2016-05-03 - New Criminal and Assassin Ranking system, and new rank reward ships.

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Hi

a couple of new features implemented today.

First off, players with bounty hunter licenses are now attackable by any player who is a criminal. This is to balance the BH license allowing you to attack them irrespective of score limitations. If you have a Galactic BH license you are attackable anywhere, if you only have a system specific license then you are only attackable in that system.

The next change is addition of new rankings to achieve. Navy Ranks have existed for players to progress up the military career ladder to unlock new ships and weapons. Criminals were not given the same opportunities, but that has now been addressed. Criminal activities such as successful smuggling, assassinations and other criminal activities now gain you an Ashen Alliance standing. Your ranking is visible on the Top scores page.

As you progress up the Ashen Alliance, you will gain access to unique ships as rewards that are available to purchase in the Pirate Shipyard on Refuge. These ships are similar to the equivalent Navy reward ships, but not exactly the same. They are also equipped with brand new weapons with some unique variations of fire rate,range, damage and accuracy from the weapons available to the Military rewards.

As part of this the Navy ships have also received a slight rebalance in terms of weapons and hull strengths, (with hindsight the Escort Cruiser was quite overpowered compared with any other ship). Everything should be a bit more attackable at the lower end. More powerful ships/weapons are still available, just at a higher rank than before. The ships are all viewable on the Help > Ships page

I've added Criminal Ranks equivalent in number to the Navy Ranks. I will need to do some rank icons at some point for those, but haven't yet. For the curious they are:
1 Clean
2 Pickpocket
3 Petty Thief
4 Thug
5 Crook
6 Extortionist
7 Prowler
8 Gangsta
9 Criminal
10 Outlaw
11 Desperado
12 Enforcer
13 Henchman
14 Fugitive
15 Anarchist
16 Terrorist
17 Criminal Mastermind

I've also added Assassin Reputation rankings which is related to the type of target and number of kills you have made. Harder targets earn more points. The ranks are:
1 Clean
2 Bully
3 Murderer
4 Hired Gun
5 Amateur Hitman
6 Mercenary
7 Hitman
8 Mass Murderer
9 Expert Hitman
10 Serial Killer
11 Assassin
12 Master Assassin

This is available to all players. In the near future it will lead to the unlocking of a variety of different weapons to enhance your combat ability to reflect the extra skills you have demonstrated, but that isn't in place yet. Your ranking is again visible on the top scores page.

Finally, I've updated the My Stats page to allow you to track your progress in these new ranks.

let me know of any bugs you might experience in the usual place

regards
tiggr