Player owned bases--Affiliation

[Tigger]

There is no reason that bases like Goldern Coin would have no affiliation when they're a Molly base, it takes a minute to set the affiliation. If it's not affiliated to anything just make it a Freelancer IFF base.
There is no need to try to justify this with "but but it was before".

Actually there is a very valid reason. Defense mode.

Unless some major change to defense mode has been made in the last 72 hours, the ONLY defense mode option that ensure that the base shoots at anyone not on the green/access list is Defmode 1 with no IFF. Defmode 1 with an IFF will not shoot at ships that have taken an IFF affilated bribe. The Coin, for instance, has always been role played as hostile to anyone not on the green list. In addition, though the Mollys charge for access to the base, we have always role played with indy Mollys that simply have to show their proof of ID by role playing on our license & access thread. Same goes for Zoner IDs that can prove green Molly relationships.

This isn't just for the Coin, it's about other bases as well that do this for the exact same reason. Recent (since October) hostile incursions into Puerto Rico have proven that a simple junker bribe is all that's necessary. We've had hostile capital ships in the system on numerous occasions where the bases should have fired on them but didn't due to IFF and a bribe. There was even a case of RM ID'd indies who had mounted a junker ID to set guard relationship high so that they could bypass the POBs and dock on the guard NPC bases to foment staging areas for raids into Texas.

While the blacklist option is cool, it simply acts as a base only mini-FR5 for "after the fact". An incident has to occur for you to find out the ship name and add it o the black list when the base should be firing on that ship to begin with. Also, the ships added to the blacklist simply need to change their names to bypass the blacklist completely. Thus, good to have, but mostly works for lawful bases deep in lawful territory that have few problem incursions, where an unlawful or quasi lawful base has no other option to set their base hostile to all not on the green list than to remove IFF.

A freelancer for example can take a Molly bribe and not be shot at by an NPC base, and that's fine for the game mechanics. Just having taken a bribe is not sufficient reason for many PoBs not to be shooting at that freelancer ID'd ship.
Fix the defense modes so that the base shoots at anyone not on green list and the IFF problem is solved. Until then, I'd suggest holding off on the threats to start deleting bases when the current game mechanics don't allow for any other option for defense modes to work properly.

Edit to add:

Real life examples would be that you can be friendly with the military and not have them shoot at you (heck you can even be in the military), but that doesn't give you the ability to just drive through Area 51 on any given Sunday just to tour the base. In game example are some of the military affiliated bases that have been RP'd as hostile to anyone on the access list. It's RPd as a secure facility then even though a freighter can get a bribe and dock on the Rio Grande to sell commodities, there's no valid inRP reason for that same freighter to be hanging out next to the "secure facility" base.

Another example would be a freelancer base. Both pirate IDs and freelancer ID's us the same IFF. If the base has FL IFF and an FL ID'd merc is shooting at your pirate, the base won't shoot at the merc unless the merc shoots at the base first (or uses a CD). Thus, once again, the only option for the base to shoot at anyone not on the access/green list, is to remove IFF and set defense mode to max.

Fix the base defense mode issue please before threatening to destroy any PoB without an IFF. Game mechanics forces the IFF to be removed before the base actually shoots at anyone not on the green list.

[JunkerTown]

Completely agree.
Also our base Saltese acts as a hub for mining in the humboldt system.
It allows miners, traders, pirates, corps and anyone else agreeing to comply with its no shooting in or around the station policy.
This means that any ship approaching it would need to request docking rights.
At current this is the only way to properly have the base work as it was intended.

---

[Lythrilux]

Any chance the admins might also lift the restriction on not being allowed to change a base IFF? Come on, even just SRPing for changing it would be enough.

---

[Blodo]

Completely agree.
Also our base Saltese acts as a hub for mining in the humboldt system.
It allows miners, traders, pirates, corps and anyone else agreeing to comply with its no shooting in or around the station policy.
This means that any ship approaching it would need to request docking rights.
At current this is the only way to properly have the base work as it was intended.

You can set your base to Freelancer IFF and it works just the same.

[Tigger]

You can set your base to Freelancer IFF and it works just the same.

Doesn't always work and anyone green to FL won't get shot at.

Example would be a priate base with FL IFF.....pirate player ship beign shot at by FL ID/IFF merc....base won't shoot at the merc because it has same IFF as the base. However, if you remove IFF and set the defensemode then only those on the access list don't get shot at.

This was noticed on day 8 of .86 release and a defmode 3 was asked for that shoots at anyone not on the green/white/access list.

Right now the only way to get that is to remove IFF completely.


Please fix the defense modes before popping bases for lack of IFF. Right now ti's the only way to set a proper defense for a base due to current game mechanics. For genuine RP reasons a group that builds a base may not went everyone friendly to that ID to be hanging around that particular base. This was very true of the LSF/BIS/BDM types when thier bases were RP'd as restricted and were used to build the cloaks and other toys that bases can prooduce.

[Alley]

ok fine I'll implement a defensemode 3 that doesn't take iff into account

---

Alley was right.

[Tigger]

ok fine I'll implement a defensemode 3 that doesn't take iff into account

Thank you!