Brazilian_Joe Brazilian_Joe

[wishlist] pirate actions

[wishlist] pirate actions

Pirates should get stronger over time, have capital ships, maybe even one of their own. Ships of any factions should be spawnable as pirate ships.

I think pirates should be able to capture player ships - a channeled, interruptible skill. 

Say that, besides having the ability of spawning any capital ship, it has also one of its own, dedicated to capturing ships. Smaller pirate ships will be the support for this ship. Sometimes they would ask for a ransom, to give back the ship. Captured ships which they would never normally spawn would always trigger the ransom (such as diplomatic envoy). The ransom should be less than 100% the ship cost.

A standard pirate raid would focus on getting money, ships and running away. 

Pirate capship skills:

Overdrive - speeds up all pirate ships in the gravity well. This has two uses: fast approach and running away.

Takeover - skill to rob played ships, similar to the Advent's skill, but channelled, interruptible.

Jynx - similar to armistice, but with no money income. They jynx all weapons to be able to run away. Including their own.

Kaboom - Ultimate - passive. When the capital ship explodes, it explodes with quite an ooomph, damaging everything in an area. Similar to TEC starbase skill, but weaker.

Pirates can also do two other types of raid, but only if paid to do so: Destruction raids and terror raids.

They naturally cost much more than a common pirate raid, but also have a greater effect: With destruction raids you must give twice the money to beat a comon pirate raid. their focus would be destroying planetary structures and capturing/destroying ships. The terror raid is all about destroying cultural structures and bombing the planet to terrify the population, reducing especially the current goverment culture spread (if a government can't hold off measly pirates, how can it protect us?). It costs thrice the value of a common raid.

Pirate negotiations

instead of just throwing money on their table and never get it back, the player should be able to set up a target planet for the pirates (including allies), raid type (more on this later) and change at will, anytime, putting or removing money from the table. 

Players should be in the dark of which player is the target and who has put the biggest bounty. Some info may be garnered only with intelligence research, like knowing if you are the likely target before the attack arrives at your gravwell, and knowing if your bounty is the biggest on the table.

When the pirates gear up to action, There will be the usual waiting time. When they choose their target, they take up a portion of what everyone has placed on the table - the fee for listening to the raid offer - and all of the money put by the winner.

The amount the pirates take when losing a bid can be reduced with diplomatic technology.

 

25,708 views 34 replies
Reply #26 Top

It's little but annoying.

Reply #27 Top

How about adding vasari/advent pirate ships/turrets?its boring seeing TEC based pirates units/turrets with an add of spikes and pirate hologram anyone?

Reply #28 Top

Quoting runesia, reply 27
How about adding vasari/advent pirate ships/turrets?its boring seeing TEC based pirates units/turrets with an add of spikes and pirate hologram anyone?

 

Oh I agree!  And they should have more Pirate unique Technologies!

Reply #29 Top

I think it's a good idea if the pirates can capture a damage Battleship, if they can't create themselves.

As other people have pointed out; At the current state the pirate doesn't pose any threads in the mid-/late-games. I don't even bother checking when a pirate party hits one of my planets, as it's for now.

 

What I really like to see on the pirate AI enhancement side;

* Pirates avoiding battles with starbases

It's totally suicide mission for the Pirates to go head to head with a starbase. Instead it should go rampage and pillaging easy targets. If a pirate party gets shot at by a starbase they should move out of target range and also avoiding structures within starbases' fire range.

The pirate AI should learn where the starbases are "planted" from earlier attacks on the systems, so when a pirate party attacks a system it would take

1) a different route into the system (another lane) 

2) jump into the system in the oposite side of the starbase (same lane but it now know where to make the jump to avoid the starbase)

3) picking another system to pillage'n'plunder.

Reply #31 Top

Quoting runesia, reply 27
How about adding vasari/advent pirate ships/turrets?its boring seeing TEC based pirates units/turrets with an add of spikes and pirate hologram anyone?

I agree, I think that the pirates should be a mish mash of all three races and technologies.  They should be predominately TEC in origin, as this is "supposed" to be TEC space, but have a few units here and there from the other factions.  Traders aren't the only ones who can be pirates!

Ooh, another interesting idea.  What happens to all the units of a defeated empire?  Currently they just float around uselessly, waiting to get destroyed.  What if they joined the pirates when their empire collapses?  That would make it more interesting if the defeated player still had a sizable fleet out somewhere.

Also, in multiple star games (or just games with more than one pirate base) maybe have the pirates behave differently if you managed to destroy a pirate base.  Maybe they're miffed that you killed their fellows, or maybe they're afraid of you because of it.  Destroying a pirate base could have some interesting consequences!

Reply #32 Top

I have some additions - I say the pirates currently only use human weapons.  but in true pirate fashion their fleet should be an amalgamation of all the the factions.  The should have a little of all the tech trees or some hybrid thereof - to make them effective against other types.  Now while I would not think that they should have a starbase - I think they should have better defenses.

Reply #34 Top

No shields effectively make the pirate fleets flimsy and easily killed. Shield mitigation usually runs about 65% damage reduction, so they're basically taking 3x normal damage fromall attacks...