Independents

An Independent player, or Indy/Indie is a player who's ship is properly IDed and IFFed as a given NPC faction, but isn't a member of any official factions or player groups.

Indies exist as such for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from differing goals to the established Player faction(s) presiding over the group, being a new player testing the NPC faction for the first time, players having left an NPC faction, are setting up in preparation for joining, or simply do not want to join a Player faction.

Different factions have different rules regarding indies. Most allow them amicably, though some are more strict depending on the general conduct of a given faction's independents or that faction's roleplay.

Some NPC factions do not allow Independants at all. Primarily factions which are hostile to most or all of Sirius, have some advantage in equipment, or require prove of far superior Roleplay skill in their playerbase (This is typically true of Nomads, Phantoms, Coalition, etc), or require Admin intervention in order to acquire an ID or specific ships.

Independents typically do not wear faction tags, though may use player names with similar nomenclature to those used by a player faction (though this is not universally true). However, there are some official and unofficial factions which do not use tags (often more notorious factions or those who's tags would give away a 'stealth' aspect).

Conversely, some Independents DO use tags, just not those of the official faction. Examples of this are often seen in capital ship prefixes (LNS, HMS, IKN, RNC), or individual players who identify themselves with an NPC faction, but not a specific player faction. (Navy.Name or LN|name as opposed to [LN]-Name), or starting their own small player groups.