I like playing police factions, partly because of TLAGSNET and used to play KSP until unfortunately I had some interactions that left me scarred.
TLAGSNET is great, I can be sipping my coffee while staying still, scanning ships until there's something of interest. And I think it is being used to its fullest potential. Can't think of a direct analogy in North America, if dispatch tells you there's a stolen jewelry in a vehicle, you still have to pull it over to search it, can't just rely on dispatch.
It's actually quite fun when you think the smuggler was going your way, then ended up going down another trade lane and you have to chase him down.
F1 is a problem everywhere. Even more so for smugglers because the demand isn't "give me 4 and you can be on your way", it's "drop all the contraband or I'll make it float out of your hull"
Contraband should be given higher profit rates though, I'd rather run ore instead of illegal stuff because ore has better return. Although it's actually super easy to smuggle Nox from Provence to Shikoku because it's mostly Taus and can avoid all TLAGSNET except for Kyushu jump gate.
It all boils down to the player base. You will have players who want the interaction between smuggler and police and those who don't. I equate the same logic to trading and piracy. I have a list of player names that I actively avoid for various reasons (being pirated in front of a lawful battleship is a good one), but I also have a list of players that I might alter course to engage in RP since previous interactions were fun. Same goes for smuggling. I have my list and will either try to sneak in or dock at Rochester for lunch depending on who's around.
Not all smugglers/traders player list watch. However, if you notice a trend of players logging out around you, it might just be that you are the problem.
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Buffing TLAGS wont do anything but piss off the community and do what @Saronsen said and just rename.
I think Police should be the only faction allowed to submit fines. Since the Navy should be more concerned with protection of their respective houses and intel factions shouldn't be really going around and saying their big bad secret agent "and oh here is your fine with my name on it" start small.
Edit: Remember, I am not saying Navy and intel factions cant enforce laws. but the fines must go through your police faction.
Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy. - V. Havel
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I think that the problem with the police factions, aside from LPI, is the fact that they are the same civil servants as the navies. That's not appealing enough, while the LPI is actually a corporation tasked with profits first, keeping the law and order second.
(05-17-2022, 02:55 PM)Erremnart Wrote: I think that the problem with the police factions, aside from LPI, is the fact that they are the same civil servants as the navies. That's not appealing enough, while the LPI is actually a corporation tasked with profits first, keeping the law and order second.
I do wonder what people think about Gallia - Gendarmerie is by definition enlisted - people seem to have been taking it well, playing along. It's just a lot different RP on the same ID - hasn't been too popular but adds flavour and allows people to play it within the same ID+Faction.
But space France has is inspired by a country that is very much used to this model - in other houses you are more or less eradicating police if you merge the ID I assume. It might not be too far fetched if devs don't figure out how to make the concept interesting
If you mean police should be able to use the network to nab ships for contraband from systems away, I'd say that's a bit much. Even the same system is much, get a scan at least, I don't think TLAGSNET should also be a cargo scanner. If the point is to help give police more to do, make it a more attractive role, they do need to change smuggling a bit.
I suggested some ideas I think would help, and I stand by them.
-Allow real cloaked spying, as in, let players use data of what they see cloaked to levy bounties, FR5's, fines, etc. It would allow for more options for police/intel ID's and result in a lot more roleplay and consequence to play out. Without question, what you see cloaked should be usable inrp. There are in-game counters now for those who absolutely can't be compromised by surprise. They could also increase the cost of cloaks by raising the value of the construction materials.
- /nodock should be countered by adding neutral atmospheric dock points on the opposing sides of all inhabited planets capable of accepting transports up to 3600 cargo. The point is that smugglers will make more attempts to land on a planet if there is more than one way in, and police players can only /nodock camp the docking ring, not the atmo point (right?). It would also open up these locations to unlawful transports.
-Change all civilian planets to a neutral IFF so [almost] anyone can come and go to planets and we can let RP consequences play out. Maybe something like the old Civilian IFF?
I sèe the main problems stemming from police too easily camping docking rings and planets being locked into police IFF's. Whole planets aren't police bases, open them up by making them strictly civilian "operated", as if LPI jurisdiction only applies to space, and the surface would be theorhetically handled by local police forces. Also, not as much need to rely on the network for cargo data if you can use the location data wait in a perfect spot cloaked, if you can't catch them all you could still be an effective spy with whatever scan data you collect.
My opinion on this. Smugglers should not be using trade lanes, and arguably shouldn't be using jump gates either. If you think of this from a real world perspective you are going to do everything you can to not let the authorities find the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF ILLEGAL CONTRABAND that cost you MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to procure. Anything that can be done to make trade lanes and jump gates the literal last option a smuggler would use I think would be a good thing.
Money from smuggling should be buffed, consequences for using trade lanes and jump gates should be higher, and a jump hole option for any smuggling destination should be available. If you think of it from a purely RP perspective using tradelanes and jumpgates as a smuggler, knowing there are no lawfuls in system to stop you is metagaming. Discovery is an RP server first right?...Right?!?
Also, regarding the /nodock thing. I think that is an absolutely OP mechanic, if a smuggler gets to a planet without being detected then the goal has been reached...That should be the end, they win. I think the multiple entry point idea Binksi suggested makes absolute sense, it's a planet for crying out loud you can land anywhere.
With that being said, if you ever see WTWTC-Inc online I'm smuggling and I invite you to come find me.