Freelancer v. Indie Trader & Merc.

[Lance_Uppercut]

The Freelancer ID:

Pilot carrying this ID is a Freelancer, who :

• Can trade and escort traders
  
• Can fulfill lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
  
• Cannot pirate, but can provide security services for pirates who are pirating if paid to do so. Freelancers can only fire on traders or smugglers in self-defense or if the trader or smuggler fires on or is bountied by the freelancer's employer.
  
• Cannot demand contraband unless specified in employer's bounty
  
• Cannot use any transports with more than 3,800 cargo
  

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports, Gunboats

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As it stands, there's no good reason to ever use the Independent Trader ID or the Mercenary ID when a player could just pick up a Freelancer ID.

Independent Trader ID:

Pilot carrying this ID is an independent trader, who :

• Can trade and escort traders
  
• Cannot attack anyone except in self defense or to defend the vessel they are escorting,
  
• Cannot fulfill bounty contracts
  
• Cannot pirate
  
• Cannot use any transports with more than 3,800 cargo
  

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports

The Trader ID and the Freelancer ID are essentially the same, except Freelancers can do more. The limit on both in terms of cargo is 3800.

Same goes for the Merc ID:

Pilot carrying this ID is a Mercenary, who :

• Can trade and escort traders
  
• Can fulfill lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
  
• Cannot pirate, but can provide security services for pirates who are pirating if paid to do so. Mercenaries can only fire on traders or smugglers in self-defense or if the trader or smuggler fires on or is bountied by the mercenary's employer.
  
• Cannot demand contraband unless specified in employer's bounty
  
• Cannot use any transports with more than 3,800 cargo
  

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports, Gunboats

Those two are literally the same.

I know the ID should match your RP, but that's almost never the case.. think about how many freelancer ID'd transports you see every time you fly. Freelancer ID'd gunboats... freighters... fighters... everything and every role you can think of.

Why is it like this? I understand freelancing is extremely important to the game (duh), but if you're going to be trading on your own, you're an independent trader... if you're flying a VHF and taking bounties, you're a merc. Not necessarily a generic freelancer.

My proposal is to make the Freelancer ID more of a jack-of-all-trades license, rather than a I-can-do-whatever-I-want license. Personally, I would re-word the Freelancer ID to mean ONLY doing work FOR OTHERS... since "freelancing" doesn't usually mean doing things on your own FOR yourself.

How about this for freelancer:

Pilot carrying this ID is a Freelancer, who :

• Can escort traders or join (but cannot create) trading convoys
  
• Can fulfill lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
  
• Cannot pirate, but can provide security services for pirates who are pirating if paid to do so. Freelancers can only fire on traders or smugglers in self-defense or if the trader or smuggler fires on or is bountied by the Freelancers's employer.
  
• Cannot demand contraband unless specified in employer's bounty
  
• Cannot use any transports with more than 2,000 cargo
  
  (this means capped at Albatross for this ID)
  

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports

[sovereign]

Great, you've fixed the problem between Freelancer and Indie Trader IDs.

Now there's no reason to use either because Merc is that and more.

What exactly does "can join but not create trading convoys" even mean? You can't trade by yourself? At that point, why even bother allowing cargo transports?

The three IDs need to be taken in tandem.

Here's my suggestion.

Pilot carrying this ID is a Freelancer, who :

* Can trade and escort traders
* Can fulfill lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
* Can pirate
* Cannot use any transports with more than 2000 cargo space

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports

This makes it a "do everything but not that well" ID. As a Freelancer, that makes sense to me.

Pilot carrying this ID is an independent trader, who :

* Can trade and escort traders
* Cannot attack anyone except in self defense or to defend the vessel they are escorting,
* Cannot fulfill bounty contracts
* Cannot pirate
* Cannot use any transports with more than 3,800 cargo

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Transports

The above is unchanged.

Pilot carrying this ID is a Mercenary, who :

* Can fulfill lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
* Cannot pirate, but can provide security services for pirates who are pirating if paid to do so. Mercenaries can only fire on traders or smugglers in self-defense or if the trader or smuggler fires on or is bountied by the mercenary's employer.
* Cannot demand contraband unless specified in employer's bounty

Allowed ships: Fighters, Freighters, Gunboats

Only change is the removal of transports and trading.

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[ryoken]

looks good to me. I also just double the price,or demand all cargo when i see these ID's on a transport. I personally HATE!!! the freelancer ID,and mentality lately. Same goes for MERC's. I think if all pirates treated these ID's also as a smack in the face,and made them pay dearly for it? the lolwutters would stop using them.

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[Lunaphase]

Before you even think of this, Remember that mercs and freelancers are already very limited in ship and role. We have to ask offical factions for usage of guns ships and pretty much everything besides an eagle or sabre. Dont make it worse.

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[Lance_Uppercut]

Before you even think of this, Remember that mercs and freelancers are already very limited in ship and role. We have to ask offical factions for usage of guns ships and pretty much everything besides an eagle or sabre. Dont make it worse.

This is true. I'm not looking to make it worse. Heck, you don't even have to touch the Freelancer ID to fix the situation. I think my actual goal is to specialize the IDs more... and somehow make people think about what they're going to be doing before just picking up a Freelancer ID without thinking through a backstory.

(Not that everyone does that! Much love to the freelancers out there who do a bang-up job at RP and everything else! :ylove:)

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::The Pennsylvania Liberation Force

[Zeela]

Hello,

since you cant stand those IDs why not remove them?

Merge them into one ID alowing all they can and be done with it.

Freelancer is free he can do whatever he has courage and guts to do, exactly same goes to mercenary and independent trader too.

Freelancer says he works for himself and mercenary says he works for highest bidder, but if you take second look those are just 2 sides of same coin.

As for independent trader he is working for himself and the highest bidder and atm is degenerated hybrid, some freemerc ;)

Zee

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dsace v11

[ryoken]

Before you even think of this, Remember that mercs and freelancers are already very limited in ship and role. We have to ask offical factions for usage of guns ships and pretty much everything besides an eagle or sabre. Dont make it worse.

Yes Yes make it worse. Kill all the chances of them ever getting a ship. I hate freelancer's who 1 day are pirates,and the next are not.

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[Bolverk]

I hate freelancer's who 1 day are pirates,and the next are not.

You can't pirate with a Freelancer ID.

[Thexare]

This sounds familiar.

[Lance_Uppercut]

This sounds familiar.

It is. I realized yesterday that it probably shouldn't go in gen discussion anyway.

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::The Pennsylvania Liberation Force