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[Lawrence Master-blaster]

Since we're on topic of Pirates, there is a rather awkward problem with them - if you know what you're doing, it's very easy to become non-hostile with Pirates at which point the game becomes almost a walking flying simulator. You start at -65 relations and you have to fight Pirates once in the tutorial(the second fight around the jump point can be avoided) which gets you down to -68. You become non-hostile at -50, so all it takes is 7 Dead Drop missions(which can be done with a single Kite in five minutes each) and bam, no more Pirate menace. Easy mode engaged.

Becoming non-hostile with Pirates also tends to have rather inconsistent consequences. Normal Pirate fleets won't attack you, but these spawned as part of a quest still will. And if your colony gets invaded, the Pirates won't attack your fleet but will still attack the fleets/convoys belonging to your colonies.

So my suggestion is to remove the ability to become non-hostile with Pirates, or even to completely remove the standings mechanic with them. They're not supposed to be a faction with top-down leadership anyway, but rather a bunch of randos whose only common trait is, well, piracy. Why would a pirate in Donn care about what you did for some other pirate in Thule?

[Megas]

Today, pirates effectively have a top-down ruler named Kanta.  Kanta dominating everything about pirates basically ruined the idea of pirates being a disorganized faction with no leadership.  Now, they are effectively the red Hegemony.

But regarding the OP, I would not mind pirates being chaotic evil beings that cannot be reasoned with.


Path is another faction that is not too hard to get good relations with.

[Alex]

Today, pirates effectively have a top-down ruler named Kanta.  Kanta dominating everything about pirates basically ruined the idea of pirates being a disorganized faction with no leadership.  Now, they are effectively the red Hegemony.

(Considering Kanta has no effect on pirate activity from station kings, I'm not sure that perspective checks out.)

[Trensicourt]

Speaking of Kanta, why is Kanta's Den so vulnerable to raiding?

[Great Wound]

So my suggestion is to remove the ability to become non-hostile with Pirates, or even to completely remove the standings mechanic with them. They're not supposed to be a faction with top-down leadership anyway, but rather a bunch of randos whose only common trait is, well, piracy. Why would a pirate in Donn care about what you did for some other pirate in Thule?

The same logic applies to independents, they're not a collective (that's the Persean League).

The key issue is that becoming friendly with pirates has little in the way of repercussions, they're a hostile force in the sector, being friendly with them should have negative repercussions. It would be far better to expand the relationship mechanic so that gaining favor with one faction generates a negative response with every faction they are hostile with. That way, if you wish to be friendly with pirates you'll have everyone who isn't a pirate out to get you.


And at that point, we could dig out my old suggestion and allow pirates to offer a commission with 0-pay. Everyone hates you anyway so we might as well get paid through the spoils of war.

[Mortrag]

I'm fine with the idea, that good relations with the pirate have negative repercussions with everyone else (maybe except Pathers), as long as the Pirates get their own access to a stealth-mechanic, like the phase ships have (either via own ships, or via a hullmod).
(Because right now Pirates give you the stealth missions, but you are forced to get a Tri-Tach-commission to get the stealth-ships, aka phase-ships.)

I'm strongly against the idea of not being able to improve the relations with pirates and so removing the option to take part in the pirate-life.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

So my suggestion is to remove the ability to become non-hostile with Pirates, or even to completely remove the standings mechanic with them. They're not supposed to be a faction with top-down leadership anyway, but rather a bunch of randos whose only common trait is, well, piracy. Why would a pirate in Donn care about what you did for some other pirate in Thule?

The same logic applies to independents, they're not a collective (that's the Persean League).

The key issue is that becoming friendly with pirates has little in the way of repercussions, they're a hostile force in the sector, being friendly with them should have negative repercussions. It would be far better to expand the relationship mechanic so that gaining favor with one faction generates a negative response with every faction they are hostile with. That way, if you wish to be friendly with pirates you'll have everyone who isn't a pirate out to get you.


And at that point, we could dig out my old suggestion and allow pirates to offer a commission with 0-pay. Everyone hates you anyway so we might as well get paid through the spoils of war.

I forget which difficulty mod it is, but there's already a mod that does it. Basically, if you're friendly with two factions that are hostile with each other, you get a repeating, but relatively minor relationship decrease. If you're friendly with pirates, everyone except the path will continue getting more and more hostile.

[Aeson]

(Because right now Pirates give you the stealth missions, but you are forced to get a Tri-Tach-commission to get the stealth-ships, aka phase-ships.)

One of the common stealth missions (spy satellite deployment) seems like it often comes from non-pirate factions, actually - that mission type can give you a faction military contact - and while taking a Tri-Tachyon commission might be the easiest way to gain access to phase ships, you certainly aren't forced into it if you want to build a phase fleet. Pirate variants of the Shade and Afflictor are in my experience reasonably common on the black and sometimes open markets of non-Tri-Tachyon worlds while base-variant Shades, Afflictors, and Harbingers show up on the black and occasionally open markets of Tri-Tachyon worlds often enough that they (particularly the frigates) are not especially difficult to acquire; Phantoms, Revenants, and Dooms are a bit harder to find, but can sometimes be purchased from the arms dealers you can find while visiting bars or through your contacts, and can also be found as derelicts or blueprints in the fringe; I have also occasionally found Revenants adrift in hyperspace in the Core, usually near Hybrasil.

I started my current game by selling my starter fleet, buying a Shade (base variant, if I recall correctly) off Jangala's black market, and fitting it with expanded cargo holds for very definitely legal trade, honest, then proceeded to add five or six more phase frigates (a mix of base and pirate variant Shades and Afflictors) to the fleet when I saw them and had funds to spare, ordered a Phantom from an arms dealer I met in a bar partly because I was hoping to create a contact who I could order more phase ships from in the future (didn't work out, unfortunately), bought a Harbinger when I saw one show up on the Eochu Bres black market, and acquired two or three more Phantoms, five Revenants, and a Doom blueprint after I started exploring outside of the core; I've also engaged several pirate or bounty fleets which had phase ships (usually frigates, though one had a Revenant) that could be recovered post-battle, though I haven't actually bothered to pick any of those up. At no point in this game have I ever accepted a Tri-Tachyon commission or purchased a phase ship from a military (whether Tri-Tachyon or any other) market (I did, however, accept the Hegemony's chit to cover operating expenses while exploring; turns out putting away my phase frigates and running around the fringe with a battleship, eight cruisers, five Atlases, a Prometheus, a Harbinger, four Salvage Rigs, and enough spare crew to man anything interesting that I might want to recover isn't cheap, go figure).

[Mortrag]

@Aeson: You're right with the different points you make, but still I'd say that my overall assessment stands:

1) Smuggling, Dead Drop and Underworld Bounties are other missions that require or profit from a stealth fleet. And although you may get them from main faction-contacts, from my experience most commonly they are handed out by the pirate ones you find in the bars.

2) About the ships: I'v knewn about the pirate-variant for the afflictor, that there also exists one for the shade was new to me. But how the phase-stealth-mechanic and phase coil tuning currently work, you need to bring harbingers and dooms if you want to keep your sensor profile low, while your fleet grows.
And building a stealth fleet, my experience differs from yours: I may be lucky to aquire those ships through open/black markets or a mission, but atleast from me they are still very rare or come with a lot d-mods (which doubles or triples the price). Right now I'm in my second attempt of building a stealth fleet and from my first attempt I must say: Even with the Tri-Tach-commission it takes a really long time, and without that I expect it to be significant worse.

[Aeson]

1) Smuggling, Dead Drop and Underworld Bounties are other missions that require or profit from a stealth fleet. And although you may get them from main faction-contacts, from my experience most commonly they are handed out by the pirate ones you find in the bars.

Prison-break / operative extraction, raid, bombardment...

Also, Dead Drop doesn't really need - and arguably doesn't want or pay well enough to merit - a big fleet, you can usually carry all the cargo a smuggling mission wants you to shift in one or two frigates, and unless I'm planning to go full pirate I don't see much reason to take underworld bounties.

But how the phase-stealth-mechanic and phase coil tuning currently work, you need to bring harbingers and dooms if you want to keep your sensor profile low, while your fleet grows.

This is what Insulated Engine Assembly - especially built-in Insulated Engine Assembly - is for. An Atlas with built-in Insulated Engine Assembly has the same sensor profile as a regular frigate; a battleship with built-in Insulated Engine Assembly, or an Atlas with both militarized subsystems and built-in Insulated Engine Assembly, has the sensor profile of a phase frigate before phase cloak multiplier.

Also, my feeling is that if you're running around with a big fleet that has a bunch of Dooms and Harbingers in it then Phase Coil Tuning is more about offsetting the higher sensor profile of the big phase ships than actually providing any significant benefit; one Doom or two Harbingers is pretty much the limit of the big combat phase ships you can have while still getting the full bonus out of the skill. I'd have to look at how the multiplier actually scales to be sure, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the best phase cloak sensor profile reduction actually came from something like one Doom (180 sensor strength with Phase Coil Tuning if no other combat phase ships in fleet) or two or three Harbingers (two at 120 sensor strength or three at something a bit less than that with Phase Coil Tuning if no other combat phase ships in fleet) plus a bunch of Revenants (90 sensor strength each, don't count against the DP limit for Phase Coil Tuning's sensor strength bonus).

[Megas]

Source of phase ships:
Pirates:  Shade-P, Afflictor-P
Independents:  Shade, Afflictor, Harbinger
Tri-Tachyon:  All of them (as Independents, plus Doom, Phantom and Revenant.)

Compared to last release, Independents lost Doom, and Tri-Tachyon gained Phantom and Revenant.

[Realm]

Oh I'd hate this. I always love working to befriend the pirates at the expense of relations with the major powers, pirates are my bros. I'd rather see more non-hostile interaction with them than even less, which is why I liked the little bit of content we got with them in this release.

[BaBosa]

Today, pirates effectively have a top-down ruler named Kanta.  Kanta dominating everything about pirates basically ruined the idea of pirates being a disorganized faction with no leadership.  Now, they are effectively the red Hegemony.

But regarding the OP, I would not mind pirates being chaotic evil beings that cannot be reasoned with.

Path is another faction that is not too hard to get good relations with.

She's not a ruler, more like one of the strongest pirates so she can bribe other pirates to avoid you or claim you as her mark and scare them into avoiding you.

[Mortrag]

Also, Dead Drop doesn't really need - and arguably doesn't want or pay well enough to merit - a big fleet, you can usually carry all the cargo a smuggling mission wants you to shift in one or two frigates, and unless I'm planning to go full pirate I don't see much reason to take underworld bounties.

Underworld bounties are so far the most fun part of the game for me.

I'd have to look at how the multiplier actually scales to be sure, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the best phase cloak sensor profile reduction actually came from something like one Doom (180 sensor strength with Phase Coil Tuning if no other combat phase ships in fleet) or two or three Harbingers (two at 120 sensor strength or three at something a bit less than that with Phase Coil Tuning if no other combat phase ships in fleet) plus a bunch of Revenants (90 sensor strength each, don't count against the DP limit for Phase Coil Tuning's sensor strength bonus).

But the problem with this approach ist, that the Revenants also don't profit from the bonus to the sensor strength of Phase Coil Tuning.
We know it for sure if someone does the math, but my guess is, 5 Dooms + the Phase Coil Tuning-Bonus give you the highest phase sensor strength, which is calculated against your fleet sensor profile.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Easy mode? I fail to understand why would you NOT bully pirates. If something i would want a pirate commision or something and burn the core worlds for fun and profit.