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+--- Thread: Zoners (/showthread.php?tid=98709)
RE: Zoners - Jinx - 05-20-2013
to clear things up
wether you like it or not - the original role of the Juggernaut ( now Nephilim ) was that of the Cold war Eras ICBM nuclear missiles.
"a weapon you do not want to use, a weapon that inspires fear in your enemies, a weapon that, when used is likely to destroy everything you are and stand for"
In terms of lore, the Juggernaut ( back then ) was meant to be a beast, backed up by rumor and hearsay. A ship that the neighbours would genuinly fear - but also a ship that they were certain - wouldn t be deployed unless Zoner interests were at the brink of destruction.
That does not go well with actual gameplay. So the strength of the Juggernaut is just average - but as a tradeoff - it used like any other ship. one might agree that it may be of better lore if the juggernaut was maybe similar to the venator with a billion energycore and 24 heavy mounts that can chainfire heavy mortars - but only used by lets say - the leaders of the official factions.
but thats hardly fair - and soon enough - every faction would want "such flagships". soo the current ship is nothing but a compromise in favour of gameplay.
but no one would ever doubt that a nuclear missile is not a formidable weapon of war, even if everyone hopes never to use it.
edit:
are there too many? - probably
but are there other factions that deploy waaay too many capships, too? - most certainly
whats the solution? - elitist restriction for the deserving or brown nosing players - a kind of "pay to win" - only you don t pay with hard cash - but by sucking up.
RE: Zoners - Crackpunch - 05-20-2013
(05-20-2013, 01:40 PM)Jinx Wrote: In terms of lore, the Juggernaut ( back then ) was meant to be a beast, backed up by rumor and hearsay. A ship that the neighbours would genuinly fear - but also a ship that they were certain - wouldn t be deployed unless Zoner interests were at the brink of destruction.
You're saying that like anyone would bother with bringing Zoner interests to destruction. The only people who would be interested in that, would be dictators seeking Sirius domination. It's not like someone is saying "No, you must live in a house like the rest of us."
If there was a power capable of coming close to that, then the Zoners wouldn't stand a chance, making the ship useless.
RE: Zoners - Jinx - 05-20-2013
its all in the lore - fp10 stays at the outcasts mercy due to being just useful enough and removing the presence has a negative effect on the outcasts. but such a political stalemate may change.
fp9 ... well we don t need to describe the threat. only last week the corsairs threatened to remove it again. - that is when zoner interests are at the brink of destruction.
in lore - nither outcasts, nor corsairs would seriously remove fp9 or 10. - but discovery is not always lore. just 2 years ( is it already 2 years? ) ago - corsairs roleplayed the destruction of fp9 - that should never have happened.
i can only refer to "fixed points" or lore that must not budge because if they are manipulated, they have a much greater effect than just a temporary one.
but 4.82 lore about it really way like that
corsairs are cocky and nasty, they threaten the zoners. zoners have food for being useful enough - but also a secret weapon, cause some factions just react stronger to violence than politics and economics. - and that is why "somewhere in theta - the zoners hid a ( yes, singular ) juggernaut that was able to scare the corsairs ( no, by that time - they were not supposed to have a grand fleet of capital ships either )"
or in short - the cost ( human cost, material cost and everything around it ) was meant to be too high for the neighbours to even bother messing with those "fixed points" - instead they would rely on the status quo... nither zoners, nor corsairs can escape those fixed points.
zoners cannot RP starving the corsairs and demand corsairs to loose their influence due to - well.... dieing.
or as Terry Prachett says it ( lord Vetinari ) : diplomacy is a great way to solve conflicts, but it shows that it works even better when you are carrying a sharper stick than your enemy"
edit:
why is the juggernaut not meant to be deployed in the tau region to assist fp10? - cause the IMG is a formidable enemy - an enemy that is not present for corsairs in the omicrons. - also cause back then - the omicrons were considered to be more remote than the tau regions.
had Corfu been a Hessian base - i don t think igiss would have made the juggernaut such a weapon ( in lore ) - and placeed it further out of the line of sight - but thats just speculation.
edit2:
@Crackpunch - and your actual argument. - there are two ways to look at it. - you either have the power to fully defend yourself from others aggressions - or you have enough to make the other one pay severely for his folly. - many countries in the world do not actually have enough military to really defeat a determined aggressor - but they do have enough to make an aggressor calculate his potential losses.
winning a battle is not always a reason to celebrate. some battles are won - but at such a high cost that there is no actual winner. zoners think in local terms.
and the military situation of most factions is a stalemate. - if it was not a stalemate - we would see much more movement in combat zones. - a stalemate means that resources are drained into those zones. ( like omega-5 ) ... nither hessians nor corsairs can really afford to put less resources into it - cause if they did ... the battlelines would move against their favour.
that means - even if you have a million troops - those can be locked down by an enemies million troops. effecficly removing them from your availability. - most factions end up with very FEW numbers they can move freely around.
the consequence is - that even small militaries can have a significant effect, because they do not need to fight a million - they just have to counter those troops that are not locked down. - and if the enemy decides to move locked down troops to assist his free troops - his battlelines break.
Zoner do not effectivly have locked down troops - so all their "militia" is free - but can be of small numbers. also - in pure lore - the corsairs do not really know the following
- if the zoners have juggernauts
- how many they have
- what juggernauts are capable of
uncertainty is the B-word in that case. so you don t run your free troops against an uncertain threat - especially when that "threat" is not even threatening you. in the best case - it turns out the rumors are rubbish and they do not have any. in the worst case - they do have more than you anticipated and you either loose your free troops - or you withdraw locked ones to assist.
and then you have to calculate your winnings vs. your losses.
the trick to survive is that the losses always outweigh the winnings - so one does not even bother - these battles are only conducted in theory - but no one really is meant to fire a shot.
however - you are of course correct - zoners themselves do not have enough to threaten others - nor have they remotely enough to hold against a determined attack. a faction like corsairs could easily take theta - but they are likely to loose omega 5 then. - and it remains to be seen whats of greater advantage.
RE: Zoners - Crackpunch - 05-20-2013
(05-20-2013, 02:14 PM)Jinx Wrote: its all in the lore - fp10 stays at the outcasts mercy due to being just useful enough and removing the presence has a negative effect on the outcasts. but such a political stalemate may change.
That's entirely different to threatening the Zoner way of life. If they were half of Sirius away, the casts wouldn't bother them.
If the casts found a reason to kill off fp10, it would be gone like that. No amount of juggernauts would be able to mobilise in time to stop it, and why would they? Fp10 can't possibly own a juggernaut by itself, and other Zoners with juggernauts wouldn't move to help them, because that would lead to a pointless war.
Zoners are only linked by not liking the houses and by an ID. In the same manner as freelancers are joined by an idea and by an ID.
If I was a Zoner with a juggernaut, I would use it for its intended purpose: Getting the hell out of dodge and starting a colony somewhere else.
RE: Zoners - Jinx - 05-20-2013
i am sorry, i am not sure you read all i wrote - and have an open mind to see things from that pov.
i will not be able to convince you - really. i have explained how and why it is meant to work - you can have your own idea about it - but you may run into problems with your explanation - which will twist the idea of some factionsn up to being impossible.
the problem is - i explain how it is mean to work
you explain how you DEconstruct the entire thing.
i can go around and pretty much take every faction apart in disco - point out their flaws, their illogical structure and all. but i want to imagine that what i have - is possible. - and so ... yea - i "deal with it" without questioning it too much. it can be a lot of fun to just take factions as they are meant to be like - even if it takes only little to destroy the entire construct.
RE: Zoners - Anaximander - 05-20-2013
(05-20-2013, 05:16 AM)n00bl3t Wrote: Small errors with times and so on, since it was written 3 years ago, but the point stands. Start targeting others for the no-cap policy first.
I don't at all see it like that. Sure Rheinland had a financial breakdown BUT they have a working infrastructure, universities, suppliers, manufacturers and the necessary service industries to cater for workers and their needs. And a long tradition of producing war ships (the Turtle is ancient). In the case of Rheinland, they have everything needed except cold credits, which is the one thing in the entire manufacturing process that is the easiest to obtain (loans, state bonds and so on).
Outcasts and Corsairs have their own planets, they have been settled on planets for hundreds of years, they have a nation/an empire (strong unity), and it would fair to assume that Outcasts and Corsairs have a working infrastructure (otherwise there would have been mention of revolts over the years). The Corsairs had a close alliance with the Battleship-stealing Order; in Disco lore that evolved to them sharing tech; and I'd say that is pretty well backed up. The Outcasts are supposedly super-intelligent; it would be reasonable to assume that they would use their large intellect and vast life-span to reverse engineer stolen tech/sleeper ships (again something Zoners wouldn't be able to do simply because they have no sleeper ship or enemies to steal tech from) and so on to figure out how to build Battleships. It would be in their best interest now that their direct enemy, who swears to pillage, murder and eat each and every Outcast (another motivation Zoners lack with their Mary-Sue diplomatic status), stepped up the arms race. Their very survival depends on stopping the Corsairs. Outcasts are formidable manufacturers of weapons already too.
Zoners on the other hand, the children of artists, painters, edge-world dwellers and so on, who turned their backs on organized society to live in peace and solitude; how did they manage this feat? There's no social structure, no established society, no unity etc. etc. etc. In fact Zoners declare themselves the anti-thesis of established society - and that without a cost due to haphazard/naïve dev work. In the Zoner case it is about making something out of nothing, and exactly that rubs me the wrong way because it goes against one of the most fundamental laws of nature.
In short: Just because lore could be even better for other factions too doesn't mean that we should all be npnp in the face of the extremely lagging Zoner lore.
RE: Zoners - space.dust - 05-20-2013
Reference: http://discoverygc.com/wiki/Zoners
Quote:Since the beginning of human settlement in Sirius, Zoners were perceived as people who decided to resign from the guaranteed safety of the Houses. They set out to live their lives in the more dangerous, but also auspicious environments of the Edge Worlds, which were collectively known as The Zone. The migration of former House citizens into these territories was akin to the old Earth’s “Exploration of the Great Frontier.” Men and women from a variety of backgrounds brought what little they could carry into unknown voids of space. These Zoners ranged from mere adventurers to the socially disadvantaged; from prisoners to corporate tycoons. But no matter what reasons drove people out of the relative safety of the Houses, every one of these civilians wanted to start a new life.
They don't object to having laws or government they just don't want "House" laws and government. A Zoner is anyone who decides to take life by the ba.. horns and secure their own future along with any other like minded person who decides to join them. While there is no real central organization they have many smaller hubs doing different things not all of them being the same concepts. A Zoner in one system may have completely different views on what "Freedom" is then a Zoner in another system. They don't come to blows probably because they are not trying to control more then their immediate area and most have the good sense to just play along with whatever rules and policies where they currently are until they go back to their own area.
Anyways as long is there are people who want to follow a different set of rules there will always be new Zoners, simply put a Zoner is just a general term used for those who reject any established House's rules and regulations and decide to leave that ZOI and make their own rules. What they can build, mine and organize really depends on each groups leadership and goals.
I think it kind of strange however that a former DSE employee who decides to take his ship and go Zoner would then lose his years of expertise in mining. What makes a good miner should not be the id but the equipment. but that's more about balance then being practical
RE: Zoners - Anaximander - 05-20-2013
Sure, I am not debating whether or not such a group of people loosely organized could exist.
I'm just saying it's hard to imagine that they'd be able to build Battleships without a unified society, complete with infrastructure, educational systems and the works.
RE: Zoners - Lunaphase - 05-20-2013
The zoner juggernought is a colony ship and a very large live-ship, a mobile freeport with some heavy firepower to match. (though its been heavily nerfed since last version)
Explain to me how the corsairs get their legates through the astroid feilds or the hessians field battleships when they posess no real source of income?
Explain how the Blood dragons can afford to keep their capitals working despite CENTURIES old designs and often ships themselves? (togo)
Explain how the exiles, with acess to only bretonian parts, can keep their kusari made designs functioning perfectly?
Zoners tend to be the ones picked on first game wise, and they have adapted to make ships so they arent punching bags. They have spent CENTURIES as a group with no real enemies, basically an era of almost pure profit.
If a single freelancer can make a station (research station in koeln and barrier gate), then how can the multitude of zoners not build a large ship?
If the zoners are to lose their capital ships, then other factions with far less resourses should also lose them.
However, it would be a nessesity to give in return somthing of equal value. In the zoners case, a very heavily armed borderworlds trade galleon of sorts or somthing that makes sense with the buisiness type of the zoners.
RE: Zoners - Curios - 05-20-2013
Imaginary powers over imaginary dominions.