I won't pretend this is the first time anyone has thought of this, but I'm going to see if I can't make a more convincing argument.

I had drill this past weekend. Marines everywhere, doing what they do best. Yelling at each other for fun, looking the same, acting the same. The greatest visual aspect of being in the military, though, is the color.

Everything is green. Vehicles, clothing, sleeping systems, cots, packs, rain gear.. you get the idea. I've seen more olive green than most people see in their lives in my three years as a Marine.

Then it hit me. The Serco are military. They grew out of a ground war for Sol II with the Itani. All of their stuff, from clothing to Nighthawk fighters, would be a default color that is somewhat low visibility with the terrain of Sol II. Grey if Sol is rocky, tan if Sol is sandy, green if Sol is forested, etc. Something like my olive green gear. The military doesn't encourage free thinking, and unless the Serco are descended from the British palace guard, they would not choose red.

"Everything we do, we do for a reason."
That is the favorite quote of Marine drill instructors. The Serco wouldn't choose red; there is no reason to fly a giant "shoot me, I'm over here" sign. Let's change their color.

This will do two things. First, they will look more believable. Second, and more importantly, people always think of red as the bad guys. It is part of our consciousness almost. Changing the Serco to a low visibility, drab, boring shade of green removes the 'default bad guys' stigma. I have an entire closet full of this color, if you need some examples.

Alternatively, the Navy and Air Force both paint all of their equipment grey. It is about as close to "horizon camouflage" as you can get. Grey would work as well as green.

Steelish looking panel speckled with xtih

but red is hawt!

Hahahaha, marines sound even stupider than before.

in reality, all should paint their ships black. Remember that green and grey were for visual camouflage only and in space it would be black speckled with small white dots for effect:)

Red can and should undoubtedly be the colour of the Serco DRESS uniform... Even if we then have to assume that they hail from the UK. Remember, it is the UIT that are the bad guys;)

Counterpoint, Whytee. The Serco fought their first war on a planet surface. Unless someone with enough creativity made a high enough rank to approve a change to black, they would still use planet-bound color schemes. It has a certain air of bureaucracy that I like.

I think a color change to green just might be helpful. I mean, why not?

I'm going to again suggest that Aramarth only be allowed to type 'yut yut yut yut.'

Dark red would make perfect sense were Sol II anything like Mars, for example. Red goes nowhere.

VO needs more Serco players so Aramarth has a point there but so does Lecter too.

Make Serco color DARK RED or, even better, CRIMSON.

Trouble is, the Serco are not exactly known for their stealth when they get going. "It is said that as the massive armies roared towards the first of the Itani border domes, a great dust cloud rose from their passage to obscure the setting sun."

Even when acting stealthy, the Serco don't really have proper uniforms. How exactly would you clothe a six-story high warbeast? (However he wants to be, yuk yuk yuk!) The Guises run around in the buff. Their infiltration units are very much not camouflaged, seeing as they're made to exactly look like the enemy. Traditional Serco military wear is thus one of these: Nothing, Itani Blue, or the smiling face of your best friend.

I kind of see why they went with red.

How exactly would you clothe a six-story high warbeast?

As with the guises, I'd genetically engineer it to have camo colored skin. Duh.

"...a great dust cloud rose from their passage to obscure the setting sun."

See black would obviously work as we must be night fighters!

It is a little known fact that black is terrible night camouflage. Black cloth is actually too dark when compared to the terrain at night. Covering black clothing with a sort of green mesh works just about perfect, however.

Earth tones, gentlemen. Look as naturally occurring as possible. Black doesn't do that.

Actually, I'd come at it from an evolutionary perspective.

Just as male birds with the brightest and largest plumage get the most mates, the Serco go for the brightest red ships they can get.

Any male bird who can afford to spend the energy in growing a bigger, more colorful set of plumage and yet still be able to court females is, inherently, superior genetically than other birds who do not grow the gaudy plumage.

So, if a Serco can fly bright red ships in space and yet still survive against other sneaky opponents who may be flying a black starship, then their genetic makeup is superior, and in the long run, they demonstrate their superior warfighting capability by donning a bright color that says "Here I am. Come get some."

I am inclined to agree with LeberMac. Any creature, or person, that has an easily identifiable characteristic and manages to survive, not just to adulthood but well beyond, clearly has what it takes to get the job done. And such deserves the respect and and distance due it.

I still agree with Amarath on the point that red is almost a default link to "evil" and blue just screams "hero"

thus, as in WoW, you get a bunch of people wanting to be the good guys, usually resulting in a higher noob count for the blues, but hey if serco want to up thier numbers, give em a more neutral color

i agree with green or grey, makes sense

Changing the color for the sake of camouflage will only be relevant if it prevents (or makes it harder) for the craft to show up on the radar and removes the targetting box. Otherwise it makes no difference in the scheme of things - other than doing a lot of work for no benefit.

My head is starting to hurt from all this military camouflage nonsense.
Now let's try to put things in proper perspective for simpletons.

RED vs BLUE

RED=evil and bad, BLUE=noble and good

The idea behind this post, as I understand it, is to make a new character choice for newbies not so obvious. Do not give them to choose between EVIL and GOOD. We all know what happens then.
Changing Serco faction color to CRIMSON would help.
It is not about color of ships or uniforms but about general faction color.

Edit:
Going back thru VO history... a few years ago I even made one red char. Got sick of it very soon for a few reasons.
1. Lot of red players, with a few exceptions, were just not the kind of ppl I would choose for friends (mentally unstable, dishonest and lame gankers and backstabbers)
2. Flying SCP did not make me feel good. I just felt lame and dirty because I could kill anyone in that tank without real skill involved.

There will always be mentally unstable lunatics running around VO universe trying to grief, gank and back-stab, why give them a color they can instantly identify themselves with? Every VO nation deserves its lamers. Disperse them a bit. :)

Absolutely. I'm speaking less to the ship and uniform color than the color on the character selection screen, in the sector list, and in chat. These are the three areas we need made to look more neutral.

I personally like the fact that idiot fuckwads with a god complex and an altogether too high an opinion of themselves and their righteousness are pretty much contained in the blue side of things. With a small colony in ONE, I guess, but what nation doesn't have a bad apple or two?