It's hard to see how someone can form such strong opinions before reaching Combat license 3. I suggest holding off on opinions and conjectures before having at least a little time spent in the game world under one's belt. I prefer the CorVult to the Valkyrie X-1 or the SkyCommand Prometheus due to availability, profile, and the edge gained by the extra maneuvering speed.

It does not presently follow that having access to either an Itani or Serco special ship means one is Kill On Sight with the other side, and even if this were the case it is possible to evade national defenses with moderately low-end equipment. Many players look on this as a challenge rather than a hindrance. The following video is of a player who is Kill On Sight penetrating several layers of national defenses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2Q5V1PGo8U

edit: Bungarus, why not sign up for a month and then revisit your old opinions? It might be a good idea given the volume of posts you have up here.

I am going to assume you read my post before I edited it to add the following:

Keep in mind, I am typically Tri-KOS, meaning I normally don't have access to any of the ships from the Serco, Itani, or UIT (other than TPG and Orion, who have stations in greyspace). So if I say lack of Valks and Proms isn't the end of the world, it isn't the end of the world.

Phaserlight, thanks for the interesting video, but he seems to fly straight through at max speed without trying to fight someone and still lost more than half of his armor. I wrote before:

"I don't know yet about the efficiency of the national defenses but I guess they are obstructive enough to hamper the ability to accomplish other goals than fighting the defenses [added: or fleeing them] for one's own survival. (Should the defenses be weak enough to fail as a considerable obstruction I guess this would be another problem worth discussing.)"

Of course I see the point of discussing impending changes without much experience in the game, as I said before, but as pointed out I also see the danger of investing time in a game that might be changed against my core preferences as a sandbox-type of player before long.

Pizzasgood, after your edit I added the last sentence in my answer: "Imagine a war between two guilds where one has Valks or Proms as many as they like and the other has neither one Valk nor one Prom." I think the disadvantage would add up. Your situation seems quite untypical, at least nothing that I would favor I think.

If they were neutral... they wouldn't be in a war.

Neutral in the faction war. That's all neutrality I am speaking of since my post No. 1.

"I have not the slightest interest to be neutral with everyone, I want (...) interesting conflicts to evolve between naturally antagonizing guilds (...) a predefined conflict between red and blue has no meaning to me"

Now posted for the third time.

"Imagine a war between two guilds where one has Valks or Proms as many as they like and the other has neither one Valk nor one Prom."

You don't quite seem to get it - that is my situation. Yes, it can be a little annoying sometimes if I'm fighting in a border system, where the enemy can have easy access to their national barracks on the opposite side of the wormhole, but it doesn't ruin the game for me. And when I'm not right on the border, it isn't even an issue because then they either have a finite supply stockpiled, or they are homed far away and must fly for five minutes or more to return to the fight. Nor do I mind being denied access to both Serco and Itani space.

Oh, also, with all this talk about multinational guilds using elite military equipment everywhere in space, I think you might be missing an important consideration: If you kill anybody within nation space who is ranked "Admired" with that nation, you will take a penalty, whether you are in a guild war or not. Unlike EVE, we don't have a silly system where you can officially declare a war and all the "police" are like, "Okay, lol, go shoot eachother in the streets and we'll just grab some donuts and watch!"

So even if you had access to all the gear and used it in all the places, you'd still have to be careful not to shoot just anyone.

Most guild-warfare happens in Greyspace, where it doesn't matter if you can't enter one of the major nations. So you could still be Itani admired and fly valks for me to kill, or go Serco and fly Proms.

Really, you aren't missing much by ignoring one of the nation's territories. It might be worth getting a fast ship and going on a tour first, so you can see all the backgrounds and some of the stations. Some of them are pretty cool. But there isn't really much to do out there. Greyspace is where the fun happens.

As for your loathing of the red vs. blue because it has no meaning: so what? The conflict between [ITAN] and [PA] a couple years ago had no meaning to me. The conflict between [VPR] and [FR] had no meaning to me. The conflict between [TGFT] and [CBSM] had no meaning to me.

Seriously, you're overreacting. Just play the game, and if you find it unfun, go play a different game. Don't give me any bull about "investing". This is a game, not the stock market. It's not like EVE where you have to spend months subbed to get enough skills trained to do anything. Get in a ship, fly it around, shoot stuff. Take an hour or so to get your combat level all the way up to '3', at which point a wide selection of missions becomes available.

It's hard to see how someone can form such strong opinions before reaching Combat license 3.

Being the hybrid of a blustering ignorance and a raging douchebag seems to allow it.

"You don't quite seem to get it - that is my situation."

Are you a member of a guild where no one has access to Valks or Proms in a war with another guild that has access to Valks or Proms? If so you (your guild) was not forced to be in this situation with the current faction system.

"If you kill anybody within nation space who is ranked "Admired" with that nation, you will take a penalty, whether you are in a guild war or not."

I was thinking about that. Bad thing. There are no workarounds? - Is there also a penalty if the "Admired"-guy attacked me first? Can faction standing penalty be avoided by not destroying an enemy but letting him live with 5 % armor? (Should have worked well in a non station sector in Jumpgate with the Conflux being quite likely to finish him off on his way to the repair station, but it is easier to avoid the Hive in VO). What about ramming someone who is down to 5 % armor, does that count as a kill or is it the same as a collision with an asteroid? Are repair costs more of a pain with advanced ships?

'Unlike EVE, we don't have a silly system where you can officially declare a war and all the "police" are like, "Okay, lol, go shoot eachother in the streets and we'll just grab some donuts and watch!"'

I think I like the EVE solution.

In the older thread Alloh wrote:

'About player-driven conflict, I partially agree. While many such conflicts exist, there should be more support to "Guild standing" and making game engine aware of inter-guild relations (Allies, neutral, enemies). So far the IFF system knows nothing about Guilds.'

This I also support of course.

"Really, you aren't missing much by ignoring one of the nation's territories. It might be worth getting a fast ship and going on a tour first, so you can see all the backgrounds and some of the stations. Some of them are pretty cool. But there isn't really much to do out there."

Um. Really? What about specific missions, profitable trade routes, racing?

Also I think it would be annoying in a war if one of the opposing guilds may have a big safe territory where the other opposing guild gets auto attacked.

"As for your loathing of the red vs. blue because it has no meaning: so what? The conflict between [ITAN] and [PA] a couple years ago had no meaning to me. The conflict between [VPR] and [FR] had no meaning to me. The conflict between [TGFT] and [CBSM] had no meaning to me"

Have you been member of any of these guilds because you (your character) identified with it's goals or liked it's RP? Which of course is the premise for feeling involved. Other factors that boosts the "meaning" of a conflict: You joined that guild because you got to know it's members and enjoy the company; you got to know enemies of that guild and think they deserve a new opponent; the conflict having evolved naturally because the opposing guild has an opposing roleplay; the conflict having evolved naturally because the opposing guild claims the same of any limited / important / valuable ressources in the game as your guild. The "maximum meaning" happens with a guild you helped conceiving / creating.

"you're overreacting"

I thought reacting is better than underreacting or not reacting when Incarnate asked for a new discussion on this. You see, first the disadvantages of too drastic changes for multifactional and UIT guilds were completely denied PLUS there was a HUGE amount of EXCESSIVE trolling against me. I kept "reacting "and now no one seems to deny the disadvantages anymore but one tries to convince me they would be negligible, so I can't have been completely wrong in the first place.

Why not simply avoid these problems and still get increased mutual faction exclusivity done? The possibilities were:

1) It is only done to Itani and Serco players but not to UIT players who stay out of faction battles.

2) It is also done to UIT but UIT gets a new fighter that is undoubtedly on a par with the Valk and the Prom.

3) Seperation of political entities and manufacturing companies which would also solve other balancing issues in the game.

4) Having good enough standing with one of the opposing factions to obtain high end eqipment lowers the standing with the other opposing faction but not below "Disliked".

Remember with 1) or 4), which should be the easiest to implement, ultranationalists can always fight themselves instead of grabbing some donuts and watching the auto defense.

"Really, you aren't missing much by ignoring one of the nation's territories. It might be worth getting a fast ship and going on a tour first, so you can see all the backgrounds and some of the stations. Some of them are pretty cool. But there isn't really much to do out there."

Um. Really? What about specific missions, profitable trade routes, racing?

Yes, really.

There's no racing in nation space. And trade in Serco/Itani space is more or less interchangeable (Unless you mean the Deneb run, which hasn't been held for ages, and even then, players with Tri-KOS could race).

The only thing you miss out on is the Deneb War. And you can even still go to that as long as you have ONE of the two factions.

But he doesn't want to take part in any way, so he shouldn't be going anywhere near Deneb.

And the bit about wars having no meaning, Bung? You completely missed the point. The point is that some wars will have meaning to you, and some will not, regardless of whether they're player instigated. None of those wars had meaning to me, but they had meaning to the people involved. The Serco-Itani war might not have meaning to you, but it obviously has some meaning to the people who have played as nationalists for years, even during times when there was absolutely no benefit in doing so.

As for whether I'm forced into my situation: no, but the point is that I know exactly what it is like to be in the situation you keep whining about, and I am telling you that it isn't really a big deal.

You, on the other hand, do not know what it is like. You only imagine that you do, and your imaginings paint a worse picture than reality.

Play the game, or shut up about it.

Bung... it seems the general consensus is against you. Here are some basics for you to consider.

1. No one seems to agree with you.

2. The long planned and long awaited faction fix will absolutely not nerf or hamper any guilds.

3. At most it may inconvenience individual players.

4. If you are truly neutral, than you have done nothing for either side in the Serco v Itani war. I fail to see why you would expect to have access to top end military ships of both sides when you have not done anything to earn them and further have done absolutely nothing to prove loyalty to either side.

5. You have not played long enough to have an understanding of the game.

6. The faction fix will not close off "half the game universe", in fact it will not close off any of it to people who are truly neutral, as you claim to be.

7. Neutral parties will simply not have access to a few ships.

8. Your whole argument is so blatantly self serving that its laughable.

It's amazing how one individual can derail and ruin an entire well meaning thread.

Mecha... stay on topic and stop inserting your ill informed opinion anytime you don't agree with some one who is clearly right! Bungarus is clearly right about everything, he wouldn't have posted the same crap every time he vomited all over what ever thread he was re-educating us in if he was wrong. I mean that would just be pants on head retarded.

Pey? ye there?

I think Bung**** will soon be revealed as Pey's greatest trolling ever.

I don't know... "Space Mom" was pretty great.

pey made an alt called space mom?!??! omg I WANT LOGS...

It's coming back to me... that was pretty great, too.

Is it too much to ask that we just send these crazy people to the moon.

Yeah that's what the english thought they'd do with all the criminals, send em to New South Wales.. look at us now..