Anyway, for those who's complain about Zoner caps, really, -please- stop it. First off, Zoners are edge space farers, they have to fly trough dangerous space on huge distances. Any fighter, freighter, transport won't able to survive there. Not enough of fuel, easy target. InRp Zoner caps were designed for it, to fly trough Omicrons, support edge installations and exploring new worlds. Second, it's disco.
Yeah, Zoners are different compare to vanilla ones. They are not anymore just intermediaries between unlawfuls and lawfuls, but also explorers and researchers.
There is too much people who's don't play as Zoner. But sure, why don't complain about them?!
So you want to dictate what people can and cannot discuss as well? Great...
Your logics are kinda backwards though: Just because you might be able to utilize something to a great extent doesn't mean that you by default should have it.
This is afterall a RP server, some consideration should be put into how things come into existance. Either fix up the lore (which was left at Vanilla without really explaining the sudden surge in numbers, power and technological know-how) or ditch the caps and make the illusion credible again. I can't see why anyone rp'ing as a Zoner would oppose to having a more structured and complete lore as a guideline.
- they are the "missing link" between the lawful cooperations/houses - and the unlawful edgeworlds
- they are IRREPLACABLE in that function ( let that term sink in )
- the power of the zoner faction is primarily of ecnomical nature and also "non-material" ( means, you cannot just take it over or steal it )
- they do not have a military, because they do not need one - and they do not need one, because everyone gains more by their existence.
what does all that mean?:
in terms of strict lore - it means that if the zoners are gone (killed, destroyed, or chased away) there is no one that can fill in. ( that is a HARD fact - one simply has to live with it. no other faction has the knowledge and connections to deal in such a large scale with the parties involved. )
however - that power cannot be reflected by game mechanics. - we cannot give factions that ignore the dependency a lower birth rate, greater chance of illness and higher death rates.
the only measure we have to compare is pvp.
so what to do - when one faction measures against a game mechanic like pvp - and another faction measures vs. voluntary imagination?
we even the playing field. - we have learned that players do not acknowledge their imaginary achilles heel, they mostly just respect "real" consequences. - that is ONE reason to keep the ships equal to the factions neighbours.
for those who are interested: ( text in black - so it does not annoy those ppl who are annoyed by a lot of text )
original reason zoners were given the capital ships was - cause the zoner faction - like pre-83 was not too popular. - if you wanted action you hung out in the coreworlds like liberty ( so little has changed )
so giving them these ships was both - an incentive to decentralize the playerbase - and cause the ships were then "out of sight and out of mind".
from a pov of the lore - it also made sense.
in terms of lore - fighters do NOT travel very far - they may do a jump - but then they dock to a friendly station. if there is no station around, they run out of "imaginary stuff" like air or fuel.
in order to really TRAVEL the edgeworlds - you NEED a capital ship - like a destroyer or larger. travelling those systems in a fighter is ooRP.
after that - it was a militarization.
in 84 - corsairs, who had their lunchbox and osiris, got a cruiser and a dreadnought, outcasts who had a cruiser and a dreadnought got another battleship, the bhg core who had a battleship and a destroyer, got the liberty rogues gunship and a battlecruiser - and zoners, who had the juggernaut, got the fearless and the conference. in 85 - they got the corvo, too - but mostly again, cause the corvo was classified a civilian cruiser at that time - and it made even less sense than another zoner cruiser ( <-- out of sight, out of mind )
if you keep in mind that it is all about game mechanics and measurable fairplay - you see that all those faction have gained pretty similar amounts.
on the matter of the aquillon in baffin.
yes - it was an oversight - or rather - i do not think anyone could have predicted it to become a problem at all.
personally - i don t think i would hurt if the aquillon could become a TAZ ship entirely ( cause i don t see any significant usefulness for it at all ) - i would predict increased envy and trouble for the taz if they wished it to be a taz ship though - for rather little gain.
- they are the "missing link" between the lawful cooperations/houses - and the unlawful edgeworlds
- they are IRREPLACABLE in that function ( let that term sink in )
- the power of the zoner faction is primarily of ecnomical nature and also "non-material" ( means, you cannot just take it over or steal it )
- they do not have a military, because they do not need one - and they do not need one, because everyone gains more by their existence.
what does all that mean?:
in terms of strict lore - it means that if the zoners are gone (killed, destroyed, or chased away) there is no one that can fill in. ( that is a HARD fact - one simply has to live with it. no other faction has the knowledge and connections to deal in such a large scale with the parties involved. )
however - that power cannot be reflected by game mechanics. - we cannot give factions that ignore the dependency a lower birth rate, greater chance of illness and higher death rates.
the only measure we have to compare is pvp.
so what to do - when one faction measures against a game mechanic like pvp - and another faction measures vs. voluntary imagination?
we even the playing field. - we have learned that players do not acknowledge their imaginary achilles heel, they mostly just respect "real" consequences. - that is ONE reason to keep the ships equal to the factions neighbours.
for those who are interested: ( text in black - so it does not annoy those ppl who are annoyed by a lot of text )
original reason zoners were given the capital ships was - cause the zoner faction - like pre-83 was not too popular. - if you wanted action you hung out in the coreworlds like liberty ( so little has changed )
so giving them these ships was both - an incentive to decentralize the playerbase - and cause the ships were then "out of sight and out of mind".
from a pov of the lore - it also made sense.
in terms of lore - fighters do NOT travel very far - they may do a jump - but then they dock to a friendly station. if there is no station around, they run out of "imaginary stuff" like air or fuel.
in order to really TRAVEL the edgeworlds - you NEED a capital ship - like a destroyer or larger. travelling those systems in a fighter is ooRP.
after that - it was a militarization.
in 84 - corsairs, who had their lunchbox and osiris, got a cruiser and a dreadnought, outcasts who had a cruiser and a dreadnought got another battleship, the bhg core who had a battleship and a destroyer, got the liberty rogues gunship and a battlecruiser - and zoners, who had the juggernaut, got the fearless and the conference. in 85 - they got the corvo, too - but mostly again, cause the corvo was classified a civilian cruiser at that time - and it made even less sense than another zoner cruiser ( <-- out of sight, out of mind )
if you keep in mind that it is all about game mechanics and measurable fairplay - you see that all those faction have gained pretty similar amounts.
on the matter of the aquillon in baffin.
yes - it was an oversight - or rather - i do not think anyone could have predicted it to become a problem at all.
personally - i don t think i would hurt if the aquillon could become a TAZ ship entirely ( cause i don t see any significant usefulness for it at all ) - i would predict increased envy and trouble for the taz if they wished it to be a taz ship though - for rather little gain.
Gipsy, please don't try your ad hominem assaults and guessing my mood, good Sir. It will not fly. Instead, try to focus on the subject-matter at hand, rather than the person writing. Don't try to get personal just because I happen to disagree and don't mind spending 10 minutes of my time writing a post here.
I agree that Zoners are a vital part of the disco-verse, that it would be empty without them etc. etc. etc. That's not at all what's being discussed.
The problem is when there is a mismatch between lore and the way Zoners are represented in game - that is with 2 dual lines of capital warships. Yes, warships - they got guns and some of them are rather nice PVP tools. The tall story about the need to traverse far away systems and so on and so forth would be all great if the Zoner caps were fitted with 0 guns or at least guns that couldn't harm a flea. Afterall, what would they use them for anyways?
The cap production just raises so many questions - some of which I raised above, the most important being "how is it possible without strong unity and political leadership?" Also with Jinx' post above, new questions arise - like how did the Corsairs ever accept that their next door neighbours stepped up their game and started a regular arms race? How would they allow another power with military might (this is where Disco Zoners differ a lot from Vanilla Zoners) to set up shop next door? How the hell does that benefit the Sairs, already surrounded by more than enough guns as is? Not to mention Rheinland and other Houses in the vicinity that will suddenly have to deal with Zoners in a completely different and way more serious way.
Also Jinx says that some of that immaterial power that belong to some factions have to be translated to pvp-tools in-game. Then what about Outcasts and their alledged superior cardamine-induced reflexes? Will the Outcast fighter of 4.87 be the fastest in the mod? And how does the power Outcasts hold over other factions through their grip on the cardamine trafficing translate to pvp tools? How about Ageira or IND and their massive political and economic might, how is that translated to pvp-tools? Explain pls.
It becomes a problem when one set of standards are in place for one faction, and another set of standards are in place for another. Streamline the mod and clean up the lore (and on that note I wouldn't mind the Aquilon being a TAZ ship if lore was updated to reflect this) so everything is created and balanced on the same stringent logic, rather than being a messy incoherent mishmash.
you slightly misunderstood the reason of making the playing field even.
we don t do balance based on the lore ( much ) - so the super reflexes of outcasts do NOT come into play - they WOULD come into play if the outcasts - by lore - were "known for flying paperships and mounted only bluebells"
in that case - they would also be elevated to - well - what they are now. - a faction with comparable ships and weapons.
vanilla zoners are known to fly the largest transports known to be available to players ( dromedary ) which is sold at the hacker base ( which a bugger ) - vanilla does not actually say that zoners adhere to snubs only though - at least not more than pretty much every other faction that had no capital ships to start with.
but i cannot recite the entire vanilla lore - IF there is vanilla lore that states that zoners do not have capital ships or military grade ships - i d be interested ( not that it changes anything though )
in vanilla - they make use of the eagle line, the BW, ok-ish guns - and their battle chatter is about as non-sensical-aggressive as that of corsairs. they are also similarly aggressive once you mess with them ( like firing a CD at a zoner NPC ) - but we all know that this is due to the limitation of the AI.
other than that
corsairs must accept anything - cause - as i wrote before - the zoners are an irreplacable link - no zoners = corsairs can start eating dreadnought plating ( which does not sustain you very well ) but zoners must also not be too bold, cause it does not benefit you that the other side dies - when you are already dead.
and so - you see - zoners and corsairs have similar military powers.
again - let the term "irreplacable" sink in. - i know that ppl hate such traits that define core needs. - but they are necessary in order to keep the factions connected in the right way.
if it was not for the irreplacable .... corsairs, outcasts - and pretty much anyone else really could steamroll the zoners, for a good reason, cuase zoners are not portrait to be "nice guys" - they rip you off, cause they can - just not too much.
edit2:
one more thing - zoners are not space hippies. - zoners dislike the goverment. - if you called everyone that disliked the goverment a hippie it might be true.
example: rambo - the character has not that much depth - but i daresay - he as a character is not too fond of the goverment - and chose a lifestyle that was kind of outside the norm. - yet i would not call him a hippie.
I understand you seeing that something does not fit. But instead of wanting to change it straight forward for the sake of perfection, why not think how keeping things as they are harms you? Coz I know it doesn't hurt anyone here really. All this is either the fruit of utter envy or senseless perfectionism.
Okay, from a couple hundred thousand, to millions of zoners. That was a choice that was made many years ago by devs and we have learnt to live with it. It would be even more odd to say zoners are again some small thousand people.
And Caps, well, there is every need for caps. Freeports and bases located in isolated dangerous space are supplied by corvos, fearlesses, aquilons and juggys. There is also the fact of outer rim exploration. Nomads attack some zoners too, and as for TAZ, well, not only Gallia to worry about, but if you pay close attention we are in the middle of four houses, leaving only Rheinland as the non-neighbour house.
You may say that Disco made Zoners bigger than the largest of house corporations. Well, it is that way, and we all have to fit into that scheme. Zoners have more money than most factions, and the best researchers in Sirius, and the isolation needed to build any ships they need. Perhaps they didn't in vanilla, but they do here.
I just believe that fast forwarding Zoner lore right now is nonesense.
Edit: And excuse me if at some point I talked like a jerk. It's just that I am really tired of Zoners being the scapegoats for bored / unhappy players.
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