Giaians and Xenos

[Balance]

I know a lot of jokes get made about these guys but it annoys me that they carry the moniker of terrorists when in fact they aren't terrifying at all. In order to give a little justification to the title I have a suggestion when the mod gets an update some day.

Make their ships have a long time delay at death like a larger ship and let them explode doing radius damage when they die. Just have a "terrorist version" of their ships.

Just a suggestion to think over. Sounds fun to me. Might even make an "ammunition ship" that when it explodes blasts everything around it--maybe they could even be allowed to fly them as their transports. What say ye?

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[hribek]

Anything that is trying to burn you to dust with superior firepower is terrifying.

Oh and, you're missing the GC and Unioners on that list, Mollys are trying to bomb New London every week...

Some ship rigged with eplosives that you can only tell from the normal version by scanning it? Yes, that would be interesting.

[Knuthetal]

Exploding Starflier nukes? I'm all for it in principle, but I'm not quite sure if the balance checks out on this.

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[Eppy]

Are they:

TERRIFYING TERRORISTS?

On the other hand, I like the exploding ship idea, but I think it will add unnecessary bulk to the mod. Something to be looked at for next version, maybe.

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Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen

Which Dreadnought was that?

One of your nine.

[hribek]

Yeah. Ship explosions are done using fuses, so that means you'd need an extra ship.

[Knuthetal]

Well, here's an idea - I think it could be done easily with FLHook, but I'm not quite sure - simply add a new cargo type - explosives. And when a ship blows up, check if it had any of those aboard - if it did, create a blast radius proportional to the amount of carried explosives. Maybe add a detonation command for those, too. What do you think?

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[Syndic]

You could confine it to the eagle or one of their common ships that are used by multiple terrorist factions. Doesn't have to be every different ship each group flies.

Xenos and Gaians as are the true "extremists" (as in "We don't care if we die" groups).

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[Dab]

Terrorists don't all go on suicide runs.. Xenos will give their lives if necessary, but won't pointlessly waste it to kill a few people. They need all the pilots they can get. Gaians also would do their best to minimize explosions and collateral damage that may harm civilians.

Its up to the players to make themselves looks more 'intimidating.' Nothing against XA here, but I personally find 'Yeha!' a bit out-of-keeping with Xenos.. We're poor laborers trying to rid Liberty of foreign corporations.. We're not cowboys. My Xenos isn't exactly terrifying either, having gotten the name Daisy.Fey (hey, its funny when you see kill messages where someone got killed by a girl named Daisy Fey). There are things Xenos could change to make them more 'terroristic.'

Gaians have a different problem altogether. They are not feared, but are made fun of because of their goals. I'm sure nearly everyone here has heard them called, or called them themselves, Tree-huggers and/or Hippies. I've called Gaian players that in-RP, and I've in turn been called that in-RP on my Gaian in the past. Nothing wrong with it because it happens in real life today. There are many peaceful protestors trying to save the enviroment (and its spreading rapidly), then there are some extremist organizations fighting for the enviroment.. Both are called groups of tree-hugging hippies and neither is really feared to much of an extent. In-game I don't see it being any different. Gaians have little chance of defeating the BAF. Bretonians would be far more concerned with Corsair's, Kusarians, and Mollies.

GC have a similar problem, but instead of being called tree-huggers and hippies, we're called a group of feminist-fanatic lesbians.. Its not true at all, but its a widely-used stereotype and has little chance of changing based on the player's actions.

Unioners I don't know enough about to comment. While Xenos need the players to enhance their 'terror' on people, the other two factions don't have a way for a player to do it and neither would use suicide tactics like packing their ships full of explosives.

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[Dusty Lens]

Yeehaw.

It is true that much of our banter isnt terribly terrifying. Its extremely difficult to be scary and take yourself seriously. Furthermore its rather tricky to engage in being terrifying when the response to your presence is onoez xeeeeeeners and so on.

The method by which we generally establish being frightening is in our more tangible habits, such as ripping your sad little transport apart until its venting atmosphere and flame from its many brand new oraphi (is that a word?), decommissioning your pretty little mining op and dancing in the leavings of your scattered cargo.

Yeeeehaws arent scary. Whats scary is dropping out of a lane into a bunch of bombers who dont really care about your two mil, theyd rather just have some die thank you very much.

As to the suicide bit, no thank you. To be honest we employ more of a try to survive at all costs philosophy. Every ship precious, every pilot a commodity. The fight you survive to fight another day is the victorious one, nevermind the outcome of the op itself. If it looks like things are going south its time to suddenly break and scatter. Fighting to the bitter almost end and then going out in a blaze of glory is for chumps and Outcasts Or am I being redundant?

Of course, Im not going so far as to tell you whats happening on the ground. Space resources are expensive. However it should be remembered that the Xeno movement that we encounter in space is but a fraction of the overall story. The vast majority of the fights, struggles and battles of ideology and explosions take place on the surface of Libertys worlds.

So whos to say if some man, without a hope in the world standing upon the ruins of a broken life with nothing behind him but Houston with nothing ahead of him but Houston yet again, staring down the minutes till another LPI raid upon a tent city amongst the desolate ruins of abandoned factories wouldnt reckon on strapping something as goes boom to himself and marching up to the nearest checkpoint.

But Im pretty damn certain that any space pilot who tried to do the same would be slapped upside the head.

[Dab]

It is true that much of our banter isnt terribly terrifying. Its extremely difficult to be scary and take yourself seriously. Furthermore its rather tricky to engage in being terrifying when the response to your presence is onoez xeeeeeeners and so on.

I can tell you from experience, the responses you get will change if you change the way you present yourself. Its true for most social encounters, including games. Someone (assuming English was his first language) who types a load of randomness with bad spelling and punctuation gives a negative first impression, while those who chat intellectually and take the time to spell correctly give off a good first impression.

Yelling Yeehaw will gain Xenos the rep of not-entirely-serious pirates. It's the rep they have now. Xenos and some other players know better and treat them differently, but the non-Xenos who do are few and far between. This is because of the way we present ourselves. My Gaian has (until recently) been decently active in regards to BAF and acts in a bit of an annoying, careless, manner until she chooses to fight physically or verbally with her opponent.. Because of that, the BAF I have encountered view her the way I want her to be viewed. Annoying, but cold-hearted.

My Xenos has done that on a very small scale (but replace annoying with flirtatious [If you recognize the name, you know why]), mainly because most people regard her the same as all the other Xenos, which she isn't. Her reasons for joining the Xenos isn't the same as the majority of the Xenos, who were formerly poor laborers who lost jobs or were born into the Xenos. She also isn't the 'cowboy-wannabe' that many Xenos display in their manner..

If you take a look at the GC, they are generally feared by most traders in Kusari due to the amount we catch them and severity (usually all cargo) of our demands. We've managed to gain a shred of respect, even from our enemies, because of how we present ourselves in social interactions with traders, enemies, and during fights. Those that make fun of us do so intentionally, such as Farmers or Hogosha calling us 'flowers' and other sorts. Xenos get made fun of quite often, and mostly because of our manners, not because of our NPC faction's background or history. People with no natural animosity towards Xenos will make fun of us because of how they see us, as players, behave.

That is what I wish to change about the Xenos. People say we need to change something so we are more terrifying. I say we need to change ourselves.

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