Well, reading the Reaver's post to become a official faction, I wanted to see what the views of the community are with respect to how one should go about being a mercenary and how to go about interacting with mercenaries.
Most people don't like mercenaries since they literally work to kill people without having a cause to do so. That's the logical stand point at any rate. Now obviously they are here to stay in freelancer. What I would like to discuss is the consequences of being a mercenary. Surely they shouldn't be able to kill certain people one day and be friendly with them the next. To me that doesn't make much sense.
I think the more they kill one faction the more they should become hostile to that faction. And I also think that they, notice that is "I" think, shouldn't be able to simply make deals to kill weak factions for weapons and ships. Maybe they should be rewarded for a long service to certain factions, but not simply drawing up a contract on the simple basis that they want the weapons of that faction. The contract should have come first, not the will to gain the weapons. In other words, the faction hiring the mercenaries should have drawn up a contract, the mercs finished the contract and then maybe the reward would be weapons and a ship or two. I don't think that it is right for the mercenaries to go to some arbitrary faction, saying, "We need your ships." and then be given a contract to kill another faction.
Maybe this has all be discussed before, I don't know, however, in the light of the Reaver application I thought it would be prudent to discuss the issues once more. Also, I have been playing for 3 months, so I don't know everything and thus try and discuss things to get a better understanding.
I am sure there are many other issues that need to be discussed about mercenaries. So please, have your say, keep it civil and let us have a proper debate.
I'll be going on a limb here and reply to some of your concerns.
You're talking about rp consequences due to accepting and executing a contract against a faction/group.
And i reply with the following.. How fickle is the alliegiance of a merc, and Dusty already showed some examples in that particular thread.
Those examples shows how the Reavers even may act if the deal is good enough.
As for the tech issues, you can see just this.
Am i really going to take a contract against the ones that supplies me with parts/ships?
Maybe yes.. *grins*
If the deal is good enough..
It's the beauty of the merc way.
The only 'boss' is the better deal, that provides the merc a better station in life.
So we can actually discuss it without heavy moderation.
' Wrote:The also the same reason most people love Mercenaries.
Mind you, this was meant as pertaining to actual real life mercenaries. I love mercenaries as much as I love assassins, which is to say, not much. Both kill for money, I have a bit of a problem with that. If you love killers, who I am to argue with you.
' Wrote:I'll be going on a limb here and reply to some of your concerns.
You're talking about rp consequences due to accepting and executing a contract against a faction/group.
And i reply with the following.. How fickle is the alliegiance of a merc, and Dusty already showed some examples in that particular thread.
Those examples shows how the Reavers even may act if the deal is good enough.
As for the tech issues, you can see just this.
Am i really going to take a contract against the ones that supplies me with parts/ships?
Maybe yes.. *grins*
If the deal is good enough..
It's the beauty of the merc way.
The only 'boss' is the better deal, that provides the merc a better station in life.
<3
I think you missed the point I was trying to convey. I am not interested with the mercenaries "allegiances" more the consequences of their actions. We all know mercenaries are scum bags who kill for money. You can easily change their target by offering them more money. Would be interesting to see if they actually do that in freelancer. My guess is that they don't, simply because other factions have better stuff, such as weapons and ships, to offer them.
My point was how other factions would view the mercenaries who accepted contracts and took action against said faction. If you kill one of my family members or one of my community. I am going to be angry with you, the more of them you kill the angrier I am going to get with you. So, the more you kill the more hostile you become.
I personally don't think mercenaries should have free reign. There should be consequences to their actions. If say one of my characters was killed by a mercenary I should be able to create a character with the sole purpose of killing said mercenary. Is that allowed? Sort of a revenge killing as it were. Obviously adhering to the 4 hour rule and such.
At the time of attacking someone, a Merc must be hostile to the NPCs. If I am around the Battleship Essex, attacking a BAF, the Essex must shoot at me. That's just how it goes rules-wise.
Honestly, though, if the BAF were to suddenly offer a contract on the Corsairs in conjunction with the Mollys that paid more than the bounty on the BAF and Mollys for the Corsairs, then we might suddenly start hunting Corsairs after they've given us guns. What's profitable, you know. But this also depends on the contractors. I've shot up a couple of Junkers, but if the Junkers were to offer a bounty on Xenos, you'd better believe I'd want to cash in in conjunction with the LN Bounty. It doesn't matter if I have already been paid to kill Junkers, if the Junkers want something dead which will grant me more money, then I will go after that thing for the Junkers if they'll pay me. A lot of people don't think like this when they are going to get attacked, though. Easiest way to get out of getting attacked by a Mercenary: "Hey, how much are you getting paid? I can top it."
But you know, everything really depends on the faction paying out. If the Junkers decide that they won't pay me for killing Xenos, then I won't kill Xenos, I'll kill Junkers. I have no shame as a Mercenary; I kill what needs to get killed. But if the Junkers have too much pride to pay me, then that is their decision. I am playing my role, others can play theirs in response. If there are consequences, it is up to the factions we fight to impose them. I can't put any consequences on myself because I can't impose those consequences on myself.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
I think you need a certain air of 'who cares' to be a merc.
Not the up tight stuff you seem to burden yourself with, no offense...
If factions want to punish the Reavers, they (try to) do so. If they want to reward them for done jobs they do so. We got nothing for free and do very little without an agenda... Except getting drunk and violent maybe.
Also, you shouldn't worry about the rules so much (In regards to your idea of making a character solely to get revenge) almost everything you do that can somehow be justified by roleplay is well within the rules.
Quote:At the time of attacking someone, a Merc must be hostile to the NPCs. If I am around the Battleship Essex, attacking a BAF, the Essex must shoot at me. That's just how it goes rules-wise.
Honestly, though, if the BAF were to suddenly offer a contract on the Corsairs in conjunction with the Mollys that paid more than the bounty on the BAF and Mollys for the Corsairs, then we might suddenly start hunting Corsairs after they've given us guns. What's profitable, you know. But this also depends on the contractors. I've shot up a couple of Junkers, but if the Junkers were to offer a bounty on Xenos, you'd better believe I'd want to cash in in conjunction with the LN Bounty. It doesn't matter if I have already been paid to kill Junkers, if the Junkers want something dead which will grant me more money, then I will go after that thing for the Junkers if they'll pay me. A lot of people don't think like this when they are going to get attacked, though. Easiest way to get out of getting attacked by a Mercenary: "Hey, how much are you getting paid? I can top it."
But you know, everything really depends on the faction paying out. If the Junkers decide that they won't pay me for killing Xenos, then I won't kill Xenos, I'll kill Junkers. I have no shame as a Mercenary; I kill what needs to get killed. But if the Junkers have too much pride to pay me, then that is their decision. I am playing my role, others can play theirs in response. If there are consequences, it is up to the factions we fight to impose them. I can't put any consequences on myself because I can't impose those consequences on myself.
This.
And another thing. A merc is not only good for blowing someone or something up. Everything that promises
a positive credflow to me is interesting. My mainchar Hangman is a thoroughbred merc and aside from the
fact that i rarely respond to bounty contracts i've done jobs for almost everyone, except the invite-only
factions and whole Gallia. I've done escorts, search-n-retrieve and yeah search-n-destroy jobs.
If someone decides to RP a merc, he should be aware of the fact that your loyalty goes only as far as your
next payment or if you play a real greedy one, sell yourself always and anytime to the higher bidder.
This makes many enemies and thatswhy i came up with a white snow pic for my chars face on forum coms.
RPing a merc makes everyone around you getting nervous. When they see merc ID, you can get
easily get away of a fight. "You're a merc!" "Yeah. So what?" "What do you want here?!" "Just searchin for
business... why do you ask? Are you interested to hire me?" "No, go somewhere else!" This works even with pirates.
There are plenty of RP opportunities for a merc. As my infocard says (if someone reads them anyway), my
merc has some sort of morale, cuz i don't like stereotypes. If someone asks me for example to blow
up transport X, with a 5K cargo of refugees, i'll refuse (usually).
2 last things:
First: A merc is not dumb. He knows his skills and his limits. If someone asks you to blow up a battleship all
by yourself, then you can ask in return what he had smoked.
Second: A merc is not a puppet. He's used to get insulted but he's a sensible human being. Even if you
made an escort deal with him, it's not good to insult him during the escort. He might get angry and could do
mean things to you.:cool:
There is of course a lot more i could tell, but i'll end this here, cuz i don't like wall texts. And i'm sorry for
this one.
Old mercinary companies who are working for certain parties already have their own diplomacy formed.
For example mandos and reavers. Mandos works for bretb lawfuls and outcasts. Reavers Rheinland lawfuls and corsairs & co. And I never really saw that someone gave mercinary weaponry for jobs which weren't executed yet.
Now my personal view. Well I like playing a hunter. And I like getting paid for killed targets. alltough you don't earn that much as you could with trading, but being paid for fighting? Hell yeah. It's always fun to see that your work is appriciated. Both in rp and out of rp.
What touches roleplay itself. Some people Q_Q then you kill them. And they think up all kinds of excuses "you don't rp, you ruin my game and so on so on". Well mercinary job is even more frustrating than pirating. Here you need to type quik while keeping an eye on your target who most often, uses the time while you are typing as an escape door hitting his cruisse engines. Now this ussaly triggers /l1 /l2 stuff which isn't very well done roleplay. But in the other hand, should mercinary really get with his targets personaly? I think no, but of course there might be some characters who has a trait to talk gently and so on. Gentleman killer? I sometimes think of such role, but the fact that I already have a builded up chracter in Mandos discourages me making up new one. I just don't see much reason to make additional one.
Having a mercinary after you.. is roleplay too. By bying in certain party you risk to draw hunters on your head who can show up anytime. By doing something to someone who haven't liked what you've did to him might draw even more hunters. Is just a rp consequence you must to deal with.
Sometimes hunters comes after you then you are roleplaying with some other people "ruining your experience" well.. Roleplaying itself is not making long line stories, it's about how your chracter handles diffrent and sometimes extreme situation. Peoples reacion with Q_Q instead of appropriete in rp response shows that propably you are the one who is not capable to handle things in rp Not the mercinary.
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