Correct, no and yes respectively. Additionally, only stations in capitol systems should be affected (read: newbie areas). Initros, Jallik, Azek, all fair game.

bojansplash says...

Nation borders in VO atm are only protected by station guards. Everyone not hated can enter any nation space and go wherever he wants and dock at any station.
How realistic is that?
In reality, you cannot enter nation controlled space without customs inspection and you can be refused entrance if you are declared *persona non grata*.
If you are a foreign national you cannot enter nation space in a combat ship loaded with offensive weapons.
You cannot dock to just any station unless you have some business there. We have capitol, commerce, mining, research and barracks stations atm. Mining or commerce stations can accept and grant docking permission to almost everyone. Capitol & Research stations can be more selective /accepting only pilots with an active trade guild mission/ and barracks are just off limits to foreigners.
You cannot dock to military stations if you are not a member of the nation military.

Imho, new faction standing/FF redux could go a step further and incorporate a better and somewhat refined border protection and station docking permissions.

1. Entering nation space

a) Nation citizens with normal or high nation standing
- entering nation space without any delay
- complete freedom of movement

b) nation pilots with low or negative nation standing and all foreign pilots
- hailed by border patrol ships with a request to stop for customs inspection and state business/intentions
- scan sweep of the ship and its cargo is performed and pilot has to reply with a predefined answer
- depending on pilots ship, weapons, faction standing, mission active and answer he can be granted or refused passage.
- pilots in warships with offensive weapons are a nono and are requested to leave nation space immediately /temp KOS trigger in 45 secs./

2. Entering nation station sector / docking

a) Nation citizens with normal or high nation standing
- freedom of movement and docking at Capitol, mining & research stations
- docking at barracks restricted for military personnel / nation pilots with a 25pk badge or some other rule or a mission tree completion can apply/
- non-military pilots can enter and move in barracks sector but cannot dock (exception to the rule: active mission to barracks station)

b/ nation pilots with low or negative nation standing and all foreign pilots
- "possibility" of docking at Capitol, mining & research stations
- barracks sectors and stations are off limits, upon entering barracks sector pilot is warned to leave immediately /45 sec. timeout until temp. KOS status/
- hailed by station control to state their business
- depending on pilots ship, weapons, faction standing, mission active and answer he can be granted or refused docking.
- if docking permission is not granted, pilot in question is asked to leave the sector and gets a station guard escort until he leaves sector

Implementation of a higher level of a nation space border protection and docking privileges can lead to some more interesting stuff like:

- border guard/customs inspection mission
- nation space guard patrol mission
- smuggling contraband missions
- black market
- bribing dockmasters/station control for docking privileges
- new widgets for fooling customs/ hiding contraband in your cargo hold
- maybe a few new ship variants for *border guardian duty* (with pre-installed ship/cargo scanner) and definitely some *smuggler*ship variants (with pre-installed contraband hiding device)

All comments are welcome.

Hmm. The Serco Vulture Guardian would be a good ship to have a "pre-installed ship/cargo scanner". Same with the Itani Border Guardian and the Warthog Territorial Defender.

What about the subfaction Guardians like the Orion Hornet and the Axia Wraith?

If any ships NEED to have cargo scanners, it's the Corvus ones. That way they can leave alone the one carrying water to concentrate on the one carrying luxgoods.

Shiny, bojansplash.

[stamp of approval]™

How much warning will we get before this change is implemented?

If I'm in the middle of Itani space and admired by both Serco and Itani, I don't want to be forced to make a choice of which one to tank at that point, since I may prefer to have a high Serco/low Itani. I'd like to have time to move to a neutral area first. Homed in the middle of a hated nation (and possibly not able to buy anything) wouldn't be good.

Also, having spent a lot of time recently doing the prospector missions, I'd like a chance to actually finish them. I don't want to get 119 done, then find the mission has been removed as part of these changes and that all that work was pointless! (yes, I could ignore them, but I'm currently close enough to the end to want to complete them).

Remember that not everyone plays daily (or even weekly) or reads the forums that often, so big changes should give a big, very obvious in-game warning (possibly when you login) as to when the changes will occur, and what the effects and options will be,

That is something. How hard will it be for itani/serco to finish prospector missions in the new system.

It's already been mentioned that prospector missions will change/go under the new system. Hence I'd like to finish them before they get removed.

Ah, I've been dreading this. Inevitable, perhaps, but uncomfortable, definitely.

As I see it, this will greatly impact the way I play my character within the game. Pa Jannos is an Itani very devoted to the teachings of Eo, and believes that the true enemy is not outside ourselves, but within. After watching his own culture slide inevitably towards the distructive ways of the past, he eventually became disillusioned with them and struck out on his own.

Since then, Pa has spent most of his time wandering through known space, trying to further his understanding of all the peoples within it. He's a bit of a philosopher, and over time has become a wee bit of a cynic. Still, he holds true to his most basic belief that the only way to end a war is to truely understand all involved (not just the enemy, but ourselves).

I know it isn't really possible to quantify intent in a system such as this. However, a lot of talk has been devoted to people who straddle between sides for their own advantage, which isn't the only reason one might want to do so. In Pa's case, he reaches out to everyone, doing his best to transcend his culture's new prejudices.

I guess I could deal with things well enough if it were possible to be flat-out neutral everywhere. Sure, I wouldn't get the best pick of ships or missions or equipment, but that really isn't Pa's focus anyway. He's much more likely to mine and trade and build relationships with the people he encounters.

There has been a lot of technical conversation about the mechanics of a faction system in here. I realize my post is much more philosophical and doesn't make much of an attempt at a solution. Still, I'm wondering if there would be any realistic faction system that could accommodate Pa Jannos?

Unaligned?

Seriously, Pa Jannos could travel the spacelanes with neutral standing forever, neither supporting or detracting from ANY faction, whether it be national or corporate faction.

You could simulate this by putting Pa Jannos' standing at "neutral" for everyone right now. Sure you would not get any advantages, but you wouldn't get any DIS-advantages, either. Perfectly neutral.

Since you state that you are a miner and trader, well, all you need is access to centaurs and behemoths, and those come with levels and (I think) are purchasable even with "Hate" standing, albeit for a higher price.

I think the new faction system could easily accommodate a character such as Pa Jannos.

That's fine, so long as Pa doesn't have to be hated by the Itani to be neutral to the Serco. Of course, as I've discovered in other faction-oriented games, being truely neutral is a near-impossible dance, as anything you do is going to affect the balance in one fashion or another.

Of course, from my own personal experience, I also know that neutrality is NOT an easy road anyway. In a conflict situation, either side is going to see you as either supporting them or not, so neutrality often looks like supporting the other side. It takes a lot of trust building to get over that hurdle. That being said, it is still possible to form good trust relationships on both sides. It just takes a lot more work.

Hmmm... He might have to give up his budding career as a test pilot though. :-/

and (I think) are purchasable even with "Hate" standing, albeit for a higher price.

Well, you can't dock at stations that hate you, so ner ner, yer wrong!

But aye, you can buy a basic taur, and even a moth xc at dislike.

This somewhat ties into the faction system, it's more along the lines of friendly fire. Perhaps we could have automatic weapons safeties instead of FF. you could set nation, guild, or group weapons safeties. the way this could work is if i enabled my guild weapons safety, i could not damage any guild members with my shots. if i had my group safety on and the others off then i couldn't hurt any group members, possibly useful for nation wars. having the safeties turned on doesn't protect me from incoming fire but it would prevent me from accidentally damaging people i don't want to.

This would add convenience to working together with members of other nations and remove the ability to hide behind a borked faction system (ex: UIT pirates that the vprs cant hurt cause they have good uit standing). Also with group safety enabled, you won't have to worry about accidentally hitting a convoy you're guarding.

This thead covers a suggestion for a game option that would show how many players are currently in a given system. (Or just the one you're in.) It struck me that knowing who is where might be a benefit for having standing with a faction, such that the higher one's standing, the more detailed information they have on the traffic records of players or NPC's. Something like the time so-and-so was last seen in such-and-such monitored sector.

http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/16609#209677

I'm all for making finding traders and miners easier...

Then you'd better not boom any traders/miners in monitored sectors.

I second what look... no hands said.

every ship has it's advantages and disadvantages, i would not like to play on when i had to realize that ship that actually crushed me i can not have because the fist decision i made by choosing a faction to play (without even knowing the game at all) has so much late game influence.
so i like it as it is actually

There's an alternate solution to your hypothetical situation, Shaded; if you were informed beforehand what type of nation specific ships were available on character creation, you wouldn't be disappointed later that you weren't able to make the choice from the beginning. If I had seen *this* on the Serco description, my first character would have been red for a certainty.



Vaguely related to the topic, but I think atleast the right side of those three pictures ought to be somewhere on the character creation screen anyways.