Unlawful IDs and non-combat ships

[TheSauron]

Yes, the sanction pissed me off.

ID types

With the recent rework of the Corporate IDs, I believe a bit of a paradox has been created in Discovery. To be fair, it existed for a long time, but said rework made it even more pronounced. I'm talking about the interactions between various ID types and non-combat ships, which in 99% of cases means traders and smugglers. For a bit of an overview:

Lawful IDs, as in Police, Navy and Intel, have always had the least constraint when it came to dealing with transport ships. Red? Kill it. Smuggler? Kill it. Mouthing off? Kill it. It's how it's been since forever and very much should stay that way forever. These IDs are there to hunt down law breakers, after all.

Corporate IDs, since the recent rework, have become much more flexible in their choice of targets as well. Besides being able to pop reds on sight, they can now go into the Border Worlds and commit corporate slaughter against anyone listed as a competitor, transport or otherwise. Very good, plenty of flexibility, thumbs up for the change.

Bounty Hunters and Freelancers, well. Getting paid? Off you go pulling the tirgger.

Finally, Unlawful IDs. Some of them, not even all, are permitted to kill one, maybe two very specific Corporate IDs, many of which, like Synth or Planetform, you'll be lucky to meet once every quarter. Outside of those specific cases, you are limited to piracy, which allows you to make reasonable monetary or cargo demands, and kill the target if they do not comply. Cargo you can carry, half of their profit or a roleplay demand that's not too burdensome for your target, the like.

The problem

So, why am I harping on about all this. The problem that I see here, and I hope I'm not alone in this, is the constriction of how Unlawful IDs are expected to deal with non-combat ships. Any other ID type has the ability to kill any non-combat ship they'd reasonably want dead, which provides a very high amount of flexibility in how you deal with a situation. You can make higher demands, especially in cargo, you can be more demanding in terms of RP, or even just outright murder it if the circumstances call for it. There is nothing limiting your way of interacting with these ships, and thus allows you to play your role naturally and in line with your faction's roleplay and the setting we're in.

Unlawful IDs, on the other hand, are heavily limited by the very insidius qualifier of a reasonable demand. There are a lot of unwritten rules defining what reasonable means exactly. Far as I can determine, it seems to be either half the profit, cargo you can carry or a quick roleplay demand, irrespective of the IDs involved in the encounter.

The problem with the reasonable qualifier, and its apparent definition, is that it heavily limits what an Unlawful ID can even do when interacting with non-combatants. If you're not in a transport you cannot touch their cargo, you have to be considerate of their profits, you cannot be too mean or obtrusive inRP. Crossing any of those lines is a quick way to finding your name in the Sanction Notices subforum. And while I agree that these limitations look good on paper, they force Unlawful IDs into acting in a very unnatural and, in my opinion, RP-violating manner. You have to artificially throttle yourself down, treating ships of extremely hostile factions intruding on your turf like they're a jaywalker.

Even if you're playing what is supposed to be an extremist terrorist faction, all you can really do is mug people for their lunch money or, to quote, "ask them to polish your ship" (where's the explicit content rule when you need it). To me that is nothing short of comical and utterly immersion-breaking. If I log a Gaian ship and meet a BMM hauler, am I supposed to pack his lunch and kiss him goodbye at the end of the interaction, too?

Conclusion, at last

I might've gotten carried away with the last one, but my point stands. I think that with the ongoing liberalization of rules and engagement lines, the unlawful portion of our ID roster has fallen behind the times and needs to be modernized accordingly. The hoops they are forced to jump through are outdated and artificially stifle the roleplay of people playing them. I understand their goal might've been to facilitate more talking than shooting, but there are situations where talking is simply not applicable.

A couple counters to the idea off the top of my head:

• Trade ships are not suited for combat and they should not be made even more vulnerable - @Haste
  
• Traders are going to quit because of griefers - back in the ancient times, there was a trade route between Malta and Manhattan. Cardamine one way, Premium Scrap the other. And despite Liberty being the most active House, and smugglers getting popped left, right and center, there was a conga line of Junkers all the way from New York to Omicron Alpha. Besides, if someone exploits more liberal kill rules to excessively grief people, they can be dealt with by staff.

I do not have an exact idea of how to implement this - ideally, I don't see why any unlawfuls would be limited in killing any ships altogether, barring examples like Alliance and Samura, but I understand that is a fairly extreme position to take. In any case, as always, there's a poll up above to gauge the general community sentiment regarding the issue, but I think having a proper discussion about this would be swell.

Thanks for taking the time to read it all.

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One MD Admiral

[Toaster]

Quick note that bounty hunters don't even need to be paid anymore and can attack unlawful combat ships on sight.

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Olivia Sable

[Czechmate]

Factions that can kill transports can't ask for money besides a couple exceptions of mortal enemies - seems fair to me? Just a question of the specific ID being wrong I guess

Note that unlawfuls can target anyone - IDs are blanket ones -lawfuls just "considered hostile"

There has been an unlawful ID that was the same - can attack "considered" hostile for years, Maquis , but that was changed to attack anyone when union came. It doesn't make much sense lore wise but it was deemed too weak without a pirate line. Being able to ask for money is ideal for the lazy man

[0xCosmin]

I choose to take the "neutral position".

I have found myself asking the same thing when as an OC all I could do to a corsair transport passing over Malta was to "fine" and escort him out, while lore-wise that system is heavily reinforced and any hostile/unidentified ship getting near Malta would be blown to bits without asking questions.

But, granting the unlawfuls freedom to just blast any transport at their own whim is a terrible idea. I know its a hustle for the devs to implement this but more faction specific ID lines would be the problem solver imo. (eg. add systems where a faction can engage hostile transports, add more "can engage carrying commodities" like cardamine to factions that want to stop its spread like FA).

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[TheSauron]

Quick note that bounty hunters don't even need to be paid anymore and can attack unlawful combat ships on sight.

I know. The BHG/Freelancer part was in reference to non-combat ships specifically.

Factions that can kill transports can't ask for money besides a couple exceptions of mortal enemies - seems fair to me? Just a question of the specific ID being wrong I guess

Note that unlawfuls can target anyone - IDs are blanket ones -lawfuls just "considered hostile"

There has been an unlawful ID that was the same - can attack "considered" hostile for years, Maquis , but that was changed to attack anyone when union came. It doesn't make much sense lore wise but it was deemed too weak without a pirate line. Being able to ask for money is ideal for the lazy man

Corporations and Law Enforcement can ask for money, cargo, money and cargo or kill transports outright. This post is less about the balance among Unlawful IDs but the balance between Unlawful and Lawful/Corporate.

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One MD Admiral

[TheSauron]

But, granting the unlawfuls freedom to just blast any transport at their own whim is a terrible idea. I know its a hustle for the devs to implement this but more faction specific ID lines would be the problem solver imo. (eg. add systems where a faction can engage hostile transports, add more "can engage carrying commodities" like cardamine to factions that want to stop its spread like FA).

I see where you're coming from, but if every ID was to have every possible offense a transport can make listed in their lines, we'd end up with an entire Bible's worth of ID lines on every single card. I think a simple engagement line is a more elegant solution, and exploiters of it can be punished accordingly. The general rules of this community have already been reworked in the same spirit.

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One MD Admiral

[Big Bison Bessie]

I don't have an easy solution. I have been thinking about it, and I wonder if unlawfuls could have a descriptor with something like, Targets of Opportunity...like how Corporate ships have the line about competitors. It could be something like:

Corsairs

Considered by many to be the largest criminal organization in Sirius, the Corsairs are a quasi-nation of raiders and pirates, targeting civilian and military targets with reckless abandon as they plunder the border worlds. They frequently clash with the Outcasts for territory in the Edge Worlds, while continuing a bloody battle with the Hessians and allies for the resource-rich Omegas.

This Independent Unlawful ID is used by Corsairs, who:

- Can attack any ship carrying Hessian Tears or Cardamine.

Within Zone of Influence (Bretonia, Kusari, Omegas, Omicrons, Rheinland, Sigmas, Dublin):

- Can attack combat ships.

- Can engage in piracy.

Within Systems with a Corsair base:

- May treat ships from Enemy Factions as combat ships.

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☆The Ballad of Bessie Bishop☆ | ☆Elizabeth Bishop LPI Records☆ | ☆Feedback☆

[Haste]

My hot take here is that there is a world in which trader versus pirate interactions are actually balanced and moderately enjoyable. Yes, I'm aware that there are likely quite a few people in the community (read: the dedicated powertraders) who are trembling with fear at the thought. Anyways, if we did that, we could then perhaps do away with most rules and restrictions specific to transports. In my opinion, the many goofy band-aid rules we have (had) in Discovery protecting transports are just symptoms of the problem and not the root cause. If transports are made of wet tissue paper, of course just letting people openly blow them out of the sky isn't very fun. But what if they weren't?

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[TheSauron]

But what if they weren't?

I wish we'd know, but we've been hearing about it for decades and it remains nowhere to be seen. The problem in the thread is here and now, though admittedly it is also not particularly gamebreaking.

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One MD Admiral

[Lord Caedus]

I think the simplest solution to this issue right now that is practical would be allowing unlawfuls to destroy hostile non-combat ships, but not ones that are neutral to them. They would also need to have lines about destroying certain cargo, like Hogosha/FA or UC being able to demand destruction of Cardamine, or Outcasts being able to demand the destruction of Nox or Artifacts. Of course the effectiveness of this is going to depend entirely on what ID you're flying, and would need to be more restrictive than simply being withing ZoI for the more expansive unlawful IDs. While it would certainly make sense for the FA/Hogosha/UC to do so in the Taus, having a Corsair show up in Kyushu where they have ZoI wouldn't really fit, and unless we finally go and have a conclusion to that long debate about the Outcasts and Corsairs having way too much of a ZoI I don't see such an ID line going through without some restrictions on where it can be done.

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