' Wrote:What I mean is that you don't go on your Phantoms to patrol or anything, it's log on hit something real bad then leave. This gives us no chance to prepare a counterattack of any sort.
Although since I'm not a Phantom my knowledge is mostly speculation, it's just what I see.
The Phantoms are small, and could not ever survive if we waited for their targets to develop a counter attack, we would be destroyed in every engagement, and would therefore, be destroyed as a faction fairly quickly. The Phantoms don't have the resources to lose, if we lose we lose the few pilots we have and the few ships we can make. The Phantoms don't have a house or major pirate group providing supplies to us so we can grow, we have to depend on the small amount of resources our people can get their hands on, so losing a ship is something the phantoms should avoid at all costs, that is why we cant wait around for a counter attack.
' Wrote:Partly because a number of Junkers made fun of the Phantom Flagship, and partly because the Phantoms enjoy the Junkers as target practice much more than they would as friends or allies.
This is right to a limited extent. The start of the rift between the Junkers and the Phantoms was the Junkers Congress defending the Harvesters from Phantom attacks. Once the Junkers actively engaged the Phantoms, the full results were just a matter of time.
Quickly explaining why a few Phantoms might dock at Rogue Stations: We've had Deal(s) in the Past. Adding that they are actually <strike>nice to</strike> not really killing/harming us until some Rogue thinks he can get rid of the Phantom.
Edit: Think of a Movie: Theres is that Fort, filled up with Bandits and suddenly the super bad Cowboy-Bandit knocks at the Door. He enters the Fort and you see all the small Bandits looking at them silent. Kinda like that ^__^
"Who is it doing this synthetic type of alpha beta psychedelic funkin'?"
' Wrote:The Phantoms are small, and could not ever survive if we waited for their targets to develop a counter attack, we would be destroyed in every engagement, and would therefore, be destroyed as a faction fairly quickly. The Phantoms don't have the resources to lose, if we lose we lose the few pilots we have and the few ships we can make. The Phantoms don't have a house or major pirate group providing supplies to us so we can grow, we have to depend on the small amount of resources our people can get their hands on, so losing a ship is something the phantoms should avoid at all costs, that is why we cant wait around for a counter attack.
If you are so few in number then why are you called the Phantom Empire?
It gave me the wrong idea, probably do the same to others. Maybe call yourselves the Phantom Cohort or something?
' Wrote:What I mean is that you don't go on your Phantoms to patrol or anything, it's log on hit something real bad then leave. This gives us no chance to prepare a counterattack of any sort.
Although since I'm not a Phantom my knowledge is mostly speculation, it's just what I see.
Yes. This is our RP. We're supposed to be elusive and hard to counterattack. It's possible, though. Last time we went out we were running from the horde of Liberty Navy looking to get revenge on us for the two Cruisers we had just killed, and they trapped us. In all honesty, our escape was nothing short of miraculous spontaneity. The whole time we were fighting, I guarantee you that all we could think was "My god, we're all going to die." To catch a Sneaky McSneakerson, you have to also be a Sneaky McSneakerson. That's what the Liberty Navy (and Police, to give proper credit) did last time, and that's what you have to do. We're not going to change our RP because we're doing a good job at our RP.
' Wrote:If you are so few in number then why are you called the Phantom Empire?
It gave me the wrong idea, probably do the same to others. Maybe call yourselves the Phantom Cohort or something?
Why are the Liberty Rogues called the Liberty Rogues when they operate in Shikoku? A name is a name. As stated earlier in the thread, we are few but we want to look powerful and unstoppable. We want to be intimidating, therefore we take on the countenance of something intimidating. An Empire sounds big and scary, so it's a good name for us.
But just for you:
[5:50:00 PM] anonymous: guys
[5:50:11 PM] anonymous: this is no longer the phantom empire
[5:50:13 PM] anonymous: henceforth
[5:50:30 PM] anonymous: this is Dark Star and his Merry Men (in Tights)
Not really. I just thought that was witty and funny when I read it.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
[5:50:00 PM] anonymous: guys
[5:50:11 PM] anonymous: this is no longer the phantom empire
[5:50:13 PM] anonymous: henceforth
[5:50:30 PM] anonymous: this is Dark Star and his Merry Men (in Tights)
Not really. I just thought that was witty and funny when I read it.
I approve. You're gonna get called that from now on.
Baconsoda Wrote:I somehow doubt most pirates are the best examples of moral responsibility. Let me answer your question with another question: why wouldn't a pirate faction let us dock? What are they losing? Say a Phantom ship comes to Buffalo and a Rogue stops him. Why? That's a fight that could have been avoided with someone who might just end up losing a bet to you in the bar. Not to mention the cost of mooring or docking at a pirate base. Sounds a lot like lost revenue and unnecessary angst.
Furthermore, lets think about commonalities: some factions are regular terrorist factions, such as the Bundschuh, Blood Dragons, Golden Chrysanthemums, Xenos, and Mollys. Say a Phantom destroys a Destroyer of a respective house; any one of these factions can, at this point, say how inadequate the government is in investigating this missing Destroyer or spout propaganda about how the government failed to train the crew members effectively enough. Or maybe those terrorists could claim some of the missing transports which are unexplained for their cause. Suddenly those terrorists are a lot more scary because x number of transports are missing and they said they did it. That without any expenditure of resources. If I were a pirate faction, I would probably just tilt my hat and let a Phantom dock.
I can see your point here about the moral irresponsibility of pirates... its like blackmarket armsdealers: they sell to anyone and dont care who gets killed by the stuff they sell.
But I could argue that the phantoms may actually be bad for business for pirates... blowing up transports without dealing in loot, which is kinda like shooting up a pimp's, drug dealer's, or mugger's neighborhood and "clients", and then expecting the pimp, dealer, and stick-up-guy will will accept you with open arms and pour you drinks, simply because you broke the law and they also break laws. I'm not sure what you mean with "lost revenue through unnecesarry angst". Is the lost revenue the .75l drinks they would be pouring for this spaceship pilot, or the money reparing the ships and weapons which they aren't able to repair in RP, which they cant because if they could everyone would be using looted weapons? And the "angst" is the unreasonable fear of being in the same room with a psychopathic killer who likes to kill people for the fun of it? Could you be more specific?
Or I could say that most terrorists are actually very picky with whom they deal, and that they have a very strict code of values and honor, more strict than people who stay within the law... that's what makes them the intransigent terrorist brickheads they are. Al Queda would'nt colaborate with the Lord's resistance army in Uganda, some nutjob rightwing US rifle militia, the RAF, the IRA, ETA... only with those who they know correspond to their narrow-minded worldview, and that goes for all of those groups. Xeno's wouldnt collaborate with the GCs simply because both are terrorists, so why would Xenos or GC want to work with phantoms? If they were you, they would tilt their hats and let each other dock?
Thing is... its kinda hard to argue in this line of thinking which you are projecting... because frankly, I have tried to read up on their forum RP and faction background, and tried to observe their RP ingame (which was hard because quite a few times I just got a SNAC in the face before I knew what happened), but I can not figure out what the Phantoms, if they are terrorists, actually want, and why they choose terrorism as their tactic, or even call themselves terrorists.
From what I saw, I'm sorry but I dont belong to your generation and therefore maybe I dont understand this properly manga/anime/emo stuff properly but...
the phantoms are not terrorists but...
Homicidal Emos.
Till now I have never seen a phantom make a terrorist demand (meaning a "you do this and we stop doing that") or tactic (meaning "the terror in your hearts serves our goals for this and this reason"), but all I saw was "you ran from me without saying hello! this makes me sad! apologize! not good enough! Im still crying! BOOYAH SNAC IN YA FACE WUAHAHAHA!".
I'm very sorry but thats not a terrorist, that's a homicidal emo.
If you want to be terrorists, you shoud really think about goals and tactics more, and make sure your members know about it.
Currently, I'm more terrified of LNS lolfleet cruiser captains than of the phantoms.
Baconsoda Wrote:But on the other hand, any faction which doesn't want us docking on its station could just file a FR 5 or contact us (at which point we'd contact an administrator), and then our rep ninja (which is the strictest in the game) could be changed to restrict us from ever docking on that faction's bases. As of today, a total of 0 factions have done this since the faction's inception in 2005. The only faction which has ever done anything close to this was the AFA, which Virus and I decided should be hostile by connection to Samura when I led the AFA. A mite strange if it's such a problem.
Its kind of a phenomenon...
When ever you're being massacred by keepers, Order| ships cant be arsed to assist you, and then you find out that half the Order| members are either in the Keepers or have a pending application.
And when you see a group of Rheinland merc pirates in New York, and there is no LN to be found and the LPI stubbornly refuses to lift a finger, you see one of the Rheinland pirates say in system chat "ok we made enough money... wanna go on our LN chars now? // oops sorry thought I was talking in group chat"
Or that its perfect common sense that Order can never land on Malta and Outcasts can never land on Omicron Minor, although they are not enemies in the rep list. But even if the Phantoms have "enemies: everyone" in their inforcard, it feels more like "can land: where they wanna".
I'm not saying there is no sense to phantom RP and docking habits, I'm just saying that the sense is a bit too "elusive", which us of course natural for such an elusive faction.
Maybe you should... you know... stoop down to our level and explain your RP better for the mere mortal?
' Wrote:Maybe try something daring such as downing one of our Slave Liners with a VHF. Your pilots are certainly skilled enough and would make you feared for the right reasons (uber leet pilots) rather than the wrong ones (they gonna gank us with caps...).
We've done that. If I look hard enough I'm pretty sure I can produce screen shots of Black Rose and Harlequin taking down a Congress Slave liner.
' Wrote:But I could argue that the phantoms may actually be bad for business for pirates... blowing up transports without dealing in loot, which is kinda like shooting up a pimp's, drug dealer's, or mugger's neighborhood and "clients", and then expecting the pimp, dealer, and stick-up-guy will will accept you with open arms and pour you drinks, simply because you broke the law and they also break laws.
Actually we fly alongside regular pirates and terrorists all the time. When we do we generally let them have whatever falls out of whatever ships we blow up. I've even personally come to the aid of pirates that are having trouble with a transport, help him blow it up and leave him to whatever spoils he wishes.
So yes, I expect those gentlemen to accept me with open arms when I need to purchase fuel or supplies from their base.
I didn't read the rest of your post. I got bored after this part. Sorry.