Why is the community population declining?

[Lunaphase]

Repex gets a nerf on any military tech. Leaving eagles and whatnot for us to use as defence ships. (hint, it doesent work that great vs hessian stuff)

So tell me blodo? How is any faction put in this position going to possibly have a benefit? Hessians can now trade with bretonia. With routes the same as ours in profit. They have a full shipline.

the reason many corporate factions have activity problems is simple: Theres no reason to do it anymore. Pirates in the edge worlds can get just as much if not more profit than a corporate trader. PLUS has acess to big guns should he need them.

A full on convoy should not be wiped out by a single player without much effort. That is the current state of things however. I would say having to choose between navy or pirate in order to actually stand a chance is seriously detrimental to a roleplaying server.

I agree with you about cruiser/transport balance, to be honest. The main problem is cloaking cruisers, seeing as they are absolutely unkillable for corp factions. As Blodo said, that's being fixed. Bringing one escort bomber to accompany your battle transports can hugely tip the balance of combat though.

The generally sorry state of affairs in Rheinland has mostly been caused by the players though. It's an unappealing region because of the locals' hostility, and even the trade routes have been gimped because of a course of actions the players chose to follow.

As for Hessians - for good profit trade routes, they'd have to go to Kusari or Liberty - end profit routes for them don't go to Bretonia, so that's entirely irrelevant. House corps have better trade diplomacy and access to commodity buy/sell points across the board.

So basically what your saying is, just like repex, they get 2 houses to trade with, can freely enter a third. The house corp gets 2 and cannot enter the third or get shot at. hrm.

Then lets consider, its not just the cloaking cruisers that are the issue, but rather the firepower available to corps. Frankly, even a non cloaking cruiser can cause hell to a full convoy simply because of how fast transports go down to pretty much anything else. You cant balance stuff against other transports if its going to be shot at by cruisers and up. It just means that player has lost all incentive to actually get flying because, no matter what he meets, unless the guy is flat out stupidly bad at flying and aiming, hes just screwed and either has to pay through the nose or explode. Now consider often times multiple pirates per route, unavoidable sometimes. Great, now your in the negatives for your income.

On the flip side, kit up a pirate gunship (even with a ua8) and thats 60 or so in the hole. each transport exept for those with warship grade armor you dont even have to dodge and can win by sitting on its strongest arcs.

Compare that to a battletransport, costing 110, bison, up to the urez, 120. then armor, then guns and equp. You sink nearly double the amount a pirate sinks in and get a weaker ship in all aspects.

If a battletransport, meant to be a heavy gun option to a normal transport at the expense of cargo, STILL doesent stand a chance vs most anything it faces, what is the point?

Personally i think a good way to solve this issue would be to allow corps and other groups to turn their heavy transports into psuedo cruisers, at the expense of most of the cargo space. few of them mixed in with a convoy would give them a fighting chance, instead of the current "oh look a pirate. welp we are screwed if we dont pay."

People want to roleplay. this is a roleplay server. Gimping factions that are supposed to be the lifeblood and the more common occurence and meanwhile letting everyone and their mother shoot them with military grade cruisers, that the pirates somehow get and operate...

All im saying its its entirely inrp for corps to start upgunning their ships to match, no ships able to stand a chance to get through means no profit.

This however has not been reflected, with all of the advantages being stacked to the unlawful side and yet none of the DISADVANTAGES remaining in the case of any unlawfuls with full shipline and huge zoi's.

---