Joerd Toastius
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Posted - 2006.03.15 12:02:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: Oveur
Originally by: Admiral IceBlock
Edited by: Admiral IceBlock on 13/03/2006 19:09:49
Make freighters unable to be driven when player is in NPC Corp!
Please be constructive like "Ardent Rellik".
If any mods see this please help me to have a clean thread.
I've always been against any means to "push" people out of NPC corps and such. I just don't believe it's up to us to enforce that.
However, I do somehow agree to the notion that Capital ships shouldn't be available to NPC corp members. Not fully convinced though.
Apart from anything else, I don't see that the NPC corps themselves would be keen on it. By allowing their members to use cap ships, they're allowing them to exercise huge amounts of power while flying under that corp's banner. Given that NPC corps have effectively no control over their capsule pilots, I don't see them as being particularly happy with this situation. As it stands the NPC corps seem to be offering what amount to flags of convenience - in the same way that every ship IRL needs to be registered in a country, so every capsule pilot in Eve needs to be a member of a corp, and just as small countries IRL see advantages in handing out "registered country" status to all and sundry, so NPC corps presumably see advantages in doing the same. It's quite conceivably just to get their name out there on ships, increasing visibility among consumers. Maybe it's to reward pilots further for working with their own agents (I don't know the mechanics here, I was only in an NPC corp for a week). Maybe they have some other motive. But I don't see how permitting pilots flying under their banner to use capital ships is in any way good for their interests - individual capital ships wield more power than some small NPC corps, and certainly in all cases wield power disproportionate to the sum of their responsibilties and the benefits the NPC corps derive from their membership.
In the case of PvP cap ships the nature of the power being wielded is fairly obvious - sheer destructive potential. I could get some mates together, register as members of the Imperial Academy, and start flying round in dreads popping POSes under their power, or even attacking stations belonging to other NPC corps (which has no effect... yet...). Obviously carriers, motherships and titans have similar implications. The problems with freighters are less obvious, but they're still there. One, they allow for economic warfare on an unprecedented scale, capable of stripping entire stations with the right funding. Two, and both more insidiously and more relevantly to many people, they can handle the logistics of capsuleer and potentianlly NPC wars on their own. A single freighter can deliver a strike fleet and all its equipment, or years' worth of supplies. Again, such power concentrated in the hands of individuals is dangerous, and currently they are free to (and indeed do, from what we're hearing) use flags of convenience to clandestinely support war efforts. Again, I really don't think it is in the interests of neutral parties to have their names abused in this way. If an IRL flag of convenience found it was being used to provide neutral cover for arms shipments then it would probably strike the culprits off its books. Obviously NPC corps can't check every single shipment, so they have to draw a line somewhere, and I think the move to freighters is an obvious point here - anyone who needs that sort of space should be taking responsibility for their own actions.
Or you could just introduce a fixed NPC corp tax rate for anyone with the cap ships skill...
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