I thought is was transports and liners that you cannot shoot at.. not freighters (reason being that they are small and nimble, and can thus dodge battleship/cruiser guns and escape with thruster)

This is kinda important when you look at it involving repair ships.

Repair ship rolls up and repairs a battleship/cruiser/whatever you are fighting (lets assume you are in a cap)

It has clearly entered/affected the outcome of a battle. If I saw a hostile repair ship heading toward the battleship i was fighting, i was turn my fire to him so he could not give the battleship bots in time.

Is this sanctionable?

I would assume so...

hmm.. mmkay.. this topic can die now

Another question is why is a Zoner shooting at House police?

I can answer your question in one word, Hack.
Juggerlol.
Yeah, we're not happy with this guy. We were considering an FR5 but the Admins saved us the trouble.

Whoa whoa, slow down. When did lol become a suffix? I always thought it was a prefix...

Lolgernaught sounds much funnier.

If a ship is giving out b/b then shooting it down would be considered self-defense, in my opinion.

So even if they are supplying and are fair targets, we cannot shoot them?

Yeah, I'd say the Admins won't mind you shooting down a Repair ship who is supplying a hostile cap, would be counted as engaging.


Also, Reptile, your Signature is almost twice the allowed height. :/

There's no reason to keep freighters in this rules.

I agree since they have 199 thrust and can run away/dodge easy capital ship guns. But I don't want to start this transport quarrel again.

its problematic...

a pirate pirating a friend in front of your eyes clearly is a hostile action - and acting in favour of the pirated may also be considered "self defense" ( not oneself, but one buddy ) - cause a pirate transport vs. a 5k train is like - the train WILL die.


so the argument that a repair ship supporting its friends becoming "good to be shot at" is a matter of interpretation. - clearly it is a hostile act, too... but the repair ship surely doesn t hurt the capship in a direct was either, nor is it of any direct threat - but of a highly indirect threat - just as the pirate is a direct threat to the allied transport, but none to the capship.

since the capital ship is not allowed to shoot the transport, no matter what ( unless within the ZoI and being an official faction - and only if the capship happened to be undocked at that time, cause docking and undocking in a bigger ship ... at least USED to be a big "no" either ) one must conclude that the repair ship shouldn t be a fair target either... after all.... when a pirate transport is spotted pirating - the "knock out" argument was "get a bomber / fighter"

so when a repair ship assist and you only have a capship around - the same argument would need to be applied "get a fighter or bomber" to fight it - if you cannot do it.... well.... tough luck. if however - the rule is different when it comes to a capship - i d be curious about the RP justification - unless its a simple fairplay justification.




in general .... freighters were NOT included in that rule at first as far as i remember.... and i m at a total loss why they were included afterwards. a freighter being shot down by a capital ship has to blame itself. - just like any light fighter that is shot down by like a battleship should rather blame itself - cause even on valium and half asleep these small ships can easily escape a capital ship.

Remember, we have consistently said that if a ship becomes, of it's own volition, involved in a combat, then it's fair game. Repair ship flying up and handing off bots/bats is (a) doing his job and (b) become involved in the battle and © also part of the 'innocent bystander' rule.

Just make sure that if you're the cap ship that's shooting the transport or freighter that you making screenshots.

that rule is quite silly - sorry to say...

is the innocent bystander the one that ran into combat - or the one that got caught by combat? ( if you get the drift )


setting 1:

cruiser patrols - train passes by. - at that time, a pirate transport pops out of cruise and attacks the train. - has the cruiser become an innocent bystander? - cause clearly it got caught in a hostile situation. roleplay demands it to open fire to assist - after all, its not like it was chasing the pirate transport all across sirius - and quite objectivly - the pirate transport is to blame to the fullest extend for pirating a train that happens to be next to a cruiser.

you do see the problem? - now you may say "but a repair ship handing out bats/bots is involving itself" - is the cruiser handing out bats / bots involving itself, too? - or is handing out bats / bots illegal, too? - how about the other way round - the transport RPes transferring its cargo to the hold of the cruiser! ( now thats a turn of events ) - and RPs abandoning the transport....

setting 2:

cruiser pops out of a lane - into a combat situation, it hasn t happened intentionally, but it happened to end up there - yet its not allowed to engage.

we do have a precident there ... a wing of DW BHG VHF who popped out of a lane into a combat situation and were shot down without announcement. - the admin verdict was "no announcement was necessary, cause you got into a battle situation"

but if arriving in a battle consitutes being involved - than firing back is self defense?




thats nitpicking, sorry - but we do have precidents that were punished in the past - and that cannot really be applied to such rules - if the standards for the ships are the same.

Also, freighters are dangerous in their own way because of the massive streams of continuous fire they can put out. They're also about on par with large bombers in terms of dodging fire, with similar maneuverability and size.

I'd agree with Mjolnir that they don't have much reason to remain in the rules.

Granted, I'm wishing that transports could be beefed up to a point where they don't have to be protected under such a rule anymore.

Beefed up to the point where it could stand a chance against a cruiser?

Actually, and as I've said in the past, there has been discussion to simply make the combat rule, "Space is dangerous, good luck." There then would be no restrictions on who could shoot who with what. But I don't think that will ever happen - the restrictions on caps versus traders goes back a LONG way in history.

Any tradeship who cant escape a battleship is a complete imbacille. tradeships thrust anywhere from 140-200 (freighters), wheras battleships have no CD and go 90. your out of range in about 5 seconds.

unless the battleship does a lolwut and fires like 4 missles after an unsheilded ship, its gonna escape easily.

I'm up for transports being beefed up too, but not up to standing toe-to-toe with a cruiser. But it should be strong enough to hold it's own against one or two fighters and make it out alive.

It's not very logical (since we're being logical here) to have a giant transport with lots of hull plating and megapowered shield and crazy-big weapons, to be blowed up by a ant ship with debs and hullbusters.

Transports should be strong enough so they start having problems when you're engaged by a) 4 or more pirates, and 2) two bombers onward (or one high level bomber).

Sincerely, be pirated by one person is ridiculous. It's the same thing as a Galleon or Container ship being pirated by a man with a JetSki. It is ludicrous!


What was the topic again?
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...

Ah yes. The rules was it? Outside of combat engaements, I don't see the threat or interest a freighter could pose to a battleship. Or are you BS captains telling me you're afraid of tiny-little bb guns and that that 550 cargo hold will make you a fortune when you get a home? XD

Escape a cruiser, maybe. Stand a chance against a lone bomber or gunboat, definitely.

Would you like to see it survive the lone bomber/gunboat by having enough defenses to run to a base, or enough firepower to take it out?

I support the first wholeheartedly, the second, not so much.

I would welcome more firepower with open-arms, but the defenses to hold against a bomber is a must.

Why not? The lone bomber/gunboat isn't putting any more effort into his preparation and roleplay than the transport.

People don't like to fly transports because they're fairly powerless in most conflict-based roleplay encounters if there isn't a huge skill discrepancy. They're big, slow targets and lacking in either raw firepower or ability to put their firepower on target. In a thrusting, rear gunning retreat Type 1 and 2 guns are laughably easy to dodge by even gunships, while 3 and 4s don't put out the numbers to seriously threaten a bomber who in turn is lashing out with four 3200 shield DPS guns.

So transports as a majority are flown as faceless credit factories. Trade is boring because it's all "fly the route, pay the pirate or die, arrive at destination. givecash to your pirate or law character. log off and play that character to have real fun."

Give the transport class some cojones. Anyone can fly them so it's not taking power away from any pirate, law/military or quasi-legal faction. if it's done right they won't need to be protected by the rules so much.

The reason why I don't support turning them into combat capable craft is because you'd marginalize gunboats by making them inferior to transports (PTrans vs noob Gunboat pilot aside). At the same time, like you said, they are credit factories. Making oodles of cash while being able to fend off anything that comes at you is a bit like having your cake and eating it too.

Give them ample defenses, and by that I mean a better shield, and more armor. Why? Transports are large, and by definition should be able to have a larger reactor than a gunboat. Also, more of the reactor should be focused on shielding, as it isn't required to power energy draining weapons. Giving them the combat capability to shoot down bombers and gunboats makes them into pocket cruisers. Surviving the pirate should be the priority over shooting them down.

They should be capable of resisiting to at a least 2 or 3 fighters/bombers. That would make pirating better too, with a wing of pilots instead of one or two lonely guys.