As I did the last time I posted ooRP, I want to extend my sincerest apologies to the staff for making yet another post outside an RP section. However, since this one isn't a toucan meme or likely to annoy anyone (at least not intentionally) and actually has a some constructiveness to it, I feel that it should fall well within the sort of content I should be contributing to the community. Sorry in advance if this is still not acceptable behaviour, and if you'd prefer me to go back to just writing stories in the appropriate forum section. I did try to ask others to post this on my behalf so that I wouldn't have to circumvent my probation through the use of an alt, but it looks like everyone I approached was either not around, not willing, or otherwise not in a position to help me - so it's not like I didn't try >:
Hi. I want to propose a change to corporate IDs, since I believe the way they are worded now gives them far too much freedom relative to other IDs - so much so, in fact, that certain corporate factions are able to choke out dedicated military/police factions through a cascading chain of 'can assist allies/neutrals anywhere'. Clearly, this line is intended to allow multifaction convoys to form up and move along together without running into any speedbumps or hitches regarding defending themselves from pirates. However, this aspect in particular is becoming more and more used for military/police faction-esque 'rapid response teams', which is (in my view) not the intended interpretation or use of the line in question.
Without naming any names in particular, the areas in which I have noticed this happening most obnoxiously would be Rheinland and the Taus, with an honorable mention to the Omegas at times.
The fix or tweak that I'm proposing is that the line currently reading as:
Quote:-Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect an allied or neutral lawful ship, or in defense of a base of the same affiliation, both within and outside their Zone of Influence.
be broken up into the following two lines:
Quote:-Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect an allied or neutral lawful ship affiliated with the same House, or in defense of a base of the same affiliation, both within and outside their Zone of Influence.
-Can attack any ship to protect an allied or neutral lawful or quasilawful ship, or in defense of a base affiliated with the same House within their Zone of Influence.
I'd welcome any reasonable feedback to these changes below. Undoubtedly, there will be more than a few opposed to the change. If I'm honest, though, I'm more interested in seeing what support there is for a change like this rather than hearing the arguments against it - although any attempt to reach a compromise or middle ground would be very interesting to hear. Additionally, since I don't believe a positive shoutout is quite the same thing as a negative one, I'd hold up Bowex) as an example of a corporate faction that employs escort ships extensively and still manages to do things 'right', without taking things to any kind of stupid extent. No doubt some people reading this post will remember a certain incident involving a corporate 'escort' (and not a Libertonian one, either) managing to make it all the way to Cassini in an active engagement. That's an extreme example, admittedly, but it falls along the same lines of the sort of thing that I'm becoming rather tired of seeing.
I sort of disagree, since it would make e.g. Bowex unable to help Bretonian Privateers or Council - or Samura being unable to help Exiles or FA - as all listed are unlawfuls. I think there's reason why it is written in this way, because 'neutral' means 'neutral for the house' or 'neutral to the faction'.
Quote:-Can attack any ship in self-defense, to protect an allied or neutral lawful ship affiliated with the same House, or in defense of a base of the same affiliation, both within and outside their Zone of Influence.
This would make corporate alliances pointless. This way, ALG wouldn't be able to help Gateway or IMG.
Edit: As for "military-esque" things, I think people tend to forget that corporations are actually a very huge entities with billions of credits in their treasuries - at least I see it like it, they seem to own a lot of small businesses, products and patents - so it wouldn't be anything surprising that e.g. Kruger could afford their own security wings. Of course I'm not speaking about self-reliable entities like IMG or GMG, which have a pretty strong economy to possess their own paramilitary.
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I agree that corporation ids are too good at the moment. However, instead of limiting it to "can assist ships affiliated with the same House", I'd rather put "can assist allied (and/or friendly) ships.", thus removing "neutral" from the line. That way the corporations who established alliances with corps from other houses would retain the possiblity to assist, but would lose the obvious ability to assist almost any ship anywhere.
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It's also interesting to note that the 'problem' areas specified are all relatively lawless borderworlds, where non-governmental (corporate) militias probably should have a greater presence than state forces in any case.
The rule changes related to Houses' powers in the borderworlds were introduced for precisely that reason, so corporate groups flexing their martial biceps would seem to be working as intended.
Of course, leading Bowex means I have a vested interest. We make heavy use of our own security ships, primarily within Bretonia and occasionally Omegas 3. Almost all of our engagements could be justified under other clauses on the ID though.
At first glance corporates flexing their muscles "primarily within" house space looks like something making police factions redundant. At first glance "Can attack any ship ... to protect a... neutral lawful ship ..., both within and outside their Zone of Influence." does also sound a bit too much in my opinion. Just a few thoughts to start the day at 5.40 am...
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