Zoners

[Jinx]

well - its sad that you cannot just be happy for a faction

there are two ways to achieve equilibrium - you can either put another faction down - consequently elevating your own faction without improving it

or you can improve your own faction without putting another faction down

atm - yes, you try to "right the wrongs" which effectivly means putting the zoner faction down where it belongs to "capless, or restricted more than others, - and if possible demure and submissive"



but aside from that - my deepest apology for assuming you do not have a dedicated zoner char. - i do not know which of your chars is involved in the politics and interactions and the interests of the zoner faction.

i just had to base it on my own experience - like - i do have 2 corsair chars - but i don t consider me a corsair player - i also have 1 outcast char without being an outcast and 1 gallic char - and hell i m not at all involved in the grand gallic politics. so i made a false assumption that - and i am deeply sorry for that.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Zen_Mechanics]

Zoners are the closest thing that a human can have here. You shape it the way you are shaped, you can't do that with other factions and even if so it will be ten times tougher. I am pro right therefore my char is pro right.
Zoners today are much like the united nations, they have economic control but remain neutral, but piss them off and you'll have 30 countries on ya.

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Were fools to make war on our brothers in arms.

[Thyrzul]

I'm not a non-Zoner; how could you know what characters people play?

Some people really need to let go of the "it's us against the world" mentality. It has blocked all progress on getting Zoner lore fixed (do a quick search and see how many times the "why u pick on us?" is brought up in Zoner discussions), which would make the faction more enjoyable to play and encounter for a lot of players. I'm not trying to pick on Zoners, they are not a "prime target" of mine; I simply voice my opinions and questions regarding Zoner lore and get told I'm the bogeyman or "know nothing" as a reply.

Of course Zoners have a lot of activity when the ID and ship line allows just about everything from defensive cap warfare to jumptrading and so on. Zoners can do it all and have no ZOI, ID or Lore limitations, and that cannibalizes on the prospect of activity for other factions and ID's (e.g. why should I make a jumping IMG trade fleet, when there are that many more limitations and hostiles as an IMG player?). When things are kept like that, of course Zoners will always have a lot of activity, it's de facto a blank ID with blank diplomacy and blank lore (and a very impressive ship line); larger groups like OSI, TAZ and Omicroners have then filled out the blanks at their leisure and adhere to that (which is fine) but the start-off point is severely lacking, making everything possible without consequences.

Of course some people will address the Zoner-issue because it has a huge impact on their own ideas, characters and factions - whereas GC and Bundschuh are minor factions that haven't been "evolved" into leviathans and aren't at all as significant.

It's not "Zoner hate", it's rather "Disco love".

First post so far I can totally agree with in this thread.

Half of the Zoner community is consisting of the factions trying to specify who (those) zoners are (some of them having their own ID now), kudos for them, other half are the bunch of indies enjoying the perks of the ID, as it has many with like no drawbacks. I wouldn't be surprised if server stats would indicate the Zoner ID the Zoner faction or just their tech/ships being the most popular one on DiscoGC.

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[Huhuh]

Zoners today are much like the united nations, they have economic control but remain neutral, but piss them off and you'll have 30 countries on ya.

Total hogwash. A Zoner has no reason (don't take that entirely literally) to help another Zoner. They don't have economic control either.

If I kill a Zoner as a pirate in the Omegas, the Zoners in the taus will not come after me, simply because they have no reason to. Zoners in general are linked by an ID and an idea, nothing else (well, that and the faction they belong to, but not all Zoners belong to a faction).

the zoners - in the years from 07 to 13 have NEVER suffered from activity problems - not a single thread complaining that "Zoners are dead" - they have had so many creative and positive players that the devs had to nerf them down continously - cause their popularity was just too great lol ( of course - that was mainly due to their amazing moneymaking freedom ... yeah )

Mostly due to their 'civilian' cap ships, neutrality, and their transports. Not because they bring quality RP to the server (not saying that there aren't Zoners who can RP well, but there are far more lolwut Zoners out there).

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[Knjaz]

Oh my, I missed such a thread.

Lore-friendly solution - nerf zoner capline combat capability, in exchange for significant buff in it's cargo space.

Example: Give Nephilim 2500-3000 cargo space, and an armor/powercore of a Light or Medium battleship. (number of weapon slots - unchanged) Here you go, Colony ship that uses it's armament as a last resort.

Might give even more cargo space, but I'm not sure how it'd affect the trading balance, if there's any good trading routes in deep omicrons for which such ship would be a better option than zoner whale.

Zoners are the closest thing that a human can have here. You shape it the way you are shaped, you can't do that with other factions and even if so it will be ten times tougher. I am pro right therefore my char is pro right.
Zoners today are much like the united nations, they have economic control but remain neutral, but piss them off and you'll have 30 countries on ya.

*facedesks*.

First there was a group of people, scattered around omicrons, enjoying their life that is free from House laws. They managed to build some stations and unite into small societies.

Then someone came up with the idea of giving them a capship. Then, after more time, they received a bunch of capships. And now people playing for zoners are trying to drag their lore to the level of their in-game power.

What's next? Some hessians claiming of becoming a third Mini-House, because these miners were given battleships as well (due to balance reasons, as it was explained), and steamrolling Corsair Empire? Or, perhaps, some IMG bruteforcing their way into Alpha?

[Zen_Mechanics]

What you fail to realize is that zoners have more "resources" than any other faction ( houses are exceptions ) to build battleships and cruisers, but if thats your problem with the zoners, the capships.. u might want to consider a different mod.
I see more logic with zoners having capships than hessians do, because unlike hessians, they dont live in the wild with the nomads, so they don't need that much op as zoners do, freedom of action, good shiplines etc. Hessians are balanced when zoners are not, but zoners aren't perfect, you sacrifice a lot with every faction you lose but nothing is impossible if you have good rp, and if you have good rp, zoners should be your first choice.
The Order + pheonix are never tired of humiliating us by claiming that we are a mere fake, and are not true zoners, because we are in-favour of violence, which is far from the truth, but even if it was the truth, every society must have a more radical movemvent in it, and quite frankly the pheonix should not be official anymore due to their latest treatment to others, especialy us. I will not offend n00blet but they are ex-omicroners which is why they are the same. just because you don't like it does not mean its invalid.


Edit 2 : One of the problems with zoners is the complaints that we get, and these guys rush in to express them as to prove my point.

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Were fools to make war on our brothers in arms.

[n00bl3t]

So far all suggestions proposed include some sort of a nerf. Considering the amount of nerfs on the ID already, and the ones applied over time, some people who play Zoners are getting tired of the consistent Zoner threads that pop up all the time demanding a nerf. (Even disguised under titles like "improve Disco" or whatever ever other disguised sweetener that is used.)

Sugarcoat it under loving Discovery and addressing lore all you want, but if you cannot show why X faction should not be nerfed under the same logic as Y faction, then you have an issue with bias. (In before chants of bi[A]s and conspir[A]cy or whatever other ad hominem used as a device to suppress genuine comments about these topics.)

If you truly love Discovery as you say and want to see it grow, you would have the balls to tackle the entire issue and multiple faction inconsistencies in one go. Otherwise, you are just as fake as your words, and your nerfing agenda should be ignored just like the thousands before it.

Also, RL is not FL. Life experiences are great, but they reek a lot of "’ll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I’ve been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in gorilla warfare and I’m the top sniper in the entire US armed forces..." et cetera.

Past that, picking on independents as "lolwuts" is always a popular ploy to rally people to the nerfing cause. Used time and time again. Every thread involving capital ships has it, so does this. Of course, it involves the same ignorant clods talking about no drawbacks (and also saying there are no ZoI limitations) as if Zoners can magically land in house space or use their capitals offensively which make trade profitable and owning capitals fun. (If a rebuttal to this is "I saw X breaking a rule and open fire on mah ship11!11!" firstly you're an idiot and secondly it's outside the game rules .)

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[Syrus]

Being a Zoner should not be like being in a faction. It's more like an idea. Like "being a socialist" or such. People work together to some degree, because they support that idea. The Zoner-idea of being free of house influence and living their own lifes somewhere outside of the houses. Different people from everywhere, with all kinds of backgrounds, goals, ideas, etc became Zoners, because they all had at least one idea being the same: getting away from house space and house laws. They don't see themselves fit into other factions. Some Zoners prefer doing their own stuff, staying alone mostly, others make groups. They have to work together to some degree though, to be able to live like that.

A few might be like Freelancers, but most do not follow such lifestyle. But such things can't be generalized for Zoners, since everyone of them is different then the next, and only one idea is the same for all of them:
Survive outside of house space, live your own life

That's pretty much how I see them. There might be some smaller factions among the Zoners, people who share the same ideas, while being Zoners, but overall they are not a tight faction focussed on one thing like for example the IMG or GMG or the Hessians or Mollys etc. It doesn't make sense to me though, that Zoners can build ships bigger than even the biggest battleships around. I can very well understand them being able to build transport sized "colony-like" ships, pretty much a cruiser or liner sized vessel, but a battleship is a whole other story.


(Btw...every time I read the title of this thread I have to think of that pic from that weird alien-guy from the history channel saying "ZONERS" instead of "aliens" oo)

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[Zen_Mechanics]

Richard, having a closer look at your signature, I think it woul be wise to lock threads like this, it degrades the subject.
I know I have said lots of things about factions and that they are true, but that doesn't qualify me to be the judge.
But when it comes to zoners, my hunch is that the people who complain here have never been or experienced the zoner rp, If they had, they wouldn't complain. Now I could be wrong about this, but altering facts is not the solution, the right way to address the zoner status is to look at their current standing in the story-line, and whete they like it or not, zoners are just fine as they are ( though as you know there are minor things that could be adjusted, such as more freedom to fire lolwuts exploiting the zoner id ).

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Were fools to make war on our brothers in arms.

[Knjaz]

What you fail to realize is that zoners have more "resources" than any other faction ( houses are exceptions ) to build battleships and cruisers, <...>

Did you just put zoner's R&D, industrial capability and available human and material resources above that of a Corsairs, Outcasts, Council, Colonials, House Corporations, IMG, Red Hessians, BHG/BHG Core and Order, and all of that in mind with zoner society being "zoner", i.e. divided into relatively small cells, that are not quite well connected to each other, if at all?

Uhh... I'm not sure how should I comment on that.