There's a slight difference between Lane Hackers and the Hellfire Legion faction. I got a severe lashing from my leaders for pirating a trader in Texas once (on my HF ship). So don't start talking about HF being a pirate group.
Lane Hackers may pirate ... Hellfire Legion does not.
Rogues, Xenos, Outcasts, and so on.. All of them are unlawful (aswell as Evil, basically).
In any chaotic "organization" (notice how those two words contradict one another) a leader generally doesn't last long unless he's one true badass.
Chaotic Evil organizations (which is exactly what Rogues, Xenos, and Outcasts are), there's always alot of deceit, betrayal, and treachery in general. There's never any harmony in any Evil-aligned faction (ever, even when they're lawful); Evil is all about making ME number 1 and making YOU nothing. This is especially true for a faction like the Rogues (the definition for the word "Rogue" even states this clearly - a deceitful and unreliable scoundrel) or Xenos, where the faction's leader may be murdered in his sleep simply because there's someone under him who wants the (fundamentally limited) authority that he has over the other decietful, unreliable scoundrels. While that scoundrel is plotting against the top scoundrel, he's also fending off the scoundrels beneath him because they too want the reigns (power). In a chaotic faction, "Order" is defined by who's holding the throne at the time, and it can (and does) change at a moment's notice. There's never any stability.
Problem is, this limits unlawful factions badly in a roleplaying sense; I mean you can't exactly spread plagues, or viruses, or do alot of the terrorist things that terrorists and pirates do (like steal ships, extort powerful political figureheads, and so on). In another aspect it also makes them very versatile and offers them alot of depth; you've really got quite alot of freedom while playing these roles, whereas Navy and Military usually can't even leave their own home systems.
Rogues and Xenos (in my opinion, anyway) aswell as Outcasts were never meant to be one of those "invincible" villian forces that approaches everything with a diehard martyr mindset. The Hellfire Legion (in my experiences anyway) seem more proper for this, being ex-Military and mostly lawful generally (in that they actually have codes and such, they just directly oppose that of society's common codes and laws). Harmony rarely ever exists in any Evil faction (especially an unlawful one). Members rarely get along for long because they're all interested in the prize - Power. This means they're generally unable to work together, in any scale. This means they rarely accomplish anything other than winning the occasional skirmish, but they're usually doomed when it comes to winning the war. Factions like the LSF, SA, and so on have alot of funding behind them, alot more than most pirate factions will ever have. In one aspect this is bad because you may lose alot, but in another it's good too because you victories will mean alot more to you (and to everyone else who happens to be involved).
In short, Rogues are basically (by design) always meant to lose (unless you're like killing traders or something, that is their "industry" afterall). If you're looking for something where you can actually "win" or achieve something, then you should probably aim for what the HF has going on. They got the idea, seems like. Rogues and Xenos are meant to be thuggish pirates, not highly organized terrorists (like the HF seem to be).
The best option would be to introduce an "Elite" squadron (or faction) for each pirate/terrorist group. This is how I've always seen the HF (as Elites), I've never really looked at them as actual Lane Hackers. They might have goals that coincide with the Lane Hackers, but they also have goals of their own which expand beyond the Lane Hacker's "limited" scope (face it guys, chaos rarely works for anyone, anywhere - it's something that maniacs and lunatics generally find a calling for, but most sane people realize the value of playing their cards properly).
The problem with your ideas Parade is that Freelancer is much more like real life than WoW, or w/e else game that uses that system of who a person is. Because there is such a broad variety here, the least vague we can be about a categorization of a character/faction here is:
Lawful - Military
Lawful - Police
Lawful - Mercenaries and Bounty Hunters
Lawful/Neutral - Traders and Corporations
Neutral - Zoners and Junkers
Unlawful - Pirates
Unlawful - Terrorists
Unlawful - Mercenaries
Unlawful - Militaries
Unlawful - Aliens
There's probably some I forgot because the typical RPG classification system doesn't really fit here. There's so many grey areas that I had to smush some rather irregular shapes into the round holes that you're used to.
How can these be unlawful? They're aliens and most likely have no concept of legal / illegal. Now they may be hostile, but lawful or unlawful? Lets just say they are hostile to everyone ... doesn't necessarily make them unlawful.
"Aliens" Have their own goals and objectives, unkown to humans most of the time. They do what they see fit to do. There for do not fit in any of the "lawfull/unlawfull/neutral" boxes the humans have. Hey, its not like your gonna see a nomad pirating just because he's "unlawfull", right?
Quote:The problem with your ideas Parade is that Freelancer is much more like real life
That only strengthens my point, I think..
We can use real life as an example just as easily..
You don't see Bloods or Crips (gangbangers) taking over Los Angeles or New York, now do you..? It's because their too busy killing one another (friendly and foe alike).
The same is true with any other "unlawful" faction you pull from the real world. Al Qaida? They stole planes and flew them into buildings.
Police and Military? They control everything. That's what order does. It's (ideally, anyway) the role of the unlawful individuals to disturb that Order through strife, discord, or outright tyranny if possible.
Now, there is a problem with this logic. It doesn't account for "bad apples" and exceptions to the rule (there are exceptions to every rule), such as crooked cops and "good" criminals (undercover law enforcement agents, and so on). Discovery doesn't allow any room for that with it's strict ID-policing standards, which dictate what you can and cannot do based upon the tag you wear, and as we all know simply wearing a different tag won't work for obvious reasons (you're going to be called a pirate if you're flying a pirate ship and have a pirate affiliation regardless or what ID you wear).
If ID's weren't so strict in essentially "forcing" roleplay to always go a certain way, then things would be alot better off. The ship restrictions are good, but the "you can not do [this] because you're lawful" really only serves to hamper roleplay, I think. It isn't hard to think that a pirate might join a faction like LSF just to keep tibs on them, or perhaps sabotage them, or any other of the thousands of things you might want to do as an unlawful (or lawful) character. Evil is rarely blatant. It's usually very methodical and intentional, even when talking about unlawful characters. Truly chaotic characters might break the law just for the hell of it, but there's still an overall goal - to cause chaos and do as much damage as a single pilot can.
Quote:Most of the unlawful factions aren't actually evil.
Matter of opinion.
If you're willing to kill someone to better your lot in life, then you're Evil. It doesn't matter what your motivation is (even if it's to feed your family, or an entire civilization); it doesn't change the nature of your deeds...
Not that it really matters in this setting, so much..