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There are a number of NPC factions that do not have an "official" player clan associated with them. Those unlawful ones that I can think of off the top of my head are : Bunschuh, LWB, Xeno, Junker, Unioner (as of this week), Farmers Alliance (Zelot is trying to start one), Golden Chrysanthemum (we had Bushido, but that seems to have disappeared), and Blood Dragon (yes I know the NovaPG are nominally BD, but their history is from Rheinland, so there is not an actual Blood Dragon clan composed of Kusari nationals).
As I see it, the major impediment to these affiliations gaining strength is the lack of active trading going on in their territories. The trading is pretty highly concentrated along limited routes, and thus players choose pirates that can attack those routes in solid roleplay.
Since you guys have put a great deal of time into trading already, I would encourage you to operate your traders in such a way to try to bring life into some of the less used trade routes. Specifically, Kusari to Bretonia, and Bretonia to Rheinland. They may or may not be quite as profitable as others, but they hold the possibility of bringing life to parts of Sirius that are fairly dead. Other traders will pick up on it if you roleplay it well.
If your traders are going to be permanent for raising funds to supply your pirate vessels, then I recommend tagging and ID'ing them with NPC faction specific affiliations. Border Worlds Exports, for instance would be a cool tag and ID to see flying around.
Generally speaking, you don't necessarily need to operate an "official" clan in order to have fun and success on Discovery. For instance, you could operate well role-played Golden Chrystanthemums for action in the "north" and Bundschuh in the "south". Something like that would give you a greater variety of play styles, and open up more of Sirius to your players' activities.
In many ways the Junkers could potentially be a good fit for a group of mature and serious players. I was a member of the Junker clan that recently died, and I still think that it has a tremendous amount of potential for the right group of players.
1. Your area of operations is basically the entire galaxy.
2. You can fund your operations with Junker trading and smuggling (the only faction affiliation that allows pirates to land on lawful planets, that kind of sneaking is lots of fun).
3. Bounty Hunters are the main enemy, but I think you could thoughtfully roleplay a hostility to Mercenaries and Freelancers too.
4. The Rheinland Military clan will attack you on sight.
5. Junkers and Xeno are big enemies, and so are the Hogosha.
On the surface it may seem that the Junkers would not be fighting much, but I think it could be roleplayed cleverly enough to provide plenty of combat, and you can certainly pirate nearly everywhere due to the Junker bases scattered everywhere.
The bottom line is that Discovery can supply as much of a challenge as you are willing to accept.
As far as I am concerned the limitations imposed by roleplay just creates a bigger challenge. Challenge creates risk. Risk creates fun.
So don't look at Discovery's roleplay limitations as drawbacks. Look at it as a challenge.
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