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Author Topic: Pirate faction revamp  (Read 449 times)

random

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Pirate faction revamp
« on: December 25, 2019, 06:35:11 AM »

Before I start explaining how redesign of pirate faction could be made, lets look at how they work now.

Pirates, as it stands function like any other faction. You do good things for them (missions, trade, ...) it raises reputation.
You do bad things (killing them, raiding their worlds, ...) you lose reputation. Like any other faction reputation gain/loss is predicatble.

But, in my opinion, this doesn't fit their theme. In lore their "faction" is explained as following:

"Not technically a unified faction but more a loose category of
bandits, brigands, deserters, looters, soldiers of fortune, mercenaries, and free captains"

From this we can gather that they are not like other factions in the sector (except independents, but this isn't about them).
They are just outlaws or people who defected and are only unified because of same idea: being free

This also means that there are multiple gangs/factions INSIDE the pirate faction, which isn't really present in the game. They function as a unified faction.
Surely, destroying some random pirates fleet, woulden't be big news to all pirates in the sector?

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So, I came up with an interesting idea on how to solve this issue. Basically, pirate faction as a whole would be split into 3 "subfactions":

 - Civilized Pirates
 - Pirate Raiders
 - Free Pirates

I will explain each category as we go on.

Civilized Pirates:
(as civilized as they can be) are pirates who own a home world, such as Umbra.
Under this category would fall civilians, world administrators and others you can make contract with in the menu, and pirate fleets who guard pirate occupied planets.
They wouldn't be immediatly hostile, if they see that you are a trader (little to no battle ships in fleet) and leave you alone, but
if you have something like an Onslaught, they would get suspicious and tell you to leave (or at least keep in contact with your fleet).

Also, if you are considered a trader they would disallow hostile pirates from attacking you, because you are helping their worlds economy (pirates have terrible trade routes and are desperate for more, right?).

Your starting reputation with them would start out at "suspicious".

Pirate Raiders:
This guys live on pirate worlds, where they plan next raid, and are thus responsible for pirate activities and raids (duh) in the sector. The only places they have full
control over are pirate bases (the ones you have to destroy to stop raids in systems). If the raid was considered a success and leave the base to go home, some of them would temporarly
break off from the group and hide in a random system close to their route. They would be responsible for the 50% of pirate distress call baits, the other 50% goes to...

Free Pirates:
Although this sounds kinda stupid, because the idea of pirates is that they are already free, it just means they don't associate with any particular gang. They don't organize any big raids on systems,
but instead are either the pirate traders/smugglers, or the annoyances that bait you into the system with a distress call. They emphasize the "free captains and bandits" part of the codex.

Starting reputation with Free Pirates and Raiders would start out at hostile, naturally.

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Now how could this tie into the game mechanics? I was thinking that if player becomes neutral with "civilized pirates" and sells ship weapons, heavy armaments, marines, ... on the black market of the pirate occupied worlds,
raiders would see that and be a bit more open to them (the player), since they would see that you are indirectly helping their endeavors (again, suppling them with weapons and other stuff trough BLACK MARKET on PIRATE worlds).

This way player would be able to raise Pirate Raider's rep to neutral, and raise it further by directly supporting their raiding efforts (trading marines and weapons in their orbital bases, teaming up with them during raids).

If the player builds up enough rep with raiders, they wouldn't only stop targeting player colonies, but you could also give them permission to settle in your colonies. This would allow you to pay the raiders,
to target colonies of other factions, causing shortages which means MONEY, MONEY, MONEY, MONEEEY!

Of course this power would come at a cost, because other factions would figure out that pirate raiders are way more dangerous than they usually are and will launch investigations on your colonies.


Maybe we could go furter?
If you are neutral with the pirates, you could discuss "buisness" with some in the local bar (of the pirate occupied world). YOU would organize a raid. Who bring the transports? How many marines? Any escorts? When and where?
At specified day meet up with them and execute the plan. If the raid is sucesseful, gain personal rep (the reputation that is tied to characters, but is currently unused) with the pirate that you cooperated with.
Split the loot fairly or take some more at a cost of some personal rep loss. Repeat until you can recruit more people. Have so much rep that your character becomes confident enough to announce future raid to everyone in the bar  (again, of the pirate occupied world)!
Become a warlord! Terrorize the sector! Gain rep with raiders after inspiring them and increase your influence further.

Your profile grows too big and some high ranking pirate privilaged elitist *** from some pirate occupied world takes notice. Due to meddling with their "politics" get targeted with blackmail, so you threaten them back with overwhelming backing of 100+ captain pirate allies.
Oh my, faction in-fighting! Side choosing, attacks, blackmail of indentity exposure, betrayals, bribes, huge political battle amongst different pirate warlords, and you were the cause of it all.
In the midst of chaos other factions figure out who has been raiding them all along, after someone exposes your indentity, and invade pirate worlds, trying to find you, but can't because you're hiding in your personal hidden base far away from core worlds.

Gang war escalates into sector wide conflict between you, pirates who don't like/support you and every other major faction.

In safety of your base build a heavy industry and install a pristine nanoforge into it. Fund and launch pirate armadas with high-quality, no d-mods-having Onslaughts and Paragons. Order saturation bombardments on core worlds and pirates that opposed you!
Hear on the news how millions of people were killed because of you, but nobody could track this actions back to you. Take a long rest for one cycle.

...

Return to the core worlds and see the consequences. Hegemony lost their heavy industry world, rendering their ships garbage due to average 3 d-mods per hull. Pearsean League is all but wiped out, and Diktat lost their monopoly over lobster sales due to Volturn being obliterated.

Everyone is too busy trying to recover from the war, and thankefully noone remembers you by now. It was all blamed on the pirates, who were pretty much wiped from the sector, only remnants remaining in outer reaches of space in secluded bases. Observe the scenery for a few more moments before accepting an exploration contract and fly into the unknown.

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To wrap it all up, this change would bring some interesting dynamics to the game. Player would be able to raise reputation with the pirates with fewer headaches, as they wouldn't attack you all the time depending on which subfaction it is.
It would also be easier to lose rep with other factions due to your questionable alliences, for which you would need to work hard to cover up (as they are very profitable). It would also make use of the unused "personal reputation" bar present on all characters, but that isn't used.

So what do you think?
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 05:09:42 PM by random »
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