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Author Topic: Pirate factions (notice plural)  (Read 806 times)

hydremajor

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Pirate factions (notice plural)
« on: March 24, 2022, 03:29:30 AM »

Basically each region of space has its own pirate faction thats mostly outfitted with pirate stuff but they DO every now and then manage to bag a ship from the dominant faction in the area

for example:
Priates operating in hegemony space have a small chance to have a (severely) messed up dominator
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LinWasTaken

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2022, 09:02:04 AM »

id just like there to be a better difficulty scale on ship combat. because it goes from pirate ships(baby mode) < normal faction ships(medium-hard depending on amount of officers and Smods)
< {redacted} ships(medium-insane depending on the amount of ships in fleet and types of AI cores).
i just wish the pirates could ls slowly over time get better equipment and higher quality ships over time because in my most my games pirates are just those few early level-ups and then they are a non factor in the game.
and yes i know if you give them blueprints they occasionally build ships from those blueprints but they are still with 5~ Dmods on every ship.
I'm assuming you can fix that by getting their commission, capturing a planet for them that has heavy industry with a pristine monoforge for them to finally start making proper ships.
but just read that. you have to actively go out of your way to become friendly with them and after all of the above^ whats the point of even fighting them anymore if you had to go  out of your way to help them get stronger?
rant over.
is my bias towards pirates showing yet?

Grievous69

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2022, 09:13:47 AM »

id just like there to be a better difficulty scale on ship combat. because it goes from pirate ships(baby mode) < normal faction ships(medium-hard depending on amount of officers and Smods)
< {redacted} ships(medium-insane depending on the amount of ships in fleet and types of AI cores).
I think Luddic Path fits nicely between pirates and real factions. Their ships can be scary even with many d-mods.
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Salter

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2022, 09:40:01 AM »

i just wish the pirates could ls slowly over time get better equipment and higher quality ships over time because in my most my games pirates are just those few early level-ups and then they are a non factor in the game.

They kind of do, if you sell blueprints and stuff at pirate markets and outfit them with a pristine nanoforge in Kapteyn Starworks. From the blueprints they mostly just pick fast ships for wolfpack tactics, like the Heron or Odyssey.
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DirectionsToL3Please

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2022, 02:44:04 PM »

I don't get why Pirate and Luddic Path factions don't get killed off by the major factions, honestly.  Then if you wanted to keep them around you'd have to work to help them relocate, or even deliberately go to war with the core worlds to keep your criminal friends from becoming space dust.

Sort of like how in Star Control 2, the Ur-Quan Kzer-Za would inevitably lose to the Kohr-Ah, but you could stretch that out by distracting or even destroying the Thrall Race fleets, setting them to war against the Kohr-Ah, etc.  Same idea; inevitable destruction of the criminal scum occupying civilized space...unless you do something about it!

Heck, if befriending Pirates and Path would make them stop getting their inevitable, unavoidable, deus ex machina bullcrap disruptions to player colonies I might do something other than satbomb them off the map and laugh at their deaths...which is intensely unsatisfying when, even with no worlds or orbital colonies left, they still show up like clockwork.

Talk about depriving the player of agency.  "Do what you want; it'll have no effect anyway"
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Sutopia

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2022, 02:53:15 PM »

Reminds me of pirate factions in EVE online where each of them have their unique doctrine and are often more powerful than their standard military counterparts. Falcon P stands out to be a similar case.
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Salter

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2022, 07:53:00 PM »

I don't get why Pirate and Luddic Path factions don't get killed off by the major factions, honestly.  Then if you wanted to keep them around you'd have to work to help them relocate, or even deliberately go to war with the core worlds to keep your criminal friends from becoming space dust.

Something something the enemy of my enemy is my friend. You dont let rogue militant polities walk around your turf without some sort of significant excuse to allow it. Luddic Church backs up the Luddic Path. Pathers annoy and harass tri-tach, much to the benefit of the hegemony and League, but also to their own dismay as well as they get targeted too.

Pirates are a bit different but even the game lore kind of acknowledges they have backroom dealings going on to some extent with the league & tri-tach as to preserve their own existance.
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Twilight Sentinel

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Re: Pirate factions (notice plural)
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2022, 10:47:47 AM »

The way I'd like to see multiple pirates done is with a gang system.  Basically, each pirate group in the game is a gang and they have access to their own blueprint set.  Over time, and with successful raiding, those gangs gain power and new ship blueprints to make them more powerful.  If the player takes out their bases, then that pirate gang is destroyed.  New gangs spring up from mercenaries/scavengers going pirate, deserters leaving major factions, and desperate civilians leaving unstable markets with converted ships.

Even better would be if gangs actually kept track of their ships.  So they have an initial set of ships that will gradually gain D-mods and get destroyed over time, while also adding other ships based on their ill gotten gains from trading with the black market, from commissions, and captured enemies.  If powerful enough, only then does a gang establish a base.  At that stage, underworld contacts could also have a gang that they're either associated with or have dealings with.

Let's say we have a Tri-Tach deserter, who goes on to raid the Persean League and get a Hegemony Commission.  Eventually his fleet is an s-moded Aurora he started with, leading a few captured PL carriers and midline ships, escorted by pirate and Hegemony auxiliary frigates.  If this guy establishes a base, his raids and patrols would have access to some PL schematics that the player could potentially get their hands on by raiding or maybe even doing missions and/or buying.
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