"New" Player, Looking for opportunity

[redkestrel]

Apologies for the coming text-wall. I am long-winded to a fault. The short version is at the end.


Hey Disco,

I remember buying Freelancer years ago and it was where I got my start on internet-based RP. It took years but just a month or so ago I decided to boot it back up and managed to find you all.

Anyway, I'm a bit torn in what I really want to do on the server. I've maintained a trader to fund my ideas for RP, but most seem to fall flat as more people aren't really interested in.. Well, roleplaying scenarios as much as just a little bit of roleplay surrounding an already occuring game scenario (if you understand my distinction).

I'm looking for a group (whether it be joining an official faction or working as an independent) that has good, solid, heavy roleplay and is reasonably active.

Activity is a big plus. When I'm on (sometime between 3pm-12am EST, depending on the day) it's been hard to guess which factions are most active (the majority is still independent/untagged players). I've been leaning toward something I can play within Bretonia/Liberty/Omegas simply because that's where the people are when I'm playing, and I want to feel like I'm not flying singleplayer.

And I must stress, I'm looking for heavy roleplay. I don't mind if we literally sit in the same spot and type, not to say that I wouldn't also appreciate a lot of activity. This detail has kept me from wanting to join one of the Navy factions: Not that they don't RP as many do quite well if not better than most other players, but it's often pearls before swine when they have to deal with less-than-adequate roleplayers or new players.

I really enjoy trading and have developed my trading character (Transport.Broadway) the most, but this is often a lonely exercise in flying trade lane to trade lane, and any roleplay sort of boils down to pirate encounters, most of which are, again, more credit oriented than roleplay oriented. I did a brief stint smuggling (The.Crystal.Comet, Gabriel.Westfall), but my attempts to make contacts and do anything but, well, again, basically fly jumphole to jumphole silently with the off-chance of a navy encounter wasn't much fun. I tried something more original with my casino-ship (The.Triple.Seven) but that proved to be a lot of work and it was more than a little hard to garner interest: People would, again, rather powertrade their gold ore rather than stop and risk some money gambling.

Right now I've been considering two possible avenues for what I want to settle down and do inRP, but I don't know. I've been thinking about saving for a Jinkusu and roleplaying as a mobile freeport, but that's flawed as the pop in the Borderworlds/edgeworlds/whatever is low when I'm on, so I'd have to be closer to house space to really do much, and I'm not sure what interaction I could have with the average player to have some base level of RP. Alternatively, I've been thinking about going for an Order Resheph and roleplaying as a deep reconnaissance craftstening post. Though again, this is fairly limited, because my interaction with others inRP should be minimal if I'm doing my job correctly, and the Order (as far as I can see) isn't really online when I am. I've also thought about being an "investigator" with the LSF, fly a civilian craft and act more like a detective or recon, but with the ID system and the way the game is set up, I can't see this working out very well for what I want out of it.

Admittedly I've been dodging combat roles (especially for snubcraft) quite a bit, but only because I'm not a great pilot at the moment, and while I could learn, I'd value my gametime much more to be doing something more RP oriented than snubcraft combat. I'm interested in heavy metal: Capital ships or transports. If I were to join a faction, I'd happily fly snubcraft. I'm just not going to as an indy.

So I have to ask, does anyone have any ideas for me? Maybe you're in a faction that fits my criteria?

Short Version:
-I'm a lame heavy roleplayer who's whining about his immersion and doesn't like snubcraft combat. I'm looking for a group of other whiny heavy roleplayers to go pretend to elves or something with. Help me find my dumb niche.