Super Long Megapost First post working version.

[Gytrash]

Ok reading back since last I posted, it seems a lot of people want the old Nephy because their RP is based on it, because its a nice mobile Freeport and stuff. Now after looking at the models I actually think I'd like that biodome ship too, but not for fighting.

So...

How about you keep the old Nephy model, just make it a "Battleship" that is slower than the rest (like 40 impulse, no thrust, and like 150 cruise speed), has larger cargo, above average hull strength, and very crappy guns. Not transport crappy, but fewer mounting points than most battleships.

Maybe also change the model a bit to look like the mid-thing between a station and a ship. Like a mobile city. Bigger, bulkier, not able to enter a trade lane. Maybe all zoner ships should be really crappy to fly into tradelanes, cause they are built for purposes in space where there are no tradelanes.

If wanna keep the present Nephy as a SRP or faction flagship, sure why not. It just feels awkward to see biodomes on a ship that is specifically intended for battle.

The new Nephy model that Jinx made actually also looks good. I see no reason why that shouldn't be made into an additional ship.

But for the love of god, stop yelling and insulting everyone people.

The nephilim is never and has never been a battleship. Who told you that? Where did you find that? No official faction has roleplayed it as a battleship except for the Order who obviously modified it. The Aquilon is the battleship the Neph is the colony ship. And it is nearly impossible to get into tradelanes unless you are REALLY good at it. When I had reason to take mine through house space I mostly just flew directly from point to point. Of course it’s just as hard to fly through an asteroid field in one. It’s obvious from your posts that you’ve never flown one. Fly one and try to sue it for combat against someone of equal skill. I guarantee you’ll lose. You can’t dodge anything and you turn slower than I wake up in the morning.

Zoners who are only Zoners because of being able to fly the Nephilim and Aquillon, and will leave or stop playing Zoners if they get changed are probably not the Zoners the server will miss.

Zoners who have spent years building their RP only to have it overturned because the Admins and Devs won’t let us police the problem that they are responsible for. Because a problem that you prevent someone else fixing is your problem. are the Zoners who are likely to leave. And the server will miss them. Hell, Doc flies Nephilim, has for years, since before it even was a Nephilim. He said that he doesn’t want the change. You can’t say Doc is a bad RPer.

I just recently started playing and the largest combat-vessel I've owned is a gunboat, so I can't really comment on the pvp-balance.
That being said, I have 2 pleas:

1. Please don't change the function/description of the Nephilim too much.

The Zoners who travel into the unknown of deep space trust these ships to sustain them during long explorations that are expected to take several generations, and thus outfit the ships to be capable of light industry and hydroponic food production during the voyage. The Nephilim is also capable of making planetfall and establishing a fully autonomous colony.

Our entire company-RP is based on deep-space exploration and thus it would be devastating for us.

2. Please keep the model in some form.
Imo (and the friends I've discussed this with) it looks perfectly like an exploration-vessel with those 'garden-domes' on each side and the 'sun-deck' on the front. Ship Picture

Suggestions:
Remove some hardpoints from the ships instead of changing them entirely.
Make it inRP illegal for Zoner-caps to enter house-space at all

I only suggest this because I don't feel that one should 'complain' about ANYTHING if you don't suggest SOME solution. There are probably better and smarter ones.

Anyway, I feel the dev's should do what they see as the best solution for the community.. My logic tells me they must be doing something right since the game is alive after all these years.
I'll just say thank you for the work you put in either way.

With Gratitude
- Keioff Xanjer

This. We need some way of exploring deep space and maintaining a population out there, don’t take that away from us.

as i said - the recent poll made us adjust our initial plans - and leave the cruisers and destroyers to the zoners. if you say that this is nothing - fine -

however if you refer to "no change at all" - no, why? - there are plenty of voters who voted for some kind of change - and aside from the poll - we have plenty of threads that called "foul" on zoners in the past years. should we ignore them, too - just cause ppl get upset cause change actually becomes immanent?

about the lore of the ships

we ( me included ) have tried to justify them over and over and over. - but the fact is - their existence makes little sense. now you may say "but look at faction Y, Z, B etc. their shipline makes no sense either!!!" and i say "well done, you are right - and eventually that might change, too - but current change concerns the zoners, you have to start somewhere - and as it was said, we start with the most prominent problem... and hell yea - it is a problem."

here is the original lore by the creators of the zoner ships when they were FIRST introduced to the dev team:

- conference: VIP AT mk2. freighter class with GB armor and minimal active defense ( weapons ) - a ship to "get the hell out of trouble" - but not to "make trouble"

- fearless: armored small transport, small battletransport for edgeworld freeport supply, cruiser armor, minimal active defense ( weapons )

- corvo: research ship for RPers who want to RP a mid sized ship with minimal crew. good scanners and research equipment, average protection and minimal active defense ( weapons )

- aquillon: we were all a bit surprised when igiss moved it from IMG to zoners at the time and had no idea what to do about it. so it became the only "real" zoner warship

- nephilim: battleship class colony ship. few weapons but huge hitpoints - hence it came with the most hitpoints ( up to .87 - now the marduk has more ) a ship that survives. however in the initial concept it kept its 12 turrets to be able to act as a brutal battering ram on request by the Asgard Warriors.

all in all - the zoner ships all revolve around good hitpoints and minimal defense. also - like the original order Geb, they were meant to be mostly useless in terms of trading and pvp - making them naturally rare because most ppl cannot deal with RP only ships that do not make them money or blue messages.

They make no sense. Yes. But they are an established lack of sense.


I believe you would have got exactly what you wanted Jinx if you just started a dialogue with the Phoenix, TAZ and OSI leaders first; hell, all the zoners actually. Persuading people of your intentions before making the final implementation committal is a much more honourable, democratic, agreeable method of proceeding about the process.

I have never, ever, played a Zoner cap. This is because the Zoner group I am a member of does not have the shipyards to field Zoner capitals. But Phoenix and TAZ? Well, they do. Thus a degree of Rp rights lie with them.


This is older members taking on the roles of wizened sages, suggesting that all us young upstarts "cannot see the bigger picture". If you have a join date post 2010 you clearly do not understand how this server operates, how the fluid, Zoner roleplay that changes from week to week operates, because you lack a vintage label.

Do what is healthy for the mod, and for the Zoners you have nursed, Jinx. As aforementioned in this thread.

This is wrong. It’s not people with a join date before 2010 vs those who came after. There are people from both on both sides of the argument. What this is about is Devs saying “Let’s destroy a whole bunch of established lore because people are QQing” and the Zoners saying “Let us fix the problem causing the QQ before initiating a wave to destroy our RP!” and the devs saying back “That’s against policy. So we’ll destroy your RP.”

And I have to say, Jinx would never have gotten what he wanted. It’s actually been stated that he opened communications channels to Zoner leaders and they said no.

Would the Jinkusu be able to fend off a cruiser at least? You mention these things would be durable and have a long range, so I'd imagine they'd have adequate fire to fend off something a little bigger than a gunboat.

We have to remember that line between roleplay and the playerbase. We want to kill things. A lot of people deny this drive for PVP, but most of the time Connecticut has a higher population than any other system.

Zoners getting cocky about being neutral doesn't sound like roleplay. Zoners would know space is a dangerous place and would arm their vessels to plan for the craziest of stuff with them being on the fringe and all.

If you do the transports, at least make them somewhat tough. Armor and whatnot is awesome, but you just don't have the speed to run away in time. House transports are lightly armed because people are nearby.

In space, no one can hear you "Neutral!"

+1 this. as a long time Zoner I never get cocky about my neutrality. I never rely on it to protect me. I always scan people as I come up to them and I always check the chat for who is in the next system. Relying on your neutrality gets you killed.

Make it inRP illegal for Zoner-caps to enter house-space at all

In some Houses it already IS illegal inRP for Zoner caps to be there. In the past, we've often been busy in BAF tracking down rogue Aquillon "jumpers" who aren't registered.

Newsflash, Zoners cannot do anything about Zoner jumpers either. You might want to thin about that before saying “Nerf Zoner Caps.”. We would be more than happy to polive the Zoner caps. We just aren’t allowed to.

80 fearless ---> which will become nothing but still a freaking military grade cruisers
116 nephilim ---> which will become 116 deep space vessels
124 aquillon ---> which will become 124 large armored transports
3 leviathan ( i think its 3 now ) ---> which will become actual 3 dreadnoughts -2 Actually. Phoenix and TAZ

so yea - zoners will focus more on their concept of exploration ( with transport classified RP ships ) - but they keep 2 cruisers and a gunboat - which is pretty much more than your average trading faction.
if the leviathan becomes a regular SRP capital class dreadnought, they even keep the freaking full military shipline ( any fighter, GB, CR, DE, [DN] )

unless the ppl who think their RP deserves a capital warship are afraid they won t get it.... .

Now. Let's look at that last sentance a moment and take a look at the two factions that have actual warships in the Zoner Populace. (Im not trying to be elitism here everyone, just making an example)

Phoenix.

They're based within the omicrons. One of the worst places in Sirius to live. They actually NEED a warship due to their surroundings. You may ask, "why not ask help from the Order or Corsairs?" Simple. When did you last hear or see Zoners working together with them both at the same time? Myself, not in ages. They can't rely souly on asking help with every problem that occurs require capital assets. They can try like heck, but the odds are very slim. Zoners wont be able to use Order/Corsair capitals as well. Due to such relations and what other Houses might think if they took even a single picture of a Zoner tagged/ID'd Corsair Dread or Order Geb. So they must resort to their own. Which sadly from this, will no longer happen. And Phoenix was very lucky to be able to successfully SRP their own variant of the Leviathan for those means. And actual Zoner Warship, for such occassions.

TAZ.

Based at the crossroads of four houses, (Kusari, Bretonia, Gallia, Liberty) And used by a multitude of factions for trading through the lower taus. With a long standing policy of forbidding Nephilims in combat around the area, there was little need to use them aside from psychological warfare, meaning "We have these that we could use on you, if we needed to" But never have we truely had a need for an actual warship. While publically, in the words of Doc Holiday, we cannot make our alliances public knowledge, we took steps to acquire our own heavy warship, the Persephone. Now we have it, a vessel that took many months and a lot of headaches to acquire. However with ours, we have HEAVY restrictions placed in ours. No PoB equipment like Jump Drives, Only able to travels through very limited systems, and not used to attack anyone except within Baffin. If we loose all our nephilims, and our Leviathan, our psychological advantage is gone. And what is to stop say, The outcasts from sending a multitude of vessels with their professional soldiers into a system stripped of any heavy assets outside a Leviathan turned Nephilim? In which the model still clearly shows as a Colony ship. Which may I remind you we would not use for combat.

Here. You have proof that 2 Zoner factions that actually require the Leviathan and a warship. Now how about making the Zoner's a proper bomber and fighter instead of the oversized junk pile we have that was our VHF? Scuse me SHF. Removing two ships that took a pair of factions months to even acquire and then reverting their uniqueness for something we've had for ages wouldn't be a slap in the face. I'd be a punch in the face with a brick.

Now Im sure people here might however be more willing to a fair trade to cut down on several negative things that have plauged zoners for a while now.

Please take in note the following is a proposition:

80 fearless ---> but still amilitary grade cruisers -That's fine with everyone
124 aquillon ---> Keep as is with maybe stat changes
116 nephilim ---> which will become 116 deep space vessels -That's fine
2 leviathan ---> Keep as they are to keep Unique ships in the mod, etc
Osprey SHF ---> Revert to a new/proper VHF model
Zoner Medium(?) Bomber ---> Make one for us to use instead of Civ or other gear at 75% (Civ is 100% i'm aware)

-Bit of a sidenote on players slandering Duv. It was he who helped TAZ out finishing our Leviathan SRP. TAZ would appreciate it if those doing so would keep this in mind before saying such things.

All I can say is +1 Give the Zoners what they are missing instead of trying to take away what they have and shove it in the category of “Things we don’t need”

Technology and cash is not an issue. Personnel is.

40,000 people split into dozens of different groups and comprising thousands of individual explorers and anarchists cannot maintain a fleet of battleships. No way, no how.

I take offence at this. The Zoner should be much larger than they currently are. They were at 40,00 years and years ago. People come to the Zoners much more in times of war and everybody’s been at war EXCEPT the zoners since then pretty much. So the Zoners would have a continuous stream of refugees. Australia has a very quickly growing population due to immigrants and refugees.

The Council has settled a system and had much greater numbers than the Zoners ever will before they had to flee Gallia.

The council were a faction of disillusioned troublemakers. The Zoners were at least in part a faction of disillusioned neutrals. We also are far more accepting of refugees and have a much better reputation and have been around for a hell of a lot longer. There is no reason for the Zoners to have such a small population. The corsairs have 660 million on crete alone and if you go by the infocards and the RP that we have done Crete is nowhere near as nice as Gran Canaria.

I dont guess the Council people,who are running from the Gallics and are highly reduced in number due to their exile cannot build warships either.That too of the size and power of a Redemption.

When people who are on the run and can never be in one place due to the war and are scattered around Bretonia and the other regions,they can never organise to build one warship,if that is all going by the lore.There can be thousands of loopholes in lore that can be pointed out and said.I mean that,and if people can sit along and study the loresof each and every group,the entire shipline of some groups might have to be changed.Just that we are enough settled and ok with these issues keeps many from going on moaning about minor loopholes in the lore and bragging the devs to change X/Y ships,stations.

But specifically deprieving Zoners of their assets rather than the other groups has been a major policy now right?

While I once again hate to agree with conspiracy people there does seem to be a trend towards pushing the Zoners down and taking things away from them. The Zoners got two nice planets and decent populations. You nuked the population from one and gave the other to Liberty, as if they didn’t already have nice things.

Oi, somebody said Council? (bandit)

Thing is, as Kaz said the Council is still more numerous than zoners will ever be, however we are still the underdogs, we don't build battleships, but salvage/steal and refit them, if not, then work with what we got. That said, we got like 30 Redemptions collecting dust up in Champagne, surrounded by a way greater force and 5 Redemptions in Roussillon, and then Obstinates in about the same rates, like 68/11, etc. Champagne is at a stalemate with it's surroundings, and Roussillon is underdefended. So far there has been one new Redemption refitted since the arrival to Roussillon.

Now, I would be pretty much up to restricting capital ships to official factions only in case of certain factions with limited access to battleships by lore as both a reward to be able to fly battleships as well as a responsibility to keep their in-game amount controlled and as authentic as possible. Such cases could include but not limited to Council, Hessians, IMG, Zoners, Corsairs, Outcasts, etc, you name the faction who's indies + caps you have a problem with or which faction makes no sense to have a lot of caps... But of course the dev policy isn't about nerfing the indie playerbase at all, is it? If we nerf, why not everybody?

Because the main playerbase has been working really hard to make the Zoners good. So punishing people for years of dedicated RP is not a good way to deal with things. If an indie stuffs up punish the indie, if a bunch of indies stuff up then punish indies in general. Making Zoner capships official faction policeable would be something that could only benefit the Server. You just deny us the ability to police our own ships and then take them away from us in general? Not cool