting criminal and still being within any RP-rules, because they are still mercenaries, and therefor the "unlawful" mercenarie partie starting to complain.
This might not happen right away. But we all know, it would happen.
This way would just increase more confusions.
Sooner or later the one who did not go for that "option" will start doing the same, as well in the opposite way.

I, personally dont see any point how we can find a proper solution for this "problem"

Clans and Freelancers are free to chose their RP, arent they?
Ok, too many from one side creates a lack for the other side. But you also can not force a clan, or freelancer to do a certain RP if they dont want it themself (not saying that you do)

If you would try to force that, people would either not playing at all, because they dont like it, or they would not play for long.

just my 2 cents

I am on Abras side more or less. I dont like having mercenaries try to be pirate or police.
Police has been driven away more or less, pirates dont have anything useful to do with police and vice verse. Now if you just have 100 characters doing merc PR who gives you actually work to do? Hm should have been considered properly before final decision were met.

Solution: Idont think we need a solution. Problems of one major faction are self resolved by natural selection ;D The stronger wins^^

Quote from StephanoV

certain mercenary clans could assume the LAWFUL status

That's nice of PX to volunteer! (LOL)

Seriously... with all the crap that happened lately oddly having all major police clans involved, there is nothing strange about seeing police deserted.
I would say it is a bit too late to wake up.

Will see where it will lead us, there should remain enough things to do to have RP going on.

Cops reporting in, what seems to be the problem? We already hire some merc parties for help with those opposing arrest and we be cruisin' with donuts thru space anyway.

Also, in spoiler, for adults only, it's about how cool being a cop is:

I think by sticking to your chosen rp, then things will balance out in time, provided people actually do their rp. After this last assault by the parties involved on police, good luck on getting us back into the squad cars again. We were simply just beating boards for a well planned assault with malicious intent. ( Had to put it out there)

I don't see the need for any further rp cleansing or honing of the rp description. What is happening here is obvious, without the police around, the mercs are bored with no contracts to execute.

when merc can do pirate or cop RP what sense does it make to have pirate or cop roleplay at all?

why dont you just wait for the new mod version and see how things develop

Quote

the mercs are bored with no contracts to execute.

Yep. He is right.

We are, for example, look forward for assault\convoy or mercenary military force missions and contracts.

My Opinion : Moral (good/bad intentions) and RP are two different things. The 4 RPs give basic guidelines and powers the others can't do : Police fines, Pirates tax, Smugglers smuggles (!), mercenaries hunt bounties.
You can be a police, lawful or not. Corrupted cops who favor themselves over the Law by turning a blind eye on crime is nothing new... (smuggling doesnt count as being a corrupted because it is a RP in itself -- we wont start this debate again ^^).
You can be a pirate with good intentions like Robin Hood or be a tough criminal with no remorses.
You can be a smuggler, using this way of earning money to secretly support police or just have better guns to kill rival smugglers at every corner and become the richest dude ever.
Mercs do whatever they want anyway...

Rules dont need to change, players just have to use their imagination.

EDIT : ah and the RP will balance itself now. As long as we stay out of BS, players will remain, soem will hold on, some will change RP to adapt. That's how mankind survived for millenia...

LOL @ Verbose. Nice one!

Seriously, though. As long as there is one cop on the server, he can get mercs to help him enforce the law. Same for pirates. Just sayin'.

Mr_Verbose

Those guys now how to get fucked up. blazed.

Honestly, if you havent ever been amused by stormtroopers overall, just dont look at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqF_CVQ_U_I

I don't think we should change Merc RP at all. The reason everyone is a merc is because it is such a free and fun way to play, you can join pirates side one day, then cop side another. So what we need to do is make the other roleplays a bit more rewarding. How about giving Police a pay day of 5 mill a week, Pirates gets equipment that only pirates can have... Or maybe a ship that pirates can only have. something to make the roleplays different from each other that suits someone with a nature of law/piracy.

The problem these days is that no one actually pay taxes anymore unless they are in a trader, smuggling... so that means Police don't pay taxes, mercs don't pay taxes and pirates don't pay taxes...... Same with Police, only Smugglers pay fines because they have no other choice if they have cargo hold full of BMG's

Just my opinion. You need something to persuade people to join other factions! Something to make it good at one thing, but only ok at another... Maybe pirates could have a longer cloak time (If the cloaking device comes out) As pirates seem to be a bit more stealthy type to me... Cops patrol... So they could have a longer scanner range maybe a drone to go past enemy line (This will take alot of effort) Maybe when someone buys the lisence, it gives them these skills. But we are a very long way away from this.... Maybe 2.0

For now, listen to arrow and use your IMAGINATION!

Or you could do it the other way and degrade mercanarys down to the same size as Cop and pirate, but I can't see how you could do that....

inflkt lol at bad boys

Quote from StephanoV

Mercenaries are neutral by default but they could, for example:

LAWFUL
- make regular patrols and take screens of people carrying BMG (helping police to make their "warrant list") without actually engaging the "criminals"
- blockade some systems under contract for a predetermined amount of time (i.e. maximum an hour)
- restrict access for some persons (on the warrant list) to some systems for a predetermined amount of time (i.e. access to System X, Z or Y where Bmg is know to be selling for one day)
- system defense

LAWLESS
- contracts on police an police-affiliated people
- secure a system (i.e. system J), making it a temporary safe heaven along a BMG trade route for a day
- provide permanent safe heaven to pirates in their home systems
- provide transport for goods that would remain after the destruction of a target

.

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The Lawless portion of your suggestion is the most rampant selection of Mercs on CF and has been for quite some time. Even without contract, the hijacking of BMG routes is very common. The bottom line is, without Police and without players willing to partake in the police role play, there isn't any point in trying to make further suggestions. Mercs are not supposed to act in the lawful or lawless fashion without a contract, if they do , they may as well just be a pirate/smuggler or police faction. I have yet to meet a mercenary who is actually "nuetral" in their rp, as some are afraid their "friends" won't like them or they may have to bring weapons to bear on their "friends" in lawful or lawless clans. We have clans / players demanding to be ASF or CSF just because their friends are members and they are not willing to partake in a battle against them. So in the big picture, mercs need to remain nuetral and without alliances to either side of the court-room.

Honestly I think we need to have a discussion on finding a way to get Police back on the server and ways for them to make money, ( which is the reason most left, no way to make legal money consistently).

What happened to the 24/7 ASF/CSF roleplay on the server - that in my opinion the best thing we ever did and allowed a fallback position for those in a roleplay vacuum -

Yeah - there was always a problem of pilots not wanting to fight against their mates - but i never had that prolem - preferred it actually.

No reason why the ASF/CSF can't be broken down into different clans just to keep the server roleplay healthy and it would be good for some souls online to fight alongside their former enemies

it's still a game and you are all victims.

RP will regenerate itself. Like OP said it already. why not wait till the next release and see how things are going to develop themself?

Trying to fix problems which are not really problems to begin with, is not a solution.

Mercs are mercs, like Gunny stated. They should be neutral (overall) to be able to get contracts from each side (good/bad)
Sure no one can forbid a merc clan to have alliences. But then the Merc-clan has to deal with the consequences of their acting themself.
eG: Be allied >> your alliance gets in trouble >> you jump in >> opponent gets mad at you, because you are a merc. But you just fulfilled your alliance "contract" >> result: opponent from the first will hunt you for killing them.

1st - stay neutral and get contracts - live the life of a merc with the most profitable way.
2nd - be allied and still get contract - deal with the outcome from accepting contracts and their consequences.

no reason to complain about anything.
cop hires merc >> merc does his job >> opponent does not have any reasons to complain about the merc, who just did his job
pirate hires merc >> merc does his job >> opponent does not have any reasons to complain about the merc, who just did his job
merc is allied with cop >> cop gets attacked >> merc attacks the attacker from the cop (therefor does his job) >> attacker does NOT have any reasons to complain about anything.
same counts for pirates who are allied with mercs, AND for others who are allied with mercs or have them hired.

my two cents