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All fantastic points so far. I don't have time to respond to them all right now, but I will consider everything.
A quick point about the Recruit and Trainee ranks:
These are designed to function as Boot Camp and Advanced Officer Training School.
Most importantly, they will automatically turn away teenagers who just want to join a pirate clan, immediately get credits to outfit the biggest baddest fighter or gunship they can, and go PvP everything in sight. We don't want such people in our clan, and making people work a bit for their early promotions will serve that purpose.
I and our current members are ALL undergoing the career advancement and recruitment procedures exactly as I have outlined them. So we will see for ourselves what needs adjustment to keep things challenging without becoming irritatingly difficult and tedious. I DO welcome all input about this, however!
I know for a fact that the Dagger is quite sufficient for dealing with any NPC threats in Liberty Space, and Trainees will be under rank 30 until they are promoted (by transferring credits to the clan bank as they earn them), so player PvP should not be a problem. Alternately, I can lower the financial requirement so as soon as they hit rank 30 they can be promoted.
As to piracy in Scimitars...I personally have solo taken down a transport's shields with a Scimitar using 2 Adv. Debs, 2 class 9 Hellflurries and a Hellflurry turret, so I know it is possible. Two or three Scimitars similarly outfitted and a transport is toast.
As to piracy in Daggers, one of our members managed to solo mug a trader for 500k using a Starflier last week. (It wasn't me, but I won't say who.) Obviously it wasn't due to tactical combat skills. It was due to exceptional roleplaying, which is exactly what we are looking for. Everybody keeps saying that they want to see better roleplay in space, but then they criticize based solely on tactical considerations. Personally, I think the lack of roleplay in tactical situations that we all have been seeing is largely due to the overpowered set ups that we have all been using. Bring down the arms race a bit, and people are forced to roleplay more to achieve their objectives. Besides, I personally think being the underdog is more reasonable for pirates anyway. Gov'ts and corporations will always have more credits to throw at ships and weapons than pirates, unless you are the Outcasts or Corsairs.
I don't expect everyone to do this in a Dagger. Trainees in Daggers can team up with other members and get an even share of the loot to reach their financial requirements.
I am considering waving the financial requirement for advancing from the Trainee rank if a member submits a detailed character biography. This could serve as a roleplay requirement for advancement. (Anyone detecting the trend here?)
And no, all members cannot advance to Director rank. Read the career advancement again requirements again. There may eventually be 5 Directors at most, if our roster justifies it. For the time being it is limited to 3.
Thanks for all of the input, I will be giving all of it serious consideration. And I am not trying to be argumentative here, at all.
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