I missed the limitations to what ships can be stolen. If a group of enemies, and or pirates can take down a battleship and manage to steal it they deserve the battleship. Especially if the battleship is flying with a fleet or escort. Again if it's like Liberty vs. RM who has time to think about stealing ships in a big battle? Most kills I've observed in military battles are 1.4k away impossible for a pilots to get there in time flying in human mode at 10ms. You could try to set up someone else to steal it, but who really brings in a scrap ship to a major battle?
Again would be crazy lucky for someone to be able to steal a ship larger than a gunboat. Even then, if such an issue, then when they obtain the cruiser + class ships the weapons and armor would be stripped.
Also ID's will not change. Whatever the player who steals the ship ID is, the ship will too, but that ID (for faction ID's ect ect.)
Edit: Plus you could always add another function to crew members or marines if present on your ship can kill anyone attempting to board your ship before everyone dies... pleasant irony.
Edit-Edit: Plus...if an LPI officer sees a pirate ID on a liberty ship it's fair guess they'll assume it was stolen. Power nerfs? I wish they wouldn't...I am not comfortable with the ID's remaining as the original owners. That would cause a lot of RP rule issues. LN id cannot attack lawful and help pirates ect ect. But if someone is able to obtain an enemy ship and fly past players who wouldn't suspect anything could add to dynamic spy missions or attacks.
Any others wish to chime in on this idea? I would still love to pull of a heist of military ships or a OSI ship. Plus who wouldn't enjoy ejecting into space leaving their foes to think they've finally killed the great "ego."
And, again thinking farther ahead, setting up a ship lock code. ID's could gain access to locked ships through a chance multiplier. Example Hacker ID is a 70% chance, while DSE would be 5%. Police at 25% and LSF 65% (and any intelligence agencies)
Same thing apples they have to target and type /hacklock before the ship explodes within the 15 second bubble.
Lot of work will be needed but I sincerely like the idea and honestly speaking, its too much work and probably it's difficult to be implemented in near future.
Well, depending how this was done, it would either have to give you temp control of that player's account (which would be easily exploitable, and give that person perma access to that account, not to mention that switching accounts requires a reconnect to the server), or switch your ship while in space, which I don't think is actually possible.
So in other words, I don't this idea even has a chance of working with the FL Engine.
I've heard of the massive attacks against the server and hackering and certainly wouldn't want anything added to the server that could potentially cause more harm. Though I do believe there would be ways around it. The ship would be emancipated from the account. This would be handled through the process of HumanPod's being the actual 'starting' ship of the player. It is the access point to board your ship or others as well as dismounting from your ship or other's. This will ensure that the account key remains in the owner's control, but render the ship exposed to possible hi-jacking or destruction. That is how I would see the ability to tackle some levels of exploit. I could see it to be very profitable to do personnel transport. Especially for RPing factions.