The past, present and future of Zoners as an NPC faction

[Anaximander]

if i was playing a corsair RP...

and my neighbours sold me the food i needed - those neighbours were:

- weak in military terms
- unorgnaized
- and easily replacable by junkers and others
- quite a pain in the arse, for they had allowed some of my mortal enemies setup bases of operations ( BHG in theta )

i was:

- quite strong in military terms with a full fighter line + extra heavy snub, 2 battleship chassis heavy cruiser and a combat freighter
- highly organized
- highly dependent on import of goods


what REALLY makes me not get rid of those zoners... mercy?

Well as long as the Zoners were a friendly neutral bunch like in Vanilla, I'd be pretty happy with the food supply arrangement. I wouldn't have any reason to remove them - I would only have to remove them when they became a threat, by means of Zoners suddenly arming themselves to an extreme extent in a very short timespan for instance.

What keeps Vanilla Zoners alive (and interesting) is their diplomatic skills - they make sure they fill the needed niche without pushing people away from them. They have absolutely no need for warships (in fact, becoming a military power would endanger the neutral status, they would undermine their own business niche so to speak), let alone 4 different models, as their wit, guile and independent nature (unaccountability) are their true "weapons". That should of course, like everything else in life, come with a price. Zoners can't be THAT independent from one another if they can design and produce 4 seperate lines of capital warships in mere 20 years.

I don't care if Disco Zoners turn into a deep-space mega corporation (or conglomerate) or a massive religious group with set doctrines or something entirely else, as long as it matches up with Zoners as an entity in-game (and that is as a strongly militarized organization capable of the perhaps most impressive R&D and production feat in human history).

I just want the Zoners to make just a tiny bit of sense.

[Govedo13]

The truth is if the server followed the logic and RP the FP9 would be destroyed by the Corsairs together with all zoner caps and zoners would be put again in their vanilla Lore. But since the whole server is madhouse nobody cares, it is as much insane as gallic Princess(?) Dab hunting bunch of religious fanatics that have caps to park in front of the temple because they can, because he can.
oh wait.. zoners and sense in one sentence....

what REALLY makes me not get rid of those zoners... mercy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IfMHcQayUk
Rather game mechanics and Dev team that neglects real in-game RP.

what ships should they loose
what should the ZoI look like
what should be the maximum cargohold
what is their role compared to their neighbours

TAZ should have battleship in order to police the Temple WCs for example- the Aqualion carrier, same for OSI in order to jump trade in house space with Storks. No indie Zoner battleships or all hail the ORI?.

The carrier stats is perfect as it is. Official factions only even if we are realistic the ship have no RP value or any RP background and no point to be in game.
Q: Why one would need carrier?
A: To host its military fighter and bomber squadrons.
Q: Why Zoners need carrier when they are not military so they does not posses such squadrons?
A: Because Zoner factions and players are megalomaniacs and need it to host their E-peen?
Q: Carrier is really useful in warfare to stage attacks on the enemy using it as mobile outpost right?
A: Right but Zoners want to be neutral so they does not need to stage such attacks.

Keep the carrier in-game but make it SRP only.

The Zoner VHF should be better in PvP. If the Zoner factions want incorporate some of the civilian ships that are made by Zoners in Lore as Zoner snub line giving the civilians and others 10% nerf and 90% core like the gallic stuff to sirian civs.

Covo should become exploration heavy armoured transport with around 600-800 cargo but a lot of hitpoints 8 GB guns, heavy GB core and Transp shield. Salvager-like but with smaller cargo and a lot more armour. Afrer the removing of the Explorer ID this ship can fill the gap, you can give it some nice unique perk like better scanner that works only on the ship for example.

Fearless should become second grade cruiser like Scylla- more armour and less agility would do, even some arc restrictions as well. No house space for it.

Jugg should be really expensive good protected huge colony ship but not battleship. Loose its battleship stuff, increase the hullstats, keep the bots, add barge like cruise engine charge, add Battlecruiser Core and battlecruiser gun set with more secondary turrets for flaks and more light cruiser turrets to defend itself, make it with poor offensive capabilities but with good defence capabilities many equipment slots, give it 3000 cargo, 1,5 b Price tag in order to block the lolwuts using it for trading but I doubt they would do with this size and slower charging cruise engine. Restrict it only in Omicrons and Omegas.

Really change the whole shipline with something Zonerlike, something unique that have some use and logic behind it.Bunch of hybrid ships that does not fit in the common classes is the way to give zoner players variety without abusing the RP background of the faction and without the need of Blodo to make the Zoner VHF side profile as big as barn combined with freighter turning and the Jugg turrets not able to hit due to their bad placement.

More Zoner IDs and IFFs based on regional settings, no "generic" Zoner ID, no fake not earned or earned by others neutrality, lolwut zoner ore transporters for example would need to deal with the consequences of their ID or use freelancer ID.
Let each of the ID owners that control a bunch of Zoner bases to decide its own Diplomacy towards the other factions, keep the cargo restrictions for House space, you can even increase them stimulating the Zoners to stay out of house space as per core RP. After setting the stage and removing the retarded stuff let it be RP.

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Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)

[Agmen of Eladesor]

More Zoner IDs and IFFs based on regional settings, no "generic" Zoner ID, no fake not earned or earned by others neutrality, lolwut zoner ore transporters for example would need to deal with the consequences of their ID or use freelancer ID.
Let each of the ID owners that control a bunch of Zoner bases to decide its own Diplomacy towards the other factions, keep the cargo restrictions for House space, you can even increase them stimulating the Zoners to stay out of house space as per core RP. After setting the stage and removing the retarded stuff let it be RP.

Jinx, could you please respond to this comment, as this is the fourth person (counting Karlotta) to bring this subject up? I'm curious as to how or why, if you do think this way, that it wouldn't work? That would follow along with how things are supposed to be going the way you phrased it - Junkers, inward - Zoners, outward. Well, aren't Zoners going more outward, then?

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Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.

[John Churchill]

Allow me to throw in this idea:
An autocrat dictator seizes power over part of the Zoners (for example Omicron 74, Theta and Delta). Zoners in these systems follow him, since he is perceived as being the only one capable of saving them from nomads / corsairs / the bogeyman (and this threat was probably largely made up propaganda).
Now he tries to extend his control to other Zoners, who resent his autocracy and oppose him. Behold, we have a Zoner civil war, they are all in actual need of large military vessels and will have the incentive to work together to build them and provide the logistics.

This would also require several Zoner IDs, provide an interesting story about a group who betrayed the original ideals of the Zoners, and probably create even more activity for this faction.

This is just an idea of course, not well thought out and would require tons of work I assume. I may even blatantly overlook something that makes all of this entire nonsense. If so, please forgive me. If not, this may be given further thought.

[Jinx]

@agmen:

its is not i who thinks it does not work. - i had it proposed myself several times. - i think its a brilliant thing. - i don t think it would be a total revelation - or that it could miraculously solve all the prejudice - but i do think multiple, regional IDs / IFFs along with adjusted rep sheets would be wonderful

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[NonSequitor]

Some suggestions for the Zoner ID:

No jumptrading to a destination within one system from House Space. No jumptrading within House Space.

Zoner capships (with an exception to the gunboat) are limited to Borderworlds' systems containing Zoner stations as well as the Nomad Worlds.

Zoner traders may only dock on Zoner/GMG bases withing House Space (regardless of cargohold volume). The idea behind this is that other merchants supply the Freeports with goods the Zoners need outside of the Core Worlds. Whether or not this is reflected in actual purchaseble commodities is another question entirely.

Most of the suggestions thus far are pretty close to what is currently in game, with the exception of the tightened trading restrictions.

Diplomacy is a much more complicated matter. I'd rather leave that to player factions to decide, making for more dynamic roleplay. Issuing a stack of different Zoner IDs would just overcomplicate things.

However, I wouldn't be adverse to Corsairs and Outcasts (npcs and players) being set to hostile to Zoners. Paranoia, fear of competition would be reasonable reasons for deteriated relations. Freeport 11 could be hostile with the BH Core due to their friendly relationship with the Order in those parts of space.

[Ursus]

"May freely engage other Zoners" would do a lot, nothing more needed really

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Othienka]

More IDs (with rephacks and possible IFFs) would add even more variety to what zoners are, at this moment, would be able to do. Personally, I think that while this might serve to solve the complaints regarding their caps/different relationships and RP-ness, it would also increase the number of players being zoners. Seeing the current faction activity numbers, I believe this "increase" would serve as a detriment to the activity of many other factions.

I do like the idea, but not what it might do to the playerbase.

[Madvillain]

i am truly sorry to pick zoner vs. corsair examples ... reason for that is that the outcasts have caused nearly zero trouble with zoners in the past 6 years - and are generally on much better terms. - mostly due to being engaged against a more important threat ( IMG or CR ) - so fp10 was faced with pretty much utmost indifference compared to fp9. in terms of lore - both freeports are identical. - fp9 providing food / water, fp10 providing consumer goods that are otherwise unavailable to the outcasts.

I am glad that you explain this.
I think the Corsairs in general have been working very hard to give the Zoners more recognition as a trading partner.
Hell , Corsairs actually pay each supplier extra credits if they take the time to RP around it and make a inrp report of their deliveries.
All this is being done not just to benefit the Corsairs, but to lay down a stronger record of trading in the omegas/omicrons.
We could go back to the back and forward bashing between zoners and sairs,
I could sum up a thousand reasons why Zoners should have been whiped out from the omegas and etcetera and how our empire is supercool and the best, but that is really pointless and silly guys.

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Baila Morena | Toilet Trouble | Elder Presidente[TBH] | The Titan Combat Manual | Confession

[Crackpunch]

"May freely engage other Zoners" would do a lot, nothing more needed really

Zoner turf wars all the way.

I've always wanted gang warfare in Disco, but you can't shoot your own ID

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