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Pirates
Under normal circumstances, a position will fly the
colours of the affiliation, i.e. be recognizable as belonging to a specific
affiliation or be registered as independent. As such, any actions by the
position will have ramifications for the affiliation.
Independents are basically positions that are currently
between affiliations. Being independent means that the positions have no
allegiances to any affiliation and as such cannot perform diplomatic actions
as recognized by other governments. In game terms they cannot have officer
ranks, nor can they carry active combat lists such as support, defend or
enemy. This makes independents very vulnerable which is the way it should be.
Phoenix is a game about alliances and political power struggles with little
room for individuals.
There is however room for those that for one reason or
another desire to be completely outside the political structure. These are
positions that for one reason or another are flagged as pirates.
A pirate is the classification for an unidentifiable
position. It does not mean that the position will attack everything in sight,
nor does it mean that it cannot interact peacefully with other positions. All
positions that do not have an affiliation debt, i.e. are not affiliation
assets, can be declared as pirates. To avoid abuse in-game a position, once declared
as a pirate, will NEVER have the pirate flag removed.
Being flagged as a pirate allows the ship to behave in any
manner it so chooses. It can attack, defend and support whatever it desires.
Most affiliations make use of pirates, as it allows them
to perform operations against rival factions without them being able to
identify who is responsible. This said, if a fleet of pirate ships appeared
and had exactly the same ship configuration as a standard war fleet for a
specific affiliation then people would start putting two and two together and
getting four! If certain ships are also scanned in specific areas of space
and later turn up as pirates then questions will also be asked. Phoenix is a
game where wars are fought based on little more than circumstantial evidence.
There is however nothing to prevent players taking advantage of this by
designing pirate ships to resemble warships of a third party. There is
nothing more satisfying than attacking one faction and then sitting back,
watching as they launch a retaliatory attack against another of your
rivals. There is nothing to prevent
you attacking other positions in your own affiliation if you so desire. This
may be the only way of removing a damaging influence within the affiliation
without alerting the player to the motive behind the attack.
Being a pirate however has its drawbacks. Primarily, by
not declaring for any faction it inherently infers that the ship is up to no
good. As such, any position can open fire on pirates without the necessity of
having to post them or be of sufficient political rank.
Transponder Code
Most affiliations will make use of pirate flagged ships
but at the same time desire to protect themselves from ‘enemy’ pirate ships
by having pirates on the enemy lists of their own positions. This would
normally lead to them opening fire on their own positions. To prevent this, a
position can also register friendly transponder codes. These secret codes are
carried by pirate ships (or in fact any ship) and prevent the normal attack
going ahead.
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Any ship can be flagged as a pirate but to prevent abuse
once flagged there is no going back. The pirate flag merely indicates that
the ship has no official alliance to any faction and (unlike an independent
position) may be hostile.
The ship must be player owned to become
a pirate. A special action will strip it from the affiliation and flag
it as pirate. Even
if the action is sanctioned by an affiliation, it can never publicly admit
it - so the onus is on out of game methods for players to track pirate
activities, i.e. the affiliation has to trust the pirate’s owner
An affiliation profile normally limits an affiliation
from undertaking unsavoury actions. To circumvent this, pirates are often
employed. As they have no official ties to the affiliation, they can perform
these tasks without fear of reprisals against the affiliation.
Pirates have the same powers as an admiral, but are not
politically sanctioned. This means that they can add anyone to their enemy,
defend and support lists.
While wages are still paid from the political central
account (presuming the player has a political position), no tax is paid on
these wages. If there are insufficient funds to pay wages, there is a good
chance that the crew will rebel and the ship will be removed from player
control.
Each ship can have a single transponder code. Positions
can be set not to attack ships using this encrypted code. As such pirates
working for the affiliation can enter and leave territory normally hostile to
pirates.
Any ship can attack a pirate on sight, whether or not the
ship has been posted. This makes them very vulnerable. Combined with not
being able to remove the pirate flag, it is only a matter of time before the
ship is destroyed.
Starbases and outposts can be flagged as pirates. In this
case, they can remove the pirate flag, but only by becoming public.
Both turning pirate and reverting back is done as a special action as there
may be other ramifications on populated planets. Ground parties are
especially favoured as pirates, as it easily allows attacks of impunity.
There is normally a hefty fee involved as part of the special action to
become pirates. Further, as most pirate ground parties know that they are
almost certainly going into the thick of things with little or no backup they
will demand anything up to ten times the normal salary – and who says that
piracy does not pay!
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