Something has been bothering me a lot recently. Namely the increasing number of characters going to multiple nations. For example, a lot of Serco and Itani pilots have created another character for The Neutral Territories, where they'd basically use the better trade routes of this nation to their own advantage. After making money, they would have it transferred to their Itani or Serco account. Doesn't anybody see a problem with this?

There was a reason why Guild went through the trouble of making three separate nations. Each one has been balanced to have their own advantage and disadvantages. By using multiple characters to take advantage of every different nation, you're simply cheating. You're now giving your Serco or Itani character that same money a Neutral Territories pilot would get, while The Neutral Territories will be left without the benefit of owning a Valkyrie or Prometheus. It's akin to hijacking a nation and then ditching it when you're done with leeching its benefits. On top of that it ruins nation ranking.

I hope in the future there will only be one character allowed per player account, or force the player to choose their nation BEFORE getting into the multiple characters menu. That way people would be forced to learn their own trade routes, advantage, disadvantages, etc. without having the luxury of cheating and taking advantage of another nation's advantage. Either way, this has GOT TO STOP.

PS: If you also discourage this form of cheating, do not even attempt to defend those teammates that are leeching from your nation. Let them get pirated.

I am assuming that at some point in the future you will get only one character at a time per account you have paid for.

Yes, it bothers me as well. I'm going to save being bothered by the total lack of IC play for when we get a IC radio system.

Yeh Arolte - it bothers me somewhat too. I don't think having only one nation per paid account will do it though... although it could (maybe impliment some way for the character to switch nation alliance in-game [don't make it an easy thing to do of course]). I personally have 4 separate characters between all three governments. All three colors... and one scurvy pirate. I don't transfer money between them at all... I find it more fun if they are self-sufficient. Maybe the way to do it is to discourage players from that kind of behavior - i.e. each nation has different currencies... include some sort of failsafe device that would recognize when a player received his own money back again... etc.

Another option-- one I was surprised isn't implemented!-- is to include some kind of login delay. Not necessarily inter-character, but inter-nation. Like, say, a 15 minute delay before you can switch to your Blue character, after playing Gold. Nobody likes to be left without playing, but it could make things like this easier to avoid.

I have a couple characters, but don't transfer between them. Like hazaanko, I like the fun of building up different charachters differently (i.e. with the different trade routes/threats).

me is reminded of his tactic lesson nr uno:

if you can't kill the pirates becasue they are part of your nation, switch to another team transfer money and then kill them :D

Your measures are going to make it difficult for me :D

cheers

Renegade, that's still bypassing an essential part of the game. Are you going to switch to another nation everytime you encounter a pirate? Can't you people learn to defend yourselves from pirates, or at least attempt to avoid them WITHOUT having to switch nations. It's part of the game!

euhm arolte, read what I am saying

I want to kill them, and I can't kill them if they are part of my nation, that's why I switch nations. Besides did you ever see mee switch nation because Icarus killed me over and over again, or because he pirated me. I can say to you no , you can't :D

so next time before jumping to conclusions, read what somebody writes, then reply.

Grmbl, sorry for the blunt answer, but I don't like to be called a coward, even if it is disguised in the tone of the answer.

cheers

Well, I guess I am guilty of the multiple personality thing. When 3.2.0 was released, it was impossible for Defense Ship 5 to make any money with StarFreeze, Phoenix, Sam II, and Nihm pirating. So I got Defense Ship 4 out and just traded as Itani (and enjoyed the Valk). To this date I haven't transfered any of the wealth I have made as one to the other. Like Renegade said, it's useful to have to characters. I have see an Itani pirate on, I switch to neutral to destroy him. I think everyone knows that I am both Neutral and Itani. However, I play both characters well (imo). I'll cap, defend, etc.

I would love to see a universal police force of some sort implemented by the devs. We've been asking for a completely neutral (grey) race (or non-race) ever since 3.0. Vigilante guys, you know? However, pirating AND policing is quite weird with the mandatory nations. However, once the nations gain more sectors and are moved farther apart, hopefully we'll see both *real* pirate guilds, *real* police/sector patrols, and *really neutral* traders.

Sorry. Some people still do that though. They have the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude. That's sort of related to this topic.

I have always said that you should only get one nation. I don't think that you need only one character, but when you create your account, you should pick a nation (and the devs should cut back on multiple accounts per person imho). That would solve lots of problems. To defect, you'd have to make a whole new account. We wouldn't have spies like furball sitting in blue team chat and relaying everything to non-team-chat. We wouldn't have people doing what SiliconX used to do and guarding all the flags at once by rapidly switching between different colors. And you wouldn't have people changing teams frequently just to exploit their benefits. About the only legit person harmed would be the bank, and the devs would most likely make an exception for him.

Or the bank could just find 'bank officers' to hold funds. Or the bank could just establish himself as nuetral and generally avoid attack. No one wants to offend 'the bank'.

Me gently points SirCamps to this little organisation :D

http://www.evula.org/mordok/unpf/

"grins malisciously"

cheers