Syndicates |
 |
|
Syndicates are collectives for groups of players provided by game mechanics similar to factions, however with some major and unique differences.
[MECH:Factions]
There are two syndicates in Pardus: The Shadow Syndicate (TSS), providing solidarity and features for the "bad people" (e.g. pilots involved in the production or trade of illegal commodities such as drugs, or pirates), and the Esteemed Pilots Syndicate (EPS), an organization open for the "reputable people", e.g. pilots who are not involved in the production and trade of illegal commodities, generally pilots who despise members of TSS. These two syndicates, TSS and EPS, may be seen as standing in direct opposition to each other; however, they provide a lot more than that.
A player may be a member of only one syndicate at one time. Membership is purely optional (e.g. the set of self-declared pirates is most likely bigger than the set of self-declared pirates being TSS members, as the set of self-declared esteemed pilots is most likely bigger than the set of self-declared esteemed pilots being EPS members) and provides certain benefits as well as drawbacks. Syndicates and factions are explicitly independent (i.e. an EPS member may very well be member of a faction. However, TSS members cannot be faction members due to certain join requirements - this is an implicit limitation.). For 60 days after having been a syndicate member, no syndicate can be joined.
Due to some complexity for beginners, joining a syndicate requires having played 500,000 Action Points. A syndicate membership is therefore an option reserved for more experienced players.
The Shadow Syndicate (TSS)
 | TSS provides a shelter for "rogue pilots", such as self-declared pirates or terrorists, drug and slave traders, etc. |
Join Requirements and Application Procedure
The requirements for the initiation of the application procedure are as follows:
If these requirements are met, a player is contacted automatically by an NPC TSS representative, once every three weeks. Instructions are provided by this representative; the application procedure involves a test of courage, taking place inside faction territory.
Membership Requirements and Retirement
The requirements for being and remaining a TSS member are as follows:
Daily, these requirements are checked. Should one of them be not met, the player is kicked from TSS. When being kicked from TSS, a 60-day bounty of 500,000 credits is placed on the player's head. Additionally, one receives a hit of -3000 on all reputation values - due to TSS releasing (partially faked) criminal records to the public - and one half of one's competency level is lost (e.g. 12 and 80% → 6 and 40%). Voluntary retirement from TSS is not possible, only by breaking above requirements!
Trophy Points (TP) and Notoriety
To be able to use certain TSS features (TSS missions, TSS equipment and ships), a TSS member needs to invest
Trophy Points. One Trophy Point (TP) is made up of one trophy from each faction: You gain trophies by destroying ships of faction-aligned pilots (blue Federation, red Empire, yellow Union). The amount of trophies you gain is the victim's faction rank at the time of destruction times 25.
[MECH:Faction Ranks & Bonuses]. You do not gain trophies for pilots who are under newbie protection, for whom you have already earned trophies within the last six months, or who have had their ship destroyed for trophies within the last 7 days. Your
Notoriety is the sum of all trophy points you have earned so far. Information on your trophies, Trophy Points and your Notoriety is displayed on the Overview -> Stats Screen.
In the example above, the player has 184 Federation trophies available, a bit more Empire trophies, and many more Union trophies (to see the exact values, hover over the single colored bars in your Overview -> Stats Screen). Since the minimum of these three values is 184 (also shown by the green marker), that is the amount of available Trophy Points. To increase her number of Trophy Points, this player has to collect Federation trophies next. A Notoriety of 300 means that the player has so far earned 300 Trophy Points, which means that in the past 300-184 = 116 Trophy Points have already been spent.
Membership Features
- One less slave needed for upkeep of drug station and dark dome (due to being provided by TSS) [REF:Buildings]
- Access to "dark" neutral bulletin board missions which were commissioned by TSS sympathizers, requires TP [MECH:Missions]
- Daily -15 to all reputation values [REF:Reputation]
- When a member of the Esteemed Pilots Syndicate is shot down, 2% of the victim's experience points are gained instead of just 1%
- TSS-only equipment, available in Hidden Laboratories, requiring certain competency levels and TP [TWOP:Syndicate Bonuses]
- TSS-only ships, available in Dark Harbors, requiring certain competency levels and TP [TWOP:Syndicate Bonuses] [TWOP:Syndicate Ships]
- TSS-only crew, available on neutral planets [MECH:Crew]
- 8% bonus on all black market prices (both sell and buy) [REF:Commodities & Planets] [MECH:Black Market & Dark Corner]
- Undercover membership (i.e. only TSS members can identify TSS members, when visiting their buildings or in the Other Ships window)
- Membership automatically increases universe/cluster-wide crime level [MECH:Planets & Starbases]
Esteemed Pilots Syndicate (EPS)
 | The EPS provides a collective for "reputable pilots", such as those opposing pirates or terrorists, drug and slave traders, etc. |
Join Requirements and Application Procedure
The requirements for being eligible to join are as follows:
If these requirements are met, a player may join the EPS on all planets, after pressing the
EP Syndicate link.
Membership Requirements and Retirement
The requirements for being and remaining an EPS member are as follows:
- An average reputation value above 500 [MECH:Reputation]
- Not commiting any crimes (i.e. an act which has led to a faction bounty - note that an act which just could lead to a faction bounty but has not done so is considered irrelevant, since in this case the crime went by unnoticed)
- Not constructing any illegal buildings [REF:Buildings]
Daily, (and every time an illegal building is constructed,) these requirements are checked. Should one of them be not met, the player is kicked from the EPS. When kicked from the EPS, one half of one's competency level is lost (e.g. 12 and 80% → 6 and 40%) and all reputation values above 500 are set to 500. Voluntary retirement from the EPS is possible in the same place as the application, and has the same consequences.
Membership Features
- Access to neutral bulletin board missions which were commissioned by EPS sympathizers (increases the amount of available neutral bulletin board missions by 67%) [MECH:Missions]
- Daily +10 to all reputation values; +40 to own faction reputation during war [REF:Reputation]
- Payout boost on all faction bounties collected by 50% [MECH:Bounties]
- When a member of The Shadow Syndicate is shot down, 2% of the victim's experience points are gained instead of just 1%
- EPS-only ships, available on neutral planets, requiring certain competency levels [TWOP:Syndicate Bonuses] [TWOP:Syndicate Ships]. EPS ships remove 2 structure points from illegal buildings and military outposts in one round of building attack. [MECH:PvBuilding Combat]
- EPS-only equipment, available on neutral planets and starbases and only installable on EPS ships
- Able to hire any faction's crew members while piloting an EPS ship [MECH:Crew]
- No black market trade possible except for fuel [MECH:Black Market & Dark Corner]
- Transparent membership (i.e. everyone can identify EPS members, when visiting their buildings or in the Other Ships window, as well as by browsing the EPS member list displayed in every planet's EP Syndicate section)
- Membership automatically decreases universe/cluster-wide crime level [MECH:Planets & Starbases]
