The end of zonerzonerzoner - Rewrite the Zoner ID

[Trogdor]

1. Intelligence and recon. If the Zoners did need to jump forces into a system such as Bering or Kepler, they would first need to get a survey ship there, which afaik can only be a cap, which would need to pass through house space.

What forces would FP2 or Ames need, consisting of capital vessels? What defense do they require what can't be offered by numerous smaller craft?

I don't know. Do I look like I have a crystal ball? Roleplay is dynamic. The point is, it's a thing that could plausibly happen and therefore we shouldn't block that potential scenario with rules. 10 plausible scenarios were requested, 10 plausible scenarios were given.

Or 2. I may wish to sneak in cloaked and watch an area, or scan certain ships in house space with my capital ship's scanner, plausibly gaining more useful intelligence than a smaller ship would be capable of.

Why would you need capital scanners? Fly closer, nobody would mind you anyways, because you are just a zoner. Ever thought anonimity might be the most effective cloak?

I just said why.. "plausibly gaining more useful intelligence than a smaller ship('s scanner) would be capable of."

3. Black Ops. A cap is capable of cloaking for much longer periods of time than a snub. Let's say that, as part of a larger story, I made a deal with [Pirate Faction]. In exchange for [Plot Device], I could use my cap's carrier capabilities to, for example, smuggle fighters carrying [Whatever] to [Wherever].

You could just smuggle the stuff yourself as well, in a cargo ship of any kind. Or again, anonimity. Why would unlawfuls contact a neutral party if not their anonimity? If they would want to move the stuff literally invisible they could cloak themselves, couldn't they?

You don't think pirates might be interested in the ability to deliver [Important RP Cargo] to [House Destination] without being stopped or even spotted by House authorities? Furthermore, one would be delivering their guys, so they can continue whatever roleplay they had in mind using characters under their control.
Try and be a little more open-minded, Thyrzul.

Or 4. sneak up on an unsuspecting target and deliver pirate bombers. AFAIK, I don't need to uncloak to eject them from my ship.

Wouldn't that border your "self defense only" restriction? Or you could just do the trap thing you brought up in #5.

First of all, No. I wouldn't be shooting anyone. If a Zoner trader delivers guns and those guns are used to shoot someone, is the Zoner responsible?
Second, this 'self defense only' thing is a bit of a myth. I peruse the sanction threads periodically and I can't remember seeing one that said 'You're a Zoner and you attacked someone and so we sanction you'. Not from lolwuts in house space, or the corsair-zoner conflicts, or the corsair-order conflicts. It seems to have been left intentionally undefined, and I assume the Admin stance is 'if there's roleplay backing it up, we'll allow it'.

Or 5. A certain ship(s) have been harassing Zoner traders passing through House space. We could set a trap by cloaking near a jumphole out of the house, and using a bait ship to lure the offender(s) in.

Or you could just contact house authorities, use fighters/bombers (either of these are good for anything you might want to take on), set up the trap with clever positioning instead of cloaking yourself in a dumb spot, etc...

[sarcasm]
Let's give that interaction to someone else instead of taking care of the problem ourselves. Fun.
[/sarcasm]
Could we handle it with snubs? Yes. Should we be obligated to? No.

6. Being kind of a big deal, I could be invited into a house to take part in some kind of diplomatic event, like the Donau was invited into Liberty at the beginning of vanilla FL. Could I use an away ship for this? Yes. Does that mean I should be obligated to by server rules? No.

What would be so hard in using a diplomatically correctly sized vessel? You wouldn't go to a diplomatic meeting in a tank, would you?

Isn't that exactly what Schultzky did at the beginning of Freelancer?

7. As I've suggested in the past, you might need to enter House space just so that you can get to the systems on the other side. If I had a need to get there, and the means to do so, I should not have a nonsensical artificial restriction preventing me from going that way. That is immersion-breaking and OORP.

Here is an inRP explaination for why you couldn't go to anywhere near the houses: The moment they spot your uber-high-tech battleship, a floating city bigger, better armed and armored than their own naval stuff, that's the moment Zoner neutrality ceases to exist and houses will begin consider Zoners a serious threat to national security. And then the witch-hunt begins.

Here is an inRP explanation for why that is a pile of baloney: I've been doing this for years and that has never happened.

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[Trogdor]

8. I may come under attack by nomads or something and be forced to flee. My only options may be to a) die or b) run to a house system. It would be oorp to sit there and die because I have the aforementioned artificial restriction. I could then call for help, and after the threat is dealt with, negotiate with the authorities.

If you are far enough from houses you will definitely have more options than to fleeing into house space. The above scenario is likely to happen only if you are surrounded by houses, which means you are already in the wrong place.

Oh, Thyrzul. So closed-minded. So desperate to shove our caps out to the furthest, most uninhabited places in the mod.

9. If I make a blind jump and end up in a house system, I've violated my ID and deserve sankshun? Lol no. You deal with it through ingame interaction.

Don't do blind jumps. You might end up inside a sun, or worse, the sanction board...

Then why is the blind jump functionality there? To be a sanction trap?
(Yes, I know this could already be a problem for other factions. If I played those factions, I would be arguing just as strongly for them.)

Or 10. The guy with the jumpship types in the wrong set of coordinates and jumps everybody to Manhattan. SANKSHUNS FOR ALL!

See above... Apply either #7 or #9.

See above. Apply counter-argument #7 or #9.

I think it's safe to say that if it hasn't happened yet, it isn't going to.

What makes you think Houses will not lose their patience?

You just disproved your own #7 argument, if you admit the houses have known about them and haven't done anything yet.
To answer your question, for the same reason it hasn't happened already. Because the people playing as the houses appreciate the interaction and don't want it to stop.

There will always be ZonerZonerZoner drama as long as there are people like you, Pavel, Omicron, etc determined to shove your specific view of the Zoners' role in the mod down people's throats, instead of just appreciating the fact that we're here for you to interact with.
[snip]

You are no better than them, trying to force your own views on what a Zoner is on others, you are as much the cause of zonerzonerzoner drama as those you listed. Why won't everybody, with a different opinion of what a Zoner is make their own Zoner faction and once got Player ID for it, roleplay it how they wish to roleplay a Zoner?

I am better than them, in my opinion. I am not trying to force anything on anyone. I am not saying "This is what you must do." I am not saying "This is what you must not do." I say "Let's keep as many options open as possible."

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[Highland Laddie]

First of all, No. I wouldn't be shooting anyone. If a Zoner trader delivers guns and those guns are used to shoot someone, is the Zoner responsible?

Actually, in some cases and countries the gun seller would be considered complicit to a crime and would likely have to pay a hefty fine and/or see some jail time, and would probably also lose their license to sell guns legally.

So, yeah....if you're found selling guns to pirates...I would expect some serious consequences.

[Trogdor]

I'm not talking about in real life. I'm talking about in Freelancer. Notice how I said IF A ZONER TRADER.

By that logic, all trade Zoners do breaks neutrality/"self-defense only" because it helps the group they're trading with, who will then be more effective against their enemies.

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[Thyrzul]

I don't know. Do I look like I have a crystal ball? Roleplay is dynamic. The point is, it's a thing that could plausibly happen and therefore we shouldn't block that potential scenario with rules. 10 plausible scenarios were requested, 10 plausible scenarios were given.

In my book a plausible scenario is believable, credible, can be defended by logic and reason. If all your logic and reason is "Do I look like a crystal ball?" then you've failed.

I just said why.. "plausibly gaining more useful intelligence than a smaller ship('s scanner) would be capable of."

Explaining something by quoting the very same thing over and over again won't help at all. Explain what kind of intelligence can a huge flying fortress with massive and expensive, but most importantly, difficult-to-hide hardware get what an insignificant guy, "blending into the crowd", a grey figure nobody is caring about in a tiny, agile interceptor can't get in a more subtle, less attention-seeking way?

You don't think pirates might be interested in the ability to deliver [Important RP Cargo] to [House Destination] without being stopped or even spotted by House authorities? Furthermore, one would be delivering their guys, so they can continue whatever roleplay they had in mind using characters under their control.
Try and be a little more open-minded, Thyrzul.

You were talking about carrying stuff cloaked, I said pirates could just do that, now you are talking about being spotted, seriously, wtf? Spotted while cloaked, what are you talking about?

Second, this 'self defense only' thing is a bit of a myth.

So are you trying to tell me that a whole line on the ID (which I must add is just too easy to circumvent, in case I haven't said already) is a myth?

Could we handle it with snubs? Yes. Should we be obligated to? No.

If you got nothing better for the purpose, you can't do much. And no, a colony ship is not suitable for offensive combat, nor is a carrier directly.

Isn't that exactly what Schultzky did at the beginning of Freelancer?

How does that even relate to this? We are talking about Zoner capital ship misusage here, not Liberty-Rheinland meetings of the past. Zoners are Zoners, RM are RM, don't think these two are anywhere near to be on the same level.

Here is an inRP explanation for why that is a pile of baloney: I've been doing this for years and that has never happened.

Want it to happen? Continue being a pain in the backside, go join those provoking PvP in House space with their deep space explorer and colony ships, and you might get that.

Oh, Thyrzul. So closed-minded. So desperate to shove our caps out to the furthest, most uninhabited places in the mod.

Please tell me more about what caps meant to explore uncharted parts of space are doing in House capitals, and for what purpose colony ship captains are endangering their whole crew of hundreds by driving them into combat.

Then why is the blind jump functionality there? To be a sanction trap?
(Yes, I know this could already be a problem for other factions. If I played those factions, I would be arguing just as strongly for them.)

So you just admitted your bias towards Zoners, good. Blind jump is there to provide a quicker alternative in case you have no coordinates to target.

You just disproved your own #7 argument, if you admit the houses have known about them and haven't done anything yet.
To answer your question, for the same reason it hasn't happened already. Because the people playing as the houses appreciate the interaction and don't want it to stop.

I'd rather say the people playing as the houses know that as official factions they still have no goddamn power over independents, and all they can do is either waste their time on FR5s, or after a serious discussion decide to rephack Zoners out of their houses, which would definitely end up in at least as much qq as your kind of massive pro-zoners can possibly cry out.

I am better than them, in my opinion. I am not trying to force anything on anyone. I am not saying "This is what you must do." I am not saying "This is what you must not do." I say "Let's keep as many options open as possible."

You are saying "This is what you must let us to do", which isn't too different from the other versions. If you would indeed be for as many options as possible, and care for the whole Zoner community as you claim to do, you would mind twice what you do, how you act inRP and would try to compromise the rest the least possible with your actions.

Now Zoners are still regarded as a somewhat Neutral "collective", if it can be called as such (I don't really think it can), but due to the only one Zoner ID shared between all the indies, your actions affect the whole. You cry now because others proposed restrictions on the seemingly under-regulated Zoner ID, restrictions you could easily achieve inRP as well should you act in an even least appropriate way with your Zoner. You see, Pirate ID'd players abused the inRP hospitality of non-generic unlawful factions, they got rephacked to no-dock. And a rephack goes for IDs, not ships. If Zoners get a collective negative rephack based on past incidents, it won't only affect caps, but all kinds of ships flown by the Zoner ID. Keep that in mind. Even if it's a game, your actions have consequences.

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[Savas]

Well, Thyrzul summed up what I wanted to say pretty nicely.

Egészségére!

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[Highland Laddie]

I'm not talking about in real life.I'm talking aboutin Freelancer. Notice how I said IF A ZONER TRADER.

By that logic, all trade Zoners do breaks neutrality/"self-defense only" because it helps the group they're trading with, who will then be more effective against their enemies.

Well, you made the scenario. I'm just pointing out that it certainly would be plausible for Zoners to be held complicit for gun running to unlawfuls, even if this is just a game. C'mon...that's called RP!!!

I think this would be making a good case for why Zoners would probably be kept out of the Houses altogether, but I guess that's an RP decision.

But...getting back to Zoner caps: Thyr, Trogdor, any thoughts or follow up on Pavel's idea of a Zoner cap license for indies, complete with hostile rephacks to non-Zoner bases? I don't really see what's not to like there, and I notice you've both ignored it.

[Trogdor]

Explaining something by quoting the very same thing over and over again won't help at all. Explain what kind of intelligence can a huge flying fortress with massive and expensive, but most importantly, difficult-to-hide hardware get what an insignificant guy, "blending into the crowd", a grey figure nobody is caring about in a tiny, agile interceptor can't get in a more subtle, less attention-seeking way?

Do I really have to explain every little detail..
Material analysis of armor plating. Structural weaknesses. Crew complement. Room layout. Powercore analysis. Identification of electrical components. It's perfectly logical to assume that a scanner which requires a capital ship's power supply to function is capable of more comprehensive analysis than what you can fit on a smaller ship.

And it's not difficult to hide if it's invisible.

You don't think pirates might be interested in the ability to deliver [Important RP Cargo] to [House Destination] without being stopped or even spotted by House authorities? Furthermore, one would be delivering their guys, so they can continue whatever roleplay they had in mind using characters under their control.
Try and be a little more open-minded, Thyrzul.

You were talking about carrying stuff cloaked, I said pirates could just do that, now you are talking about being spotted, seriously, wtf? Spotted while cloaked, what are you talking about?

Oh my godddddddddddddddddddd.
1) It's logical to assume that mook smugglers won't have access to cloaking technology.
2) Even if they did, having to carry cloak fuel means they don't have space for the cargo they want smuggled.

If the cloak fuel is in the cargo bay of my ship, and the cargo they want to deliver is in their ship, I can deliver them where they want to go undetected, and they can leave my ship and dock on the planet before the authorities can respond. I stay cloaked and maintain full deniability.

Second, this 'self defense only' thing is a bit of a myth.

So are you trying to tell me that a whole line on the ID (which I must add is just too easy to circumvent, in case I haven't said already) is a myth?

No, the line not a Myth. The ID says 'you are allowed to do this'. It doesn't say 'you are not allowed to shoot anyone unless these conditions are met'.
Again, I believe it's been left intentionally vague for the reasons I stated.

Could we handle it with snubs? Yes. Should we be obligated to? No.

If you got nothing better for the purpose, you can't do much. And no, a colony ship is not suitable for offensive combat, nor is a carrier directly.

That's another subject for another thread. I'll refer you to this post and the one after it.

Isn't that exactly what Schultzky did at the beginning of Freelancer?

How does that even relate to this? We are talking about Zoner capital ship misusage here, not Liberty-Rheinland meetings of the past. Zoners are Zoners, RM are RM, don't think these two are anywhere near to be on the same level.

The question was whether it was acceptable to use a capital ship for diplomatic meetings, and I showed an example of where it happened in the lore, and therefore has a precedent of being acceptable.

Here is an inRP explanation for why that is a pile of baloney: I've been doing this for years and that has never happened.

Want it to happen? Continue being a pain in the backside, go join those provoking PvP in House space with their deep space explorer and colony ships, and you might get that.

I am not a pain in anyone's backside. If people are going into house space just to provoke random pvp with their zoner caps, that's a new player/lolwut problem to be solved with education. It doesn't mean we should carte blanche ban such ships from entering house space, because I just gave a bunch of decent reasons why they might end up there.

Please tell me more about what caps meant to explore uncharted parts of space are doing in House capitals, and for what purpose colony ship captains are endangering their whole crew of hundreds by driving them into combat.

See above link.

Then why is the blind jump functionality there? To be a sanction trap?
(Yes, I know this could already be a problem for other factions. If I played those factions, I would be arguing just as strongly for them.)

So you just admitted your bias towards Zoners, good. Blind jump is there to provide a quicker alternative in case you have no coordinates to target.

Biased? I'm saying they have as much right to argue their case as I do, and if I were them, I would do so. They have to stick up for themselves, though. I'm already devoting way too much of my time just trying to be the advocate of Zoner indies so you guys dont poop all over their fun.

You just disproved your own #7 argument, if you admit the houses have known about them and haven't done anything yet.
To answer your question, for the same reason it hasn't happened already. Because the people playing as the houses appreciate the interaction and don't want it to stop.

I'd rather say the people playing as the houses know that as official factions they still have no goddamn power over independents, and all they can do is either waste their time on FR5s, or after a serious discussion decide to rephack Zoners out of their houses, which would definitely end up in at least as much qq as your kind of massive pro-zoners can possibly cry out.

Yeah I'm sure you would rather say that, despite years of evidence to the contrary. Doesn't make it true. And yes, they do have power over independents. They can pew them, talk to them in private chat, report them for oorp behavior if necessary, whatever.

I am better than them, in my opinion. I am not trying to force anything on anyone. I am not saying "This is what you must do." I am not saying "This is what you must not do." I say "Let's keep as many options open as possible."

You are saying "This is what you must let us to do", which isn't too different from the other versions. If you would indeed be for as many options as possible, and care for the whole Zoner community as you claim to do, you would mind twice what you do, how you act inRP and would try to compromise the rest the least possible with your actions.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't go accusing me. I haven't done anything to 'compromise' anyone.
I am indeed for giving the Zoners more roleplay options. I am saying "certain factors have led to a dearth of things for Zoner caps to do in the Omicrons, and that is why they are looking for things to do in house space. Don't take that away if you're not prepared to give something new for us to do in return."

Now Zoners are still regarded as a somewhat Neutral "collective", if it can be called as such (I don't really think it can), but due to the only one Zoner ID shared between all the indies, your actions affect the whole. You cry now because others proposed restrictions on the seemingly under-regulated Zoner ID, restrictions you could easily achieve inRP as well should you act in an even least appropriate way with your Zoner. You see, Pirate ID'd players abused the inRP hospitality of non-generic unlawful factions, they got rephacked to no-dock. And a rephack goes for IDs, not ships. If Zoners get a collective negative rephack based on past incidents, it won't only affect caps, but all kinds of ships flown by the Zoner ID. Keep that in mind. Even if it's a game, your actions have consequences.

[Trogdor]

I'm not talking about in real life.I'm talking aboutin Freelancer. Notice how I said IF A ZONER TRADER.

By that logic, all trade Zoners do breaks neutrality/"self-defense only" because it helps the group they're trading with, who will then be more effective against their enemies.

Well, you made the scenario. I'm just pointing out that it certainly would be plausible for Zoners to be held complicit for gun running to unlawfuls, even if this is just a game. C'mon...that's called RP!!!

I think this would be making a good case for why Zoners would probably be kept out of the Houses altogether, but I guess that's an RP decision.

Yes, however, the original point was whether such actions (using my cap to smuggle smugglers, or as an invisible, mobile base from which pirates could launch a surprise attack) would be a violation of the supposed 'you're not supposed to attack anyone' part of Zoner culture, and therefore considered an OORP/ID violation.
And my argument is that no, it's not, otherwise all trade we do would be technically violating that concept of neutrality, because you're always helping someone else's enemy.
Overt aggression? Not Zoner-ly. Open conflict? Not unless we're attacked first. Covert aggression and manipulation to our advantage? Very much within our wheelhouse.

If you want to further discuss the Zoner capitals' role in the mod, let's use the other thread I linked to above. (It's in the RP 24/7 general discussion forum)

But...getting back to Zoner caps: Thyr, Trogdor, any thoughts or follow up on Pavel's idea of a Zoner cap license for indies, complete with hostile rephacks to non-Zoner bases? I don't really see what's not to like there, and I notice you've both ignored it.

This?

Creation of special Zoner ID, for caps and big transports, rephacked to House factions and restricted to border and edge worlds, is another easy and logical solution.

I ignored it because it's a terrible idea, for all of the same reasons I've been arguing against the changes to the existing Zoner ID with Thyrzul. It may be an easy decision, but it wouldn't be a good or logical one.

To be clear: I am not necessarily opposed to a separate ID for capital ships. After all, that's what we used to have - Guard ID's that were more difficult to obtain than regular ID's because you had to work, put a little effort in, to get your Zoner Guard rep up high enough to purchase it. But such an ID should not have these restrictions for the aforementioned reasons.

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[Thyrzul]

But...getting back to Zoner caps: Thyr, Trogdor, any thoughts or follow up on Pavel's idea of a Zoner cap license for indies, complete with hostile rephacks to non-Zoner bases? I don't really see what's not to like there, and I notice you've both ignored it.

@Different Zoner ID versions
I'd rather stay with this restriction proposal Lyth submitted to us, and if anybody wants their Zoner faction to be specialized in some way, they can go for officialdom and own Player ID like TAZ, OSI and Phoenix did.

Do I really have to explain every little detail..
Material analysis of armor plating. Structural weaknesses. Crew complement. Room layout. Powercore analysis. Identification of electrical components. It's perfectly logical to assume that a scanner which requires a capital ship's power supply to function is capable of more comprehensive analysis than what you can fit on a smaller ship.

And it's not difficult to hide if it's invisible.

If your Zoner needs that amount of information to get on with his life, he can easily blend into the crew, being the nobody Zoners are usually seen it shouldn't be that hard. You know. Roleplay.

Oh my godddddddddddddddddddd.
1) It's logical to assume that mook smugglers won't have access to cloaking technology.
2) Even if they did, having to carry cloak fuel means they don't have space for the cargo they want smuggled.

If the cloak fuel is in the cargo bay of my ship, and the cargo they want to deliver is in their ship, I can deliver them where they want to go undetected, and they can leave my ship and dock on the planet before the authorities can respond. I stay cloaked and maintain full deniability.

Soooooo, it is unplausible for random smugglers to have cloaking technology, but a random space hermit in a cap (like that would be plausible much) can have better chances at it? Rrrrrright...

What do you think how did smuggling go before cloaks?

No, the line not a Myth. The ID says 'you are allowed to do this'. It doesn't say 'you are not allowed to shoot anyone unless these conditions are met'.
Again, I believe it's been left intentionally vague for the reasons I stated.

It might be, it might not be. I'd rather ask for some green in this matter. Who knows it's not a flaw which will be corrected for the sake of folk looking for loopholes in every miswording?

The question was whether it was acceptable to use a capital ship for diplomatic meetings, and I showed an example of where it happened in the lore, and therefore has a precedent of being acceptable.

... for a high ranking officer of the RM. Again, don't try to raise Zoners into heights they won't ever be at. I'm sure Zoners can do just well with smaller ships, Doc didn't die in it either when he used his Democritus to meet with the GRN.

I am not a pain in anyone's backside. If people are going into house space just to provoke random pvp with their zoner caps, that's a new player/lolwut problem to be solved with education. It doesn't mean we should carte blanche ban such ships from entering house space, because I just gave a bunch of decent reasons why they might end up there.

All your reasons were countered, as well as multiple other reasons have been numerously given on why Zoner caps shouldn't be in House space at all, not just by me but a ton of others throughout all the zonerzonerzoner threads of past years.

And yes, they do have power over independents. They can pew them, talk to them in private chat, report them for oorp behavior if necessary, whatever.

Oh, how god damn lot of power that is, I can't just cope with all the might we official factions possess, omg...

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don't go accusing me. I haven't done anything to 'compromise' anyone.
I am indeed for giving the Zoners more roleplay options. I am saying "certain factors have led to a dearth of things for Zoner caps to do in the Omicrons, and that is why they are looking for things to do in house space. Don't take that away if you're not prepared to give something new for us to do in return."

Okay, you might haven't, but you are promoting a degree of freedom for Zoners, which if exploited/abused can in turn compromise those who did nothing wrong. Uninvited Zoner caps in House space are about as problematic as uninvited Chinese warships in Japanese waters. Mindlessly wandering into eachothers' comfort zone can stir up crap Zoners most probably won't be able to endure for long, in the end the whole of Zoners having to suffer from the actions of a few.

I admit I don't know anything in Omicrons what could be a substituent to in-house activities, but if you are so inclined to stick around in-house activity hotspots, at least do it with a proper character, one which don't have a (lore) reason to be the furthest away from said hotspots.

I'm arguing against these restrictions because they unfairly and unnecessarily deny Zoner caps the 'unlimited roleplay freedom' a certain individual claimed Zoners have. I provided a nice, long list of reasons Zoner caps might end up in house space. None of them were "so we can pew pew random targets for the sake of blue msg". None of them were inappropriate things for a Zoner cap, exercising his 'roleplay freedom', to do.

It can look unfair, because no alternative is presented for Zoners, but hey, there are already a plenty of alternatives already, Zoners are flexible enough, you just need to have some creativity and, as you said, an open mind. It can look unnecessary if you look it at one way, it can look pretty much necessary if you look it at in an other way, I think we can agree not everybody thinks the same way you do.

The problem with "roleplay freedom" is that most people consider it a reward and forget about the responsibilities, like there would be no consequences. There are responsibilities, there are consequences, and said consequences affect everybody using the same ID. Want to act "freely"? Go, ask for an own ID, so if you screw up something big time, an ID nerf/rephack won't hit a hundred players, only you.

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