This topic arose in-game earlier, and with the faction changes known to be coming down the pipe at a later date, I figured we should bring it up now to head off issues.

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As we are all aware, the national space is defended by turrets of that nation. The idea behind this is extremely simple, "kill invaders".

But with the "Unaligned" faction coming down the pipe, we are faced with a critical new problem.
This faction, if given the standard static defenses would effectively seal off UIT space from both Serco and Itani lines of travel, and considering that UIT is a trade based nation, and Unaligned is composed of pirates and other profiteers, it would seem like the Dev imposed death of UIT.

Several players suggested solutions to this, and I will list them:

1: (peytros I believe), suggested that perhaps instead of the Wormholes in space being defended, the stations themselves should have static defenses around them. High value stations receive a tighter defense grid.
This would allow trade to continue relatively unimpeded from UIT to Itani, and UIT to Serco space.

2: My thought was for roving "raiding parties" to be unleashed in Greyspace. The party would be composed of anything from a few fighters (Greyhounds, CorVults, CorMaraMercs) to a sort of Hive-style patrol group, composed of fighters and centered around a Trident.
These would be NPC controlled, and like all capitals, would rely on your faction standing to be high enough with them to dock. These groups would act as NPC Pirates, targeting those that they do not support, but also allowing holes in which traders can slip though.

And in keeping with the story that Greyspace is basically loose territory owned by corporate entities, it hardly seems to reason that one corporation would finance an entire defensive perimeter, and two, Unaligned faction has no central government and no central military to speak of, so it makes little sense they would have overt, and organized static defenses in their space.

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Another topic that came up is the inception of a "National Ship" for the Unaligned faction when introduced.

Several recommendations were made for existing vessels to be retro-fitted into the role, such as the CorVult, Greyhound and CorMaraMerc.
These were the results of the discussion:

1: CorVult: Extremely capable fighter, but it's status as sitting on par with the Warthog Defender, SVG, and the Cent Border Guardian mean that this craft would be of insufficient caliber to rate the national ship for Unaligned.

2: Greyhound: An extremely capable craft, embodying the idea of corporate racketeering and greed in greyspace. A highly capable fast attack ship and a pirate/privateer's dream, but it's status as a non-dogfight ship lowers it a peg, and raises a question-mark as to it's worthiness of being a national ship.

3: Corvus Marauder Mercenary: Another capable privateering craft that has been used to great functionality by many a pirate and trader alike. The concerns raised and voiced are that the ship is essentially a duplicated variant of the UIT Nation Ship and is thus unworthy of receiving full accreditation as the Unaligned Faction Ship.

The final consensus also raised the fact that as many companies are involved in the greyspace area, it does not make entire sense to make only one corporation responsible for the design of the Nation Ship.

One pilot suggested that the ship be a conglomerate effort, incorporating aspects from Corvus, Axia, Tunguska, Aeolus, Xang Xi and Ineubus. (BioCom and TPG are omitted from this list as they are centrally located in UIT territory).

What thoughts do other people have?

Thoughts? Just one: how fucking blind do you have to be to think the Devs ever intended to "turret whore" it up in Grey just because it would become its own faction?

Seriously? SERIOUSLY!?

Ignore the damned troll who only likes things he thinks of. I like the idea of a signiture grey ship, but the turrets should be specifically owned by a faction, not all of them combined.

I am wondering if the devs are planning on letting you start off unaligned. I am kind of hoping it's not a starting option since it seems that unaligned the unaligned "nation" will have a drasticaly different play style then the rest of the three major nations.

would of the issues that comes up is the all POS players. if unaligned is the greyspace "faction" i think standing loss needs to be turned off at more stations then just corvus. otherwise we will have a repeat of the problem with sercos and itanis killing foreigners in their space thus tanking their standing with their home nation.

and for the unaligned ship there is a tpg station in grey space latos N15

This entire thread seems a little off-topic to me.

First of all: there won't be turrets in grey. Maybe some station defense turrets (probably around TPG, as they are the most active traders)... but I don't see any more turrets in grey than that, if any.

Secondly: as the unaligned "nation" is really no such thing... rather a ragtag group of rebels who do not identify with any major civilization... I'm not sure there should be a unifying "national ship". Corvus, as a corporate entity that seems to live off greed and piracy, seems the home of the unaligned in grey... and they already have corvus-specific ships (the three you already mentioned). Why can those not be a conglomerate "nation-ship" in your mind? Are you suggesting that like the Itani, Serco, and UIT post faction-redux... that the unaligned get a ship that only they can buy? If so, make it the greyhound. The itani like their light crazy-ass ships, so they have their valk, the serco like heavy weapon platforms, so they have their prom, the UIT like to trade, so they have their marauder... and the unaligned like to chase things, so they have their greyhound.

if unaligned is the greyspace "faction" i think standing loss needs to be turned off at more stations then just corvus. otherwise we will have a repeat of the problem with sercos and itanis killing foreigners in their space thus tanking their standing with their home nation.
What? You are talking in grey space right? Why wouldn't it just be easier to have some grey-space factions ignore Itani killing Sercos, and Sercos killing Itani? That would make more RP sense than what you are talking about. Even so, though, I disagree with the premise: Corvus does not hate you if you kill ships in their territory because they don't give a damn, not because they respect the Itani/Serco war.

I just don't like brutal stupidity, which is exactly what the idea of putting turrets in Grey is.

I have zero comment on the whole "unaligned needs a special ship" thing. More ships are great, but we have three Corvus ships already -- maud could use a buff, maybe.

Atice I was trying to say that corporations like ineubus XX Tunguska and the like should not give out faction losses for killings in their grey space stations. Otherwise unaligned doesn't really serve any more of a point then being native kos did.

also corvus greyhound as a nation ship? you have to be fucking kidding me.

It could be a pirate nation ship if the repair costs at Corvus stations were a tenth of what they are now for those of the "Unaligned" nation.

It's an uber pirate ship, like the UIT Maud is (supposed to be -- moth really screwed that one up) an uber trade ship. Uber combat ships are supposed to be the Serco's and Itani's domain.

I was trying to say that corporations like ineubus XX Tunguska and the like should not give out faction losses for killings in their grey space stations. Otherwise unaligned doesn't really serve any more of a point then being native kos did.

I don't know if it should work that way (well, it should, but they won't make it that way), but at least they should be like UIT sub-factions are now (as I discovered to my annoyance the other night):

If you have high standing with, say, Orion, and you boom a pirate with Corvus POS at Sedina D14, your standing with Corvus automatically drops to [something very low] AND you can't dock with Grey space located Orion stations. Your Orion standing hasn't changed, some idiot just decided to refuse you entry.

This is, of course, about the dumbest idea ever. But if that's how the Devs want to protect UIT from people hiding at their in-space subfactions, they can at least extend Grey space residents the same courtesy. If I can't raid UIT space from their Axia stations, I shouldn't have to deal with VPR resupplying at the Sedina Xang Xi stations if I'm Pillar of Society with Corvus.

It could be a pirate nation ship if the repair costs at Corvus stations were a tenth of what they are now for those of the "Unaligned" nation.
No reason not to do that at corvus stations. Sounds like a plan.

If you have high standing with, say, Orion, and you boom a pirate with Corvus POS at Sedina D14, your standing with Corvus automatically drops to [something very low] AND you can't dock with Grey space located Orion stations. Your Orion standing hasn't changed, some idiot just decided to refuse you entry.
Something is wrong with this statement. I have NEVER had my corvus standing drop for more than 5 minutes after killing someone... the standing goes right back up as soon as you leave the sector. As for not being able to dock at other stations, Inc mentioned something about that awhile ago, though I had not seen it in practice. In the end this means that killing someone with POS with all the sub-factions would make it near-impossible to dock anywhere in grey. I assume this only holds true in Station sectors... but that is annoying.

This is, of course, about the dumbest idea ever.

It is. There is a reason that the corporations are considered factions, instead of all being lumped beneath the UIT umbrella. As they (devs) have said in the past, mutual exclusivity will ideally extend not only to Itani and Serco, but within the the UIT itself (Axia vs Valent for example). I don't see them making it impossible to hide out at an Axia station and launch raids in UIT space. I see them making it extremely f**king difficult (at least to initiate, turrets and whatnot), but then that's sort of the idea.

Likewise there needs to be some other benefit to having unaligned status. To backtrack a little, perhaps your idea isn't completely idiotic, but just a bit off course. It would make sense that if you were killed in Corvus space, then perhaps XX and Ineubis would take issue, and not allow your assailant docking/repair/re-arm privelages. Orion on the other hand, having a firm foundation in the core UIT systems, probably wouldn't be able to extend such repercussions.

no to slight the greyhound in any way ( i have had much fun booming voys with a sunny mega posi set up) but the greyhound is limited in its play style, mostly dog fighting which it should be rightfully as it is meant to boom voys. But not everyone wants to turn tail and run when a vpr shows up to escort someone through, eventually you want to turn around to fight and in general not everyone is good at dog fighting in a hog much less one that already has nerfed combat abilities.

Unaligned. Precisely that!

No grey faction please. No grey special stuff. Just UN!!!- aligned

"no to slight the greyhound in any way ( i have had much fun booming voys with a sunny mega posi set up) but the greyhound is limited in its play style, mostly dog fighting which it should be rightfully as it is meant to boom voys. But not everyone wants to turn tail and run when a vpr shows up to escort someone through, eventually you want to turn around to fight and in general not everyone is good at dog fighting in a hog much less one that already has nerfed combat abilities."

That's when you use the hog mk2

"But with the "Unaligned" faction coming down the pipe, we are faced with a critical new problem.
This faction, if given the standard static defenses would effectively seal off UIT space from both Serco and Itani lines of travel, and considering that UIT is a trade based nation, and Unaligned is composed of pirates and other profiteers, it would seem like the Dev imposed death of UIT."

Unaligned is just unaligned. And what trader UIT is kos to any of the grey stations anyway?

"...who only likes things he thinks of."

Thats not actually true, I have seen him like other peoples ideas in the past. He even liked two of mine...(I mention this because he usually hates them).

Anyways, to the topic at hand...sort of. The whole UIT faction makes me wonder, there are UIT corps that hate each other. Is the faction standing between them going to be similar to the situation with Serco and Itani standing?

I'd just like to say that the major factions also employ ships that are not the be-all and end-all of any combat/trade/mining niche there is.

I probably should've prefaced this by saying that I don't support the turret-ing of greyspace anymore than the next pilot, it's just putting it out there for discussion since it came up and several pilots commented.

Unaligned. Precisely that!

No grey faction please. No grey special stuff. Just UN!!!- aligned

Yeah, we'll give two shits about that concept when the sub-factions are't barring people they've given POS to from their UIT space located stations, just because UIT hates those same pilots.

If that's the way things are going to be, there needs to be a way of excluding the anti-pirates from Grey space located subfaction stations.

Why should anti-pirates be excluded from the subfaction stations in grey Lecter? Two wrongs does not a right make...

It should be possible for un-aligned pilots to have good relations with UIT, Serco and Itan. Not great, but tolerable. And it should be perfectly possible for subfaction stations to bar you from entering in UIT space while loving you in grey space.

If grey space is supposedly the free for all that people (and I) seems to want, then it should be precisely that. Un-aligned.

Think of Jamaica during the reign of pirates, Tunis when the pirates had high times there, Congo of today, Sudan of today or if you have read the "The Gap" series by Stephen Donaldson, something like that. You have anarchy, you have chaos but you also have thriving businessmen, explorers and sometimes even soldiers/police.

Screw the factions when it comes to grey stations and grey space. Let the anti-pirates fly in grey space freely as everyone else.

Meh, it is merely my vision, I am not sure if the devs are willing to, able to or even interested in changing grey to something really interesting and not just a free-fire area with the odd station tossed in.

And it should be perfectly possible for subfaction stations to bar you from entering in UIT space while loving you in grey space.

No, it shouldn't. Subfactions are either soverigen or they aren't. Axia either likes me enough to let me dock with their stations, or they don't.

But if the Devs think that the way to go is to deny docking subfaction privileges because of the KOS faction standing of a pilot with the dominant faction where a subfaction station is located, then clearly there should be some sort of exclusion of do-gooders at subfaction stations in certain parts of Grey.

Sedina, Odia, and Bractus have Corvus stations--does anyone really want to make the argument that, while the UIT is strong enough to force its subfactions to exclude KOS UIT pilots from their stations in UIT space, Corvus just isn't scary enough to do the same to those who should be hated by the pirate organization?

There's the problem of CTC in Bractus/Sedina, of course, but that's hardly a major problem. Pelatus and Latos would work fine as starting points.

In essence, and I may develop this in a separate thread when I find some time, Grey should have two tiers: purely "Unaligned" systems, where almost only subfactions exist (Ukari, Latos, Helios, Pelatus, Edras), and Corvus space, the three core systems of Sedina, Bractus, and Odia -- where anyone not Corvus beloved and tri-nation KOS should fear to tread. The most lucrative trade goods would be sold or bought there, especially Odia.

I really don't think there should be any PVE elements added to make it more dangerous for traders to go in to any part of grey space until there's a lot more incentive for them to go there in the first place. I think when there are such incentives, player pirates will make it plenty dangerous.

It may be that there should be certain stations that are essentially pirate bases, and hostile to non-pirates. That could provide pirates with an operational advantage in the heart of grey, while still encouraging traders to pass though and risk encounters with human pirates.