Xalphox

Hi guys, So one of the big changes of the Civil War arc is that we've pivoted from being a server that focused on running 4 formulaic missions a day to one that is more heavily focused on a coherent, player-driven narrative that focuses more on quality and roleplay at the expense of quantity. I'll be perfectly honest with you guys: I was pretty burnt out and if this didn't work out I was seriously considering handing SSTRP over to someone else or shutting down altogether - but I am delighted to say despite my fears and despite running fewer events our popularity has soared, and genuinely some of the best roleplay I've ever had on SSTRP has been in the last couple of weeks. It was risky but I think it has paid off. Our story line, though guided so that there is a semblance of a grand plot, is no longer railroaded: the 6 factions of the civil war are led independently by 6 different people, each responsible for their own fleets (issuing orders ship-by-ship), their own economies and their own strategies, with the strategy of the Sixth mostly being governed by a council of all the commission officers on ship. Indeed - the outcome of the fleet battle earlier was never predetermined, and this weekend could have either been an invasion or a desperate defence. As we move into a stage of the game where planetary invasions are more commonplace, I am looking to develop the game further: from next weekend (hopefully - I'm abroad this week in Japan but I get back next Friday) I am hoping to start distributing hexagon maps and spreadsheets that list our ground forces & support elements (see below) to Military Intelligence, who will be responsible for putting together our strategic invasion plan all the way from preparation (where they will do everything from research to possibly even dispatching Pathfinders ahead of time to perform recon/sabotage) to conclusion. What this will mean in most circumstances (again though - it's not railroaded, so who knows what they'll come up with!) is that after an initial invasion where the Mobile Infantry have secured a beachhead, Military Intelligence officials will land shortly after and will direct and task the units under their command in a manner similar to RTS games like Hearts of Iron or Supremacy 1914 - including both NPCs and even the 112th. Once all of the hexagons are turned blue, the planet is ours (or if our beachhead is captured, we lose...) So long story short: for all of you who have expressed an aspiration to take a greater part in the strategic side of the Civil War, I would say it's about the right time you apply to Intelligence. An example map: the ones we generate will use a style that is less goofy and more similar to atlases. ALSO JUST AN EXAMPLE. TRY NOT TO HAVE AN ANEURYSM, MILSIM NERDS.

To all under my command, Re: Draconis officers Officers who once held a federal commission that have violated their oath, turned their back the Federation and her principles, and chose to wage war against those who would see the Federation rise from the ashes shall be tried for treason by summary court martial in lieu of general court martial, and, if found guilty, summarily executed. For all purposes these officers should be considered stripped of their commission and thus may be court martialed by any commissioned officer. Re: The Draconis Rank and File Whilst noting that the Rank and File have also committed a treason against the UCF and her successors, they share less culpability for their actions than their commissioned superiors. Therefore, where practical they are to be taken as prisoners of war and afforded all benefits and protections they are entitled to. To Military Intelligence @Tonic @Kris Noting that we are to receive a substantial number of prisoners-of-war, I am tasking Military Intelligence with finding suitable planets to put these miscreants to work and make themselves useful. I would also see a penal battalion raised as an opportunity to aspire to for these wretches to redeem themselves in the eyes of the Federation. Kindest regards, Brigadier General Brian C. Larsen Commander of the Mobile Infantry, Sixth Fleet

Hey guys We periodically run surveys to gauge how our playerbase feels we're doing and to highlight areas for improvement - please take a few moments to fill in our survey and make your voice heard: https://goo.gl/forms/rBvDUv3nbTEGzAY92

Week 1 Sixth Fleet 1. Trying to gain Iskander (7) via diplomatic means: success 2. Sent cruiser to make contact with Draconian Hegemony and establish relations: success, non-aggression pact agreed 3. Two patrols of 3 warships to secure the colonies: no random encounters, +1 security 4. Redacted 5. Build 1x Trade I: success Centauran Empire 1. Engaging in diplomatic efforts to bring X.D + XE + XI + XJ + XH into the fold: mostly successful, XI refuses. 2. 2x Propaganda (£6m), build 1 Trade I (£3m): success, +2 perception. Draconian Hegemony 1. Attempt to recruit XC: negotiations failed, resulting in an invasion force being sent to take XC by force: partially successful, however planet in a state of rebellion and insurgency, and public perception is reduced by 1 point. 2. Redacted 3. Build 2x Destroyer I's: success, +1 strength 4. Trade with Colonial Confederation: success, +6.5m Colonial Confederation 1. Negotiate non-aggression pacts with all parties: success 2. Trade with Faraway, The Trio, Sanctuary, Hesperus and the Sixth: success, +£9.5m 3. Purchase 1 Destroyer I: success 4. Engage XF and XG about them joining the confederation on peaceful terms, with an emissary of trade ships: success. 5. 2x Propaganda: +2 perception 6. 4x Patrols: +1 security Federal Unionists + Sanctuary Both parties continue to be in all out war over Epsilon Prime.

Week 0

So long as your old character wasn't killed, or wasn't dishonourably/bad conduct/medical discharged, you can automatically bring back your character up to a maximum rank of PFC (or higher if given permission by Durango if it was an MI NCO rank or the division lead if it was a division rank). If the character was medically discharged: you can re-enlist with the permission of Durango if you were MI, or your division leader if it was a division rank, or where sensible you can request to take on a non-combat role with intelligence or fleet if approved by the intel or fleet leader or, failing all three, you can request permission from an admin to temporarily play your character as an evacuee for the next couple of weeks.

Faction controllers (as admins) The following people are responsible for each of the factions in an OOC capacity as admins (except in the case of Hicks and SW, who are also ICly in control) Sixth Fleet: @Deckers Sanctuary: @Xalphox Federal Unionists: @Xalphox (as they are locked in a death spiral with Sanctuary) Centaurian Empire: @Hicks @El Excellente Colonial Confederation: @Rook if he wants it Draconian Hegemony: @Admyral Joe @OpTiCFaZeSoCkzZz @HazyDay Tracked Metrics Credits: the currency (usually in millions) of interstate trade. Credits can be used to purchase items from other suppliers - including food, medicine, supplies, ships, repairs, etc. Each colony produces a fixed amount of credits each day. Bartering can be used as an alternative. Supplies: This bucket counts for everything except for ammunition. If the mobile infantry are poorly supplied, it leads to the PK threshold being increased - for example, if the MI are left totally unsupplied and go into combat, every time a player dies they would be forced to roll, and if they rolled below 15 they would be PKed (1/7). This does not preclude you from PKing players normally if they're idiots (or even modifying this threshold to be higher or lower if you see fit). Rather it means in occasions where a player would simply be NLR'd the default should be to roll. Ammunition: A low ammunition score should result in unlimited ammo being disabled on missions - forcing the MI to conserve what they have. Strength: Strength (military strength) denotes how easy it is to capture and hold a colony, quell rebellions, and to discourage hostilities from the other factions. It encompasses manpower and warships. Perception: A good general perception of your faction will result in better trade deals, more opportunity for diplomacy, less resistance to invasions ("liberation"), and greater internal resistance to invasions + reduced chance of rebellion. Logistics: Logistics (or the supply network) of your faction defines its ability to get supplies from A to B and it refers to our merchant fleet. A good logistics score means colonies will produce more credits per day, and the supplies will reduce more slowly. However this does require specific trade caravans to be scheduled, and those caravans may be intercepted. Besides this there are the more static figures - like how many ships/what ships we have, how many biotechs we can afford to distribute, etc. With the exception of the supply score (which will automatically recalculate each day), these figures are set per-faction on a weekly basis. How will missions work? We have somewhat of a hybrid system: there are story missions which will either be guided by my grand timeline (there are 7 key events before the summer) or by the decisions of the faction leaders, and then there are the more ad hoc on the fly missions that admins might run. The ad hoc missions might range from supply drops, to escort missions, all the way up to sub-contracting for the Centaurians (who whilst are well endowed when it comes to ships, do not have the staff to man them, and may well subcontract to us as mercenaries). Every Sunday the leadership of each faction (including the player faction - the 6th fleet) will submit their plans for the week and we (the admin team) will cook up appropriate consequences - good or bad.

Lots.

Earth - the cradle of humanity and the crown jewel of the Federation - has been conquered by our enemies, the Progenitors, and with it the Federation has been struck a mortal coil which it may never shrug off. The future has never been so bleak. Operation Megiddo was a colossal failure: Sky Marshall Hudson is dead, the fabled Federation super weapon that was supposed to put an end to the Progenitor threat once and for all proved to be nothing more than unsubstantiated propaganda, and of the ten billion inhabitants that populated Terra less than half managed to evacuate. Now the remnants of the once great United Citizen Federation begin to gather at Sanctuary, its last great military outpost, to decide on its future and the future of humankind. What is to come? Sorrow. Anger. Blame. Fracture. Hunger. Thirst. War. The Grant and her crew must carve themselves out a place in this new, hostile, barren future. - -- - The Future of SSTRP Earth may be gone, but the assets that made the Federation great are not - as a consolidated empire, we still have a massive numbers of ships, of weapons, and of troops. But with the blow struck by the conquering of Earth and the death of our leaders, we are no longer a consolidated empire. Fractures will begin to form, with numerous factions all claiming to be the rightful successors to the Federation. One has already begun: in the early hours after the loss of Earth, General Danny Martin (Marauders) and Colonel Michael Ramsey (Pathfinders) departed the Grant to make their claim to Hesparus, a Federation colony renowned for its shipyards and its shipbuilding acumen. As this new era dawns on SSTRP, we will be forced to pivot away from simple conventional military campaigns, instead having to focus on unifying the once great Federation against our common foes whilst dealing with the impact of losing our access to unlimited logistical support. Resources on the Grant are no longer unlimited: we must now ask questions like how are we going to feed ourselves, how are we going to arm ourselves or how are we going to repair our ships. I see missions now becoming more quest driven: for example, perhaps the right thruster of the Grant is knocked out and we need a replacement or a repair. We get to Hesparus, where General Martin agrees to help us - for a price: there is a famine on the shipyard planet and they are in dire need of grain. We make our way to Hod - a nearby agricultural colony - and they agree to help furnish us with 100,000 tons of grain... but in return, we must help them with a little arachnid problem. This will not be a permanent change - indeed, the thing that has changed most since the introduction of the Progenitors in September is that there is nothing on SSTRP that is guaranteed to be permanent anymore. The SSTRP universe is now a living and breathing thing - our actions may well have dire consequences for our future. The follow up to all of this (including our arrival at Sanctuary) will take place (rather fittingly) on the first day of the New Year at 9 PM GMT, or 4 PM EST - January 1, 2018. Moving forward, an agenda for the coming fortnight will be agreed upon at every admin meeting.

I'll address all of these in an upcoming state of the union style post - in a sentence though we are having to rely on newer admins who didn't have the advantage of being mentored by more experienced and veteran staff members and thus have had to learn on the job. A disproportionate number of veteran staff for example entered university for the first time this year and have understandably decided to make their future their priority. Plus a couple were thrown out after getting too big for their boots - a necessary evil as nothing kills a community like admins that act more like patricians than servants of the community (there are still some who seem to think they are irreplaceable but the reality is after ten years whatever role you hold has been held by tens if not hundreds of others before you or by now - my role has been held by no less than 5 people). It is essential I think to recognize that whilst these newer admins might not be replicating the same production quality of events put together by some of our more experienced staff members, they are making an effort - and they are the reason we are still alive. Quantity over quality makes for a poorer community, but neither quantity nor quality makes for no community at all. @Cipher in particular deserves special mention - although he has a bit of an over active imagination, his introduction into the admin team a couple of months ago has been a bit of a baptism of fire, but still he has gone out of his way to help in every way possible (including taking over my campaign last night whilst I was afflicted with a rather stereotypically British debilitating toothache) and he has done a ton to mentor the newer admins. These are the kind of admins that are remembered for years after they eventually leave - it's a quality that makes admins like Davio so well known 5+ years after they left the community. Things are however getting better. The newer admins are learning on the job and getting better. Roleplay quality has improved drastically. The Mobile Infantry under Durango seems to be in a much healthier place (indeed they are outpacing the admin team) and statistically the server is seeing a resurgence (though that is to be expected - Sept-Nov tends to see our player count tank thanks to the first term of school but the Christmas holidays tends to see things revive before peaking in the summer). As for your PS's, I only can think of one of the two players that have been allowed to run events - and unfortunately whilst I recognize that player is making an effort, their recent history at SSTRP serves as a bar to them making staff in the immediate future.

Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1245887305 Campaign Briefing (from yesterday) https://imgur.com/a/3aUDm

Operation μegiddo is the third chapter in and the second campaign in the Progenitor arc - a story line that opened with the destruction of the Audie Murphy and introduced our most fearsome foe yet in Operation Omega ("The Battle for Terra Neue") in September. A few weeks ago this was bridged by Operation λambda, a whole day event where the Mobile Infantry successfully demolished a Progenitor interstellar portal facility, disrupting their plans for a full scale invasion of the Milky Way galaxy, and inflicting a first major defeat against the Progenitors. Schedule Friday 22nd, December - Prologue 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM EST, 13:00 PM PST) Wednesday 27th, December - Part I, Briefing 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM EST, 13:00 PM PST) Thursday 28th, December - Part II 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM EST, 13:00 PM PST) Friday 29th, December - Part III 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM EST, 13:00 PM PST) Saturday 30th, December - Part IV, Finale 9:00 PM UTC (4:00 PM EST, 13:00 PM PST)

NOTE FOR ADMINS: except where you have explicitly railroaded an NCO down a path that ended in them getting disciplined or where the consequences would be unjust and absurd, you should not interfere or intervene.

Courts-martial are the military equivalent of a criminal court - trying serious crimes against the Federation where non-judicial punishment would be inappropriate. Only people who have completed the OOC OCS process are permitted to run courts-martial as they can be put in a position where they could be responsible in sentencing a character to a PK - via execution, a discharge or life imprisonment. This does not restrict the ability of a mission lead to field execute offenders if they threaten the viability of the mission! Offences Our primary source for criminal law is the United States' Uniform Code of Military Justice, with some custom laws that enhance or supersede these where appropriate in the Federal Articles. A note about confinement (brigging) A concerted effort should be made to bring an offender to trial as quickly as possible and, except in capital cases where there is a high OOC likelihood of conviction, a player cannot be confined for longer than 20 minutes pre-trial. Admins are authorized to release/bail any player that has been brigged for longer than 20 minutes pre-trial. This is to prevent bullshit scenarios where a player is held in the brig permanently or over a prolonged period of time. Non-judicial Punishment (NJP) NJPs can be issued by NCOs and officers alike for minor indiscretions - however an NJP can be challenged and the recipient can demand a court-martial instead. Process No formal process - however the recipient can challenge an NJP and demand a court-martial, to be conducted by a separate officer (though they risk facing more severe punishment as a result). Whilst appealing, any prescribed punishment should be deferred until post-appeal where possible. Maximum punishment A demotion of one rank, except if the recipient is a commissioned officer. Beatings, except if the recipient is a commissioned officer. Being ordered to perform extra work - for example, washing the deck. Restriction of privileges - ie. bread & water, no alcohol, etc. Examples of where suitable A Private disrespecting a Corporal or a Sergeant Being stupidly drunk Failure to follow an order (but not insubordination) Summary Court-martial Summary courts-martial are formal trials for offences and are the default form of court-martial except for certain offences that require a general court-martial. Process A summary court-martial involves a defendant, a prosecutor (the non-commissioned or commissioned officer charging the defendant with an offence), and an otherwise independent and uninvolved officer to act as presiding judge. The defendant must represent themself and cannot nominate a representative. The prosecutor will explain their case as to why the defendant committed the offence in question The defendant will counter. Both sides can show evidence or request witnesses to bolster their case. The presiding judge can approve or decline depending on whether they think the evidence is pertinent to the case. The presiding judge will make a judgment - innocent or guilty - and will issue a punishment. Both the defendant and the prosecutor can petition an officer of their service more senior to the presiding judge to hear an appeal. if the appellate agrees to hear their appeal, the process will be repeated. Punishment should be suspended until all appeals are exhausted. You cannot overturn the verdict of an incumbent faction leader - for example, former MI leaders cannot overturn any verdict passed by Cpt. Davidson. The only exception to this is if the officer in question is either an Executive Admin, has been authorized by an XA, or has been authorized by the incumbent leader. If an officer declines to hear an appeal, nobody equal to or junior to or equal in rank to said officer may preside over the case. Officers may preemptively decline or forbid an appeal regardless of whether or not an appeal has been filed with them - for example, if General Larsen forbids an appeal, Captain Davidson cannot then agree to hear that appeal even if it the original presiding officer was Lieutenant Tuuli. Maximum punishment Any punishment that can be prescribed by a NJP, in addition to: Demotion to any rank. If the defendant is a commissioned officer, the lowest they can be demoted is to third lieutenant or equivalent - aka a summary court-martial cannot revoke a commission. Confinement (to the brig, to the ship, or to any other place on-ship or on-base if stationed on the ground) for up to 3 OOC days (9 days IC). If the defendant is a commissioned officer, due respect should be paid to their rank and they should be confined to their quarters with appropriate accommodations unless there is a distinct need to confine the defendant to the brig. Can compel the defendant to perform any action. Lashings Issue a bad conduct discharge Examples of where suitable An act that might otherwise warrant an NJP that has been aggravated, for example through heinousness, repeated incidents, or where the act was has significant consequences. Examples: Calling an officer a cunt. Causing a mission objective to be failed due to incompetence. Most cases of insubordination Threatening violence against a superior. Assault Theft General Court-martial General courts-martial are the most powerful form of court-martial, convened to try only the most serious crimes, with the power to issue almost any punishment up to and including execution. Process A prosecuting commissioned officer calls for a general court-martial. Except where there are security concerns, general courts-martial should be public. A panel of three independent officers are convened to try the defendant. The defendant is entitled to appoint somebody to represent them, but is not entitled for representation to be appointed. The prosecutor will explain their case as to why the defendant committed the offence in question The defendant will counter. Both sides can show evidence or request witnesses to bolster their case. The presiding panel of judge vote to decline to hear a witness if they think the point is proven or the evidence is not pertinent. The panel of judges discuss the facts of the case privately, finding a verdict and if necessary delivering a sentence. The defendant may lodge an appeal to either General Larsen, Colonel Zaiger, or the Fleet Captain. Maximum punishment Any punishment that can be prescribed by an NJP or a summary court-martial; The temporary or permanent revocation of a commissioned officer's commission; Confinement on ship to any area up to 1 OOC month. Confinement to a federal penitentiary off ship (effectively TKs) for any duration including life. Death by hanging, firing squad, or any method not cruel and unusual. Examples of where suitable Murder, attempted murder, or conspiracy to commit murder. Treason, sedition, sabotage, or mutiny. An aggravated act or omission that leads to the failure of an objective critical to Federation interests. An aggravated act or omission that leads to the death of a fellow trooper.

Summary The Mobile Infantry landed on 29410 Tychos VII - a wasteland of a planet formerly inhabited by the arachnids that now appeared to serve as a hub for the Progenitor forces - with the exception of the Ark, the first and only example of a permanent base operated by the Progenitors. Their orders were to investigate the facility, to discern its purpose, and to gather intelligence. The first obstacle they faced was a shield that was emitted over the facility. This was defeated through destroying the three external shield emitters, after which the MI could access the interior of the facility. Upon arrival it became quickly apparent that this facility was no run of the mill forward operating base: it was as deep as a skyscraper is tall, with hundreds of stories. They discovered evidence of experimentation on the three major Milky Wayian races: arachnids, skinnies and humanity. But the real shocker was to come later: at the very foot of the facility, they came to a cavernous chamber occupied by a single gargantuan machine: a device to create portals, seemingly between the Milky Way and the host galaxy of the Progenitors. The Mobile Infantry looked on as dropship after dropship soared through the portal - perhaps hundreds an hour - as the revelation finally dawned on the Mobile Infantry: this facility was the Progenitor's staging ground for its second stage widespread invasion of the Milky Way and Earth. The Mobile Infantry resolved to destroy the facility through overloading the facility's power reactor, but they soon found themselves cut off. In the heat of the moment, Lieutenant Tuuli made a judgement call to detonate the explosives despite the Mobile Infantry still being inside, somehow miraculously surviving and leading the Mobile Infantry out of the ruins of the 100-story facility to rescue. 40 Mobile Infantrymen died, including Sergeant Trey Winters (killed by a grenade), Corporal Johnathan Price (crushed to death by a marauder), and PFC Johnson Dough (fell to a plasma round to his chest,).

"wah wah wah im a dumb german and i miss britain funding my europeon unier"

λ Operation λambda will serve as an event to bridge the gap between the introduction of the Progenitors during Operation Omega (the Battle of Terra Neue) and phase 2 of the Progenitors, serving as a prologue to the Progenitor campaign I plan to run during the week between Christmas and NYE. It will begin tomorrow (Saturday 2nd of December) at 1 PM EST, or 6 PM GMT. HINT: The Progenitor text above says "OPERATION LAMBDA". FFRL might want to start keeping track of these if you want to fully decipher the language...

No comment (Definitely wasn't high when I appointed him XA though)

nope

Hi all, Apologies for the delay in these announcements - I was on a different continent last week which made posting this prohibitively difficult. To start with, the elephant in the room: @Deckers has resigned from XA and his Mobile Infantry lead. He will continue to be a regular admin as I understand it but has decided to take a much deserved break. Once again, I thank him for his hard work over the last 18 months and wish him the best in his future endeavours. @Durango is my chosen nominee as replacement for both: I have an enduring, decade-long friendship and trust with Durango, I have a great deal of faith in his judgement and his ability to operate impartially, and I feel inspired by his progressive vision for re-igniting what is presently a stagnant Mobile Infantry. I will leave it to him to elaborate on how he plans to bring change and progress - both of which I think are essential moving forward. As I drew on above, SSTRP.net is facing a period of decline and stagnation: this is not unusual, this is not atypical and the sky is not falling. SSTRP has historically becomes less popular during the first term of school all the way up to Christmas - and even now our numbers beat some of the troughs that we have fell into in the past. But that's not to say that we should rest on our laurels or that there aren't problems that need to be addressed and resolved. There are several challenges facing the server at the moment that I hope to address: My apathy - a lack of interest from me has always led to a decline in the server, and it is no secret that I burnt out after running Omega. A week of booze and a dying down in the workload has eased that burden. Inactivity, ill-discipline and inactivity on the part of the admin team - this is a more difficult problem to resolve, and I think it is likely multifaceted. I suspect it is behind the drop in morale, the drop in quality of missions, and the drop in roleplay quality. I plan on fixing this by being more present and with traditional Machiavellian stick-and-carrot: a good old fashioned purge of the irredeemable as the stick, and rewarding high performing admins by re-introducing Admin of the Month (where the best performing admin is gifted $50 for their hard work) as the carrot. This will be awarded every second admin meeting of the month. Lack of structure - this again is multifaceted, but the general lack of structure on server has contributed to an atmosphere where it feels nothing gets done and nothing ever changes. I will be discussing a suite of changes to how the server operates - for example how new players are introduced to the server and a new more formalized approach to certifying a Recruit as trained - with Durango and the Mobile Infantry leadership. Progenitors - absent me, the Progenitors have not had the opportunity to progress. Now that I am back and FFRL is back on its feet, I will be aiming to churn out new significant, story-progressing Progenitor missions with the goal of running one a week culminating in a 3-day campaign come Christmas (or in the Progenitor language that FFRL are yet to discover). Script issues - I have finally seen first hand the issue with chatboxes - I will look at getting this fixed shortly. Besides that, we have a couple of other developments on server, and @kipper (who has been predisposed due to being in his third and most difficult year of university) has promised us some of his time come the impending Christmas break. More to follow! Xalphox

I like to give people nicknames on Larsen

mat_specular 0

If we continue to use the power armour in this way, the suit will be nerfed in terms of how much damage it can take from small arms fire - at the moment it takes 1/84th damage for small arms fire. Marauders will continue to be vulnerable to RPGs and explosives. Even this may not be enough: the Mobile Infantry are and always will be the core faction of the server and if the admin team feels that marauders are making the MI redundant then we will protect the MI over the marauders. The marauders have two options in front of them: 1. Continue as Heavy Weapon guys with armour equivalent to 7x as much armour as a regular infantryman (as was the case) 2. Move to a Marauder = Elite Trooper model of faction where you act as walking talking tanks. I see several potential problems with this: If the marauders are capable of absorbing an absurd amount of damage, it can easily unbalance missions so that they are no longer challenging for the rest of the playerbase - breaking immersion and subtracting from the enjoyment of the majority in favour of pandering to a minority. Meaning we would need to restrict how many marauders can drop - a power that would fall to the individual admins running the events. I concerned by the Marauder's apparent blase attitude to this, so let me make this clear: this restriction doesn't mean "just 3" (FTR: I can't see any occasion where we'd have 3 marauders short of a Marauder-centric mission or 35+ players), "just 2" or even "just 1": I can easily see half of missions FLAT OUT excluding marauders, because frankly as a seasoned mission maker the hassle that goes into accommodating a small faction whilst still managing the mission as a whole is rarely worth the effort. Think of how many admins are willing to accommodate your Y-racks, jump jets or other marauder features. This is why the original implementation of scouts/Pathfinders are shut down last year, and also in part why Psychics were shut down. Secondly - how do you pick which of your marauders gets to don the suit reliably? I will not put the burden on the admin team to sequentialise this and you guys are going to have to come up with a fair system that accommodates for the fact that marauders can join mid-mission, that multiple marauders can be ingame for a briefing, or that if you simply have a sequential list that the next option on the list might not be in-game. Thirdly if you are to become an elite unit then I would expect a more rigorous recruitment process (possibly based on nomination by the MI leader?) and frankly I would expect the Marauders as a division to smarten up and to find a way to shun its reputation and perception as a memey ERP-ridden cyberfest. If you become an elite force, then you represent the server above all other characters and I would expect the calibre of the division to represent that. I would expect the roster count to half to 4 or 5 members max. If this is the route you want to take, I will not stand in your way. But I will say that you may be turkeys voting for Christmas. The Mobile Infantry will always come above all other divisions and if any division detracts from the Mobile Infantry then they will be changed or shut down.