Government Roleplay And Transport Rework Feedback

[Haste]

You guys are mad, because you shipped a beta-test sample of transport rework without telling people publicly that was what you were doing.

Beta test sample? What? Sorry? How'd we get here?

Perhaps the Houses themselves should do some PvP testing of these ships so they know where to place them in terms of regulations instead.

All I said is that we will iterate on the concept in the future and give ourselves more/better levers to turn to smoothen things out a bit. This is the norm with balance in any game.

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[Petitioner]

I would ask you what reasonable government would allow anyone to operate anything like that without a license? E.g. imagine if in the current world, anyone could just legally buy a tank and drive it on a highway.

I'm glad you asked! Most tanks aren't street legal in the US, but this is because of concerns about the damage they might do to the roads rather than (surprisingly for America) the fact that they're prohibitive of the police needing to kill you (because civilized law systems have this thing called "presumption of innocence"). Our nearest analogy to road damage in Discovery would be "can this thing fit in a trade lane?", to which the answer is obviously yes. As a side note, self-propelled guns (which aren't tanks per-se, but fit into a layman's conception of what a "tank" is) and other things of that nature are mostly all perfectly street legal.

In fact, there are even instances of civilian government agents utilizing APCs and similar vehicles on the road. APCs and similar vehicles, for the record, are mostly street-legal in the US; I'd know because my ex-wife and I were only narrowly outbid for one on an auction site several years ago (we had full intent to drive it on the road -- in California no less!).

Anyway, within the context of Discovery, the question more becomes "what reasonable government wouldn't allow anyone to operate anything like that without a license?". The answer to this is "one with a public e-chat that traders can ping, wherein there's a reasonable expectation of response within sufficient time to avoid paying a pirate". Traders are largely unable to defend themselves against present-day pirates (who mostly use cruisers), meanwhile house police and military factions aren't exactly active enough to provide even so much as the vague sense of ambient background safety. If you want to restrict traders from protecting themselves, log in and do it for them. (And all this comes from one of the biggest pro-piracy advocates in the community.)

Otherwise, frankly, you're making problems for players for the sake of making problems for their characters. Yes, this is a roleplay server, but it is also a game. You have a moral obligation to ensure that you are not arbitrarily locking others out of the game in a way which is unfun for them and unfun for you -- unless, of course, you take pleasure in ensuring nobody even bothers coming to Rheinland at all in the first place, but in that instance I'd question whether you're fit to be in any position of power at all, whether inside or outside the game.

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[Emperor Tekagi]

While everyone is going off on rants and arguments, I have just put my idea into practice. From my point of view, the issue is hereby closed. The system put in place is very convenient, low cost (considering it counts for infinite numbers) and arguably an incentive to purchase your ship from someone who actually RPs, since they'll bypass license requests with 10 seconds of work in your place then - the Database will be designed to automatically see the Manufacturers entries as approved vessels. The miscommunication that occured in the specific case I had is resolved and everything seems fine now. So thank you for your generous feedback on Discord, to those who did bother.

See here: New License Layout

@ Other Govs, feel free to copy from me again.

[Semir Gerkhan]

It's not my intention to question the work of the balance team and their idea of reworking transports, but I don't understand why a transport MUST be viable in PVP, no matter what. I don't understand why the trend of converting ALL the transports into combat ships is a good thing. A transport, especially a civilian one, is a ship built to carry cargo, not engage in combat. Its best bet against a pirate or law enforcement attack would be to flee, if it can, or comply.

It's fine to me that certain special transport lines, such as the Bulwark, are specifically designed to carry and defend their cargo more safely, and are substantially more expensive because of it. Furthermore, in return, their users would have to deal with the problem that their strong armament could make them banned by the Houses, if the reason for acquisition isn't sufficiently justified in RP.

I agree that the bureaucratic procedures for licensing these special lines of tranports should be streamlined. I also think that they should generally be accepted for anyone who is able to argue logical reasons in a RP with a certain amount of common sense.

[Prysin]

You guys are mad, because you shipped a beta-test sample of transport rework without telling people publicly that was what you were doing.

Beta test sample? What? Sorry? How'd we get here?

Perhaps the Houses themselves should do some PvP testing of these ships so they know where to place them in terms of regulations instead.

All I said is that we will iterate on the concept in the future and give ourselves more/better levers to turn to smoothen things out a bit. This is the norm with balance in any game.

First off, if the houses did some PvP testing and it turned out we somehow did manage to reliably kill a cruiser using the new ships, we both know your argument would be "your cruiser pilot is trash. That's not what we found during testing". Thus, the reasonable response from houses is NOT to do PvP testing, because we obviously don't have the competency to do it right, thus we must go by the age old "big gun scary" approach.

We're hoping to move away from BC Main Batteries as the "Get off me" option and instead give transports their own brand of exceptionally powerful (against warships) turrets with higher efficiencies but lower range. Keeping Cruisers and Gunboats in check then allows us to keep Transports' other stats (shield strength, armor, etc.) lower so that fighters, bombers, freighters and small transports can realistically be used for piracy. Due to the long range of BC Main Batteries we currently would have to make the Longhorn capable of 1v1ing Battleships just so we can keep Cruisers from destroying them in seconds. It's a stopgap of sorts.

your own words. Don't go arguing that this isn't a beta test. You yourself said you don't intend to keep them like this. You yourself said "its a stopgap of sorts".

just so we don't question the definition of "stopgap"

Synonyms of stopgap
: something that serves as a temporary expedient : makeshift
stopgap measures

I would argue the laws restricting the new ships, would also be "a stopgap of sorts".

No need to restrict something if it applies equally to all houses. At the current moment, it doesnt. So....

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DHC Discord

[Solo Wing Sagume]

I think it would be more appropiate comparing those vessels to auxiliary cruisers. Historically there were the Raider vessels, one notably the Raider G Kormoran, which were refitted merchant vessels with boasting weaponry to pack a bunch, however as they were limited by their very design of the hull they could only do so much. Longhorn and Bulwark are similar in that regard, but they're way more frail than most people like to believe.

However, an important detail would be, that actual aux. cruisers could hide their armaments, which the vessels we have presented here can clearly not, which doesn't provide any incentive to ban them for subversion.

These vessels possess enormous hitboxes, barely sustainable power cores and have certain quirks and kinks to their gun placements. Pleading so much on the emphasis of role play consequences, but not providing a follow up of why Bristol should be exempt of using these ships feels rather like lazy gatekeeping to me. There was never any role play interaction to begin with, which would lead to such event to happen. All we were made aware of, is that these experimental craft possess some merits, with an already pre-existing safelock to not hand them out to everyone freely.

Agreeing, with Sombs here, rp is fun if both sides had fun doing it, developing a situation to happen that would justify it.

Furthermore, appreciating Tekagis response to bring a change and suggesting a new framework to approach the issue somewhat.

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[Karst]

Yeah, that's part of roleplay. Sometime you meet someone that is dedicated to their roleplay. Though luck. If you don't enjoy roleplaying, maybe don't play on a roleplaying server.

If you want a license, maybe try to argue why its beneficial for the house to grant it to you, not why its beneficial to you. We know its beneficial to you, otherwise you wouldn't need to ask for a permit, because you wouldn't use it.

That is also part of roleplay.

Ironic that a person who didn't understand why people would play characters belonging to factions inevitably facing defeat, because they cannot understand playing a role, would be so insistent that that's what's happening.
Equally ironic that you'd insist on those applicants providing more roleplay, when their counterpart never does. The government gives one-sentence "not deemed necessary" responses, no further questions, no suggestions what an applicant might do, but obviously the applicant is the one who's supposed to roleplay.

But really, all those motivations don't really matter. You simply don't understand that by creating an entity that's unpleasant and probably fruitless to interact with, you're creating an entity that people won't want to interact with. If someone sees a licensing thread in which like 80% of the applicants are denied, they just won't bother. They'll fly their ships elsewhere. No matter how "realistic" you think your LOLNEIN roleplay is, that's the reality of it. It's low effort denial fetishism under the guise of realism, which people simply aren't going to be interested in engaging with.

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[TheSauron]

I don't understand why a transport MUST be viable in PVP, no matter what. I don't understand why the trend of converting ALL the transports into combat ships is a good thing.

Because autowin/autolose matchups are not fun. As it is right now, all a transport can do is comply with a pirate's demands with no agency of its own. Giving traders the option to fight back, or at least suppress the pirate long enough to get to safety, are net-positive changes that give people more avenues to handle a piracy encounter. People who are not interested in anything but paying off the pirate will still be able to carry on as they were, while those looking to do more than log off at the mere hint of a pirate will finally have options.

In my personal opinion it's a net gain for pirates as well, as being hit with "ok how much" or snuffing out a transport in 30 seconds flat is just not worth the time. It'll still happen with upgunned transports, sure, but there'll be more actually noteworthy encounters and fights sprinkled in between.

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One MD Admiral

[Lord Caedus]

Yeah I gotta be honest when I became a part of Gal Gov and heard the plan was to make Gallic Law as close as possible to Rheinland Law because it "would give the police something to do by logging in to fine everyone that enters Gallia over laws they wouldn't know about" I stomped that idea out fast. Nobody wants to play in a house that allows anyone with a lawful ID to just log in and punish you for existing in their space by merely annoying them.

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[James Greed]

Man I love filling out forms.

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Greedback