Non-Independent Pilots

[PeteACarter]

I was thinking about the Pilot's Federation, and the fact that they represent "Independent" Pilots, and I was thinking.....Does this mean (in lore, not in game-mechanics) that there could be/probably are, an awful lot of pilots who are not freelancers, and therefore would appear to be Harmless/Aimless/Penniless, whereas, in fact, they are skilled and experienced?

For example - Imagine Sirus Corp (boo, hiss) own a fleet of fleet of Belugas, which they use for transporting corporate execs, important clients, etc. They employ pilots to act as glorified limo drivers, and only hire freelancers (independent commanders) when their own staff cant cover the job. These pilots are not independent and do not own their own ships. Therefore, despite transporting hundreds of passengers a week, over dozens of runs and visiting, potentially thousands of systems, not to mention destroying a couple ships here and there, to defend themselves, they would be Harmless/Penniless/Aimless.

Is this correct, from a LORE perspective? I KNOW it's complete nonsense from an actual game perspective.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

My general assumption is that:

Players (and certain Galnet-only NPCs) - Pilots' Federation members - own their own ships, and therefore have the honorary title of CMDR.

NPCs - not PF members - fly ships owned by other people (most usually, by the faction they're labelled with, but this would also apply to our own NPC crew)

While cheap compared with the money they can bring in, even a Sidewinder is incredibly expensive compared with the wealth of an average individual, so most people can't even dream of owning their own ship (the players get loaned their first one by a mysterious benefactor) and if they want to fly they have to work for an interplanetary-scale organisation which can afford them.

On the ranking, I would say that NPCs don't have PF ranks at all - they aren't even Harmless - but there is a parallel process to assess their combat skills which is translated to a PF rank on our displays for simplicity. It's also presumably easier to get the NPC rank.

 

[PeteACarter]

Great answer thanks @Ian Doncaster

 

[Vetinari]

Lore wise there must be independent pilots who never come across or don't want to join or are refused entry to, the PF.

Just because not every single person in the whole galaxy would want to join or maybe could not join.

We have un-insured drivers on our roads, some haven't passed their tests to have a licence, wouldn't space be the same?

How they would appear or interact with PF controlled space though is unclear in my head, on the road a police car may spot them or it may not, it doesn't mean they will entirely avoid all roads where police might be and some will still drive in towns and cities with cameras and all sorts of detection, I wouldn't know the difference from looking but my car doesn't have any scanners.....and my ship does, but they aren't 'police' scanners (if there is a difference, anonymous docking seems to imply there isn't and there is a way around automatic alarm going off when your wanted ship is near - so not quite as good as Automatic Number Plate Recognition systems currently used by police and CCTV etc but they can be defeated by a simple false numberplate, but that's printed not electronic signature...so I go round and round).

Has it been thought about as deeply as you? Probably not, so there probably won't be a definitive answer but if you mean can we interpret it, build on it and try and make it 'common lore' then I think yes as long as it is instantly dropped if Frontier clarify and our version is wrong.

I do like Ian's point about CMDR being more the exception (owning own ship) rather than the rule...as he says, we may only have one because of the benefactor. Without them it may not be possible for us to afford one from the off.....what a game that would be, grinding as a crew member on an NPC Orca for 3 months for a minimum wage to get enough credits to buy your first ship before you can even start the game proper....

 

[PeteACarter]

On your point about uninsured drivers/stolen cars, at some point in the future, we MIGHT have an in-game example of this...Gan Romero. He is not a pilot and he simply stole the DBX.

I like Ian's point about CMDRs being the exception, as well. In fact, the reason I am asking the question, is because I have been planning a piece of fan-fiction (Yes, I know fan-fiction is generally scoffed at, but it's only for my own gratification and to gain experience in story building). The basic premise is a pilot who has buys an 80 year old Anaconda, which barely flies, suffers continuous module malfunctions and has none of the mod-cons, for little more than a new Sidewinder, after grafting for Sirus Corp for 10 years as a "taxi driver", flying company executives around in a Beluga. Therefore, he is an experienced and skilled pilot, but with a harmless/aimless/penniless rating, as he has only just got his own ship and therefore only just registered with the PF. This is in contrast to his brother, who he has always been jealous of, as his brother never had to grind. He obtained his pilots license, and was immediately loaned a Sidewinder, by a mysterious benefactor.....I wanted to check that this premise worked, in lore.

 

[Vetinari]

I guessed it was for a script which is where I'm coming from with 'common lore'...it may not be Canonn and may be overwritten later but I doubt its been ruled in or out in Frontier eyes, doubt its really been thought about as such..so the 'background of the universe' enables us to shape the 'common lore' within reason...Gan Romero may well mean it is thought about and discussed if that's the route they go down but I doubt it as it would be a whole new aspect to the universe and easier just to find the ship or his SRV on a planet somewhere in the future.

Far easier for Frontier to say / allow it to exist that 'Ofc independent pilots exist, but they wont appear on your scanner 99.9% of the time as its filtered through the PF recognition system and they get blockaded out of inhabited space by NPC authorities'. Then we all go hunting for these mythical beasts as well

I cant see how its excluded by lore but doubt theres a place for it in the real game universe so your fiction may be the only place they appear, nothing wrong with that imo.

 

[Sapyx]

To answer the question: yes.

Consider the Military. I'm talking the real military, not the fake pseudo-military that they let Pilots Federation members join. The military takes trainee recruits from the planetside and orbital populations who do not necessarily have any practical flight experience of any kind, and trains them. After years of training, they are eventually granted the right to fly a Navy spaceship. They are not members of the Pilot's Federation, and certainly are not "Independent", having sworn whatever oaths might be required to serve and obey whatever Superpower or local authority that has recruited them. So Navy pilots will not have any formal ratings with the Pilots Federation.

However, when we fight Navy ships, we see them given PF combat ratings: Competent, Elite, whatever. How can this be? This is presumably a result of our ship's computer accessing the individual pilot's combat records and calculating a PF-combat-rating-equivalent. so that we who are (potentially) fighting them can have some idea of their skill level.

But if you want some more in-game evidence for people having plenty of flying and combat experience but no PF rating, just check out the resumes of NPC Crew in the Crew Lounge. Very often, you'll find a Harmless or Mostly Harmless crew candidate, who nevertheless brags about losing count of how many pirates they've killed, or their years of service in the Imperial military. Now, either they are lying to pad out their resume, or they are genuinely experienced pilots who have only recently joined the PF and their previous combat experience "didn't count". Given how lousy those very same Harmless combat pilots tend to be, I've always assumed the former was true. But perhaps not all of them are lying.