Although a new guild has been created, I do not feel that it adequately represents the Order of Akan, its mission, its motives, its methods, or its technology. I feel the Order should be a nation unto itself and that members who join under this nation should have access to a new array of ships and technology. It was stated in the backstory that the Order were the first of the Itani to use weaponry, thus their expertise and weapons tech should far exceed the other three nations. Remember, encounters with the Order of Akan always meant defeat for the Serco unless sheer force of numbers said otherwise.

A number of my other concerns are typical, but not their reasoning. In trying to keep canon with the backstory, I feel that Itani ships should have shields, and that shield strength should be determined by combat experience. Additionally, the backstory speaks of massive fleets of ships on all sides of this conflict, yet at present, each government only has one vessel specialized to that particular government. Indeed, the Serco have considerably more impressive arsenals available to them than the Promethius . . . what about the Nighthawk we heard so much about during the backstory? The Itani, too, must have some degree of weaponry capable of standing up to the mighty Serco armadas . . . where are their medium and heavy-class ships? I am aware that an NPC capital ship is on its way and that a playable cap ship is scheduled for the future.

Finally, I feel that the lack of ability to modify one's ship independently of purchasing a different variant of that ship is a hinderance. While the outfits and upgrades for each ship should certainly not be made any more easily available than the ship variants themselves, I feel the players should decide what advantages and disadvantages to give their vessels. Perhaps the pilot of a Centaur would prefer to nix most of his cargo space in favor of increased weapon ports, engine upgrades and armor increases?

Just my thoughts.

I believe that the vulture, is a modified nighthawk as the nighthawk was an atmospheric plane, the vult was modified for space. Correct me if I'm wrong on that one guys.

Caps ships and medium sized ships are on the list of things under construction, and hopefully soon they will be in game.

There are tons of posts about customization of ships, and the arguments for and against it. check some of those out if your interested.

Yeah, I checked the more recent entries in the progress log. But any info on potentially creating the Order of Akan?

The devs said in there most recent update info that:

"Mostly I'm focusing on story-driven gameplay additions, some signs of which should be appearing in the short term (next week). Named NPCs, backgrounds, behaviours, histories (including the UIT sub-factions and corporations), and other work. All towards making the universe a more vibrant, organic place."

I can only hope that in there might be something involving the Order of Akan. If not soon, they did say they planned something for it.

"The order of Akan will make apperances in due course."-Incarnate

>"I feel that Itani ships should have shields, and that shield strength should be determined by combat experience."

That clearly goes against the back story which outlines that only the Priests/Monks/Whatever of the Order of Eo are able to put up shields and the strength of their shields are based on their pacifistic monastic studies, not their combat XP.

Fair enough, but there should be shielding. The lack of shielding on ANY Itani ships also clearly goes against the backstory. Perhaps the Developers will create a new Itani-specific skill which allows for shield development?

Or the devs could add in fighters that are npc's that fly around itani space protecting there territory, like strike forces, that have a twin cockpits one for the pilot and one for the monk for the shields. Could be a special think you only see in itani space and could have a mission based around it.

That could work. Or, perhaps, regular Itani pilots aren't capable of generating shields, but can "hire" monks of varying strength levels (maybe only for certain missions) to create shields for them.

hehe, I've met with some of the members of the new order... they're not lightweights. They actually seem to be rather elite, members of my guild attempted a run in against one, and had a very hard time of it.

Yes, I've had mighty fun battling some of them.

There are few pilots in the game that make me fear for my life, no matter what ship I'm in. At least one of them wears an [Akan] label.

The Order of Akan as it exists in game should be renamed. The Devs should then reform the Order with membership by Dev (and perhaps Guide) invitation only. The members of this officially sanctioned guild (or faction) would be taken from the ranks of the most skilled pilots from all nations who would then be sworn to the utmost secrecy. This secret persona would only be used for story related events as sanctioned by the Devs or Guides. At no time should the Order of Akan persona be used for frivolous pursuits like CtC or the attempted pirating of traders. The Order of Akan is too integral to the back-story (as xenophobically Itani-centric as it is) to be allowed to exist as a standard player driven guild.

Now that doesn't seem fun for the rest of us.

The Order of Akan is directly related to the back-story and therefore should not be a player run guild IMHO . It should be monitored and directed by either the Devs or Guides and be strictly controlled as to who may be a member and what actions they may take while using their Order of Akan persona.

well, considering that the current order is running about, chatting in public, fleeing from combat, playing in Orion Cents and Wraiths(!)

I agree with paedric. it would definitely add some to the game.

Yeah I tend to agree with paedric on this one... I think it would keep The Order sacred.

I don't get it. Itani Defense Force and Itani Secret Police are mentioned in the backtory as well. Nobody seemed to complain about that. Why do it with the Order of Akan? As long as there is no incompatible game development, they are an interesting RP add to this universe. And talking about RP, sorry Borb, there is nothing sacred about them, except the duty to prevent them from committing their evil deeds again :)

Except I asked a1k0n when I started IDF guild if it was okay, and he said yes. But incarnate's already said that there will be an ingame Order of Akan (as in not a guild). So that means that we're guaranteed to have incompatible game developments.

Aye Sun Tzu, but the difference is that while the IDF and ISP are mentioned in the backstory, the Order of Akan are the central theme that much of the backstory revolves around.

"Them"? If by "Them" you mean the Serco Dominion, atrocities were commited on BOTH sides. Even the Itani-centric backstory seems to ponder the wisdom and justification of the ITANI attempting to commit genicide with their first strike attack against the Serco. It can be implyed (from the backstory) that the Itani brought much of this war upon themselves and that Akan actually masterminded many (if not all) of the so called attacks upon Itani strongholds to garner support for his xenophopic Itani first views of the cosmos, but this is not the place for this discussion. This is the Suggestions forum and mine was a bonifide suggestion.

Despite not being Itani, I think that the Order of Akan should be something left to the devs, and not to the players. I think the Order of Akan are enough of a mysterious element that only the people who actually write the storyline will know what the Order's true goals are.

As for the IDF, I'd say they are fairly central in Itani society. Yes, they're only named in the beginning of the backstory when they're formed by Akan, but don't you think that the defensive force would stick around until war started to brew with the Serco? Or maybe they'd reform the IDF to fight the Serco? The ISP is really only a one-liner that never shows up again. Maybe something'll happen with them, maybe not. We'll see, I guess.

Yes, the Itani brought a lot of the Serco hostility down upon them. It appears as if Akan provoked the Serco several times, and did order a first strike against the Serco, as well as committed genocide with the destruction of New Pacifica and New Shanghai (the backstory contradicts itself with this one. First New Pacifica isn't destroyed, and then it suddenly is destroyed).