Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Blog Posts => Topic started by: Alex on June 12, 2018, 01:46:10 PM
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Blog post here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/2018/06/12/pirate-bases-raids-and-objectives/).
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YAY!
Don't forget to update the ticker too Alex!
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Thank you; just did :D
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I'm kinda worried that all of this will make stealth LESS useful, especially in core systems... The combo of increased burn speed and sensor range, along with the fact that the AI DNGAF about supplies and costs, is going to lead to grief to new players trying to sneak
Also, are you only able to hack Domain era objectives or can you destroy them as well? If I defeat a pirate base in the system then colonize it, do I take control over the in system objectives?
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This looks fantastic, and will likely save me some scripting down the line.
The raiding stuff, right? Yeah, I'm trying to make it pretty general-purpose and extensible since there seem to be a *lot* of possible use cases for it even if we're looking at just vanilla.
I'm kinda worried that all of this will make stealth LESS useful, especially in core systems... The combo of increased burn speed and sensor range, along with the fact that the AI DNGAF about supplies and costs, is going to lead to grief to new players trying to sneak
Yeah, will just have to see - I mean, part of this is adding these to core systems, which hasn't happened yet. I doubt *every* system would have a sensor array, say; it's really the lowest-priority one. Another option would be to have "hacking" a sensor array reduce your profile but that gets trickier implementation-wise. But, for sure, something to keep an eye on.
Also, are you only able to hack Domain era objectives or can you destroy them as well? If I defeat a pirate base in the system then colonize it, do I take control over the in system objectives?
Yes and yes; I've got a TODO somewhere for making destroying Domain-era ones have more consequences. For taking the objectives, you can either do it yourself or - if you build a Patrol HQ and have your own fleets in-system - they'll get taken over eventually.
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Is it just me or have you redesigned the pirate flag again? :P
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Is it just me or have you redesigned the pirate flag again? :P
*cough*
(I thought it could look meaner, is all.)
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Will multiple colonies be able to cover each other in case of raids? IE if the raid chooses colony A, would colony B send its fleets to help out A?
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Will multiple colonies be able to cover each other in case of raids? IE if the raid chooses colony A, would colony B send its fleets to help out A?
To an extent, yeah. Naturally a station would only help the colony it's on, but patrol fleets will defend everywhere. The raid starts out choosing a system, btw, not a specific colony, and will then look for weaker targets when it gets there.
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Will the debris fields and such disappear after a bit? Otherwise I'm worried that the pirates will win anyways through OoM errors and super lag
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Do bases serve economic purpose as well? I assume so, but you can land/trade etc there just like anywhere else?
Could you form an alliance or up relations with pirates and then use these bases, or smuggle to them, or have your station raid them back?
Just curious what options there will be (and for some of these I'm more curious if that's an eventual maybe, not next patch stuff).
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Can new pirate bases spawn (either spontaneously built or stolen from someone), and can old pirate bases destroyed rebuild elsewhere?
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What about playing as pirates? Can we build pirate bases and attack colonies too? I love being a pirate lol
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Are pirate markets like Barad and Kanta's Den still in the core systems, or have they been pushed out into the random fringe worlds where the bases are?
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Will the debris fields and such disappear after a bit? Otherwise I'm worried that the pirates will win anyways through OoM errors and super lag
They will despawn, yeah. In the "map after pirate raid" screenshot, the derelict ships haven't despawned because the player fleet is still in-system.
Do bases serve economic purpose as well? I assume so, but you can land/trade etc there just like anywhere else?
You can actually land there and trade, if you manage to avoid the fleets, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's mainly a consequence of those being set up as proper markets on the back end.
Could you form an alliance or up relations with pirates and then use these bases, or smuggle to them, or have your station raid them back?
Just curious what options there will be (and for some of these I'm more curious if that's an eventual maybe, not next patch stuff).
At this point, no. There are some possibly interesting options there but I don't want to delve into it without getting a lot of other stuff done first. Breadth first, then depth as needed, at least for this stuff.
Can new pirate bases spawn (either spontaneously built or stolen from someone), and can old pirate bases destroyed rebuild elsewhere?
Yes they can. "Old" bases don't reappear; a rebuilt base is a new base as far as the game is concerned.
What about playing as pirates? Can we build pirate bases and attack colonies too? I love being a pirate lol
I'm thinking through the options for players raiding core colonies; no specific comment quite yet :) You wouldn't be able to build exactly the same sort of base as the pirates - which is just a standalone station - but you could certainly build a colony with an orbital station.
Are pirate markets like Barad and Kanta's Den still in the core systems, or have they been pushed out into the random fringe worlds where the bases are?
They're in the core at the moment; not 100% sure on how it'll end up. Barad had to lose its orbital station defenses, since that kept attracting the Hegemony patrols and getting destroyed, but that... kind of makes sense. A Hegemony administrator might turn a blind eye to some "perfectly legitimate miners", but that's a lot harder to do if their station is bristling with guns.
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I'm not sure if im understanding correctly, but i'd imagine a player on good terms with pirates should be able to land but no one else?
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5 levels of pirate stations - nogunz, 1, 2, 3 combat sections, then mines, or those funny looking pike sections?
That makeshift sensor array seemed awfully cheap, but then again, I regard everything in the game at the moment as very cheap, even after changing ship and gun prices to be thrice as high. I should play without ship recovery skills. I also never picked up that objectives in combat are actually supposed to be some real things.
Will buildings have any differences based on the planet size or type? It's logical to have military base stationed on a barren rock, but it'd be better if it was logical in the game itself.
It would be nice if you expanded raid mechanic to make it usable for the player or factions in general (either as privateering or actual warfare), if you're affiliated.
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Will Tigra City and other freestanding stations remain as they are or become battlestations? Have I asked this before?
What about playing as pirates? Can we build pirate bases and attack colonies too? I love being a pirate lol
I'm thinking through the options for players raiding core colonies; no specific comment quite yet :) You wouldn't be able to build exactly the same sort of base as the pirates - which is just a standalone station - but you could certainly build a colony with an orbital station.
On the one hand I understand the implementation difficulties of allowing players to build stations wherever they want. On the other hand standalone stations in asteroid belts/fields and around gas giants are classic archetypes. On the third hand I've had fun playing semi-nomadic factions in other games and the concept of a planet-less faction is cool.
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I'm not sure if im understanding correctly, but i'd imagine a player on good terms with pirates should be able to land but no one else?
Pirates don't require you to be friendly to trade, so long as your transponder is off.
5 levels of pirate stations - nogunz, 1, 2, 3 combat sections, then mines, or those funny looking pike sections?
Nothing that high, it tops out at "3 sections" and then quality goes up for the 5th tier.
Will buildings have any differences based on the planet size or type? It's logical to have military base stationed on a barren rock, but it'd be better if it was logical in the game itself.
Is it? Air seems like a pretty good thing to have, even for military types :)
But, right - some industries are affected by planetary conditions. All industries are affected by the hazard rating of a planet; it increases their upkeep.
It would be nice if you expanded raid mechanic to make it usable for the player or factions in general (either as privateering or actual warfare), if you're affiliated.
Yep, it's something I'm thinking about.
Will Tiger Station and other freestanding stations remain as they are or become battlestations? Have I asked this before?
I don't think that's a vanilla thing?
In any case, something like say Kanta's Den:
1) remains a standalone station, and
2) has a (in this case) "star fortress" industry
Since the game is aware of the primary entity being a station, it doesn't spawn a separate "station" entity around it, but treats the primary entity as if it were the station, for purposes of combat etc. Hope that answers your question!
On the one hand I understand the implementation difficulties of allowing players to build stations wherever they want. On the other hand standalone stations in asteroid belts/fields and around gas giants are classic archetypes. On the third hand I've had fun playing semi-nomadic factions in other games and the concept of a planet-less faction is cool.
I hear you, but gotta draw the line somewhere. And mechanically, there's no real incentive to do that, except for rare cases where there isn't a planet at all. This is a "very, extremely unlikely maybe" in my book.
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What I did not expect to see in this blog post: comm relays being destructible! Very ambitious.
Will Tiger Station and other freestanding stations remain as they are or become battlestations? Have I asked this before?
I don't think that's a vanilla thing?
Sorry, I meant Tigra City.
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I think he means that this looks like a large scale re-imagining of pirates. And so pirate planets don’t make much sense. So he was wondering if the planets themselves were long for he world
To me it would fit better thematically with this system if pirate markets “just showed up” on unstable planets. Like how you have to have a certain influence to open the faction market you have to have a below certain market stability to access the pirate market.
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Sounds sick. I would hope that Pirates (and presumably any other hostile factions) would sometimes target yours and each others' relays/beacons/arrays when attacking one anothers' systems
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"Pirates" covers a wide range of stuff in terms of how it's being used in vanilla. E.G. on Umbra, they're revolutionaries fighting against the established order. At Garnir (Barad's moon with pirate base, now) it's basically some low-level illegal activity. Or it could mean a world whose government is no longer in control and was replaced by warlord rule. Or more "traditional" pirates like the ones operating from these bases.
Sounds sick. I would hope that Pirates (and presumably any other hostile factions) would sometimes target yours and each others' relays/beacons/arrays when attacking one anothers' systems
Yep, that's how it works. E.G. it's possible for objectives in populated systems to change hands now and again, and when pirate raiders come in, they may break off some units to take objectives.
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This looks really cool, and also super extendable to things other than pirates...
This next version is looking incredible, thanks Alex!
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Yes...! Combat with Purpose™!
These raids add a much needed layer of both instability and momentum to the campaign. Even the campaign objectives are well-suited for give-and-take between factions. I really like where this is going and how its being implemented.
I notice in the screenshot that the pirate base is a fair distance away from the targeted system. I'm assuming that we'll have some intel that tells us that the raid has assembled and is en route. Is there any incentive in-game to dispatching raids before they launch (best), before they reach the targeted system (better), joining the affected parties to fight the pirates (ok), or mopping up after the pirates are retreating/win (poor/very poor)? It'd make sense for a faction to pay a premium for a preemptive strike. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, after all... :)
Also, if the pirate raiding fleets have to travel across multiple core systems (in hyperspace), I'm assuming they're going to be hostile to everything along the way. So, what are the chances that other patrols around the jump points, not affiliated with the targeted system, will cut down the pirate fleets before they arrive?
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Thinking about pirates makes me wonder where are they all coming from (aside from computer conjuring them up ex nihilo)? That is a lot of blood (if they were real) to satisfy any bloodthirsty warmonger.
I guess Remnants can join in on their own kill-all-humans crusade action.
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Seems like lots of fun. Is there a max number of how many active bases the pirates will spawn? I mean, if you build enough strong defenses I guess you wouldn't have to worry about a raid, but if the pirates keep making bases then your colony will eventually fall.
Another thing that worries me is that pirates are.. well.. overused. In a regular run of Starsector they will be your enemy for about 60-80% of the game, depending on how much you explore and how much you engage with another faction. I was hoping that at the colony battle level things would change a bit in terms of what battles we'd be fighting.
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This looks really cool, and also super extendable to things other than pirates...
This next version is looking incredible, thanks Alex!
:D
I notice in the screenshot that the pirate base is a fair distance away from the targeted system. I'm assuming that we'll have some intel that tells us that the raid has assembled and is en route. Is there any incentive in-game to dispatching raids before they launch (best), before they reach the targeted system (better), joining the affected parties to fight the pirates (ok), or mopping up after the pirates are retreating/win (poor/very poor)? It'd make sense for a faction to pay a premium for a preemptive strike. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, after all... :)
Not particularly; it's just an option you can take if it's more convenient. The bounty is for destroying a station, btw, not stopping a raid, so that doesn't quite factor in there.
Also, if the pirate raiding fleets have to travel across multiple core systems (in hyperspace), I'm assuming they're going to be hostile to everything along the way. So, what are the chances that other patrols around the jump points, not affiliated with the targeted system, will cut down the pirate fleets before they arrive?
Pretty unlikely - there aren't a whole lot of patrols in hyperspace, and the game takes a few liberties simulating fleets far away from the player. Plus, there's a good chance that any solo patrol in hyperspace would get quickly overwhelmed by a raid, at least a large one.
Thinking about pirates makes me wonder where are they all coming from (aside from computer conjuring them up ex nihilo)?
Well, if you consider that Chicomoztoc has a population in the hundreds of millions, and how poor the general quality of life is in the Sector...
Seems like lots of fun. Is there a max number of how many active bases the pirates will spawn? I mean, if you build enough strong defenses I guess you wouldn't have to worry about a raid, but if the pirates keep making bases then your colony will eventually fall.
There's a max (TBD, probably something like 3 + whatever is currently leeching off the player's colonies). Also some thoughts re: what might cause that number to go up, but nothing concrete as of yet.
Another thing that worries me is that pirates are.. well.. overused. In a regular run of Starsector they will be your enemy for about 60-80% of the game, depending on how much you explore and how much you engage with another faction. I was hoping that at the colony battle level things would change a bit in terms of what battles we'd be fighting.
I mean, gameplay-wise they just make perfect sense as a problem for new colonies, and it's a good one to start with so that I can actually get into some playtesting. I'd imagine colonies will also push you into conflict with major factions (and indeed have some thoughts on the specifics here), but that would generally be a "slightly later on in the game" thing, since your initial set of rust-bucket patrols and low-tier stations would not be much help there.
I do see what you're saying, though. If the player doesn't take the necessary steps, pirates can be the main opponent throughout the game. Hopefully that will indeed change up a bit.
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In any case, something like say Kanta's Den:
1) remains a standalone station, and
2) has a (in this case) "star fortress" industry
Since the game is aware of the primary entity being a station, it doesn't spawn a separate "station" entity around it, but treats the primary entity as if it were the station, for purposes of combat etc.
Means it can be destroyed, I assume?
Also: can another, strong pirate base spawn in core world?
Can new pirate bases spawn (either spontaneously built or stolen from someone), and can old pirate bases destroyed rebuild elsewhere?
Yes they can. "Old" bases don't reappear; a rebuilt base is a new base as far as the game is concerned.
On that basis, and considering
You can actually land there and trade, if you manage to avoid the fleets, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's mainly a consequence of those being set up as proper markets on the back end.
: will the major factions build colonies of their own for players to interact with?(in limited numbers of course)
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Nice addition. Been waiting for some good loving for the sector's biggest (Non-REDACTED) baddies.
Are there in-game factors that might influence pirate bases to spawn/not spawn at certain places - like ruins of previous stations, near to debris fields of major battles, etc? Eg: build a station near enemies, then abandon it, so pirates might take over and proceed to raid enemies. Or would they spawn in semi-random locations, being less predictable, and less controllable by the player?
Are there any ideas about scaling raids? A few raids from that get swatted by security would be understandable. Pirates aren't known for their strategic thinking, and their experienced commanders probably tend to have short lifespans. But multiple cycles of pirates throwing their ineffectual fleets at the same station dozens or hundreds of times might break immersion. Angry leaders occasionally building up for a large determined attack or decreasing frequency from losses might make more sense.
With the planned mechanics, what would you guesstimate the odds are that players might end up using pirate raids' salvage as a primary income source?
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Means it can be destroyed, I assume?
Also: can another, strong pirate base spawn in core world?
No, and no, ...
On that basis, and considering
You can actually land there and trade, if you manage to avoid the fleets, but I'm not sure how I feel about that. It's mainly a consequence of those being set up as proper markets on the back end.
: will the major factions build colonies of their own for players to interact with?(in limited numbers of course)
and no :)
(To clarify the first answer: the combat portion of the station can be taken out, but the hab portion will remain and the combat section will eventually be rebuilt. Stations are a stack of rings, basically, right? And in combat, you see the combat section. Pirate bases are "special" in that they do get despawned on being defeated.
To the last answer, I could possibly see this happening as a few one-offs, but it's not a priority or anything near being "planned". More a potential tool to solve a gameplay issue that might get solved by it, or if it just seems like a particularly good idea for a specific reason.)
Are there in-game factors that might influence pirate bases to spawn/not spawn at certain places - like ruins of previous stations, near to debris fields of major battles, etc? Eg: build a station near enemies, then abandon it, so pirates might take over and proceed to raid enemies. Or would they spawn in semi-random locations, being less predictable, and less controllable by the player?
There are some factors; i.e. pirates won't establish bases in REDACTED systems. I'm not sure how much the player would be influence it, I don't imagine establishing and abandoning a colony would be something to undertake lightly.
Are there any ideas about scaling raids? A few raids from that get swatted by security would be understandable. Pirates aren't known for their strategic thinking, and their experienced commanders probably tend to have short lifespans. But multiple cycles of pirates throwing their ineffectual fleets at the same station dozens or hundreds of times might break immersion. Angry leaders occasionally building up for a large determined attack or decreasing frequency from losses might make more sense.
Yeah. Still working through the details here but, right, those are all considerations.
With the planned mechanics, what would you guesstimate the odds are that players might end up using pirate raids' salvage as a primary income source?
Pretty low. I'd think pirate raids wouldn't be that frequent and that reliable and that weak. Plus, combat by itself - without bounties - isn't all that profitable in the first place, and especially not compared to what else you might be doing.
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What is the worst that can happen to a player colony if the player doesn't do anything? Would it only affect stability or can our stations actually be destroyed? I'm a bit worried over how much babysitting we'd have to do (pirates + whatever else might threaten your base), but I suppose once you upgrade your station well enough it won't be an issue.
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Is there a strategic-level AI governing the response to raids and counter-raids? Like, if I drop into a system unnanounced with an Onslaught for a doorknocker and a pirate fleet spots me, will they gather nearby fleets and attack me? Pull back all fleets in-system to defend the station? Or, if the forces are lopsided enough, simply abandon the system? (I better still get paid in the last case)
Will this change if I have my transponder off? (Maybe I'm just coming to trade!)
If the player leaves a pirate base alone long enough, will it ever go away on its own? Might one of the major factions could mount their own expedition to destroy the base?
Might the player gain the benefits of a faction's objectives through a commission or some other channel?
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Overall, these new game systems look like they'll add a lot of depth and interest to the game! Definitely excited :)
I think there are a lot of devils in the details, however:
1. If players don't have strategic-level control of fleets and can't take command of fleets remotely, how is the game going to avoid becoming Whack-A-Mole?
2. If build-times are a thing, then players will get stuck defending every single Outpost until it has Pirate-proof defenses, most likely. Won't that be pretty boring? Shouldn't players be off doing something fun and letting their underlings get on with it?
3. What happens when players are, to put it gently, at the point where these Pirate groups aren't scary to their fleet at all, but can still (somehow) do relevant damage to their interests? I mean, most of what was in the screenshots wouldn't scare me past early game; getting this idea to scale well is probably pretty crucial, because having to chase off a collection of Destroyers / Frigates that wouldn't be a real threat to my main fleet in a straight fight sounds boring.
4. If some Markets are immortal, doesn't that more-or-less detract from the game being a sandbox?
5. Shouldn't a player be able to bribe Pirates into raiding elsewhere? Paying barbarians to harry somebody else's borders is almost always better than fighting them, IRL.
6. Shouldn't player patrols discover Pirate bases being built in nearby Systems?
7. If that's so, why aren't they wiping out the bases during construction?
8. If this works for the Pirates, economically, why doesn't it work for players or Factions?
Anyhow, just some thoughts. Not sure why you aren't just building a single model for player vs. AI interactions at the strategic level, rather than this model where Pirates are exceptional, grow their empires, etc. is a good idea, frankly; I think that ultimately it's best if these systems are consistent and sensible.
For example, if the Pirates can build their "raiding Outposts" quickly enough to be a real threat (and profitable, too), it stands to reason players and the Factions should be able to do the same; but that speed implies that there really should be quite a lot of border-war stuff going on between the Factions, where they're constantly trying to erect "raiding bases" to harass one another.
Perhaps a good solution might be that new Outpost Stations, complete with desired defenses, can be bought and transported by players, Factions, Pirates, etc., then moved around with a fleet and "booted up" wherever is appropriate. This would get rid of a lot of Silly (like, why do players have to sit around building things, when Pirates suddenly get a Station up without any notice) but let players build well-defended colonies if they want, right from the start (if they're willing to pay the costs) ala the late-game in MOOII, where players built colonies with defenses instantly upon arrival in a new system.
Anyhow, just some thoughts on this, in terms of possible places where this might go awry, etc. I'm very excited to hear how this part's getting fleshed out and I'm really excited about this update :)
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How does the whole "pirate base spawns near player colonies" thing work out if the player colonies are in the core systems? First thought would be Penelope's Star, but could also apply to some randomly generated worlds in inhabited systems that might be colony-worthy.
Hopefully near the player colonies is still far enough away to not be silly in such a situation.
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How easily and readily is the new system moddable? Let's assume that I want to make the Luddic Path use the same system for pirate bases. Could having multiple factions with pirate bases cause trouble such as excessive raids? If player is friendly with a Pirate faction, the AI probably understands that it does not need to spawn pirate bases near player's colonies, right?
(I am asking mainly due to my plans of making a submod for Nexerelin with various minor factions added by splitting the Pirate and the Independent factions.)
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Can't factions set up small automated defense platforms to fend off players from the objectives? Otherwise I'm can imagine players spam transverse jump right after they've done sabotaging.
I'd imagine such condition: auto defense system engage you if you try to sabotage/take over the objective and there will be a big countdown in the battle indicating: "enemy reinforcement arriving in XX:XX". If you fail to kill the defending platform fast enough you get in HUGE trouble fighting some armada.
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Transverse Jump assumes Navigation 3, which is a hefty price for a skill that has no use in combat, although better fuel use at 2 and +5 to SB at 3 are good (for a QoL skill). Plus, the cooldown it got made it less useful as a shortcut move. I would take Navigation, except I do not due to lack of skill points (too many other skills compete).
If skills were unchanged aside from addition of skills governing administrators and colonies, the skill point squeeze is even worse than it is now, and it is bad now.
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There are some factors; i.e. pirates won't establish bases in REDACTED systems.
Aww man, that's a shame. I am loving the fact that there are things you can do to prepare for the battle proper with the pirate station. Kind of makes it feel like a straight up campaign rather than a one-off battle.
That being said, I hope you reconsider the pirates and REDACTED not spawning together. That would be an amazing opportunity for the player to strategize and exploit the enemy. Perhaps leading a fleet of REDACTED into the pirate fleets to whittle down their numbers and make the fight with their station easier? I feel there's a more potential for fun and variety than otherwise. Taking on pirate stations will be super fun, but I would love even more numerous ways to do so.
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I can see pirates taking over AI systems and either making pirate versions of AI ships or upgrading their ships as used by deserters.
Speaking of deserters, they do not feel like pirates at all. They feel like a major fraction with cheap red paint and a kiddie pirate sticker stamped on them. It is like a Hegemony fleet saying "We are not the Hegemony! We are pirates! No, really we are! <Right!>"
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What is the worst that can happen to a player colony if the player doesn't do anything? Would it only affect stability or can our stations actually be destroyed? I'm a bit worried over how much babysitting we'd have to do (pirates + whatever else might threaten your base), but I suppose once you upgrade your station well enough it won't be an issue.
If a station is defeated in battle, it goes into a "disrupted" state (a general thing for industries and structures) for half its build time, after which it comes back. This doesn't cost anything, but fo course the station is unavailable for combat support during that time.
As far as the worst that could happen - well, it depends. I'd imagine pirates would be interested in raiding, not destruction, though if they were particularly angry at you for whatever reason...
Let's just say that - if we expand this beyond pirates, also - that all options are on the table. The more severe outcomes would need to be more rare and signalled clearly, of course.
Also: I feel like in many of the responses, "pirate raids" are assumed to be a common thing and the main thing that pirate bases do. That's not the case; the main impact of bases is the "pirate activity" market condition, which is just a passive debuff which you can deal with by destroying the station, or by just ignoring and accepting the hit to your colony stats. Raids, which also don't exactly require player intervention, would be more rare.
Generally, the idea is that there are a lot of things for the player to deal with, and they have to prioritize what to deal with first, and what to ignore entirely until some future, more convenient time.
Is there a strategic-level AI governing the response to raids and counter-raids? Like, if I drop into a system unnanounced with an Onslaught for a doorknocker and a pirate fleet spots me, will they gather nearby fleets and attack me? Pull back all fleets in-system to defend the station? Or, if the forces are lopsided enough, simply abandon the system? (I better still get paid in the last case)
Will this change if I have my transponder off? (Maybe I'm just coming to trade!)
Bases don't shut down, no - I think that might just create problems in the name of doing some "realistic". There's some level of strategic AI but it's not particularly involved. In particular, it wouldn't do any of the things you say, but it would defend the objectives. It could be pretty easily extended to defend the base as well; basically it just creates a set of points that need to be defended, each with a weight/expiration time, and patrols/military fleets distribute themselves accordingly.
If the player leaves a pirate base alone long enough, will it ever go away on its own? Might one of the major factions could mount their own expedition to destroy the base?
Might the player gain the benefits of a faction's objectives through a commission or some other channel?
Maybe at some point? These seem very much like "optional extras".
Overall, these new game systems look like they'll add a lot of depth and interest to the game! Definitely excited :)
:D
1. If players don't have strategic-level control of fleets and can't take command of fleets remotely, how is the game going to avoid becoming Whack-A-Mole?
1) system defenses, 2) raids actually not being all that common, and 3) mostly not that disastrous. It's just a thing you have to prioritize responding to vs something else you might be doing.
2. If build-times are a thing, then players will get stuck defending every single Outpost until it has Pirate-proof defenses, most likely. Won't that be pretty boring? Shouldn't players be off doing something fun and letting their underlings get on with it?
3. What happens when players are, to put it gently, at the point where these Pirate groups aren't scary to their fleet at all, but can still (somehow) do relevant damage to their interests?
Again, see point re: raids not being super common. I'd also imagine pirates wouldn't find out about a brand-new colony or raid it immediately. As for the later game, I'd imagine system defenses would be strong enough at that point for minor raids not to matter.
5. Shouldn't a player be able to bribe Pirates into raiding elsewhere? Paying barbarians to harry somebody else's borders is almost always better than fighting them, IRL.
Did think about it; another "optional extra" that might be nice at some point. On the flip side, it's got the "optimal play avoids combat" issue if it's cheap enough. Could possibly be an over-expensive option that you might take if you're in a bad position otherwise and can't respond to everything.
6. Shouldn't player patrols discover Pirate bases being built in nearby Systems?
Was thinking that you might discover the location of a base for free at some point, yeah, if you've got a system with patrols nearby.
7. If that's so, why aren't they wiping out the bases during construction?
8. If this works for the Pirates, economically, why doesn't it work for players or Factions?
This seems to be coming at it from a "realism" perspective, which imo is not very useful. As usual, there are all sorts of reasons for why something might or might not "make sense". E.G. I'd imagine that whoever is constructing the base has enough firepower that patrols - which don't go out of the system much anyway - spread thin enough to comb multiple systems - would simply have no chance. Or maybe they do wipe some out.
I'm sure I could come up with plenty of other reasons as well. And I'm sure one could come up with plenty of reasons for why this - or anything else - *doesn't* make sense. Ultimately, it's up to the player to decide which they want to do. IMO, any sort of sandbox experience requires this sort of "cooperation" from the player, in terms of the story they're telling themselves.
The real reason is "it would be bad for gameplay".
How does the whole "pirate base spawns near player colonies" thing work out if the player colonies are in the core systems? First thought would be Penelope's Star, but could also apply to some randomly generated worlds in inhabited systems that might be colony-worthy.
Hopefully near the player colonies is still far enough away to not be silly in such a situation.
I guess it'd have to be a bit further away. Haven't gotten to coding this part yet, but there's nothing fundamental preventing pirate bases from operating from across the Sector if need be.
How easily and readily is the new system moddable? Let's assume that I want to make the Luddic Path use the same system for pirate bases. Could having multiple factions with pirate bases cause trouble such as excessive raids? If player is friendly with a Pirate faction, the AI probably understands that it does not need to spawn pirate bases near player's colonies, right?
(I am asking mainly due to my plans of making a submod for Nexerelin with various minor factions added by splitting the Pirate and the Independent factions.)
(Hi, and welcome to the forum!)
This is very moddable, yeah, though excessive raids might indeed be a problem. I'll see if I can make that tunable somehow, but no promises.
As far as the player being friendly with pirates, I don't know. In theory the code should handle it, but game-design-wise, that possibility is becoming more and more troublesome. Frankly, I could see just hard-locking the player-pirate reputation to -50 at some point. You don't need to be friendly with pirates to be a pirate yourself - or to deal with pirates - and since pirates cover *such* a huge range of possibilities, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be friendly with them in the first place.
(Also: I may or may not have plans to do something mechanically related with the Luddic Path.)
Can't factions set up small automated defense platforms to fend off players from the objectives? Otherwise I'm can imagine players spam transverse jump right after they've done sabotaging.
Hmm, this doesn't really seem like a problem - more like things wworking as intended - and a clean getaway doesn't require a transverse jump anyway.
That being said, I hope you reconsider the pirates and REDACTED not spawning together. That would be an amazing opportunity for the player to strategize and exploit the enemy. Perhaps leading a fleet of REDACTED into the pirate fleets to whittle down their numbers and make the fight with their station easier? I feel there's a more potential for fun and variety than otherwise. Taking on pirate stations will be super fun, but I would love even more numerous ways to do so.
I hear what you're saying, but what would most likely happen is just a bunch of non-stop random fights, with the pirates getting the short end of the stick. It wouldn't be the (neat) strategic thing you're envisioning.
Speaking of deserters, they do not feel like pirates at all. They feel like a major fraction with cheap red paint and a kiddie pirate sticker stamped on them. It is like a Hegemony fleet saying "We are not the Hegemony! We are pirates! No, really we are! <Right!>"
Again, "pirates" covers a wide range of possibilities. It's really anyone outside the law in the Sector, as defined by the major factions.
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As far as the worst that could happen - well, it depends. I'd imagine pirates would be interested in raiding, not destruction, though if they were particularly angry at you for whatever reason...
I think that making a target colony (or one of them, since it targets star systems) decrease by one order of magnitude would be sufficiently punishing, but recoverable.
This is very moddable, yeah, though excessive raids might indeed be a problem. I'll see if I can make that tunable somehow, but no promises.
As far as the player being friendly with pirates, I don't know. In theory the code should handle it, but game-design-wise, that possibility is becoming more and more troublesome. Frankly, I could see just hard-locking the player-pirate reputation to -50 at some point. You don't need to be friendly with pirates to be a pirate yourself - or to deal with pirates - and since pirates cover *such* a huge range of possibilities, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be friendly with them in the first place.
I think that limiting raids to just 1 at the same time, per faction, should do the trick, doubly so if the mechanic doesn't end up being available for all factions.
As for pirate reputation, I'd just shift their behaviour 50 points to the right, so that the player can't gain as much good will as with other factions, but can gather much more wrath, if the scale goes -150 to 50.
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In any case, something like say Kanta's Den:
1) remains a standalone station, and
2) has a (in this case) "star fortress" industry
Since the game is aware of the primary entity being a station, it doesn't spawn a separate "station" entity around it, but treats the primary entity as if it were the station, for purposes of combat etc. Hope that answers your question!
the combat portion of [Kanta's Den] can be taken out, but the hab portion will remain and the combat section will eventually be rebuilt. Stations are a stack of rings, basically, right? And in combat, you see the combat section. Pirate bases are "special" in that they do get despawned on being defeated.
If a station is defeated in battle, it goes into a "disrupted" state (a general thing for industries and structures) for half its build time, after which it comes back. This doesn't cost anything, but fo course the station is unavailable for combat support during that time.
So if I'm reading this right, attacking a station results in one of the following:
- If the station is a battlestation orbiting a planet market it is destroyed, but the market's "battlestation" structure/industry will remain and eventually a new battlestation will appear.
- If the station is a market station, like Tigra City or Citadel Arcadia, it can be attacked, but only the combat section can be destroyed. The station will remain and eventually the combat section will be repaired.
- But certain market stations (such as the pirate stations featured in this blog post) are instead completely destroyed.
- Then there are stations with no association with a market, such as [REDACTED] stations, that are completely destroyed like the above pirate stations.
Of course, there's nothing preventing passive, invincible stations like the current ones. Will some vanilla stations still be like that?
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This is very moddable, yeah, though excessive raids might indeed be a problem. I'll see if I can make that tunable somehow, but no promises.
As far as the player being friendly with pirates, I don't know. In theory the code should handle it, but game-design-wise, that possibility is becoming more and more troublesome. Frankly, I could see just hard-locking the player-pirate reputation to -50 at some point. You don't need to be friendly with pirates to be a pirate yourself - or to deal with pirates - and since pirates cover *such* a huge range of possibilities, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be friendly with them in the first place.
I think that limiting raids to just 1 at the same time, per faction, should do the trick, doubly so if the mechanic doesn't end up being available for all factions.
As for pirate reputation, I'd just shift their behaviour 50 points to the right, so that the player can't gain as much good will as with other factions, but can gather much more wrath, if the scale goes -150 to 50.
I don't think pirates even HAVE any kind of central authority or universal intel network thus I don't think a universal reputation applies in first place.
A possible approach would be let there be a general "pirate" faction but when a pirate raiding outpost spawns it generates itself a sub-faction and run a semi-independent reputation system.
The initial reputation it spawns would be -50+(0.5 x general pirate rep) (or whatever factor fits in there) and they still can show partial hostility at rep 0 but much less than at -100.
After all pirates are still humans, they just want money and cargo and whatever valueable for them to have better life, maybe you'll be able to negotiate with pirate outpost boss at subfaction rep 0 and give them something they ask for to temporarily stop them from raiding. (They may also ask you for warships and weapons and later cheat on you... who knows lol)
Anything you do to pirates (including subfactions) now will have little impact on pirate general rep but they still do stack up, allowing more dynamic strategy against pirates.
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This is incredible. Seriously, this last blog post shows a quantum leap to map-scale progressive gameplay that accelerates past any expectations I had. Astounding. You're almost there!
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If there's a random, active Domain era communications relay in an unclaimed, uninhabited system, can it be salvaged and brought somewhere more useful if you've got plenty of cargo space? Given that vague equivalents of these satellites can apparently be created with some effort, carefully disconnecting the guts and reassembling them in another location seems vaguely reasonable. I don't recall there being that many when I've laughed off the inhabited parts of the sector and gone out to explore the whole rim a few times. The inactive ones are somewhat more common, but, well, they're not very useful.
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I personally feel that Pirates (And independents, and Traders, and Smugglers, and so on) should be something of an Edge-case of mechanics.
Aside from, Pirates shouldn't really be fully allied with each other, They don't exactly have a normal economy, are unlikely to own planets, and some other stuff.
I think mechanics should be written for the main factions and secondary factions first, and then, exceptions and new rules should be made for the weird factions.
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Some pirate subfactions would make sense as they not really unified. Having subfaction system that centers around warlords or pirate lords that appear and cause mayhem would be nice.
About pirate rep. What about system that give player bonus rep when fighting off challenging him pirates(as he prove to be hard nut to crack) and neg rep for harrasing smugglers and guys who run? Positive rep to the point when most pirates would ignore player fleet (maybe outside revenge and hunter fleets).
Question to Alex.
Is it will be possible (and easy) to modify max amount of pirate starbases or make another faction use similar mechanics?
I kind of entertain idea of having sector fall into total chaos with plenty of aider starbases and multiple raiding factions.
Also can we get some more custom options on generating new sector?
Like having some setups like different number of core systems, pirate activity, other stuff. Etc?
Also can these starbases system can be used for mayor factions but not for raiding but for staging exploration, salvage, antipiracy or colonozation mission?
Overall really nice blog and cant really wait for new update to hit.
God speed.
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It would make sense if the pirate reputation was set permanently to hostile with the player. However, the current planets and stations held by the pirates in the core systems would be slightly weirder in that case. If the player plays as a pirate and loots trade fleets etc., it should be reasonably safe to visit those markets which are owned by pirates (and supposedly ruled by smugglers and other lawless folks).
It would be more realistic if there was some kind of a "safe-zone" around the pirate core markets where the pirate fleets would avoid attacking the player. Perhaps the safe area around a pirate market would simulate a planet's sensor radius. Smugglers ruling a planet would not like to see a potential customer dead on their doorstep. Perhaps the violating party (the player) that attacked other pirates near a pirate market would be penalized by being forbidden to dock with the market for a few months. This system could simulate pirate laws or customs, and make the pirates to feel like real pirates. In comparison, real life Buccaneers had quite complex laws of their own.
I do not know if this would improve the gameplay in a meaningful way. Just throwing some thoughts around. :)
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I've made friends with the Luddic Path before but as I understand it with the pirates, it's a little tricky.
It's not like they wouldn't still raid your faction even if some powerful pirate lords like you, well unless there are some concessions you can make to bring the raiders 'in house.'
Even still I believe you can trade at pirate ports from the game go, it just that pirate fleets still try to devour you if they think they can.
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K, this looks *** awesome Alex.
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Ohmygod I can't wait for this update. It's like, "Do you want colonies?"
And I'm like, "Um, yes?"
And it's like, "Great! Here's colonies. And also everything else too."
There are just a couple things I'm concerned about. First, if we're no where near an active relay (like in the core worlds) do we still get warned about a raid coming to our colony? I've gone exploring the outer systems for more than a cycle at a time, and if I had a colony, it would really suck to come back to find it devastated. Even if you're not in communication range, maybe your colony could send a messenger to you. After all, it's important to them that you know they need help. And I could imagine a single mudskipper(D) or the like, with basically no remaining supplies or fuel (so the player can't abuse it, even if they could know it was coming) showing up to meet you (on the route that you supposedly told your colony about before you left) to tell you the dire news. And I would understand this being an exception to the "simulate every fleet" philosophy; the mudskipper could spawn just beyond your sensor range and come straight to you (presumably joining your fleet when it gets there). Whatever the case, I wouldn't enjoy having this constant nagging feeling that I had to check in with the core worlds to know my colony wasn't being torn apart all the time.
And second, while the "pirate activity" condition is a nice way to push the player into combat and to get the player involved in the development of his/her colony early on, it will eventually outlive its usefulness. For example, lets say I have a "colony" (industrial superpower world) where POP = MAX and STATION = BIGGEST, with factory lines of patrols full of onslaughts and paragons under a super-experienced, super-coordinated planetary defense command. It would suck to have to live with a near-permanent "pirate activity" condition just because I couldn't be bothered any more with destroying pirate outposts personally. Surely some bright spark in the planetary defense command would come up with the idea to send one or two measly fleets of paragons to the neighboring system to deal with those pirates. I'm even ok with them not doing that if the pirates eventually decide we're just too big of a target to pester; as long as there is some point (even one well after I can deal with tier 5 pirate bases myself) that I don't have to get personally involved in something that's just trivial for me if I want my colony to function well.
Oh, and about the pirates-are-always-the-enemies thing. There are other entities on the edges of civilized space that may take an interest in your colony. Perhaps some [REDACTED] detachments are more mobile than first thought. I can really picture this being one of the risks in overusing AI. Ex. "Your colony has found an unaccounted-for program operating on it's communication system, which seems to have been transmitting data to the ([REDACTED] - controlled) system. The program has been deleted and the transmission cut, but officials in the military are advising precautions." After all, an AI taken from the [REDACTED] (as many advanced ones are) may wish to return.
Though overall it's looking really good. I can't wait to play it.
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And second, while the "pirate activity" condition is a nice way to push the player into combat and to get the player involved in the development of his/her colony early on, it will eventually outlive its usefulness. For example, lets say I have a "colony" (industrial superpower world) where POP = MAX and STATION = BIGGEST, with factory lines of patrols full of onslaughts and paragons under a super-experienced, super-coordinated planetary defense command. It would suck to have to live with a near-permanent "pirate activity" condition just because I couldn't be bothered any more with destroying pirate outposts personally. Surely some bright spark in the planetary defense command would come up with the idea to send one or two measly fleets of paragons to the neighboring system to deal with those pirates. I'm even ok with them not doing that if the pirates eventually decide we're just too big of a target to pester; as long as there is some point (even one well after I can deal with tier 5 pirate bases myself) that I don't have to get personally involved in something that's just trivial for me if I want my colony to function well.
I think most of your concerns have been handled or under development already
A raid can be disrupted with a spoiling attack while it’s still assembling, or handled once it reaches the system it’s targeting. The latter can involve a defensive battle, where the player fights on the same side as their orbital stations and patrols. Strong-enough system defenses can also handle smaller raids without the player having to be involved. Presumably, the strength of the raid would be communicated to the player, so they know whether it’s something they have to deal with personally or not. Again, this is a bit where I’m still working through some details, and pirate bases and raids would ideally be one of several sources of trouble, and not the only one.
I assume once your colony is strong enough you'll be informed frequently "we're getting raided" and a few moments later "well they got poped by our patrols AGAIN".
Also it might be a good concept for pirate base/raid size not very RNGed:
When a colony is small there is not much profit in there so there are little pirate activity around.
As colony grows bigger, pirates are more willing to raid and will try to form greater raiding fleet.
If a raid went successful, the pirates will grow and form stronger force next time, maybe even upgrading their station.
Contrarily, if they got fended off often, they'll go extreme: minor pirate activity most of the time since they generally know it's too strong to raid; major assault from time to time when they think they finally got the force to do it.
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@Sutopia Thanks, but that quote is about pirate raids. I was asking about the "pirate activity" market condition, which is a different thing.
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Will the player eventually be able to remotely orchestrate their fleets and destroy a pirate outpost? It'd make more sense than having to do everything personally, and the player still has to prioritise what their limited fleets are doing.
"But, you say, why not just build them next to the base, and have everything be defended at the same time? "
Not to be that guy, but why not just build defences around the objectives too? :P
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Thanks again for the wonderful blog post!
It leaves me with a lot of questions, but answers to those questions would only give me more questions to ask ;)
Can't wait for this update to become available, but seeing this subset of features tells me it'll still take quite a lot of time/work.
Happy to continue the wait though, as I do like how polished/balanced it feels! :D
Every update it feels like there's something I'll dislike about the game (e.g. the whole CR-mechanic before) but in the end, it is a necessary evil to balance the game.
And afterwards, I'll agree that it's a good addition so I fully trust every game-design designed you make to be a great one :)
P.S. Is it just me or are you increasing feature-scope per release because we're running out of release versions before 1.0? :P
Anyway keep up the good work, these features are as enticing as ever!
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This is incredible. Seriously, this last blog post shows a quantum leap to map-scale progressive gameplay that accelerates past any expectations I had. Astounding. You're almost there!
Thank you! Hope it delivers on the expectations :)
If there's a random, active Domain era communications relay in an unclaimed, uninhabited system, can it be salvaged and brought somewhere more useful if you've got plenty of cargo space? Given that vague equivalents of these satellites can apparently be created with some effort, carefully disconnecting the guts and reassembling them in another location seems vaguely reasonable. I don't recall there being that many when I've laughed off the inhabited parts of the sector and gone out to explore the whole rim a few times. The inactive ones are somewhat more common, but, well, they're not very useful.
It can't be salvaged like that, no, but any "inactive" comm relays etc are re-activated when you take control of them.
I think mechanics should be written for the main factions and secondary factions first, and then, exceptions and new rules should be made for the weird factions.
Right... so, say, hardcoding their standing with the player to -50 would be along those lines :)
Is it will be possible (and easy) to modify max amount of pirate starbases or make another faction use similar mechanics?
I kind of entertain idea of having sector fall into total chaos with plenty of aider starbases and multiple raiding factions.
The first should be easy (settings.json change), the second is very doable but a bit more involved.
Also can we get some more custom options on generating new sector?
Like having some setups like different number of core systems, pirate activity, other stuff. Etc?
I have some very specific ideas for what I'd like to do re: new game settings (and it probably won't make it into 0.9), but that's all I'll say about that :-X
Also can these starbases system can be used for mayor factions but not for raiding but for staging exploration, salvage, antipiracy or colonozation mission?
By mods, right? Then yes. If you mean in vanilla, then I'm not planning on doing that; the pirate bases have a specific role to play as far as player colonizing; the other stuff, while mechanically similar, wouldn't play the same role and I don't really see a reason to delve into it. One of those things where you could do a million different things, you know? Just trying to keep everything cohesive the best I can.
Overall really nice blog and cant really wait for new update to hit.
God speed.
Thank you!
It would be more realistic if there was some kind of a "safe-zone" around the pirate core markets where the pirate fleets would avoid attacking the player.
Quick note: if you turn your transponder off, pirates more or less ignore you unless you get super close.
K, this looks *** awesome Alex.
:D Thank you!
There are just a couple things I'm concerned about. First, if we're no where near an active relay (like in the core worlds) do we still get warned about a raid coming to our colony? I've gone exploring the outer systems for more than a cycle at a time, and if I had a colony, it would really suck to come back to find it devastated. Even if you're not in communication range, maybe your colony could send a messenger to you. After all, it's important to them that you know they need help. And I could imagine a single mudskipper(D) or the like, with basically no remaining supplies or fuel (so the player can't abuse it, even if they could know it was coming) showing up to meet you (on the route that you supposedly told your colony about before you left) to tell you the dire news. And I would understand this being an exception to the "simulate every fleet" philosophy; the mudskipper could spawn just beyond your sensor range and come straight to you (presumably joining your fleet when it gets there). Whatever the case, I wouldn't enjoy having this constant nagging feeling that I had to check in with the core worlds to know my colony wasn't being torn apart all the time.
Yep, I'd imagine you'd have to find out regardless of comm relay access. The Mudskipper is a nice touch, I admit, though you might just have to imagine it being there :)
And second, while the "pirate activity" condition is a nice way to push the player into combat and to get the player involved in the development of his/her colony early on, it will eventually outlive its usefulness. For example, lets say I have a "colony" (industrial superpower world) where POP = MAX and STATION = BIGGEST, with factory lines of patrols full of onslaughts and paragons under a super-experienced, super-coordinated planetary defense command. It would suck to have to live with a near-permanent "pirate activity" condition just because I couldn't be bothered any more with destroying pirate outposts personally. Surely some bright spark in the planetary defense command would come up with the idea to send one or two measly fleets of paragons to the neighboring system to deal with those pirates. I'm even ok with them not doing that if the pirates eventually decide we're just too big of a target to pester; as long as there is some point (even one well after I can deal with tier 5 pirate bases myself) that I don't have to get personally involved in something that's just trivial for me if I want my colony to function well.
I mean, that's the theory of it, but somehow crime and corruption manage to prosper in many circumstances wher they *could* be crushed. I do see your point, though - but, well, if you're that far advanced, it could simply become the cost of doing business for you. Sure, there's pirate activity, but that's just what a large colony outside the core has to deal with. Maybe it'd be somewhere where the player clears it out if the penalty gets too large, maybe it's something they can ignore, or maybe it IS something they can invest credits into dealing with remotely. Will just have to see!
Oh, and about the pirates-are-always-the-enemies thing. There are other entities on the edges of civilized space that may take an interest in your colony. Perhaps some [REDACTED] detachments are more mobile than first thought. I can really picture this being one of the risks in overusing AI. Ex. "Your colony has found an unaccounted-for program operating on it's communication system, which seems to have been transmitting data to the ([REDACTED] - controlled) system. The program has been deleted and the transmission cut, but officials in the military are advising precautions." After all, an AI taken from the [REDACTED] (as many advanced ones are) may wish to return.
Yeah, for sure, there are other options for sources of trouble. It's just that if you can take pirates out of that equation, it gets weird, and it also gets a bit bug-prone trying to remember to account for the "oh, right, pirates might not be hostile" possibility everywhere.
Also it might be a good concept for pirate base/raid size not very RNGed:
When a colony is small there is not much profit in there so there are little pirate activity around.
As colony grows bigger, pirates are more willing to raid and will try to form greater raiding fleet.
Yeah, that's very much the idea. This is one of those cases where the scaling of the threat to the extent of the player's holdings (and thus, indirectly, power) makes perfect sense.
Will the player eventually be able to remotely orchestrate their fleets and destroy a pirate outpost? It'd make more sense than having to do everything personally, and the player still has to prioritise what their limited fleets are doing.
Mmmmaybe? Not prepared to confirm or deny etc etc etc, and in any case not for 0.9.
Not to be that guy, but why not just build defences around the objectives too? :P
Costs? I mean, they probably barely scraped the resources to build one station together; building 3 more to defend some relays seems extremely uneconomical.
Thanks again for the wonderful blog post!
It leaves me with a lot of questions, but answers to those questions would only give me more questions to ask ;)
Can't wait for this update to become available, but seeing this subset of features tells me it'll still take quite a lot of time/work.
Happy to continue the wait though, as I do like how polished/balanced it feels! :D
Every update it feels like there's something I'll dislike about the game (e.g. the whole CR-mechanic before) but in the end, it is a necessary evil to balance the game.
And afterwards, I'll agree that it's a good addition so I fully trust every game-design designed you make to be a great one :)
Anyway keep up the good work, these features are as enticing as ever!
Haha, thank you!
P.S. Is it just me or are you increasing feature-scope per release because we're running out of release versions before 1.0? :P
I think it's more that a lot of these things all need each other to work. Building up to colonies was quite a process, with the economy revamp, industries/administrators/etc, ship production and blueprints, orbital stations, and probably some things I'm not thinking of just now. And then all that really needs pirate bases/raids/etc to really make it click. Sometimes it's just hard to pick out a compelling standalone subset when the features are so interrelated.
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Yeah, for sure, there are other options for sources of trouble. It's just that if you can take pirates out of that equation, it gets weird, and it also gets a bit bug-prone trying to remember to account for the "oh, right, pirates might not be hostile" possibility everywhere.
I agree pirates should always be hostile. If they were part of a more reasonable sub-faction, that sub-faction would be lobbed in with the independents instead.
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This all seems pretty cool. I especially like the "objectives" idea. Will core worlds also get them? Seems like it would make the life of ordinary pirates much harder if patrols had extra burn and sensor strength.
I’m also a fan of sneaking around with a smaller fleet, so something that can encourage that would be ideal.
Does the "luring away"-mechanic encourage the use of smaller fleets, though? Seems like it just doesn't discourage it further. Big fleets can lure away the enemy too, after all, for an even less risky (and thus statistically cheaper) fight. Not to be nitpicky, I'd just like to see some real advantage to the use of small fleets, not just a (partial) compensation of the disadvantages.
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I think the stealth play-style in general needs a buff. Maybe making small fleets more stealthy, or having more skills/hullmods that buff sensor stats. Maybe a skill that gives sensor benefits inversely proportional to fleet size.
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Maybe a skill that gives sensor benefits inversely proportional to fleet size.
That could be a pretty good general mechanic. Big fleets would have to use pickets as their eyes, and you could blind them by taking the pickets out.
Maybe, once you have a big fleet, you could even hire/build your own picket ships that operate outside your fleet as you eyes. And then you try to protect them from being swatted.
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I think mechanics should be written for the main factions and secondary factions first, and then, exceptions and new rules should be made for the weird factions.
Right... so, say, hardcoding their standing with the player to -50 would be along those lines :)
More like, Personal opinion rules. Something like an Allegiance slider maybe. Normal factions would tend towards a high value, so they heavily weigh their faction's opinion over their own, while Pirates, and to a lesser extent Independents, and maybe even Pathers would have a low Allegiance, so while having a high reputation with pirates might make pirates a bit less likely to attack you, it won't stop them outright.
Killing pirates wouldn't have nearly the same type of impact as Hegemony fleets would, since pirates are only loosely associated, while Hegemony fleets are literally part of the military.
Hmm. I really need to write up a full suggestion, with this and my other ideas on reputation.
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I think the stealth play-style in general needs a buff. Maybe making small fleets more stealthy, or having more skills/hullmods that buff sensor stats. Maybe a skill that gives sensor benefits inversely proportional to fleet size.
Or simply a phase freight that can offer enough fuel and supply for a phase ship task force for the nature of halved sensor profile of phase ships?
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Maybe a skill that gives sensor benefits inversely proportional to fleet size.
That could be a pretty good general mechanic. Big fleets would have to use pickets as their eyes, and you could blind them by taking the pickets out.
Maybe, once you have a big fleet, you could even hire/build your own picket ships that operate outside your fleet as you eyes. And then you try to protect them from being swatted.
I've always preferred the idea of an expensive (upkeep-wise and cost-wise) dedicated AWACS ship instead, mostly because I got so mad about not being able to find those probes at the edge of the system.
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What if you are a pirate?
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I have some very specific ideas for what I'd like to do re: new game settings (and it probably won't make it into 0.9), but that's all I'll say about that :-X
Speaking of new game settings; have you ever thought of any kind of NG+ option? I think Pillars of Eternity 2 did a interesting twist on it. For each achievment you unlock you gain certain points that help you out when creating a new character, like bonus money and similar things.
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Long time lurker here. Unlikely to change, just wanted to chip in.
I'm seeing a lot of talk here of removing the ability to be friendly with the pirate faction from the game.
Please don't.
I can definitely understand why it'd make the game so much easier to handle events by just having them as permanent bad guys that exist to be slaughtered and give experience/supplies/be combat fodder, but I've always appreciated the tone it sets by having pirates be a mix of outlaws, (noble?) rebels, bloodthirsty psychopaths, and people just trying to survive. Being able to get on their good side (typically at the expense of your reputation with the major factions) is something I've always enjoyed, even if it's typically quite difficult (which suits me fine).
The pirate playstyle represents a huge change to how you play the game and see things, and I've always enjoyed it as being very difficult, but also very rewarding. No other faction you join presents nearly as much of a change as the pirates do (both thematic and gameplay wise) - though I acknowledge exactly what makes me enjoy it so much also makes it so frustrating to integrate as an option, being so different from the standard approach of 90%+ of players.
While I understand that trying to account for the player being friendly to pirates might make a lot of events more difficult, please consider an alternative solution that would allow for the player to remain friendly with pirates, just because it's something I really enjoy about the game that adds a lot of depth to it (even though it's giving you a huge headache in terms of complexity).
Alternatives? Maybe having event pirates be 'marauders' or 'raiders' something and always hostile as a separate faction (to represent those who will never co-operate with you, the worst side of the pirate faction who have no qualms in dealing with a rival), or maybe just nullifying reputation loss for fighting pirates in self defense (hey, you're just proving you're a badass, right?).
I don't really have any perfect solutions (both of those would still take a fair chunk of work, I'm well aware). Still, I wanted to let you know some people really do appreciate that you can play pirate, and I wanted to make my (entirely selfish) request of keeping that feature intact, because I really enjoy it.
Besides, I'd hate to lose that wonderful pirate friendly market theme. It's amazing how the song transitions from being hostile, suspicious and threatening when you're hostile to the pirates, then going to noble and hopeful when you're friendly with a few small changes. Really gives the theme of a desperate rebellion, or just trying to stay alive.
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Long time lurker here. Unlikely to change, just wanted to chip in.
I'm seeing a lot of talk here of removing the ability to be friendly with the pirate faction from the game.
Please don't.
.........
Besides, I'd hate to lose that wonderful pirate friendly market theme. It's amazing how the song transitions from being hostile, suspicious and threatening when you're hostile to the pirates, then going to noble and hopeful when you're friendly with a few small changes. Really gives the theme of a desperate rebellion, or just trying to stay alive.
I don't think pirates even HAVE any kind of central authority or universal intel network thus I don't think a universal reputation applies in first place.
A possible approach would be let there be a general "pirate" faction but when a pirate raiding outpost spawns it generates itself a sub-faction and run a semi-independent reputation system.
The initial reputation it spawns would be -50+(0.5 x general pirate rep) (or whatever factor fits in there) and they still can show partial hostility at rep 0 but much less than at -100.
After all pirates are still humans, they just want money and cargo and whatever valuable for them to have better life, maybe you'll be able to negotiate with pirate outpost boss at sub-faction rep 0 and give them something they ask for to temporarily stop them from raiding. (They may also ask you for warships and weapons and later cheat on you... who knows lol)
Anything you do to pirates (including sub-factions) now will have little impact on pirate general rep but they still do stack up, allowing more dynamic strategy against pirates.
I ain't sure how difficult it is to "add" a sub-faction mid-game dynamically but I'ma try my best making such mod if Alex ended up fixing pirate rep at -50.
As the economy has been remade, the trade mission interceptor may not just be pirates, they can be transponder-off competitors from other markets, not necessarily pirates anymore. (Privateer operation)
Also there already exist all the independence "scavenger" that can potentially become "pirates" when you're far from core world.
Maybe the concept "pirate" itself needs some kind of revamp IMHO. After all, killing people for fun is no majority and make no sense; they rob for their living.
In certain circumstances, maybe you can even "hire" them, give them certain money and/or equipment to make privateer operations for you (with the risk they got defeated and accuse you for instigating/ or they simply cheat on you, walking away with given money doing nothing).
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I have to agree with above posters. While I don't mind having some faction being semi-permanent hostile to the player, the current way Pirates are represented is very lacklustre. I think the addition of subfactions is the way to go since there are already several groups that should be semi-independent, like the Pathers or Lion's Guard.
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I support the above posters as well. Personally I never play as a pirate but I don't think the option of joining them should be blocked.
"Lawless" could be the primary umbrella with branches like "pirates", "rebels", "marauders" and such, maybe on a fleet by fleet case? I like the above idea that killing one of this could raise rep with the pirates instead of dropping.
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Having the "raiders" be a separate pirate-like subfaction makes a certain amount of sense by breaking up the two gameplay roles of pirates: early/mid game combat enemies/sources of combat tension and illegal goods ports.
This helps with the issue of befriending the main pirate stations and gives them a niche they didn't have before: providing a smuggling port and a source of trade in illicit goods, both buying and selling, and a way for your colonies to profit from their own industries in ilicit goods (narcotics industry that exports to pirate stations for great profit?). They provide the 'illegal' options to the player that wants to do them at the cost of relations with all the main factions. This niche is closed if the (awesome) mechanic of raids tanks the player pirate relation.
Raiders meanwhile provide combat challenges to the early (and with raids mid) game players and a steady stream of bounties. They will still spawn from regular pirate bases as well so will be present in core worlds as current raiders are, but because they are a different subfaction the players will know which fleets are a threat should they go the outlaw friendly route themselves. The Raiders can be pegged at -50 relations to the players: they want to pillage and no fancy talking is going to stop them.
From the gameplay immersion perspective: The Luddic Path is the extreme branch of the Luddic Church and defending yourself against them doesn't hurt your standing with the main faction. Similarly, I can't see why the folks at Kanto's Den would mind you protecting yourself from those nutjob raiders.
Another possibility is to rename the current pirates "outlaws" and name the raiders "pirates". Or name them "reavers" and get bonus points with the Firefly crowd. (Would that be copyright infringement or an homage?)
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If Pirates had stuff (I cannot find in Open/Black markets) worth buying for joining them, I would think about it doing so. As they are, they are a bunch of losers who failed to break out and make it big. If I want to be a pirate in Starsector, I would join a major faction then beat up enemies. I get access to better goodies and get paid for acting like a pirate. If I get stuck with junk, I prefer to stay as a free agent (either to build my empire or destroy everything) than join with other losers stuck with junk.
I guess playing as pirates is hard mode, but trying to win a harder game by making yourself lame is... well, lame (to me). Win a harder game where power escalates (you get better powers, enemies get deadlier) seems more fun.
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If Pirates had stuff (I cannot find in Open/Black markets) worth buying for joining them, I would think about it doing so. As they are, they are a bunch of losers who failed to break out and make it big. If I want to be a pirate in Starsector, I would join a major faction then beat up enemies. I get access to better goodies and get paid for acting like a pirate. If I get stuck with junk, I prefer to stay as a free agent (either to build my empire or destroy everything) than join with other losers stuck with junk.
I guess playing as pirates is hard mode, but trying to win a harder game by making yourself lame is... well, lame (to me). Win a harder game where power escalates (you get better powers, enemies get deadlier) seems more fun.
Basically you're buying stuff from pirates in black markets you know...
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Basically you're buying stuff from pirates in black markets you know...
Maybe, but they are available everywhere, regardless who owns the planet. I do not need to join pirates to shop at black markets. Black market is basically open market #2, not pirates' military base.
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The color stripes feature for fleets could come in handy here. All outlaws being red and then some small stripes around the circle (not half and half) to show the type.
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Will core worlds also get them? Seems like it would make the life of ordinary pirates much harder if patrols had extra burn and sensor strength.
Yeah - they haven't yet, but it's on the TODO list. It's not going to be an "every system has everything" situation, though.
Does the "luring away"-mechanic encourage the use of smaller fleets, though? Seems like it just doesn't discourage it further. Big fleets can lure away the enemy too, after all, for an even less risky (and thus statistically cheaper) fight. Not to be nitpicky, I'd just like to see some real advantage to the use of small fleets, not just a (partial) compensation of the disadvantages.
I mean, that's fair, but you're also totally nitpicking :) I think "this is a thing smaller fleets can do, and smaller fleets are more desirable for logistical reasons (while those matter)" is reasonable to call "encourage".
That said, I'm pretty partial to the idea of 1) changing the maximum SB bonus to 10 w/o skill and removing the skill impact on it, and 2) having it scale from +5 to +10 based on the fleet's sensor profile, with larger fleets getting a lower bonus. It has the nice side-effect of also encouraging stealth since a more stealthy fleet would have a comparatively higher SB bonus.
Long time lurker here. Unlikely to change, just wanted to chip in.
Welcome to the forum, for however long you de-lurk for :)
... but I've always appreciated the tone it sets by having pirates be a mix of outlaws, (noble?) rebels, bloodthirsty psychopaths, and people just trying to survive.
Hmm - conceptually, locking the reputation would be completely in line with that. Or, rather, more in line with it than having a global, changing reputation is.
Being able to get on their good side (typically at the expense of your reputation with the major factions) is something I've always enjoyed, even if it's typically quite difficult (which suits me fine).
The pirate playstyle represents a huge change to how you play the game and see things, and I've always enjoyed it as being very difficult, but also very rewarding. No other faction you join presents nearly as much of a change as the pirates do (both thematic and gameplay wise) - though I acknowledge exactly what makes me enjoy it so much also makes it so frustrating to integrate as an option, being so different from the standard approach of 90%+ of players.
While I understand that trying to account for the player being friendly to pirates might make a lot of events more difficult, please consider an alternative solution that would allow for the player to remain friendly with pirates, just because it's something I really enjoy about the game that adds a lot of depth to it (even though it's giving you a huge headache in terms of complexity).
As far as a pirate playstyle - is being friendly with the pirates an actual requirement here? Pretty much everything piratey you do, you can do, including trading with pirate markets, as long as you've got the the transponder off, regardless of your standing.
Besides, I'd hate to lose that wonderful pirate friendly market theme. It's amazing how the song transitions from being hostile, suspicious and threatening when you're hostile to the pirates, then going to noble and hopeful when you're friendly with a few small changes. Really gives the theme of a desperate rebellion, or just trying to stay alive.
Ah, hmm, that's a point :) I could see splitting out a few factions - such as the Charterist rebels - at some point, if it became gameplay-significant. I don't particularly want to split actual core pirates into subfactions based on type, since that very much feels like unnecessarily complicating things. In any case, not 100% set on anything here; will keep this in mind, but no promises.
(Basically, if I run into something that's enough of a pain to deal with and that locking rep solves (or if a related bug comes up), I'll probably do it. If I don't, I don't see a reason to go out of the way to do it.)
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Wasn't the point of Sustained Burn was to reduce tandem of traveling? Lowering SB bonus just so small fleets have a point seems like a way to increase tandem, or at least make Navigation a skill tax (like it used to be during 0.65).
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Huh? Navigation would not be involved at all, you'd basically get that bonus for free except it would be sensor-profile-based, instead of being a flat +5 and requiring skill points.
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Is the map burn speed still capped at 20 even under nav buoy assist?
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Yep.
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Yep.
So I assume using SB is still quite uninterceptable unless they're far in front of you and have taken action to lay an intercept course?
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That said, I'm pretty partial to the idea of 1) changing the maximum SB bonus to 10 w/o skill and removing the skill impact on it, and 2) having it scale from +5 to +10 based on the fleet's sensor profile, with larger fleets getting a lower bonus. It has the nice side-effect of also encouraging stealth since a more stealthy fleet would have a comparatively higher SB bonus.
With the huge profile on the Ox, is the +1 burn really going to be worth lowering your SB bonus? And similar issues with Augmented Drive Field. (Plus leaving aside the thematic headscratchers.) I think if you want to zip around and outmaneuver slower fleets to score strategically, there are high-burn ships in every size class like the Conquest and Falcon that suit these purposes just fine. If you want to accentuate the difference between high-burn and low-burn fleets (something SB currently negates), I'd just make SB a simple "2x Burn". It's straightforward, it preserves proportional speed differences, and it keeps the +Burn options quite relevant.
Yep.
So I assume using SB is still quite uninterceptable unless they're far in front of you and have taken action to lay an intercept course?
Either an intercept course or an interdiction pulse.
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Ah, hmm, that's a point :) I could see splitting out a few factions - such as the Charterist rebels - at some point, if it became gameplay-significant. I don't particularly want to split actual core pirates into subfactions based on type, since that very much feels like unnecessarily complicating things. In any case, not 100% set on anything here; will keep this in mind, but no promises.
(Basically, if I run into something that's enough of a pain to deal with and that locking rep solves (or if a related bug comes up), I'll probably do it. If I don't, I don't see a reason to go out of the way to do it.)
If Pirates had stuff (I cannot find in Open/Black markets) worth buying for joining them, I would think about it doing so. As they are, they are a bunch of losers who failed to break out and make it big. If I want to be a pirate in Starsector, I would join a major faction then beat up enemies. I get access to better goodies and get paid for acting like a pirate. If I get stuck with junk, I prefer to stay as a free agent (either to build my empire or destroy everything) than join with other losers stuck with junk.
I'm finding Megas' statement making perfect sense: who would even BE a so-called pirate in first place?
If not secretly funded by someone, my answer is NO. NOONE would ever be pirate on their own.
Take a look at modern piracy(physical, not cyber).
They are well-organized and probably have relationship with some kind of government or rebellions.
It's very much similar to modern privateer except noone is gonna claim responsibility to their done damage.
Take a look at revamped economy, players will somehow be able to reduce competitor's accessibility so player can win the trade war.
Privateer operations are not allowed unless two factions are at war, so there can be secretly funded armadas doing the nasty work.
Take a look at free port, I think Alex has not explained how the underground economy and crime will be handled in colony in detail?
I think it's a good chance combining these up, and again make things simplified but not ruin any fun.
Idea: remove general "pirate" from game. Change it into a hidden faction that is perfectly fine with fixed rep at -50.
General random piracy will be done by independent guys just like how it acts now in .81 in far-far-far away areas.
When a so-called "pirate" appears, it's secretly funded by a market's opponent to reduce accessibility of competitors.
It then perfectly explains how all the weapons and maybe even the blueprints get to those pirate stations: it's secretly funded.
It can be one part of the underground economy exercise: a raided colony's product and/or an intercepted trade fleet's goods will get more likely appearing in black market for a few months after such operation went successful.
I'm not sure how Alex will making the crime and underground activities in player's colony managing, but what I'm imagining is you'll need to spend some money to suppress crimes; or let loose and eventually your stability drop and organized crime appears. Players can also spend additional money to try "make friends" with mafia boss, take control of both light and dark side of your colony. Although it might cause somehow reduced stability since organized crime is prerequirement, you'll then be able to actually "fund them to set a pirate base" to reduce your competitors' accessibility without heavy reputation punishment. It's an option for player trying to act like a "very clever badass".
I'm not sure if it'll go over-complicated if making it possible to trace back to pirate's funder and ask for some kind of ransom or reparation, but under assumption of all pirates are funded by competitor, it's perfectly fine setting them at hostile (rep -50).
Edit:
I think I forgot about pirate distress calls? The already-existed independent scavenger can do the job.
As player can make real and fake distress calls, why can't everyone else do same?
Some greedy NPC might just do the same and try ambush you if they think they can take you; or they pretend they pressed the wrong button and give you some fuel/supply in return for the false call if they eventually find you too big to fight against.
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I think that, if anything, there should be subfactions that made up factions themselves, at least whenever applicable. Subfactions would have max relationships with one another, but one subfaction's relation on you would affect only partially another subfaction's standing. It wouldn't make much sense for Hegemony to be so fragmented that you can be at war with one part, but not the other, but pirates could be renamed "outlaws", made from subfactions raiders, pirates and smugglers, that were defined by what they do, so it'd be easy to differentiate them even without names. Theoretically Persean League or Ludds could be made from subfactions, but PL has an issue of being less defined by their activities and more by what their colonies are, so division could feel arbitrary if there aren't any politics (sub)factions could work with, and as far as I know there aren't. It runs into an issue where only really pirates would benefit from having subfactions, though. If those things were to happen, I'd sooner expect them to be in Starsector expansion, not base game.
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With the huge profile on the Ox, is the +1 burn really going to be worth lowering your SB bonus? And similar issues with Augmented Drive Field. (Plus leaving aside the thematic headscratchers.) I think if you want to zip around and outmaneuver slower fleets to score strategically, there are high-burn ships in every size class like the Conquest and Falcon that suit these purposes just fine. If you want to accentuate the difference between high-burn and low-burn fleets (something SB currently negates), I'd just make SB a simple "2x Burn". It's straightforward, it preserves proportional speed differences, and it keeps the +Burn options quite relevant.
I did not think about that at the time but... since Sustained Burn is Burn Speed most of the time, gaining minimum burn but losing maximum burn seems silly. (If I add Ox for +1 burn, then get -1 to SB, I would never use Ox.)
If player is expected to bring big fleets to explore or raid systems by endgame, he will be stuck with Atlas and/or Prometheus for capacity, the slowest ships in the game.
Currently, my endgame fleet always has a Prothemeus because I need its fuel capacity (because I need a big fleet to match and smash endgame bounties or Remnants), and thanks to thirty ship limit, I cannot afford to spare several fleet slots for four or more Phaetons. Because my endgame fleet always has Prometheus, and usually Atlas too, burn speed is low without SB. If I need to downgrade to smaller stat sticks (Buffalo, Colossus, Phaeton), then I probably would need to dedicate about half my slots to them, and I probably would not have enough slots for a proper war fleet, let alone vacancies to capture enemy ships.
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The 30 ship limit always seemed like an arbitrary thing that's gonna go away once... whatever's meant to replace it comes into play. I dunno.
Re: pirate subfactions. If individual admiral/character reputations becomes a meaningful thing then that's probably enough as a pirate "subfaction" mechanic. Same goes for Independents to a lesser extent.
The Persean League on the other hand might benefit from a true subfaction mechanic given the individual worlds are meant to squabble and even go to war with one another except when facing an external threat. Things like the Lion's Guard and maybe Knights of Ludd, Ko Combine, Tri-Tachyon Phase Ops could become subfactions of their respective factions too.
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who would even BE a so-called pirate in first place?
If not secretly funded by someone, my answer is NO. NOONE would ever be pirate on their own.
No one with a brain, but there are the stupid people, possibly some juiced up from too many drugs. Just watch a clip from Crooks Caught on Tape or something similar. Or think Beavis and Butthead. The pirate faction is probably full of idiots chanting "Huh huh, heh heh, this is gonna be cool! Yeh! Heh heh! Fire! Fire!. … Huh huh, This sucks! Yeah, heh, heh, this sucks!" …if they are sober. No telling what they are thinking or saying if high on dope.
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With the huge profile on the Ox, is the +1 burn really going to be worth lowering your SB bonus? And similar issues with Augmented Drive Field. (Plus leaving aside the thematic headscratchers.) I think if you want to zip around and outmaneuver slower fleets to score strategically, there are high-burn ships in every size class like the Conquest and Falcon that suit these purposes just fine. If you want to accentuate the difference between high-burn and low-burn fleets (something SB currently negates), I'd just make SB a simple "2x Burn". It's straightforward, it preserves proportional speed differences, and it keeps the +Burn options quite relevant.
I did not think about that at the time but... since Sustained Burn is Burn Speed most of the time, gaining minimum burn but losing maximum burn seems silly. (If I add Ox for +1 burn, then get -1 to SB, I would never use Ox.)
If player is expected to bring big fleets to explore or raid systems by endgame, he will be stuck with Atlas and/or Prometheus for capacity, the slowest ships in the game.
Currently, my endgame fleet always has a Prothemeus because I need its fuel capacity (because I need a big fleet to match and smash endgame bounties or Remnants), and thanks to thirty ship limit, I cannot afford to spare several fleet slots for four or more Phaetons. Because my endgame fleet always has Prometheus, and usually Atlas too, burn speed is low without SB. If I need to downgrade to smaller stat sticks (Buffalo, Colossus, Phaeton), then I probably would need to dedicate about half my slots to them, and I probably would not have enough slots for a proper war fleet, let alone vacancies to capture enemy ships.
As bigger ships having lower base burn naturally, I don't really see a point making variable SB.
Also it's odd to vary it by fleet sensor profile since I thought it's determined by top 5 (or 3? I can't remember) profile ships only, meaning 30 dooms can have smaller sensor profile than just 5 paragons.
The general idea can be tweaked to total ship counts in fleet though: if a fleet gets sufficiently small amounts of ships it can SB at +10, otherwise the speed modifier decreases as the fleet grow.
It can also be calculated in EW fashion, different class contribute different score and high score(a lot of ships or big ships) results in low SB speed bonus.
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No one with a brain, but there are the stupid people, possibly some juiced up from too many drugs. Just watch a clip from Crooks Caught on Tape or something similar. Or think Beavis and Butthead. The pirate faction is probably full of idiots chanting "Huh huh, heh heh, this is gonna be cool! Yeh! Heh heh! Fire! Fire!. … Huh huh, This sucks! Yeah, heh, heh, this sucks!" …if they are sober. No telling what they are thinking or saying if high on dope.
I doubt such idiot ever gain sufficient money to even buy a ship. *facepalm*
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As bigger ships having lower base burn naturally, I don't really see a point making variable SB.
This is what made frigates (as a fleet) in 0.65 overpowered. Frigates had naturally higher burn than everything else AND Navigation gave bigger bonus to small ships. Combined with other advantages frigates had (low maintenance, fast recovery), frigate swarm was optimal. Could tear apart endgame fleets as easily as anything else, but traveled across the map much faster. The only thing frigates could not do was haul (like Atlas fleet). The extra speed was nice for taking out bounties between food runs.
I doubt such idiot ever gain sufficient money to even buy a ship. *facepalm*
True if the dimwit needed to work for it. Could also be your stock shonen idiot hero (in terms of idiocy), except flipped evil. Then, as a perk for being an AI ship in an NPC fleet, they do not need to worry about resources.
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As bigger ships having lower base burn naturally, I don't really see a point making variable SB.
This is what made frigates (as a fleet) in 0.65 overpowered. Frigates had naturally higher burn than everything else AND Navigation gave bigger bonus to small ships. Combined with other advantages frigates had (low maintenance, fast recovery), frigate swarm was optimal. Could tear apart endgame fleets as easily as anything else, but traveled across the map much faster. The only thing frigates could not do was haul (like Atlas fleet). The extra speed was nice for taking out bounties between food runs.
Well, frigate fleets are absolutely dead now due to 10 officer limit (unless you set ridiculously low battlesize). And I don't think it's a particularly good thing either.
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The 30 ship limit always seemed like an arbitrary thing that's gonna go away once... whatever's meant to replace it comes into play. I dunno.
It replaced 0.6 style Logistics, which affected your fleet size (which varied by ship size) and how much personnel you could bring. Unskilled, you did not have enough Logistics to support a single capital (other than Conquest, which was bad at the time). At max Leadership/Fleet Logistics, you had enough to support three or four capitals (only), thirty or forty-something frigates, or some combination in between. You could exceed Logistics but took penalties, and if you took too much, you get accidents. For those who did not take Leadership, they needed overpowered Combat (and Technology) to solo entire fleets with a small ship because supporting a viable fleet (or even a lone capital ship) was not an option.
0.7 introduced fleet cap, which was 25. Problem? Fighters counted as ships, and the limit only applied to the player. Endgame NPC fleets regularly broke the cap, often having a ten to fifteen ship advantage over your fleet (or twenty or more if you left vacancies for captured ships). On the other hand, (I think) there were only core worlds, so player did not need Prometheus just to function (although it was occasionally useful to exploit fuel shortage before trade broke).
If player does not need to travel to fringe worlds, then 30 ship limit is okay. Although it would be nice if after battle displayed all ships that could be captured instead of only enough to max your fleet. (Makes that one perk that increases capture chance worthless.) At 30 ships, player can match enemy fleets provided he is not forced to dedicate too many to haulers and does not leave many vacancies for captured ships. Unfortunately, player raiding fringe worlds needs Atlas and Prometheus to carry enough fuel and supplies to maintain ships, and have capacity to carry loot.
Since my primary way of acquiring new ships is capturing them from the enemy or salvaging them from debris fields, I try not to let my fleet exceed twenty ships, so I have plenty of space for more ships. Thus, I often have a slight numbers disadvantage against the enemy. (I frequently use captured ships to auto-resolve pursuits. They probably do not have the weapons I want on them, just the junk I looted from previous battles.)
Well, frigate fleets are absolutely dead now due to 10 officer limit (unless you set ridiculously low battlesize). And I don't think it's a particularly good thing either.
If this was 0.7, I would agree. However, skills have been weakened enough that officers are not too much stronger than ships without them.
However, I think frigate swarms may be dead because of the AI's 0.8 era cowardice. If the enemy has enough ships to prevent yours from swarming them (and vice-versa), they all dance like Spathi until CR is at zero and then they taunt you like Monty Python's dismembered black knight by floating around on the screen like Oolite's trumbles. Frigates have low peak performance and are devastated by stalling. Not to mention that fighters eat frigates up like popcorn (which is a reason why my fleet has a lot of fighters).
The main reason to bring a big fleet is to have replacements. With a big enough fleet, it is not possible to deploy everything thanks to size limits, even if maxed at 500 (max should be higher than this). The extra ships are handy when player is forced to chain-battle. I cannot use Paragon for everything. Sometimes, I deploy the Legion, or Heron, or Hyperion, so that my Paragon is handy when I need it.
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If this was 0.7, I would agree. However, skills have been weakened enough that officers are not too much stronger than ships without them.
Skill advantage may seem small in absolute numbers but it's absolutely decisive. Having somewhat more speed, range, weapon effectiveness, shield effectiveness, raw flux... Transforms fight between otherwise equal opponents into one-sided beating, where losing side can't even retreat at will (because it's slower).
Of course, stuff that doesn't scale much with ship stats anyway can be somewhat useful even on trash hulls without officers.
For example, 8 buffalo mk2 with Sabots and Converted Hangar Talons can defeat a skill-less auto-piloted Paragon. So they are in a way supply effective. But I don't want to do that in campaign due to horrible attrition rate. Plus, 30 buffalo mk2s are only 120 points - not enough for battlesize above 300 even before counting logistics and player-piloted ships.
So in the end 30 ships total + 10 officers mean that any mass tactics are nonviable past early game.
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Hmmm... by endgame, I use unskilled clunkers (except flagship) against undamaged enemy ships (deserters or Remnants in standard, or anything non-pirate in Nexerelin), some of which have officers (for double advantage in favor of the enemy and disadvantage against my fleet), and I can often win with few, if any casualties. (Some of the casualties is my hard-to-replace flagship for making a dumb mistake, which means reload. The rest are clunkers that are easily replaced - the reason why I use clunkers, so I do not need to grind for rare stuff.) Of course, the advantage of clunkers is I can deploy more and/or bigger ships for less cost (although I mainly use clunkers to avoid grinding, since I usually cannot buy what I want, I much prefer to use undamaged ships with the best weapons). The challenge is not a single enemy fleet, but attrition from multiple fleets, either to attack multiple bounties to maximize profit or farm Remnants for rare items (HVDs, Sparks, or cores).
I do not doubt that several high-level officers gives an edge. It is not so much that unskilled does not have a chance. In 0.7, the difference was so much that officers were unbeatable and unskilled had no point. Today in 0.8, officers are not unbeatable (but they do have an edge).
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Quick question, do we gain access to nav buoy and sensor array in friendly faction controlled system just as how we grant access to comm relay in current release?
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Hmmm... by endgame, I use unskilled clunkers (except flagship) against undamaged enemy ships (deserters or Remnants in standard, or anything non-pirate in Nexerelin), some of which have officers (for double advantage in favor of the enemy and disadvantage against my fleet), and I can often win with few, if any casualties. (Some of the casualties is my hard-to-replace flagship for making a dumb mistake, which means reload. The rest are clunkers that are easily replaced - the reason why I use clunkers, so I do not need to grind for rare stuff.) Of course, the advantage of clunkers is I can deploy more and/or bigger ships for less cost (although I mainly use clunkers to avoid grinding, since I usually cannot buy what I want, I much prefer to use undamaged ships with the best weapons). The challenge is not a single enemy fleet, but attrition from multiple fleets, either to attack multiple bounties to maximize profit or farm Remnants for rare items (HVDs, Sparks, or cores).
I do not doubt that several high-level officers gives an edge. It is not so much that unskilled does not have a chance. In 0.7, the difference was so much that officers were unbeatable and unskilled had no point. Today in 0.8, officers are not unbeatable (but they do have an edge).
Against same opponents as above a fully elite fleet (8-10 officers) can win without any losses most of the time. It's convenient to not have to refit replacements constantly.
Occasional minor (major would be a reload) losses get replaced at commission military markets or black markets. By the way, are investigations still in? Haven't gotten any on last version. Just buying whatever you want from BM seems quite safe.
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@ TaLaR: At least for weapons, Black Market tends to sell the same junk (i.e., light assault guns, pulse lasers, occasionally heavy mauler) over and over after the initial early game stock gets phased out. No matter the black market, I almost never find unusual weapons like Mjolnir or Tachyon Lances by endgame. (I may find them early in the game, but after they are gone, they never get restocked.) Some of the stuff I want, only military markets have (or black market does not have enough, in case of heavy mauler), and if I cannot get them (due to no commission), then the only way to get the weapons is to loot them from enemies (or research stations with Salvaging 3).
I think the only annoying penalty is custom scans if you trade at a black market that is not a free port. I tend to raid black markets of enemies (i.e., pirates) or anything with a free port. (I tend to stop by Kanta's Den, Barad, and Tse Port #3 for my black market needs. Nortia might be a free port too.) I do not want to deal with customs, so I do not bother with every black market.
At the time I played, I did not have high-level officers because I was too lazy to (save-scum their skills and) level them up. Later (in Nexerelin games), I just had two or three fighter-specced officers and threw them into carriers, then maybe one or two generalist officers to take care of my backup flagships.
Against same opponents as above a fully elite fleet (8-10 officers) can win without any losses most of the time. It's convenient to not have to refit replacements constantly.
I need to outfit my new acquisitions, whether they are replacements or not. And refitting replacements is faster than replaying a battle after reloading a game. Even with clunkers, I do not always take a casualty. It is when I do, I do not always reload the game like I used to during 0.7 (since nearly everything worth using was rare).
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Also Megas, if you aren't using a massive clunker fleet you don't need to bring a Prometheus at all, lesser tankers will do just fine. Investing in Navigation helps even more (and quality of life currently trumps endgame power because no current enemy is powerful enough to need maxed combat power).
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Also Megas, if you aren't using a massive clunker fleet you don't need to bring a Prometheus at all, lesser tankers will do just fine. Investing in Navigation helps even more (and quality of life currently trumps endgame power because no current enemy is powerful enough to need maxed combat power).
I want Navigation so bad, but there are not enough points, especially if I think about putting points in Industry. I might have as much skill power as max level officer if I give up Industry and every other QoL skill (and possibly Officer Management too). If I get Navigation or anything in Industry (after I spend about half skill points on universal skills every character should have, like Loadout Design 3, Fighter Doctrine 3, Fleet Logistics 3, and few others), I have less combat skill power than a max level officer, and that is unacceptable. With colony skills likely coming in the next release, the skill point squeeze may be worse, depending how that feature plays out.
There is no kill like overkill. No such thing as too much combat power in 0.8 (which is a shadow of what we used to get before), only not enough.
P.S. The main fuel hogs are my elite quad lance Paragon that I personally pilot, my backup Legion when Paragon needs to rest, and Atlas or two as bag of holding. Plus, Prometheus itself is a fuel hog itself (that can carry loads of fuel.) Finally, if I want to recover capitals used by the enemy (like Onslaught XIV or another Paragon or Legion), they too will guzzle fuel. My disposable clunkers do not take that much fuel compared to my best ships (which are probably undamaged).
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Going back to the original thought... trying to buff stealth gameplay by tweaking SB speeds seems pretty backwards since SB is already pretty much completely incompatible with stealth. What if fleet size/sensor profile affected burn speed and/or acceleration while gone dark? That would make evading detection in hostile systems much more viable for small fleets.
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Going dark already halves normal burn speed. Sometimes, that helps sneaking; other times, an unaware patrol blunders into you, and you cannot get away fast enough before they see you.
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One part of it is that pirates will periodically establish bases near player colonies – being away from the core worlds, they’re more vulnerable – and the bases will need to be dealt with.
This part is fairly odd.
If I recall it right, establishing colony near core world already gives you some sort of population bonus AND chances of exporting goods for additional income.
Adding the danger of pirate bases, doesn’t this whole thing bounds player to set their colony right next to core world?
Unless the generator is making it higher chance for better planets as the distance from core world grows, I suggest pirate activity decreases as the colony distance away. It’s already pain to get to colony if you’re trying to explore the opposite side of the sector, adding more pirate activity is doubling the risk and making no profit at all.
This can again get well explained if the “funded pirates” idea gets implemented: since you’re not trying to even join the economy war, they’re less likely to get pirates to hunt you down.
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Going back to the original thought... trying to buff stealth gameplay by tweaking SB speeds seems pretty backwards since SB is already pretty much completely incompatible with stealth. What if fleet size/sensor profile affected burn speed and/or acceleration while gone dark? That would make evading detection in hostile systems much more viable for small fleets.
It's about creating an extra upside for smaller fleets, one that doesn't become obsolete when the player is set up with a lot of income/production/etc. Stealth is ancillary here.
One part of it is that pirates will periodically establish bases near player colonies – being away from the core worlds, they’re more vulnerable – and the bases will need to be dealt with.
This part is fairly odd.
If I recall it right, establishing colony near core world already gives you some sort of population bonus AND chances of exporting goods for additional income.
Adding the danger of pirate bases, doesn’t this whole thing bounds player to set their colony right next to core world?
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That's just an off-hand statement about the backstory motivation/reasoning for that happening. In terms of the actual game, where you establish the colony won't matter for that; the pirates will find a way to put down a base somewhere relatively nearby.
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Going back to the original thought... trying to buff stealth gameplay by tweaking SB speeds seems pretty backwards since SB is already pretty much completely incompatible with stealth. What if fleet size/sensor profile affected burn speed and/or acceleration while gone dark? That would make evading detection in hostile systems much more viable for small fleets.
It's about creating an extra upside for smaller fleets, one that doesn't become obsolete when the player is set up with a lot of income/production/etc. Stealth is ancillary here.
One thing I worry about is even more trolling from smaller fleets that use their now faster speeds to pull in their much larger friend's fleets...
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That's just an off-hand statement about the backstory motivation/reasoning for that happening. In terms of the actual game, where you establish the colony won't matter for that; the pirates will find a way to put down a base somewhere relatively nearby.
What is the merit, if any, for setting colonies away from core world then?
I’m just afraid player save scum on world generating, try finding some seemingly V planet near core world at game start and regen new game if the world is not that desirable.
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I don't think save scumming world generation is viable because you can't immediately know if you're successful , you have to explore to know if there are good worlds, which will take a substantial amount of time. If it takes a couple hours of gameplay just to find out if you need to re-roll, it won't be worth the effort.
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I don't think save scumming world generation is viable because you can't immediately know if you're successful , you have to explore to know if there are good worlds, which will take a substantial amount of time. If it takes a couple hours of gameplay just to find out if you need to re-roll, it won't be worth the effort.
I was guessing something like immediately buy a dram and fuel, save a new file and go explore those very close areas. I’m imagining it only takes about 30 minutes to get to know most systems that are really close enough to make good reachability and decide to continue back from start or create new world.
If non Ironman mode it’s perfectly fine to waste every credit to just get to know the environment and later load back to the very beginning.
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You need surveying skills and a decent size fleet with supplies and stuff to actually survey the planets and find out what class they are
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You need surveying skills and a decent size fleet with supplies and stuff to actually survey the planets and find out what class they are
I doubt just finding some obvious habitable along with low hazard rating planet require any of those.
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Yeah you can survey terran or whatever they are called worlds with no problem.
But once we can start building up our faction, why would you not want to colonise all you can? I suppose a dead world with no resources might be a skip, but you can't know that without a quick look.
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I probably would want class V Terran planets with abundant resources and no or very low hazard. One of my playthroughs had one such planet close to core worlds, but it might have had a yellow warning (with Lumen and Glimmer duos). It was close to Tri-Tachyon worlds.
However, surveys consume supplies unless you have a bunch of ships with that Surveying hullmod, but that is not exactly an early game resource.
But once we can start building up our faction, why would you not want to colonise all you can? I suppose a dead world with no resources might be a skip, but you can't know that without a quick look.
Because character has a limit? Unskilled, player cannot manage more than several (between him and administrators) without a bunch of Alpha cores.
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I don't think terran worlds don't have certain resources like ore and rare ore and volatiles etc. ? I guess I figured you would need those sorts of resources to progress (build industries and stuff) so you might need surveying skills, but I have no idea how the mechanics actually work. Even if it was 20 minutes to get a dram and go to all of the nearby star systems, that's way too much of a time investment for me to save scum unless the probability of me getting what I want is like 40-50%. Otherwise, the odds are that I'm spending several hours looking. But that's just me.
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A great class V Terran planet can have significant ore. Maybe not max like class V volcanics tend to have. The thing about Terran worlds is many tend to be crappy low-to-mid class, but a good class V Terran can have almost everything. Rather maybe no or low on one thing, some of something else (ore), and great one or two something (likely farmland or organics).
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I thought that the different planet types gave different resources, so you are incentivized to colonize all the planet types if you want access to all the resources. Terran planets giving food and organics is obviously very desirable but if rare ore is require for advanced ship production (hypothetically) then there would be incentives to look for other types of planets. I really hope there is more depth than just find a nice Terran V and colonize.
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You would also presumably have an economy of scale to consider.
A class 5 terran world might net you 1000 ore a month but you could easily need over that with proper industrial centres.
A perfect world might make a fantastic start, but one world doesn't make a galactic empire capable of rivalling the Hegmeony, Tri Tacheon or Persean League. As they already have multiple and still have resource shortages.
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I thought that the different planet types gave different resources, so you are incentivized to colonize all the planet types if you want access to all the resources. Terran planets giving food and organics is obviously very desirable but if rare ore is require for advanced ship production (hypothetically) then there would be incentives to look for other types of planets. I really hope there is more depth than just find a nice Terran V and colonize.
For that, you need Surveying (unless that changes in 0.9), or lucky survey data found in a random wreck. If you do not have any Surveying, you will be limited mostly to Terran planets, if things stay as they are. If so, Surveying at some level might become must-have like Electronic Warfare and Loadout Design.
For what it is worth, the super class V Terran I found also had Uncivilized or something. That would probably add to hazard rating in the upcoming 0.9.
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I suppose even if you could only get the bearable terran worlds without the surveying perk you would still have a vast possible population, relying on outposts and trade with the core to get along.
So there is still that, even if you can't flag all of the corrosive high resource worlds in between.
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I don't think save scumming world generation is viable because you can't immediately know if you're successful , you have to explore to know if there are good worlds, which will take a substantial amount of time.
If things are really that dice-roll dependent, I'll write a mod that will flat-out tell players where to go. Who wants to waste hours of their life only to realize that they're not going to have a reasonably-good game?
That said, I'm guessing that you don't need a Class V perfect world to get going and have a viable Outpost / Colony. It'll just help make that process faster, is all.
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I guess I hope that it's easy to get a colony going on common planets in the early game, but that the 'optimal' colony or set of colonies is rare and requires an investment of skills and time to find. In other words, I hope there is something to work towards throughout the course of a campaign.
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Since we've been talking about stations for a while:
1. Will faction doctrine affect station tech level?
2.Will we see things like pathers stations with SO modules? will differrent factions have custom stations?
3.speaking of pathers, will they behave in a manner similar to pirates? They are basically just that.
4. How will factions react to you installing ai cores in colonies? I reckon it would *** off the Ludds and Hegemony?
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Will it ever be possible (or moddable) to directly control a station?
I imagine if you're in a situation where your colony is under attack, and you have only a small fleet/flagship but a powerful station, you might end up as nothing but a spectator. Controlling the station directly would put you center stage again.
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Will it ever be possible (or moddable) to directly control a station?
I imagine if you're in a situation where your colony is under attack, and you have only a small fleet/flagship but a powerful station, you might end up as nothing but a spectator. Controlling the station directly would put you center stage again.
I guess you'll be able to gun a single module but maybe not a whole station since station body itself got no gun at all.
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A very interesting update.
I am a bit curious, though, how you will be handling the pirate factions, by your own posts, Alex, the pirates seem more like a shorthand designation for several groups of... less than legal nature (pirates, privateers, smugglers and even planetary rebels) it could be interesting to have them be not quite a faction but subfactions that behave differently and vary their equipment or tactics (because a pirate cares for loot, a privateer might care more for what the faction that issues the letter of marquee is providing and smugglers just want to go in and out, undetected)
I understand that going overly complex here could be detrimental, both from a coding perspective and from a computing power use, but I do like the idea of distinct subfactions, maybe influenced by the players standing with the faction (but hitting privateers is not the same as hitting pirates, for instance, or just because you wiped out pirate A;s band, doesn't mean pirate B is going to be more or less upset about it.
Though a special case could be made for privateers as they might belong to one of the bigger factions, hell, this could open up an interesting mission, say faction A wants to know if pirate band B is working for Faction C, or Faction C, who has issued a letter of marquee for Pirate Band B is suspecting that band is also hitting their shipping alongside faction A's, so they send you out, to collect evidence (maybe thru boarding a ship from band B, maybe by working some sort of rapport with band B, or maybe by pretending to be Faction C shipping) and, as a follow up mission, offer you an extermination mission for the selfsame pirates.
I like the idea of having to get some info
I'll admit some of this might be a tad too complex, but I like the idea of emerging gameplay and subfactions could be interesting for all the majors as well (I mean, no faction is really monolithic) hell, might even open up factions to change though the players actions (to limited degrees, but for instance might add or subtract items in the controlled list)
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1. Will faction doctrine affect station tech level?
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will differrent factions have custom stations?
You choose the tech level of the station (low tech, midline, high tech) when you build it, so it's not tied to doctrine. What blueprints you have available and prioritized will determine the station's weapons loadout.
Each station tech level has 3 tiers - "orbital station", "battlestation", and "star fortress". The tech levels/tiers will be distributed among the core colonies as appropriate. Given that weapon/fighter availability and ship quality are factors, I'd imagine that the same tech type station may feel a good bit different when used by another faction.
2.Will we see things like pathers stations with SO modules?
Given the above: probably not? I haven't looked at it yet, though. For example the pirate bases are all using the "orbital station" tier but with a range of missing modules depending on how powerful that particular base is. May do the same thing for pathers, may do something different; will see. SO is so heavily movement-oriented, though, and its penalty doesn't make sense for stations which don't have peak time, so probably not that specifically, if anything.
3.speaking of pathers, will they behave in a manner similar to pirates? They are basically just that.
I have some specific plans. Let's leave it at that for now :)
4. How will factions react to you installing ai cores in colonies? I reckon it would *** off the Ludds and Hegemony?
Where would the fun of using absurdly powerful AI cores be if I told you what, if anything, may or may not happen as a result?
Will it ever be possible (or moddable) to directly control a station?
I imagine if you're in a situation where your colony is under attack, and you have only a small fleet/flagship but a powerful station, you might end up as nothing but a spectator. Controlling the station directly would put you center stage again.
Well, in that situation, you're not actually obligated to participate in battle and could let it resolve itself in the campaign layer.
More specifically about controlling a station, though - no, for several reasons.
First off, it doesn't fall neatly into the current ship-controlling UI setup. A station has multiple modules, right, and they're mostly cruiser-to-battleship-and-beyond level of power. There's no existing mechanism for switching between these quickly, having a good overview of the status, etc.
Secondly, I think it'd be pretty boring. You don't get to maneuver, and the primary driver of the flow of a vs-station fight - the station's rotation - is fixed and not controllable. The actual impact player control would make would be very limited compared to them controlling a ship. The stations are just not something that's well suited to player control, by design, since the goal of their design is to create a specific flow, different for each station tech level, that gives each fight character.
<stuff about pirates>
I hear what you're saying! I think I mostly covered it a few pages back, and you also touch on it in your post as well - the complexity here is significant, and there's just no way I could see putting in the time to both do it initially and then maintain/deal with design issues on an ongoing basis without having very clear and specific reasons for doing it in the first place.
"Could be interesting" just doesn't cut it given what's involved, you know? I could see extracting new factions out of pirates if that became necessary story-wise (i.e. Charterists in Askonia), but not just breaking them out into a bunch of factions wholesale. If - and it's still an if - a change needed to be made, my inclination would be to make it simpler, not more complex. Hence the thought about *potentially* fixing their player rep at -50.
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You choose the tech level of the station (low tech, midline, high tech) when you build it, so it's not tied to doctrine. What blueprints you have available and prioritized will determine the station's weapons loadout.
Hum.., so what are the positives and negatives of each? I mean, would money be the only thing stopping a player from going high tech all the time? What can a high tech station do that a low tech can't? (outside of combat)
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I hear what you're saying! I think I mostly covered it a few pages back, and you also touch on it in your post as well - the complexity here is significant, and there's just no way I could see putting in the time to both do it initially and then maintain/deal with design issues on an ongoing basis without having very clear and specific reasons for doing it in the first place.
"Could be interesting" just doesn't cut it given what's involved, you know? I could see extracting new factions out of pirates if that became necessary story-wise (i.e. Charterists in Askonia), but not just breaking them out into a bunch of factions wholesale. If - and it's still an if - a change needed to be made, my inclination would be to make it simpler, not more complex. Hence the thought about *potentially* fixing their player rep at -50.
"Underground" post 1.0 DLC when it won't require any maintenance afterward?
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Hum.., so what are the positives and negatives of each? I mean, would money be the only thing stopping a player from going high tech all the time? What can a high tech station do that a low tech can't? (outside of combat)
It would be nice to see the differences. For me, the question would be why would I want to use high-tech if it cannot use ballistics? If the lower tech can use Mjolnirs, Gauss, and Tachyon Lances, and high-tech cannot use ballistics, why would I want high-tech?
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There is also the fact that if the player isn't prompted to do many defensive battles then the station config itself might not even matter since the battles would be auto-resolved.
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True, if you do not bother fighting the battle, then it does not matter what it has, just that its has its OP spent to function at full capacity. I often use captured ships armed with junk weapons (like thumpers and spare missile racks) and slower than the enemy ships to auto-resolve pursuits, and they kill more than half of the enemy survivors. It is great since my main fleet does not need to deploy. Could be applied to your battlestation if they auto-resolve.
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If - and it's still an if - a change needed to be made, my inclination would be to make it simpler, not more complex. Hence the thought about *potentially* fixing their player rep at -50.
It make sense in case of vanilla where pirates are just target practice essentially and do not have any special goodies for them but I personally enjoyed grinding rep for pirates when playing as smuggler/explorer/delivery space truck.
With Underworld mod that add plenty of pirate tech ships it change as high rep mean access to pirate military markets. It actually pay off in that case.
BTW What about deserters making a separate(and hostile) sub-factions to their main factions? With their own separate from pirates bases and raiding forces).
I think it would make sense to lock rep anyway if player could grind local rep(as with station/port master) to get access to some perks and military market.
Local rep being more influential and having effect on global faction rep would be pretty neat.
>having bad rep in one system(as a smuggler so suspicious and patrols look at you) but in other you are fairly unknown and treated as others.
Also it black market could use some changes. I mean high tech/big ships would probably be more pricey than on open market(even with no taxes) as you need add risk cost and still you would need some local or global connections to get one. Having some fighting ships on civilian market(not strict military but escorts and exploration vessels) would be cool too(if player want to play a Legal Campaign).
Question about pirate station and raiding.
How easily mod-able it would be? I mean as a faction function?
Is this gonna be easily mod-able(like in faction file with commissions/bounties/tariffs) or its separate function and you need to know how to code(and cast spells)?
Anyway playing vanilla run with few(QoL) mods and its actually good. I miss some ships or weapons but it feel complete and definitely more wholesome than with dozen+ mods.
Small question. Alex are you gonna make fighters dock when in transit? They still accompany ships like in previous builds(on global map).
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Hum.., so what are the positives and negatives of each? I mean, would money be the only thing stopping a player from going high tech all the time? What can a high tech station do that a low tech can't? (outside of combat)
The only differences are tactical, in the combat layer. I want the choice of tech type to be stylistic rather than strategic - strategic considerations change over time, and I don't want "re-building a different station type to match current situation" to be something the player needs to seriously consider.
BTW What about deserters making a separate(and hostile) sub-factions to their main factions? With their own separate from pirates bases and raiding forces).
... but, why? Making them "pirates" already does the job, and is entirely within the purview of the pirate faction representing a wide range of situations. This sounds like exactly the sort of complication that would arise from splitting out pirates; you do it for a few things, and all of a sudden it "makes sense" for other things as well. It's not a road I have any interest in going down - just added complexity w/o a reason, you know?
Question about pirate station and raiding.
How easily mod-able it would be? I mean as a faction function?
Is this gonna be easily mod-able(like in faction file with commissions/bounties/tariffs) or its separate function and you need to know how to code(and cast spells)?
Moddable but with code etc. It's absolutely not suited to being a faction file toggle.
Small question. Alex are you gonna make fighters dock when in transit? They still accompany ships like in previous builds(on global map).
I did already, actually, but purely for performance reasons.
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I have a hard time imagining anyone picking low tech unless they are roleplaying pirates or something. If their types are purely for combat then can we expect the player to engage with their station often? I mean, I can only see serious fleets endangering a station if they are anywhere near the power of Remnant ones so I imagined a lot of auto-resolving would happen.
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Fine point.
Thanks for answering.
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think you missed the point
if i become friends with the pirates then a random event happens and the pirates attack my outpost now im an enemy for defending what is mine.
when accept trade mission and get attacked by pirates waiting out side the jump point for me because i accepted the trade mission when my rep says im friends with them now im automatically switched to enemy again because i defended my ships and cargo wtf
easiest fix would b make the events, trade and kill missions so they don't affect rep.
i know the pirate ships are not that good ultimately i want to b able to create my own faction and sell them better ships have my own base where pirates (or a any other faction) can come get ships and out fit them from me.
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Will all of these changes be applied to redacted too? Minefields, comm relays, nav points,etc.
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Don't want to sound like a broken record, but I'm still hung up about the whole Pirates thing, with them being potentially locked at being hostile and representing deserters among others. It feels wrong to have so many groups being tied into a faction called "Pirates". At this point, would it not be better to rename them to Lawless?
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Everything folded under "pirates" is functionally identical. They're all outlaws to the major factions and they all attack and rob people. Gameplay-wise, they're an always-hostile faction of weaker fodder for the player to fight. Same reason why smugglers, scavengers, bounty hunters and local government patrols are all "independents". They're all separate from any other major faction and gameplay wise they're usually a faction that's always friendly to the player outside of certain circumstances (scavengers turning pirate, player actually attacking independents)
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The only pirates that do not feel right being pirates are the deserters. They feel more like the faction they came from than pirates. Probably would be better if they were a darker, evil colored version of the faction they came from or a red/faction color hybrid instead of being lumped together with the true pirates (that use pirate faction ships).
I have no problem with pirates being permanently hostile because they have mostly junk for sale and you do not need reputation to dock at their markets. They are clearly designed as lowlife or vermin for low level players to kill.
Actually, if pirates are permanently hostile, it would be nice to eliminate open market and just have only black market for pirates. Open market is a ripoff when you can use black market without consequence (because pirates are already murderously angry), and military market is pointless if you can never access it (again, due to hostility).
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Everything folded under "pirates" is functionally identical. They're all outlaws to the major factions and they all attack and rob people. Gameplay-wise, they're an always-hostile faction of weaker fodder for the player to fight. Same reason why smugglers, scavengers, bounty hunters and local government patrols are all "independents". They're all separate from any other major faction and gameplay wise they're usually a faction that's always friendly to the player outside of certain circumstances (scavengers turning pirate, player actually attacking independents)
I disagree, it is not the same a rebel to faction X, that faction W could woo to undermine faction X by proxy, or a corsair pirating for a faction than a more indiscriminate pirate taking loot and plunder. from a gamer POV, a more detailed pirate factions could serve as a way of making profit (you could gun run for rebel factions, at a distinctive mark up) and that would be different than your vanilla pirates.
Mind, I am totaly fine with having just "pirates" and be done with it, but look at the 4x Distant Worlds and see how the pirates act there... (course, in the early versions of that game pirates were just pirates, they become what they re now after an expansion focused on them, which is why I am totaly fine for generic pirates for 1.0, but hope we will see some depth added to them in the future)
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Long time lurker saying hello.
It seems quite sad now that we probably wont be able to be so feared and respected that they will keep distance friends with pirates anymore :(. Its already bad enough that the pirate gameplay seems really difficult as there is no way to get credits beside selling valuable goods, but even this will not give much. Bounty hunting for other factions kind of breaks immersion for me. Where did the pirate-style bounties (hit list by pirate bosses against people they hate) go?
On a different note,
I wish there was some kind of way to make it so npcs, especially pirates get the message that messing with you is not profitable, so small time ones will stay away due to fear and only the occasional large attack by people who think they are strong enough to challenge the player would happen. I understand of course that this would more to pirates and indies and less so to main factions (or pathers since they have different motivations). Some one who npcs just saw blow up 3 fleets in single combat and then a few more should not be someone they think "hey, lets go commit suicide against them too!"
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As far as the player being friendly with pirates, I don't know. In theory the code should handle it, but game-design-wise, that possibility is becoming more and more troublesome. Frankly, I could see just hard-locking the player-pirate reputation to -50 at some point. You don't need to be friendly with pirates to be a pirate yourself - or to deal with pirates - and since pirates cover *such* a huge range of possibilities, it doesn't make a lot of sense to be friendly with them in the first place.
(Also: I may or may not have plans to do something mechanically related with the Luddic Path.)
the player is -incapable- of being on good terms with local rebels opposing the rule of law? Even if the player is on said rule of law's ***-list??? It just seems weird that the pirates would be a broad variety of different factions rolled into one label, and -all- of them are permanently hostile to players.
What if pirate relations are locked to -50 if you're on good terms with the local rule of law, and opening hostilities with the faction that they by-default are opposing unlocks the possibility of becoming on good terms with them?
Orrr what if the pirate factions relations with the player are fluid and change on a system-by-system basis? This is the solution I like the idea of the most, where there isn't a sector-wide "pirate relations" but a system-by-system system, where a player who lives in Magec could be on good terms with Magec Pirates but once you leave Magec all of the relation boosts you've gotten thru goodwill there cease to be a help. I don't know if the game already keeps track of a fleet's system of origin but I think that'd be the only real gameplay change that'd be needed to accommodate that, and if the pirate factions -did- respond to a player's affiliations with the primary factions it'd give consequences and complications to declarations of war-- a player with a commission for faction x but who has worked to be on the good side of pirates who are on good terms with faction y because faction y opposes faction x's rule in their sector (I'm imagining a dynamic like the Valhalla system...) could be given pause at the call of war bc they've gone out of their way to get on the good graces of local pirates to get the "pirate activity" debuff removed from their colony ("Oh, don't raid convoys from that new colony, they make hefty donations to the coffers of our Pirate Lord and you don't want to be the one to cause their leader to make an angry call to our Pirate Lord about why they're bothering with these donations, while you're in the same station as the Pirate Lord and easily executable in front of the videoconference") and if they go to war with the primary opponent of the local rule of law then it'd make the pirates' job harder
also, I'm a huge fan of the idea of a pirate base with no external affiliation (IE they aren't rebels or anyone with a goal associated with other factions, just regular ol pirates) flipping relations with the player if the player reduces their stability to 0 and keeps it there long enough.
All of these systems would work excellently with the character system the game has in-place and currently barely uses. With the last idea of flipping pirate factions, you could run into Independent-aligned Deposed Pirate Lord characters whose goal is to reduce the local pirate faction's stability to 0 and keep it there until the current Pirate Lord character gets changed to Independent-aligned and the current Deposed Pirate Lord becomes pirate-aligned and becomes the current pirate lord, with that character's personal relations with the player populating into the local pirates' general relations with the player
that system would also give players the opportunity to recognize that a Deposed Pirate Lord who -hates- the player (like, if they helped topple an already-instable pirate regime early on for easy coin) is nearing reclaiming power and would give the player a reason to set aside what they're doing to aide the local pirates in restoring stability and resisting the coup to keep on their good side
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i opened a suggestion thread about the pirate faction/relation topic here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=13547).
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Since pirates are getting such a large rework i cant help but to think back to old 1700s piracy and their relation to goverments.
Namely through letters of marque, Someone who held such a letter was a licensed pirate and was to be judged as prisoners of war if captured, rather then simply hung.
These privateers as they became called were indipendant but at the mission of a sovereign, they were also instructed to only turn in the cargo/ships they seized at ports belonging to sovereign nation that issued their letter. The diffrence between a pirate and a privateer was very obscure and it was not uncommon that some pirates had letters of marque from several nations at the same time and they only used them as a legal shield and sold their hauls at freeports.
However ingame mechanics i belive it should be possible to turn in goods and captured ships to your ''employer'' and build up a bounty that you can collect at the end of the contract.
This way you would be able to build up sour relations with a faction untill your trusted enough to do formal agreements (such as current commisions) and not force your relations to follow your employers relations.
Example i go to the luddic church which has a -50 standing with me.
I cant get any particular missions but i can do privateering on their behalf.
The only relations i hurt are the factions that i target during my privateering contract.
I turn in all/some captured goods/ships to the luddic path and build a reward-pot during this time aswell.
At the contract end i get relations boost and a cash reward based on how much cargo/ships i turned in.
I recive for example 10 relations with luddic church (which is now -40) so i still cannot get formal contracts but still a juicy payday.
There is no monthly salary/insurance like being part of the faction, nor do you have accses to the military stocks like commisions allow.
but you have it easier to build up relations.
This would also allow for a play with a smaller fleet that focus more on sneaking around and attacking mainly merchants/miners/salvagers/prospectors as your bounty is not tied to ship classes destroyed but rather the goods/ships you capture and turn in at their port, this also add to the risk of hauling alot of ''junk ships'' with you making other pirates or patrols keen on attacking you.
This is a pretty big change so i fully understand if its not inplemented, it was merely a thought passing through my madness.
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just chiming in to say it sounds like these mechanics would be directly transferable to major factions. just rename it to a 'staging base' and change the impact on the target system. A faction invasion could potentially be exponentially more dangerous to a player colony... and could serve as objectives in inter-faction conflicts, both for the player to attack and maybe even defend.
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One cool design I thought of is if their was a special ship designed to essentially be a mobile base, maybe a literal starfortress, that you could use to create a mobile colony in exchange for burning metric tons of fuel to actually transport it across sectors.