However, changing ships would be exactly what FIGHTER pilots would do. I totally agree with Blunt on this.
If Omega 52 is breached during fighter training, and I have yet to be fired upon (and when I say this, I mean litterally fired upon) or engage, I will reserve my right to dock and use another ship of the same character on that station (and ONLY that station. Not even if it's in system) as that is role play.
Roleplay is what we're about, and the reason why (finally) the one death rule has been issued. I say this rule should encompass those that have ALREADY been engaged or have engaged themselves. This would mean traders that have had an attempted pirate encounter can't dock and change as they have been engaged, but allows us to roleplay a change of ships (NOT CHARACTER) if we see something hostile on our scanners.
As Blunt put it, if we're in our fighters and a few battleships appear 9k away having just entered 52, we should not be bound to our ships by others that are nowhere near to make a difference.
Well, I'm pretty darn sure that Korrd was referring to traders only... His post really suggests that, considering it mentions pirating and bounty hunting. I highly doubt he meant char switching for all types of chars.
I do see the point of both sides here, but it cannot be one rule for one situation and one rule for another. It is getting to the point now that there are just too many rules for newer people to take in at once.
To you, Axe, I would say, have a person on duty watching the chat screen. If someone watches the chat screen, it greatly diminishes the chance of being ambushed. Granted, it isn't a one hundred percent solution, but it works better than others. I can see your point, about docking to switch characters as they are the same, with role play reasons you described, but I would rather take a loss like that on the chin, learn from it, and be ready next time.
However there is one thing that this rule can really stop. When I read the battle reports of the SF, I see that some have been in small craft, attacked by lots of people, engaged then disengaged, and "called" in backup, which is their battleship or larger craft.
In my opinion, the pros outweigh the cons in this case.
I think that we need a blanket rule on this, and other things to make the rule book we have less like a book and more like a page of one.
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It isn't clear, now that I see, that Korrd is talking about traders only or not. If he clarifies that it is for traders only, then the above is mostly void.
There wouldn't be two different rules. It's simple. If you've been engaged, or have engaged, you can't switch. If you haven't you can. If freelancer was real, that is what would happen. A ship wouldn't be able to go through a docking proceedure whilst under fire, and the station definately wouldn't open itself up to hostile attack by opening the docking bay doors.
If hostiles are spotted on scanners, however, you would have time to dock and prepare for battle.
This encompasses traders also. If a pirate has engaged the trader, the trader should not switch. The same rules applies for both situations, not a different rule for each.
No, because that would defeat the object of trying to pirate, because they can still switch to another character on that base, hence not getting pirated. The last thing that a pirate needs is a trader switching to put up a fight. It also still makes a pirates life hard. I'm not saying it shouldn't be hard, but pirates should get paid, not cheated out of their money like that.
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