Police and navy acting like pirates

[Spear]

Voted yes.

It's called smuggling for a reason, the idea is to remain under the radar and sneak your way through the gauntlent of lawfuls that will try to stop you, if caught you will lose your cargo and have to pay a fine. I operate a lawfuls and a smuggler, the advantages of the high pay off of being a smuggler is countered by the thrill and risk of being caught and the risk of a high level fine.

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=LSF=

[sn!p3r]

Voted yes, i have a smuggler aswell, boy is it fun getting chased and caught by your own members, even blown up sometimes:D

[kingvaillant]

yarr harr, We Ze Laibarty Zecuraity Force Piraztes all Traders Yarrr arrrrr. We is uzing zour 1337 Leet powrz.
:crazy:

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Director of the Liberty Security Force: Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity

The Amundsen Zone-21 Restrictions

[tfmachad]

Yeah, i was the Smuggler in this, only reason i didn't pay the fine was because it was 4 times what i payed for the Cargo.

I reckon the fine should be toned down, or just get rid of the fine completely if the Smuggler is willing to RP being taken into custody. I would of been happy to RP as arrested or something of the sort, i reckon you should of been able to guess by me screaming "I want a Lawyer!", and "POLICE BRUTALITY!...Well...actully Navy..but still!" In system xD

Edit: I think lowering the Smuggling fine down to 1.5 Mil or so would work nicely, that's about what i tax on my Pirate (except in S-13, there i tax 2-4 mil)

Don't compare police/navy fines with piracy. They aren't related. The police/navy fines' purpose is to stop smuggling by making it a non-profitable activity. If pirates make trading not profitable, they choke their source of income. Police/navy don't actively seek any trader, but the ones carrying illegal goods. Police/Navy respect their jurisdictions, they don't just go about hunting smugglers wherever they please.

The "harshness" (steep fines and the alleged "trigger happiness") of the police and navy is a reaction to how smugglers chiefly operate: fast docking even after they are caught, not responding to hails (aka overall refusal to RP), F1ing out of the situation etc. The ball is on the smugglers' court to present some out of the ordinary RP to try and tone down the lawfuls' reactions to them and change the situation. The lawfuls are on the defensive there.

My RM character hammers down smugglers pretty hard and still I try and RP with them to the best of my ability. The overall "response" is not stopping even when I have them disrupted in the middle of open space, not responding to hails and opening fire upon my ship even though I'm speaking (typing) to them. It's all fair, but they should expect the reaction proportional to that. Even though my character is pretty adamant against smuggling, a number of smugglers have managed to get past the "being fined/getting destroyed" dynamics, but that's because they have created the situation around them.

As I've said, if their reaction is to not respond, try and destroy my ship, it's all good. I cannot play someone else's character for them. Maybe they are playing a character dumb enough to try and destroy to RM bombers from an Adv Train, go figure. In turn, they shouldn't try and play my character for me, if my character doesn't like smugglers, that's how I'll play it in game within the boundaries of the rules.

Think smuggling isn't profitable as it is? Go legit or do a better job evading the lawfuls.

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Meet the Kriegers - The story of a family and of two men that shared more than just a name
Fantasmas de la Nube Siniestra
I Mon'Star: The Strange Case of Elizabeth Wallace

[Thexare]

Actully, i was thinking about this a while back, i'm sure Liberty must have atleast one empty system somewhere, why not escort them there, tell them to jump in, and have a guard at the JH?

Sure it would be boring, but if you get enough prisioners in there, you could always just have them all riot and break out, and then you've got a good nice jailbreak RP to deal with.

As far as I know, while they have empty systems, they don't have dead-end systems. All of them that I know of have two jump holes. Oh, and a sun they could suicide in to respawn elsewhere. Only real option would be Connecticut, and that would still mean you need someone to follow them in so you can ensure they dock.

Good idea, though.

[Armageddon]

Possibly a system could be made in each house with a 1 way JH in. And a 1 way out. Have some prison guard cruisers at the out JH. To kill the train ect. if it tries to escape.program it so you auto dock with some base when you jump in so if you are killed you cannot just be in gamma or summuth.

[tfmachad]

It is possible to RP imprisonment, it has been done between the RM and Baltar once. We RPed his arrest and he agreed not to play his character for a fixed number of days. The agreement was that if his character was seen out of jail in that period of time, we would kill it without reserves for jail breaking.

The thing is, this is only possible if the two parties are willing to cooperate (RPGs are supposed to be cooperative after all). It's easy to come to the forums and complain about what lawfuls should do, and then go in game to fast dock your pirate/smuggler into a lawful base to avoid an unfavorable situation.

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Meet the Kriegers - The story of a family and of two men that shared more than just a name
Fantasmas de la Nube Siniestra
I Mon'Star: The Strange Case of Elizabeth Wallace

[Armageddon]

Well i have to smuggler but one thing i must say. The ones using alaska deserve to pay 4mill. For plain OORPness.

[Spear]

It's easy to come to the forums and complain about what lawfuls should do, and then go in game to fast dock your pirate/smuggler into a lawful base to avoid an unfavorable situation.

Thats my biggest pet hate I think, a player under fire from the lawfuls, docking or speed-docking on a lawful base. Iy you are a smuggler and are caught and decide to make a run for it, at least have the RP to run to a base that the lawfuls cannot lock down, i.e a Junker or Zoner facility.

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=LSF=

[Fang]

Most of the time i make it past lawfuls without even being scanned, then i just dock, sell cargo, undock, and go on my way, maybe get hassled a few times if they scanned me, but didn't say anything and just decided to shoot me once i undocked.

But if i get scanned, i try to escape, and find refuge at a junker base or something of the like, then i sit there, at the instant dock point, and RP with them for a bit, then go in and sell cargo, and come out to RP as the 'innocent trader', but if i sit at the instant dock point, and they just open fire, i just dock and sell, maybe log off for a bit so they don't just sit there camping the base untill i undock.

Only times i ever make a break for a planet after being scanned is if someone destroys the pilot who scanned me, or if i'm right next to the planet. If it happens a decent distance away (out of the space immediatly surrounding it) i tend to just take a Trade Lane towards it, and then break a bit further down the line if they are following me, and then go off to a Junker base.

In this case, the cruiser and GB just kept shooting the Trade Lane at Westpoint so i couldn't dock with it, so i attempted to cruise down to the next Lane so i could take that, and break off once i got a good distance away, and they took out the Trade Lane again, then they started saying they wanted a fine and for me to drop my cargo, so i started attempting to RP, making a fuss, saying this was police brutality ect, and they just gave me a countdown and shot me.

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The Ramirez Chronicles
Alvaro.Ramirez[101st] - Outcast Guard