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Mamaleek
Black Inquisition
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Posted - 2010.11.10 15:47:00 -
[1]
People operate NBSI or NRDS because it is in their self-interest
CVA operate it because it gives them integrity and legitimacy and aids recruitment to their cause. SF do so because it gives them legitimacy and avoids making too many enemies. Many small 'empire' corporations run NRDS or something implicitly NRDS (CEO says 'Don't go smacking in local and picking random fights') simply so they don't get war-dec'ed and stomped on.
Ultimately though, it isn't an either/or thing, it is a guide for pilots to use along side their own discression. NRDS only works when reds are set very fast. If someone is stupid enough to just sit there like a lemon when attacked by a neutral 'because the alliance executor hasn't set them red' then they deserve to lose their ship
Equally, an NBSI organisation that shoots everything not blue is going to waste a lot of time shooting stuff of no practical or military value, and the reality is that they don't
0.0 alliances with enough space that they can't make good use of all of it will want to make money off it through neutrals using it and paying. Since this space is usually a long way from empire, few neutrals will get there on their own accord. NBSI with a blue renter alliance is easier to administer than NRDS as it allows exact record keeping (and tax collection) of renters, acts as a recruitment tool and makes providing the security that the renters are really paying for, easier to maintain. There are no issues with legitimacy, and it does all the other stuff NRDS does. In essence you make life difficult for non-blues but make it very easy to become blue
For other large entities, less time spent doing the extra diplomacy that NRDS creates, means more time doing other important things for the individual or alliance. When I was in CVA, Goonswarm and TCF were both set red, not because they were hostile, but simply because it was too much work for them to stop their pilots shooting neutrals in Providence, vs the minimal gain of being able to base out of Providence stations. Equally, Providence forces did not go marching off into TCF or Goon space simply because a few of their pilots had followed a different RoE than us.
I've seen a number of MM pilots in the past say they would not be overtly opposed to NRDS in their space, but when you look at the benefits to them, they are negligable, especially considering they already have an efficient system for recruiting new allies and coalition partners
The real problem is that the tools available for managing relationships with other entities is poor. You cannot mark people by intent. A much better system than the current one would allow alliances to have their own custom flags. For example 'unknown', 'neutral', 'to be avoided' (like the goons/tcf, where they operate a different RoE), 'pirate', 'hostile' (like someone actively attacking your space). Having a finer grainularity for 'reds' would aid pilots in space to make better decisions. 'I won't chase that guy because he's just passing through, but I will actively hunt these people who keep probing our mission runners'. I know almost no one who want to distinguish on their overviews between people with bounties on their heads or not, or people with security status less than zero, but those are the tools concord provides
Having different categories of 'blues' would also let you set fleets to allow people for different purposes, and increase security against spies.
Those improvements however, aren't going to happen. The only reason I can see that NRDS makes sense over a renter alliance is to allow whole alliances to be residents / renters, rather than forcing them to disband and join a renter alliance
And for NRDS to work, everyone has to follow the same list of reds. That's why I think you're doomed to fail as a political entity, as opposed to what you should be doing, which is lobbying concord etc and encouraging people to operate their own NRDS policies, independent of other NRDS groups
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