We all know that smuggling has lost popularity, the legitimate trading offers better money in a shorter time but is no where near as fun. There has been a few attempts at making a Smugglers faction and now I present you with my own.
Instead of being a unlawful only faction I've opted to make it a bit interesting, my idea is to have both legitimate and illegitimate trading all under one roof. The faction will have a single tag but two names, the tag will be the legitimate name and the second name will be an Underworld Callsign. We will live a true smugglers life, a double life. Our protection will be our neutrality and usefulness, we will be the fulcrum that balances the lever.
I ask for opinions, feedback, interest, questions, suggestions and constructive criticism. If you're interested in being a part of the faction or would like to talk over any ideas or questions you have please add me on skype, my username is baseili01. I'll be starting a room to discuss and plan for our possible future!
Suggestions:
Routes: We will contact various pirate factions to either supply or ship goods and stolen cargo to and from their bases. This is in addition to more standard smuggling routes.
Possible Legal Names:
Boundless Transport Enterprises - BTE - 1 vote
Limitless Haulage and Transport - LH&T
No Holds Barred Logistics - NHBL
Brisbane Trans-Siruis Haulage - BTSH
Brisbane & Co. - B&C
Possible Underworld Callsigns:
Two-faced Bastards
The Smiling Cartel
Profiteers - 1 vote
Freelancer ID and IFF
Ships:
Freighters and Transports
Civilian only
Company Goals:
Cover – Gain a foothold in the interhouse transport sector, allowing the freeflow of goods and ideas to every corner of the galaxy.
Reality – To establish a connection to every smuggling operation in the four Houses and become the foremost clandestine smuggling group Sirius has ever known by controlling the flow of illicit goods.
Faction Goals:
To become an official smuggler faction, possible expansion into Gallia, provide entertaining RP, a few laughs and a bit of cash.
Tagline:
“To supply the demand.”
Rules:
Piracy is forbidden.
Neutrality is our protection, do not violate it.
Maintain cover when carrying legal goods, do not divert to unlawful bases and observe House law.
Remain unseen when carrying contraband, drop your cargo if you fear detection.
We will not carry Slaves, Gaian Wildlife, Human Organs, Furs or Nomad brains.
Ten percent of all earnings will be sent to the House (faction bank) as a tip.
Structure:
Four tier hierarchy
Command Rank: Shark Top rank: Grinder Member rank: Float Recruit rank: Fish
Internal Affairs:
Any rank can suggest something (Small Blind, Blind and Big Blind) for a vote (Hand), the vote must be agreed upon (Ante Up) by a quarter of the current members. Once the vote has been accepted only members may cast their votes by agreeing (Call), disagreeing (Fold) or abstaining (Check) the Commander (Shark) may veto the vote (Raise) once but must suggest an alternate idea that must be accepted again.
Use these terms in unsecured comms, do not give names no matter what.
Up to three votes may be on at any time but only one of each type Small Blind for trivial matters, Blind for day to day matters and Big Blind for extremely important matters.
The Commander may be voted out by members without the chance to veto.
All vote suggestions will be recorded (the Pot.)
Every member is completely autonomous and may work any route they wish, however there must be a small legitimate presence in the Houses in order to keep up appearances.
Promotion Criteria:
Fish → Float: 10 undetected smuggling runs and 4 legitimate trading runs. 10 hours flight time.
Float → Grinder: 50 undetected smuggling runs and 15 legitimate trading runs. 30 hours flight time and a successful recruit.
Grinder → Shark: Previous Shark must step down or be voted out as only one Shark may be appointed at any given time. Only Grinders may place themselves for election to become the new Shark.
Naming Conventions:
(:Tags:)Shipname
More subtle names instead of tags (themes, wordplay etc)
History
Founded by Eddie 'En Route' Brisbane in the late 819 A.S at Barrier Gate Station. Not much is known about the upstart company aside from it's highly ambitious goals and unorthodox office location. Reports so far have drawn no conclusion other than this company is a fresh faced contender in the rather crowded transport sector.
The founder of [Company] Eddie Brisbane is a virtual unknown, public records show an impressive amount of docking permits stretching around Sirius but no business experience and his profession is listed as a self employed trader.
Story
In reality [Company] is in fact a cover for a smuggling group known as the [Underground Callsign] and at the helm Brisbane, a smuggler with visions of grandeur. He seeks to unite the wayward illegal traders of Sirius under his banner, for mutual profit and protection. Although an unknown quantity, Brisbane displays a great deal of cunning in his machinations instead of focusing solely on the questionable stability of smuggling he has found a niche for his legitimate business, transporting goods throughout the Houses. An untouched market due in no part to the inherent risk and neigh impossible balancing of ever-changing House policy, few large scale corporations dare to tiptoe the tangled web of political red tape leaving only seldom reliable freelancers to fill the void.
The squabbling House governments bare little thought in comparison to Brisbane and Co's difficulties in the shifting sand of the criminal underworld. Here the sword of Damocles hangs, suspended not by a horse-hair but by sheer audacity. Something Brisbane has in spades.
Whilst many smuggling groups side with either the Corsairs or Outcasts [Underworld Callsign] has chosen to sit, not on the fence as so many others but at the crossroads of the great conflict. From his key position Brisbane hopes to make himself indispensable to the criminal denizens of Sirius, speaking in the language they know all too well, threats. Crossing the realm from audacity in to madness however there may yet be a method. By threatening to swing the full weight of his cartel behind either one of the pirate nations, Brisbane's group could very well tip the balance of power, something both sides would refuse to allow. It is a precarious stance that could easily end in the group's destruction but so long as the equilibrium is not disturbed [Underworld Callsign] seeks to make a very substantial profit.
I've been toying with this faction ever since I joined disco a little over a year ago, combining my ideas with the experience in the gameworld and its players. It is my intention that this faction be flawed, always lacking something but still being able to fulfil its role within the galaxy. To that end I limited the choice of ships to only freighters and transports, we will not have our own fighter wing instead we will encourage pirate ID'd contractors to fly as security and act as our muscle. Ideally I would set a condition to not kill, only pirate, steal cargo and harass smugglers who encroach on our turf, naturally they would be allowed to kill pirates who harass our members.
Too many factions have everything they want which in turn crushes originality and creativity, they lack dependency which limits their interactions with others. Too much of a good thing.
With this faction I want to create an inter-dependency with all the factions who are willing to play along, who will respond if we tip the scales against them who will attempt to buy favour and influence us. Treat us as we would treat them, as lifelines, as necessary evils, partners or competitors.
My ultimate goal is to limit out of game comm usage, no more forum comm channel deals or skype based decisions. If we wish to deal we do so in person, in game, ship to ship. Anything that can be done ingame shall be done ingame. We'll schedule events and meetings, bring the community out of it's self destructive shell and back in to the gameworld.
Confirmed repping process:
Requires roughly 3 mil to attain.
/Restart Rheinland then fly to Freeport 2 in Bering, take a single Liberty Rogues bribe for 800,000 credits. Finally fly to Barrier Gate Station and take the double bribe for 1,600,000 credits. You should now be able to dock on the majority of bases, the lowest rep is with LWB and Hogosha but still dockable.
A good fella has given me a solid objective view and in so many words has told me some of my ideas are clear as mud and others a bit too complex. I'll attempt to explain my reasoning behind certain points.
Croft Wrote:Internal Affairs:
Any rank can suggest something (Small Blind, Blind and Big Blind) for a vote (Hand), the vote must be agreed upon (Ante Up) by a quarter of the current members. Once the vote has been accepted only members may cast their votes by agreeing (Call), disagreeing (Fold) or abstaining (Check) the Commander (Shark) may veto the vote (Raise) once but must suggest an alternate idea that must be accepted again.
Use these terms in unsecured comms, do not give names no matter what.
Up to three votes may be on at any time but only one of each type Small Blind for trivial matters, Blind for day to day matters and Big Blind for extremely important matters.
The Commander may be voted out by members without the chance to veto.
All vote suggestions will be recorded (the Pot.)
Every member is completely autonomous and may work any route they wish, however there must be a small legitimate presence in the Houses in order to keep up appearances.
In plain English all this says is anyone can start a vote, only members and above can cast a vote and the commander can cancel it but must suggest an alternative.
Three votes types, unimportant, important and serious. Only one kind of each vote is allowed at any time.
The commander can be voted out at any time by the members. Also a record of all votes will be kept to stop the same thing repeating over and over.
Each member can do what they please so long as they do a few legal trade runs from time to time.
I've used the poker terms so that members can have their own secret language to use in front of others for a bit of fun, for example a new member has asked for a vote on the faction name.
"Here, have you heard, some Fish as put down a Big Blind."
"Whats the Hand then? Think everyone will Ante Up?"
"Something about a name but I don't think so, I'll probably Fold."
"I'll call, though the Shark will probably Raise knowing him."
"Either way its all going to the Pot."
The diplomatic ties are not forced upon members, they only show the position of the faction itself. Some smugglers may want to go with the Casts' or the Sairs'. Both are fine and under the faction tags will be treated as neutral by both regardless of their rep.
Special thanks to Summer for helping me with it all.
Edit:
Last night Golanski asked about the limit I set on cargo and why I had chosen to restrict those few items. The rule being:
Croft Wrote:We will not carry Slaves, Gaian Wildlife, Human Organs, Furs or Nomad brains
The OORP reason for my banning these items is to allow rival smugglers to compete against us and to set a line that members can chose to cross if they're feeling rebellious. The darker side to smuggling if you will.
In RP it is Brisbane's idealism, whilst he can reason away the carrying of drugs and weapons by knowing that those two things require a person to use them abstaining him, in his mind, of all guilt.
However with slaves, organs, wildlife and furs Brisbane knows he cannot shift the blame on to someone else, he is directly responsible if he allows those items to be carried. It is his conceited yet well-meaning belief that he alone can end those practices by simply removing the market for them.
As for the Nomad Brains, that is so we can remain neutral with the Order and Casts'.
(11-04-2012, 10:59 PM)Croft Wrote: A good fella has given me a solid objective view and in so many words has told me some of my ideas are clear as mud and others a bit too complex.
Special thanks to Summer for helping me with it all.
Happy to help. Count me in once you get things solidified.
Also, I'm thinking BTE and Profiteers (nice and simple) for the lawful/unlawful names respectively.
Sounds pretty nice.
Only one suggestion I can give: creating rules about internal affairs will only cause a mess when something important really needs voting.
The only working leadership model I've seen is tyrany. Well... not in that worst possible way but still. Ask opinions, call for votes but make the decision yourself.
Remember that democracy is the system in which the most popular/comfortable solutions not the best ones are chosen.
Thank you!
I understand your point, having one person in the lead is probably the best way forward. I put the "voting the commander out" option after reading on the forums about some factions that were dragged down by their leaders refusing to listen. As this is my first attempt at leading a faction I'd no doubt make some mistakes and could possibly be the downfall of my own creation. A little lack of confidence on my part.
You have one member in your account already. I'm doing some smuggling lately with my new char, so being in faction like that would be kinda interesting.
as a player who has been consistently supplying demands, i can honestly say that you'd do better without a tag at all; alternatively, include it as part of your forumlancer RP, and change the code every month.
there are metagamers everywhere, and weak freighters are easily popped.
i don't suppose you've looked into the idea of smuggling+cloak+jumpdrives. i call it jumpcloaksmuggling. say, a fleet of frieghters suddenly pops up in front of manhatten, and quick docks. might be fun, but organising it would take a while.
are you gonna have a player base, and offer interesting prices for a a middle-mans' cut?
Thanks for your feedback Coin, I've been going through the feedback of previous smuggler factions and found that same bit of advice given by yourself I think. Tags on a smuggler does seem a bit silly, identifying yourself when you should remain unknown. The problem is without using tags it'd be difficult to pull off the fragile balance diplomacy I suggested, anyone could claim to be one of us and gain that protection and abuse it.
Plenty of folks will see our tags and jump the gun, that's why I added the legit trading front, unless we're caught red handed (and any bribe attempts fail) there is nothing they can do without proving they are metagaming. I'll admit I'm not aiming small with this faction, truth be told I'd like to become official, with our own ID that replaces the smuggler version. Rather than having a very obvious "SMUGGLER" written on the ID you just have a company that allows you to trade and smuggle in small ships (freighters and transports under 3.5k.) Shoot for the stars.
Its an interesting idea and would certainly make for quite a show though I don't think the police factions would be too pleased about it. We might use that to jump from one base to another at some point (if we can ever arrange it) when it comes to delivering our cargo it'd be more fun to give the cops a chance to catch us out.
Player base...Umm I honestly don't know about that, I really don't like how they turn the game into a boring grind. Perhaps if the upkeep for lower level bases was reduced I'd consider building a few part way through some routes for middlemen such as yourself to sell their goods without risking the Houses. For now in my eyes they remain black holes of gameplay, so dense that not even fun can escape their gravity.
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