I was just wondering if there had been any thought given to the fact that there are so few Serco, and what kinds of incentives (e.g. new ship/map-reorganization/cool add-ons, abilities etc.) might be developed to encourage people to join my shrinking little nation. I feel awfully alone out there most nights....

Yeah, like buffing my SCP Prommie

What a stupid thread.
I hope you feel ashamed of yourself.

dear santa,
i nkow in my other letter i ask for you to buff the scp and make agt's lighter but after seeing genka's post i realized that was very selfish of me with it being christmas and everthing if maybe you would please leave the scp alone and give genka a super-duper ec-88 with a gazillion armor so he doesn't get wtfpwn'd by noobs in b8 and maybe heel be happy and post happy things in the forums.

I loled XD

... and genka's heart grew Three Sizes that day...

He might have problems with space allocation in his chest cavity, then. His lungs might be compressed by the volume taken up by the heart. No pleasant thought, actually...

but we all know genka has fine lungs!

Hm. You could give them a nigh unstoppable ship with high armour, and powerful thrusters. Make it really big and scary looking, so that a significant number of players feel it needs nerfing. (Wait...)

Well, I certainly didn't expect the insults, nor, come to think of it, am I ashamed of myself. Should I understand, then, that the respondents above think that the current balance of players in the game is a good thing? Without a serco presence, it leaves an already sparsely populated map with 1/3 barely populated at all.

For example, right now, as of this writing there are 23 Itani, 17 UIT, and ONLY 4 SERCO playing, and none of the Serco are in Serco space: all in Sedina, etc.

Why, if the current balance is good, have the Serco at all?

Ignore the trolls....find your happy place...happy place...happy place...
------
Btw, thats why serco need the scp mynt, to balance things out.

Except that with only a few hours work, maybe less, anyone can get a SCP. But that's a whole different issue.

Have you ever heard of idealism?
Same concept here, except that instead of there not being anyone around the forest to hear the tree fall, there's no-one around to knock down the tree you put a big (and redundant) X on.

Yes, we all know that the populations in the game fluctuate, with the general consensus being that the trend is towards the yellow dudes primarily, blue in close second and the red bastards usually last. Something that not everyone has realized, apparently, is that there is nothing you or I or the developers can do about this without kicking "fairness" in the face after treading through a scat porn set.

PS:
The fact that these threads are usually made by itanis that got confused at character creation doesn't help.

Tosh, you meant to say " No, pleasant thought, actually..."

Oh, what a difference a comma can make.

all they need to do is make the serco seem less like the bad guy of vo. red is the usual color for the baddies, and the little paragraph in the character selection makes them seem like the evil war mongering nazis.
I dont know if this could be done easily, but I would like to see what happens to the serco and itani populations if the colors for itani in the menus, chat, and website were traded with the serco colors. nothing else

hmmmm, war mongering yes...
But nazis, that would be the itanis, with ITAN being its ``SS´´.
:-P

Now, switching colors....wouldnt work too well, would be kinda weird. ``Serco´´ sounds more aggressive, more hostile, more stronger, more...more ``Red´´ so to speak. On the other hand ``Itani´´ sounds peaceful, blue fits it perfectly.

Remove the Serconians...

Must...not...KOS...Stupid...People

I agree that perhaps there should be more incentives to join each faction. Perhaps some increased license level at the start of your career.
Serco: +1 Combat
Itani: +1 Light Weapons
UIT: +1 Trade
Or something similar. This way the factions would be more aligned with their original ideals. The Serconians would attract more militant groups, Itanis would have a technology headstart, and UIT would have a Trade headstart.

Also, perhaps make changing factions possible with expense to ships, and credits. Leaving licenses intact or very close to intact. That way some players that are new can explore the factions, find the one they like most, and then establish themselves.

I think perhaps the Itani should come off a little more evil. They're practically saints back to back with the Order of Akan, but surely their government's susceptible to some kind of corruption.

The over-powered SCP isn't incentive enough?

Every other frickin ship that was half decent got nerfed down to amoebic abilities while this one maintained most of it's might.

The Serco problem (battered over and over again for eons) is not one of incentive. It's marketing--a matter of image. Every plight to have the Serco definition uplifted, and ordering in alt creation page, went ignored.

Just accept the fact that Serco are few and move on. This thread will be superseded by another one in 3 months. The results will be the same. Nothing will have changed.

I think the national images might need to be re-worked as well.

-Serconians are built up as warriors without equal, militant and dangerous. We're made out to be the bullies of the space lanes.
-Itanis are credited as an advanced, somewhat peaceful people who work well with almost everyone.
-UIT is made to be the universal go between for all the universe, but torn by internal strife.

I think the image of militant Serco's needs to be diminished, and the Itani's perhaps to appear more hard-edged to compensate. (After all, the Itani's were responsible for the initial splintering of Terra II.)

I agree though that the posting of a thread about few Serco's probably wont fix the problem, not even make a dent in the problem, but perhaps we can open a forum for discussion about corrections.