Discovery Gaming Community - Rules

Unlawful IDs and non-combat ships

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:03:10 +0000

Yes, the sanction pissed me off.

ID types

With the recent rework of the Corporate IDs, I believe a bit of a paradox has been created in Discovery. To be fair, it existed for a long time, but said rework made it even more pronounced. I'm talking about the interactions between various ID types and non-combat ships, which in 99% of cases means traders and smugglers. For a bit of an overview:

Lawful IDs, as in Police, Navy and Intel, have always had the least constraint when it came to dealing with transport ships. Red? Kill it. Smuggler? Kill it. Mouthing off? Kill it. It's how it's been since forever and very much should stay that way forever. These IDs are there to hunt down law breakers, after all.

Corporate IDs, since the recent rework, have become much more flexible in their choice of targets as well. Besides being able to pop reds on sight, they can now go into the Border Worlds and commit corporate slaughter against anyone listed as a competitor, transport or otherwise. Very good, plenty of flexibility, thumbs up for the change.

Bounty Hunters and Freelancers, well. Getting paid? Off you go pulling the tirgger.

Finally, Unlawful IDs. Some of them, not even all, are permitted to kill one, maybe two very specific Corporate IDs, many of which, like Synth or Planetform, you'll be lucky to meet once every quarter. Outside of those specific cases, you are limited to piracy, which allows you to make reasonable monetary or cargo demands, and kill the target if they do not comply. Cargo you can carry, half of their profit or a roleplay demand that's not too burdensome for your target, the like.

The problem

So, why am I harping on about all this. The problem that I see here, and I hope I'm not alone in this, is the constriction of how Unlawful IDs are expected to deal with non-combat ships. Any other ID type has the ability to kill any non-combat ship they'd reasonably want dead, which provides a very high amount of flexibility in how you deal with a situation. You can make higher demands, especially in cargo, you can be more demanding in terms of RP, or even just outright murder it if the circumstances call for it. There is nothing limiting your way of interacting with these ships, and thus allows you to play your role naturally and in line with your faction's roleplay and the setting we're in.

Unlawful IDs, on the other hand, are heavily limited by the very insidius qualifier of a reasonable demand. There are a lot of unwritten rules defining what reasonable means exactly. Far as I can determine, it seems to be either half the profit, cargo you can carry or a quick roleplay demand, irrespective of the IDs involved in the encounter.

The problem with the reasonable qualifier, and its apparent definition, is that it heavily limits what an Unlawful ID can even do when interacting with non-combatants. If you're not in a transport you cannot touch their cargo, you have to be considerate of their profits, you cannot be too mean or obtrusive inRP. Crossing any of those lines is a quick way to finding your name in the Sanction Notices subforum. And while I agree that these limitations look good on paper, they force Unlawful IDs into acting in a very unnatural and, in my opinion, RP-violating manner. You have to artificially throttle yourself down, treating ships of extremely hostile factions intruding on your turf like they're a jaywalker.

Even if you're playing what is supposed to be an extremist terrorist faction, all you can really do is mug people for their lunch money or, to quote, "ask them to polish your ship" (where's the explicit content rule when you need it). To me that is nothing short of comical and utterly immersion-breaking. If I log a Gaian ship and meet a BMM hauler, am I supposed to pack his lunch and kiss him goodbye at the end of the interaction, too?

Conclusion, at last

I might've gotten carried away with the last one, but my point stands. I think that with the ongoing liberalization of rules and engagement lines, the unlawful portion of our ID roster has fallen behind the times and needs to be modernized accordingly. The hoops they are forced to jump through are outdated and artificially stifle the roleplay of people playing them. I understand their goal might've been to facilitate more talking than shooting, but there are situations where talking is simply not applicable.

A couple counters to the idea off the top of my head:

Trade ships are not suited for combat and they should not be made even more vulnerable -
Traders are going to quit because of griefers - back in the ancient times, there was a trade route between Malta and Manhattan. Cardamine one way, Premium Scrap the other. And despite Liberty being the most active House, and smugglers getting popped left, right and center, there was a conga line of Junkers all the way from New York to Omicron Alpha. Besides, if someone exploits more liberal kill rules to excessively grief people, they can be dealt with by staff.

I do not have an exact idea of how to implement this - ideally, I don't see why any unlawfuls would be limited in killing any ships altogether, barring examples like Alliance and Samura, but I understand that is a fairly extreme position to take. In any case, as always, there's a poll up above to gauge the general community sentiment regarding the issue, but I think having a proper discussion about this would be swell.

Thanks for taking the time to read it all.

PVP dead timer - discussion

Mon, 11 Dec 2023 08:52:28 +0000

While initialy 2 hours PvP dead period was once reconsidered to 1 hour, why not go further? Some ideas after talking with returning folks.

All times below serve illustrative purpose for discussion, not a direct balance proposal (no need nitpick at them).

1. Class-based timer:

Fighters/Bombers - 15 min
GB/Cruisers - 30 min
Bcr/BS - 1 hour
Freighter - 30m
Transport - 45m

2. System based timer.

I think at some places which we can call "active combat zone", respawn timer can be turned off entirely, or be almost unexistant, like 10-15 min, just to get winner in a row. Some system could be a "danger/tensions zone" with respawn time halved. Such things already have some practice history, as you can remember.

3. Something completely different

For example - fighters launched from DM mothership, could have respawn timer as 10-15 mins. Would need tho some amendities in DM plugin as i understand, and addition of something to not allow mothership just sit above plane. But that just an example.

Promoting police roleplay - separating Police and Military identity?

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 16:17:20 +0000

Hi guys. You are probably aware than there are currently no dedicated police official factions in any house. Moreover, even unofficially, only a fraction of active players in any house seem to be playing police characters. Frankly, I don't remember the last time I saw a BPA or a KSP ship during my forays into Bretonia and Kusari, and Rheinland only has a few dedicated players for its unofficial police faction (KPR).

If we assume that this is a problem, what should be the solution?
I wanted to open a discussion about what could be the minimal amount of modification which may lead to more players focusing on police roleplay.

My own solution is as follows: change house military id lines from "Can enforce laws within House Space" to "Can attack ships breaking laws within House Space."
The idea behind this is simple: the military is a blunt tool with little training about civilian disputes and smuggling regulations. Their solution starts and ends with the application of force. So if you want more options when dealing with criminals (e.g. fines), and the ability to make inrp arrests, you fly on police ids. If anything too big comes calling, you ping the military for help and disengage until you have more support.

What do y'all think?

Ideas people put forward (sorted by my own opinion about ease of implementation):

Add /nodock to indie police ids
Change House law to give police more power
Combine the military and police id
Create fence-like sellpoints for confiscated commodities
Add salary for police based on trade lane patrol time
Let police disable trade lanes and gates
Add valuable unlawful NPCs along patrol routes
Improve the scanners used by the police
Improve the cruise disruptors used by the police

DOUBTS ABOUT CONTRACT BOARDS AND BOUNTIES RULES

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 11:22:09 +0000

[I had posted this before in the Help & Support section, but I thought that the lack of response may have been because I should have posted it here.]

Greetings.

I have several doubts about the rules for placing bounties, so before doing anything I prefer to ask them here and not mess it up.

My unofficial faction is thinking about placing a bounty on several specific characters. Due to the RP developed, it could be that these bounties would have to be repeated recurrently against those specific characters.

I've been reading the rules for the Contract Boards and One-time Contracts, and since we're an unofficial faction, and we don't have the sponsorship required by the rules to be able to post in the Contract Boards section, it seems that we would have to post in the One-time Contracts section.

However, I've seen that the One-time Contracts rules indicate the following:

This sub-forum is for players to post one-time bounties or other once-off contracts. Players or factions likely to repeatedly post different consequent bounties or contracts, or recurring contracts, may wish to make a thread in the Contract Boards sub-forum.

Questions I have about this:

Does this above mean that there is any possibility that my unofficial unsponsored faction has a way to publish in the Contracts Board section, or is it simply referring to official faction players (or unofficial but sponsored)?

Likewise, in the case of not being able to publish bounties in the Contract Boards section because we aren't an official faction, or a sponsored unofficial one: If I publish a bounty in One-time Contracts, and it is fulfilled by a player, do I have to repost it in a different thread each time, or can I continue using the same thread?

Finally. What does it mean to be an unofficial sponsored faction? What depth of roleplay is required to be able to ask an official faction to sponsor your bounty board in the Contracts Board section? Does the official faction that sponsors you has to have the same ID as yours, or can it have any ID as long as it makes sense due to RP developed with that faction?

Thank you in advance for your help.

[GOV RULE]Hogosha, Corse - Government slots?

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 12:44:24 +0000

Hogosha
Hogosha is basically the third Keiretsu in Kusari, they are closely tied to the government and have law enforcement lines
Unione Corse
They are both feared by Gallic lawfuls in canon and used for bounties, have law enforcement lines. They also officially control Provence - a Gallic system with Corse maintained tradelanes alongside the Union.

suggested I ask about change of Government rules from:

Code:
"The House Governments of Bretonia, Gallia, Kusari, Liberty, and Rheinland, will be made up of the faction leaders of every Official Police, Military, Intelligence, and Corporate faction with an ID classification belonging to that house."

Into this

Code:
"The House Governments of Bretonia, Gallia, Kusari, Liberty, and Rheinland, will be made up of the faction leaders of every Official Police, Military, Intelligence, and Corporate faction, and any faction with "Enforce Laws" lines with an ID classification belonging to that house."

Why

Incentive for Hogosha and Corse to go OF
Hogosha and Corse don't have pirate lines in house, can enforce laws and laws directly impact their gameplay
Corse in canon cooperates with Union and got "dumped" or "handed over" expenses and responsibility for Provence depending on view
Hogosha has influence over gov in canon, is used by them (not an expert here)
They both are used as hitmen by each respective government. Where Hogosha is more "loyal" and corse more self-serving and plays more sides.

Staff asked me to post this thread so they can see public response before they e.g. allow corse rep into official gov discord, with or without vote - please give your opinions.

Independent space markers

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 02:05:59 +0000

In areas like Hamburg when you hit the texas Jump gate I see markers for independent space does that mean beyond those markers is not Included in the rheinland territory? Or is it a Grey area since Texas has ones saying rheinland territory?

House Corporations and Border Worlds 2: Electric Boogaloo

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 14:30:10 +0000

Hello, it's me again. The previous thread I made on the topic was a veritable trash fire as far as conveying the idea is concerned, so I have decided to redo it, hopefully providing a more clear and understandable explanation of the suggestions. I have also decoupled the unlawful part as, while related to the overall intentions behind this suggestion, is a wholly separate thing that probably deserves its own discussion.

The problem

The corporations in Freelancer are pretty ruthless bastards, and one of the major elements of them being such is corporate warfare. The corporations frequently hire mercenaries or terrorists to strike at their competition, sometimes even going as far as to assault them directly. Examples of that include BMM and Daumann taking potshots at one another in Omega-3, or Samura diverting government subisdies for Tsushima to raise a mercenary force to harass and disrupt Kishiro at Nago.

Needless to say, the corporate warfare aspect of the Sirius Sector has been grossly neglected for pretty much as long as I can remember. Corporate IDs are constrained by strict engagement lines and suffocatingly small ZoIs, leaving them borderline useless for anyone who's not in it for the 5k transports. Years of that have left corporate NPC factions as a shadow of what they could be, pretty much reduced to a selection of colorful stickers to put in your Mastodon's internal equipment tab. The fact that, as far as I can recall, there has been one (1) non powertrading corporate faction that had any success in the last ten years is testament to the sorry state corporates are in.

The goal

The goal of this massive text dump really boils down to two things:

Enabling actual corporate warfare to exist. PvP between security forces, widespread piracy or combat over mining locations.
Enabling corporations to enter and contest frontier systems against unlawful forces. Corporate raids, if you will.

Or in other words, allow corporations to finally become actual IDs.

The proposed solution

With the overly verbose introduction behind us, I'd like to propose a twofold solution to enable Corporate IDs to play their respective roles in full. The rationale behind them will follow. The two parts of the solution are:

Extending Corporate Zones of Influence into the Border Worlds that connect to their respective House. Bretonians would receive Tau and Omega, Rheinlanders would receive Omega and Sigma, and so on.
Enabling Corporate IDs to attack combat ships and pirate trade ships belonging to foreign corporations and unlawful IDs outside House space.

Extended Zones of Influence

This one is very straightforward. As it stands right now, all House Corporations are constrained to a ZoI of their respective House and surrounding systems, in some cases receiving individual systems on top of it to account for far flung outposts, see Cryer or Planetform. I think that this is a very restrictive approach. Corporations operate much further into the Border Worlds than police or military, and usually are at the forefront of taming new systems. Border Worlds are also where the majority of corporate warfare is taking place. However, with how small the corporate reach into the Border Worlds is, there is hardly any room for them to be criminals or frontiersmen in. The extended ZoIs would allow that.

Expanded engagement rights

This is the big one that uses expanded ZoIs as a foundation. As it stands right now, the combat aspect of Corporate IDs is... Well, lackluster, to put it very mildly. Let's have a look at the Gateway ID. I will insert my remarks in red:

Gateway ID Wrote:This Bretonian Corporate ID is used by members of Gateway Shipping, who:

- Can attack any ship to protect allies.

- Can engage in piracy against Bowex outside of House Space. That's good, but why only piracy?

- Can engage in piracy against Corporate ships considered hostile by Bretonia. Literally nobody.

- Can engage in piracy against ships belonging to Kusari and Gallia corporations within Taus. This one is nice, but again, for some reason limited to piracy. Where are the security skirmishes? Mining sabotage?

- Cannot use Cruisers or Battleships.

Within Zone of Influence (Bretonia, systems directly bordering Bretonia):

- Can attack ships belonging to factions considered hostile by Bretonia. Why only in House space? Why can Gateway pirate Kishiro in Tau-37, but god forbid they gun down a Brigand in Tau-29?

As can be seen above, the combat potential of the Gateway ID, and any other Corporate ID, is pretty much limited to shooting unlawfuls in House Space. Their ability to engage in sabotage and corporate conflict is limited to just 20k or die. Want to contest a mining location? Oh, the competition paid the fine? Oh, well, I guess we'll go twiddle our thumbs elsewhere. And don't even think about meeting a pirate, unless you enjoy the good old staring contest. That's just silly all around.

The point I am trying to make is that coporations should be allowed to conduct corporate warfare in its fullest. Kurger and GMG should fight over the H-3 fields. Samura and Kishiro should fight over the Hydrocarbon fields. Bowex and Gateway should skirmish out on a remote supply contract. BMM security should be allowed to go search and destroy on Outcast raiders in Tau-37. All of these are obviously the most to-the-letter interpretations of what I am suggesting, but they illustrate many different fundamental activities that corporations would now be able to engage it. And these fundamental activities are something players could build upon and finally play the evil side of their chosen corporations, which would, at long last, hopefully result in a diversification of the type of corporate player groups we see around.

These abilities would of course come with limitations. As mentioned well above, Corporate IDs would not be able to just go pick fights with foreign law enforcement or their domestic partners. They would also be prevented from wanton piracy against every freelancer or Zoner they come across, as they are on the prowl for their competition, not robbing people to survive. Of course, there would be some flexibility here. Domestic competitors, like Samura and Kishiro, would be able to engage each other. Similarly, foreign partners, like the IMG/Gateway/ALG trinity, would not.

That's pretty much it

He writes at the end of a Tolkien trilogy's worth of text. I hope it was readable, at least. Please leave a vote in the poll above, even if it's just for Indifferent. And, of course, the discussion below. I genuinely do believe the changes I presented here would be a massive boon, not only for Corporate IDs (which I am pretty sure are the most numerous subset of IDs in the game), but for Discovery as a whole.

Some notes

A collection of thoughts that came to me while writing this out, in no particular order.

What about Liberty? Honestly, no idea. Besides Cryer maybe getting to operate in Sigmas and/or Omicrons, Liberty corporations would only really have the surrounding Independent Worlds to play with. I genuinely don't know what they could receive to achieve parity with other Houses.
The neighbouring Border Worlds are basically just a baseline. Some corporations could no doubt recieve more unusual areas of interest, like Cryer mentioned above. Planetform has great interest in Alien Organisms, too. Omicron ZoI for Planetform when?
IMG, GMG and Bristol are outliers that do not fit into the House dynamics, so they'd probably have to be approached on a case-by-case basis. Mining corps going for IMG, Rheinlanders and Samura going for GMG? And vice versa, of course.

House Corporations, House Unlawfuls and Border Worlds

Wed, 11 Oct 2023 15:02:17 +0000

I've had the topic of Corporate ZoIs brought up in a discussion earlier today, and I got curious about the general community sentiment.

As it stands right now, House Corporations' ZoIs are typically confined to their own House + 1, with some individual systems sprinkled here and there. Same goes for House Unlawfuls, though they usually have it a bit better, with most having at least one Border Worlds region attached to their ZoI. I feel like it is a little bit restrictive and prevents House IDs from penetrating deeper into the Border Worlds, which is something that I believe they should be allowed to do. This also goes hand-in-hand with my belief that Corporate IDs should be allowed to let loose/turn borderline unlawful outside of House Space to better enable them to act out their bad guy side.

All that said, this thread is meant to pose the following questions:

Should House Corporations and House Unlawfuls be allowed to operate in all neighbouring Border Worlds? As an example, in case of Bretonia, this would mean that Bowex, Gateway, BMM, Planetform, Gaians and Mollys would all receive both Taus and Omegas within their ZoI.

How would people feel about extending Corporate ID lines to enable them to engage combat ships and pirate transports largely indiscriminately outside House Space? This would obviously have some restrictions so as to not have Bowex pirating RM or something silly like that, rather just non-allied corporates and pirate/freelance merchants. Yes, I am aware most Corporate IDs are already able to pirate their specific competition, but I feel like that is way too niche, and also implemented as a very silly Sirius-wide piracy line. Why would Kruger be pirating BMM in the Taus?

Either way, these are the two questions, plus the poll above. Thanks for your time.

d/c

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 13:53:39 +0000

Name: CIS|Wolfsgift
Location (ingame): Omega-48
Time (GMT): 13:45
Date: 09/27/2023
Reason: Game crashed

VPN allowed?

Tue, 26 Sep 2023 18:15:41 +0000

I tried searching for this question, couldn't find any answers among the results. the 4 char minimum search also didn't allow me to search for "VPN", and when i searched "vpn allowed" i only got results containing "allowed"

Anyway, is VPN allowed?

not rules related

Rules: Freighters and Transports as Combat Ships - 2.9, 3.4 & 2.8

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 15:11:29 +0000

Currently the rules read as follows:

Quote:2.9 - The following definitions apply to all IDs:
"Combat Ship" - Fighters, Bombers, Bustards, Capital Ships; Freighters or Transports carrying equipment in a Cruise Disruptor slot and using an ID or affiliation that is considered hostile by your ID); or Bounty Services (being paid to attack a target or assist in a fight).

"Trade Ship" - Freighters and transports except as described under Combat Ships.

3.4 - Transports mounting equipment in a Cruise Disruptor slot are not counted as Transports for the purposes of ID engagement lines.

Apparently in the next patch, the mining system is being overhauled so only a single mining array needs to be mounted in the cruise disruptor slot (rather than multiples taking up weapon slots).

This sounds very cool and good, but it did then occur to me that mining transports would automatically become combat ships simply by equipping the gear they need to do their job. Not so cool - unless that was intended - in which case fair enough.

This prompted some lively discussion on the community discord that raised some other issues with the rules as currently written. This largely revolved around the fact that mounting qualifying equipment means a transport stops being trade ship completely and instead counts solely as a combat ship. This has strange interactions with the pirate ID, which reads as follows:

Pirate ID Wrote:- Can engage in piracy against Trade Ships.

- Can engage in piracy against Combat Ships outside of House Space.

Basically, if a pirate comes across transport in House Space and they have a cruise disruptor mounted, the pirate is prohibited from issuing a piracy demand because it is technically a combat ship. Very bad and uncool.

As another strange oversight(?), these rules also don't apply properly to freighters. For starters, freighters don't have a 'cruise disruptor' slot in the way transports do, they use a 'fighter special weapon' slot. Now this may just look like silly semantic splitting of hairs, but 3.4 goes on to specify only transports, despite 2.9 having already set out a definition of Trade Ships including freighters that could have been used.

Some suggested changes:

Quote:2.9 - The following definitions apply to all IDs:
"Combat Ship" - Fighters, Bustards, Capital Ships; Freighters or Transports as described under 3.4, when using an ID or affiliation that is hostile to your ID; ships carrying out Bounty Services (being paid to attack a target or assist in a fight).

"Trade Ship" - Freighters and transports.

3.4 - Trade Ships mounting equipment (except Mining Arrays) in a Cruise Disruptor / Special Fighter Equipment slot can also be treated as Combat Ships for the purposes of ID engagement lines.

In-game warning:

A Trade Ship mounting this equipment can also be treated as a Combat Ship.

Consequences: Miners are treated the same way as innocent traders. There's no longer a weird limbo situation about armed transports in House space. Freighters are consistently covered by the rules. The change in name for equipment slots is accounted for.

As an aside, I don't know what the section about Bounty Services is intended to do in the Combat Ship definition. Maybe that can be deleted outright? I've hazarded a guess that it was supposed to mean any ship carrying out a bounty service is counted as a combat ship.

BONUS WHINE

Quote:2.8 - All IDs can:

Claim rewards for kills within their Zone of Influence on bounty boards.

The wording makes it explicitly clear that this only permits claiming kills, and does not grant any engagement rights. Due to that, it's puzzling that this is restricted to ZoI.

If you are already having to rely on an independent engagement clause (provided by your ID, self-defence, etc), why should you be prevented from claiming a legitimate kill because you are out of ZoI?

Perfect example is a corporate escort being attacked by pirates while defending their convoy. They're near their destination so they're outside ZoI, but killing the pirate in self-defence is perfectly legitimate. If they're registered on a local claims board, why not turn it in?

If the concern is people going outside ZoI and acting as the world's least efficient bounty hunter by 'baiting' people into attacking them, that was previously always addressed as a PvP violation as abusive behaviour anyway.

Should the rule 0.0 be restored?

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 22:11:40 +0000

Should the rule 0.0 be restored?

Running into walls

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 21:11:15 +0000

When it will be sanctionable?

How is this kind of RP allowed?

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 04:04:56 +0000

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=197867

I am appalled that it is allowed to conduct this level of "leak". Anyone could betray any faction and reveal every base location, every other aspect of secrecy and let's be honest, face zero consequences except useless FR5 that doesn't do much in terms of actually ending this type of "roleplay"

Suggestion: Change game rule 3.1 to allow PVP Dead camera ships

Sun, 16 Apr 2023 18:08:19 +0000

Rules Wrote:3.1 - Players are considered to be ''PVP Dead'' if they die during a PVP encounter or dock while hostile combatants are within docking message range of other players. A "PVP Dead" player must:

Leave the system the fight took place in, not carry cargo, and not engage in any interaction for one (1) hour unless provided otherwise in-game ("PvP Death Period"). Other players must allow a PVP Dead player to leave the system.

Not re-enter the system they died in on or attack the player(s) they died to on any of their characters during the the PvP Death Period.

add an exception:

Camera ships with proper ID "Recruit ID" are allowed within the system the player is PVP Dead in, observing the camera ship's and Recruit ID's restrictions.