[wishlist] pirate actions

:)  I like your ideas!!

-Teal

Lots of good ideas there. I'd like to expand a little on one in particular.

I'd like to see some more specific options than just "attack this planet, and we'll give you X credits in return." The raid types you mentioned are a good idea. What I'd like to see, in particular, is the ability to say "destroy all the research labs," or "destroy all planetary defences," or maybe even "just nuke the planet and get out."

Standing bounties would be a nice addition, too. You could offer the pirates X amount of credits for each frigate they kill belonging to certain empires. 200 for each Provian frigate, and 275 for each Solundi frigate. The pirates would then try to pick off lone ships, or make small raids into the lightly defended flank planets of the empire in question.

Love the ideas! The pirates are definitely underdeveloped and have sooooo much potentail to add more fun to the game.

I'm totally with you on this.  I'd like to see multiple pirate raiding parties active at any time, and I'd like to see them prowl around for opportunistic targets then run away when you go to fight them.  This would make pirates that much more interesting, especially early game when there are lots of uncolonized worlds for them to fall back on. 

I personally don't want to see any special pirate abilities; I'd rather see the units we have now (plus perhaps a carrier) actually go on a marauding spree rather than the inane suicide attacks we get every fifteen minutes right now.

agreed, pirates should be a forceful tool to be reckoned with not just some sorry pushovers who shouldn't be called pirates in the first place. the term space ponies comes to mind .

A few good ideas by milo896.

Expanding on pirate raid types:

• Pirate raid - destroy/capture trade and refinery ships. Destroying metal/crystal asteroids should also be a target for the pirates.
• Terror raid - Bomb the planet. Besides the economic damage, another side effect would be reducing culture spread (popularity) temporarily, because the government failed to properly protect their civilians; while also boosting culture spread for revolutionists.
• Tactical raid - targets planetary structures. Possible targets:
  • Economic - targets asteroids, trade ports and refineries
  • Culture - targets media hubs
  • Technology - targets science labs
  • Military production - targets shipyards
  • Defenses - targets planetary defenses

These are some good ideas. Perhaps there could be two levels of Tactical Raids - individual planet, and empire-wide. An empire-wide attack would, of course, be a hugely expensive undertaking. I'm not suggesting a simultaneous attack on ever planet, of course. Perhaps 3 or 4 large pirate groups would attack separate planets, destroy the targets, and then continue throughout the target empire until they are either destroyed or accomplish their stated goal.

I'd love to send an empire-wide Economic Tactical Raid against the other team's feeder(s) in a 5v5  xD

1) pirates' own capital ships can get technology that they stole, bought or otherwise from another race.  Their cap ships might have to have capped abilities, so less multiple abilities than other races' ships.

2) pirates stealing a non-protected cap ship is cool.  It SHOULD be difficult to do and only possible if the race is dumb enough to leave one unguarded; BUT, the cap ship should not be fully functional, which can be remedied by offering something to the race the cap ships was stolen from or otherwise.  For example, the pirates steal a cap ship level 3 from the advent.  They can try to ransom the ship back OR ransom techs and upgrades with the pirates who CANNOT build one of their own but can utilize the stolen one.  So it may be that the pirates say "look, give me the ability to unlock this cap ship ability and 1) we will not use it to attack you and/or 2) we will ignore orders to attack you for a specified amount of time.

3) pirates should have some level of self preservation so that they know when to leave.

4) working with the pirates in whatever way softens their hatred of you meaning perhaps they leave your grav well earlier than usual or go for less important targets (you know, keeping up appearances), but that could come with diplomacy penalties when other races (even your allies) realize this.

knownalien there wont be cap ships for pirates, a dev in a previous thread said there are definatly not going to be cap ships for pirates

Awsome ideas, pirates really need a more intresting twist, when pirates hit a planet i want to be like oh s!#t. As they carrie away my cap ship and leave my planet in ruins lol.

Changes to pirates would be nice. Pirates at the moment dont relaly focus on what pirates do, they just attack a planet (trade ships and repair bays really) until thebounty is done and then fly off into the night.

I feel that they should be able to capture ships, and either use them as part of their fleet. this would a) make them stronger, and b) make you weaker. I say this because later in the game they are weeeeeeak, with no shields and no regen, and with fleets managing to be microscopic in scope. It would also be nice if instead of zooming to a planet they option for them would be a raid, wherein they zip to someplace with a light picket and steal a few ships, smash a few trade ships and duck out, allowing them to actually produce a reasonable force. 

Pirates with Starfish! Pirates with Guardians! Pirates with carriers! Pirates with starbases! I would hope or expect that the stolen ships get to keep their additional abilities, though they aren't able to be used with the same efficiency. I mean really, they are scavengers and ruffians. We wouldnt expect them to adapt to alien or superior technology very fast, much less with the proficiency of a trianed military crew, but we WOULD expect them to not tear our said technology and lose all the extra oomph improved shields, regen, anitmatter regen and whatever additional abilities the target race has mustered up.

I think capturing a capital ship would be unlikely, for the same reason. Also just because a capital ship is for the exalted gods among men that are senior officers, and pirates just dont go in for that kind of thing.

We're definitely looking into ways to improve pirates and the way they interact with the other factions. Pirate capital ships are something we are still very much on the fence about.  On the one hand, pirates of antiquity were often known to capture capital ships and use them (granted, the capital ships of old were fairly small compared to modern capital ships). On the other hand, you would never see a modern pirate capture and effectively use an aircraft carrier or a guided missile destroyer as part of their grand strategy.

My current ideas with pirates are along these lines:  The bounty they collect should not disappear. They should hold on to it in their coffers, and when they get enough, their AI should buy upgrades and abilities for their ships.  This would make the current pirate system zero-sum; the more money you pump into it, the stronger they get, and some day you might be on the other side of their wraith. Very much a double edged sword. 

There are mods out there now, with Pirates that have capture ability and Caps. So even if the Dev's dont want to consider it "core" to the game they build, it can be added by modders and played by players that like that sort of thing.

Look at Distant Stars, or Epic and Unknown Darkness by Kiedjor, or my own OverLords and StarFire mods, It may not be exactly "everything" you want, but it is interesting, and if you learn to mod a bit, you can tweak the particulars you may want to include. Providing of course it is possible, but you would be suprised what is possible. Alot of things are done in mods now that many would think couldnt be done.

-Teal

:)  That sounds wonderful!!!!   Haha, that would be a game changer!! 

One of the other threads has some hard ai thoughts, and i got the idea to try a Hard AI mod, im trying to get schoolwork finished this week but wanted to try a Hard AI mod to make things really really difficult 

I will keep you posted if anyone is interested,

Take care,

-Teal

Very nice ideas!!  This would be very very cool!!

-Teal

I would like to see some sort of back door alliance with pirate predicated on continually giving pirate credit, mineral and metal at certain rate.  The alliance is invisible from other factions unless you have researched the ability to review such alliance.  When such alliance is reviewd you will be on the bad side of your friends leading to potential conflict and all out war given you are the one who sent pirate to attack them.  Of course, your alliance with pirate gives you immunity from pirate attacks.  The pirate also do some of dirty work for you if you pay extra.  The pirate also has the ability to ask for an increase in income rate and/or ships from your inventory, even capitol ships.  However, your capitol ship(s) given to pirate will self-destruct if used against you or having reduced capability.

The pirate also has the ability to purchase your ships, even capitol ones.

I have thought about this quite a bit and it will make the game very interesting.  Of course, I don't know how the balance issue will work out.  I let Ironclad to work it out.

spelling check on my previous post: "review" = "reveal"

"On the other hand, you would never see a modern pirate capture and effectively use an aircraft carrier or a guided missile destroyer as part of their grand strategy."

We are not talking about the Somali pirate, right?  We should think in term of the Orion Syndicate from Star Trek.

Whohoo! a post from a dev in a thread started by me! I am feeling all warm and fuzzy inside...   

About being on the fence on Capital ships for pirates:

I am favorable to them, let me throw in my arguments:

This is the future. Ships may not be *that* much harder to pilot from a flight stick. Presumably education would be pervasive, and what we assume to be university-level education would be available to everyone. If they look back at our education level, it is akin to us looking back to the dark ages. Everyone would have great knowledge on their fields of stu dy, and if you're into interstellar travelling crew - not just a passenger - you're likely to have lots of knowledge on engineering, piloting and whatnot. Of course, some people only have background information about some stuff, while excel at others. 

Which means: there should be lots of highly-skilled people, but disillusioned with 'the system' avaliable and willing to live the pirate life, even defecting from the military.

This already is enough rationalization to justify pirates having standard capital ships.

Let me now introduce a variation of the custom pirate capital ship above:

When pirates get enough profit, they start to look at bigger targets. but having just a fleet of frigates and cruisers does not grant them enough space to store their bounty.

So they pick up a 'Big Bug' - as is called the biggest mining ship model ever built. A Miner Behemoth, if you will. Its cargo hold is 'so huge that a capital ship can fit in it' according to the engineers which designed it. 

This is a 'fearless' miner. It was built with a very strong hull to withstand impacts from asteroid when mining in an asteroid field, and also posseses considerable shielding to withstand the energy surges on plasma and electric clouds. 

Naturally, to fit its huge cargo space, it is also equipped with a mighty tractor beam, affeectionately called 'The Corkscrew'. It can pull a 10.000 ton boulder from the surface of an earth-class gravity well into orbit to carry away or process in orbital refineries. Or can drag a capital ship for that matter.

But, can it be called a mining ship without a drill? There is also a mighty laser, 'The Drill', powerful enough for very long range shots, so that it can 'pop the cork' of even a small planet from orbit, and pick up the pieces. Rather than being a continuous shot, it has been found that 'drumming' the surface with a series of shots is more effective to break matter apart.

Being a mining ship, that's about it for a Big Bug. At least until the pirates start modding it. They usually set up a few weapons on it for defense.

Over time, they will usually add more capital-class equipment to it.

This beast uses a very powerful fission power drive. It needs to be constantly burning, thus generating lots of energy, and some of it goes to waste.

If they can get their hands on the tech, they re-route the waste energy to create a resonating field which improves the ships shield and antimatter regeneration and speed up weapon charging (fire rate), as well as neighboring ships. The energy field can be quantum-pulse coded so that only ships belonging to the fleet can benefit from the field.

But there are always bigger targets, and also bigger dangers. Pirates are not about going on suicidal misions, so they found an ace to keep close to the chest.

Well, technically what they do is not quite scientifically proved as 'safe', but at least it buys them time to get out of hot waters. They store a big, big pile of energy and supercharge their field resonators in broadcast mode, for all ships to 'listen' to their energy. The energy wave is so mighty that the safety overrides take over all ships system up to a certain range.

If the basic life support systems were not protected under multiple layers, people could die. Usually military ships have a second protective layer for the engines too, which means they can still move. But the weapons are gone, at least for some time. For everyone, including the pirates. 

This gives us 4 cap ship skills based on a realistic adaptation of a civilian ship for, ahem, other purposes.

'The Corkscrew' (front, channeled, interruptible): pulls ships towards the Big Bug's cargo bay. If the tractored ship enters the Big Bug, it's lost to pirates. If possible, bigger ships should be pulled slower than smaller ships.

'The Drill' (dead-on front): mighty shot can tear apart the hull of any ship, structure, or planet bombard.

'Resonate' (passive): boosts all friendly ship's systems (speed/weapon cooldown/AM regen/shield regen) by a small amount. It shakes up the target ship so violently that its systems may be reset (interrupts skills).

'Overcharge' (ultimate) : disables weapons from friends and foes alike, in a wide area around the ship. 

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Let's not forget one thing: this is a GAME! it's supposed to be fun, and it is already very good at it. We want to make it even better. Many players, including me, are clamoring for a tougher challenge from the pirates in the late-game. I am just giving my 2 cents.

I have rationalized, with the best of my abilities, why it should be feasible for pirates to be able to operate capital ships. But the most important question is: 

Will it be FUN to have pirates with capital ships? Hell, yeah!

SO, BRING THEM ON!

Problem with the bounty is it does not reset after the raid. Even if the pirates fail, so that time after you start off with already XXXX bounty, and the guy can just keep piling it on. I would rather the raids were stronger but have the bounty reset.

That's not really how bounty works at the moment.  Pirates (or players for that matter) have to destroy ships, structures or planets of the faction with the bounty on their head to collect it.  Pirates would only get stronger if they actually collect bounty by their raids being successful.  And of course, the pirate planet will now have a small tax income so that pirates get stronger as the game goes on. Every once in a while the pirates will purchase technology upgrades (better weapons, faster weapons, more armor, more hp, new abilities).  We'll playtest it more in beta, but hopefully this makes the pirates something more than just an early game annoyance.

Yes I know how it works now. It is problematic however. In FFA games if you wanted the pirates to not go at you, would you put money on Player A who has existing bounty of 0, Player B with bounty of 0, player C with bounty of 0, or Player D who has left over bounty of 2k?  It really becomes problematic when a player becomes Pirate's biatch for the whole game basically, because his bounty never resets. Even thou you may not be fighting this player, you rather pile on anotehr 1k ontop of his bounty jsut so the guy fighting you has to pay 3k+ to get the pirates onto you.

Not to mention how current system is just ripe for abuse. I can time a colony frigate with the pirate raid to colonize the planet right before the one where pirates are headed just as they arrive there. They will attack this planet instead, and it already has Militia on it so its guranteed to die to siege frigates. Losing planet reduces your boutny by a lot, so my bounty might get even reduced to 0 and the pirate raid turns around, which is very silly.

Great ideas. I always felt the pirates needed some boosting.

1. Make them less predictable as to where they attack. You could make them cloak or disguise themselves as friendly ships so they remain undetected until they reach the target. Star bases or scouts could detect them.

2. They should steal credits along with collecting the bounty. If you have a trade port, thier ships should be able to steal credits, metal, or crystal from you. It could be a channeling ability that can be interrupted. Now they usually fight to the last ship to collect the bounty but that doesn't seem very piratey. They should hit and run so they can live to spend the stolen credits.

3. Maybe they can play into the new diplomacy stuff by intercepting envoy ships or sabotaging your relations with allies if you get on thier bad side.

4. They need more abilities like embargo. They could block trading lanes, temporarily disable some starbase weaponry, thier presence in systems could drastically reduce culture, or reduce the population growth for a short period of time. The raids need to be more devastating and linger alittle after a successful one.

5. Dealing with pirates could have a negative effect on your relations with others. The more you successfuly bribe them, the more difficult it is to improve relations with the AI players.

6. Maybe they could have thier own culture that expands with each successful raid. Unlike the other races, it expands from planets or asteroids that have been sucessfully raided. It could reduce weapon firing rates on your ships in those sectors symbolizing the fear they generate,  encourage AI fleets to flee more frequently rather then stay and fight it out, or make trade ships not stop at those ports and continue on to the next one in the lane.

If they don't get a 'light' capital type ship, I hope they get a carrier class.

One thing to note is that Pirates already steal credits. Their cobalt like frigates have an ability that steals small amount of credits. Careful sending those scouts through pirate base!

I didn't even realize that they do already. I guess either I don't pay close enough attention to my credits or its too little an amount to have an impact.