A casual players take on the pirate issue.

from Sins Forums

I haven't bothered posting on this issue because it seems as though everyone else has it pretty well covered but a couple things I think I have to reiterate about the pirate "issue" that has only been brought up once so far that I've read...


Pirates commit piracy and attack based on a bid value or if there is no value they pick a random target to attack and essentially throw ships at it. This is silly. Even if it made sense on the space setting there are a few quirks to it. For one pirates attack a planet til the bounty is reached and its "no longer profitable to attack this empire" okay... so why do they hang around? Why don't they pack up and leave? That should be fixed. Once they've exhausted the bounty amount they should either leave... or stay for a small variable amount of time THEN leave. Or just leave and "shoot things on the way out".


Furthermore the pirate severity should be a realistic meter. Why does it start off low... then raise up to severe but never goes down? There's no reason for it to remain severe. Especially not if they're hitting multiple empires (IE all of them having the sword). They should have a measured fleet capacity tied to their severity and strength... their strength should be determined by how much money is going into them both through missions and bidding. Essentially I don't care if the pirates have 5000 ships to throw at players. But that amount should be tied directly into how much money people are throwing at them. Sure pushing up a 10,000 bid on one of your enemies may seem like a good idea except that they might send 2000-3000 credits worth of a fleet to attack that target then have whatever's left over to send at you next round. Likewise if their fleets take massive losses their severity should go down. If they attack 5 empires and all those empires hold their ground and destroy the pirate fleet... it should knock them down in power and give empires (Primarily players) the ability to attack their local pirate base which should limit pirate raiding power within that system. IE any pirate attacks on you would have to come from another star system.  Though perhaps that should be optional since some people might not like the idea of pirates going from star system to star system... especially if you have 5 systems and 5 groups of pirates all working together. Though it would be an interesting concept.


Also I would like to reiterate that pirate ships SHOULD NOT SCALE. There is no reason for pirate ships to become that powerful. Either that or they should be capped and capped lower than what your max fleet "power" ends up at.


Another thing that people might not particularly like but I feel I have to say... pirates should NOT make such a consorted effort to wipe out an entire planet. As I said it should all be tied to the amount of money going into the pirates. If you want uber powerful super pirates that are a force to be reckoned with... fine... redesign the pirates like how I said in tying them to the money and let the person pick a target and throw up a 50,000 bounty bid. Bam you've just given the pirates 50k to build a force with to attack a player. A similar thing happens with the missions as far as I can see it... but I think that should apply in a much broader way. Literally the pirates as a "unified" should have their force dictated directly by how much money goes into them. If for example you have a game where noone sinks any money into the pirates but they exist... they should stay at "low" threat levels and their raids would be largely pathetic.

 

The key thing and TL:DR jist is that the more money that gets sunk into pirates should determine how powerful a force they are. Not how powerful their ships are but how many of those ships they have. As far as the pirate base... it should scale up. Obviously again to a capped point. If pirates have 1,000,000 credits dumped into them over the course of a few hours... one of their bases should be pretty hard to take down. Perhaps even requiring a team effort to take it down.


Anyway sorry for the wall of text. I just love this game so much and hate the idea of taking the pirates out completely because they add so much to the game as a "wildcard" but they are far too strong for their intended purpose. I struggle to believe that infinitely scaling pirate ships was an intended design. Sounds more to me like someone put it in without thinking it through and testing it properly so didn't realize there should be a limit to it.

6,584 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Most of the pros regard pirate attacks as "capital ship food, thanks for the grub!" and at worst merely annoying.  So, in online multiplayer the pirates are almost always off much to the chagrin of newer players who can't fathom that anyone would want to play without them.  In practice not having the pirates doesn't detract from the game in any sort of a way because playing against real human opponents is so strategically demanding, intense, and challenging that no one ever misses the pirates.  I don't miss them at all; I never think about them.  Sometimes I'll play a game hosted by a newer player who has the pirates on and just laugh.  However, I can't say I've ever gone up against the Diplomacy pirates; perhaps they're not as laughable.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Not to be rash... but I bought Trinity which is basically the whole "package" and if you haven't actually played it you probably shouldn't be commenting. Personally I like pirates because as I said before... it throws a wildcard into the mix that adds to the complexity and fun of the game. Even in an all player game (Which I haven't had the joy of trying yet due to being in australia with really bad ping times) I would say pirates would be great fun... yes I played the game prior to diplomacy at a friend's place and found the pirates to be nothing more than an annoyance... just something to wreck a planet you haven't had a chance to properly fortify. That being said though, the pirates in diplomacy are a whole different thing entirely. I can't repeat enough that I like having them in my games. I don't want to disable them but essentially in diplomacy their ships power simply outperforms any other ship in terms of stats AND they hit you with forces that are easily comparable to anything you can build up and sometimes far greater. I've heard of people having pirate fleets of 500+ ships. Throw the fact that these are ships with more "hp" than a capital ship... firepower that will destroy or near destroy any frigate in one shot... with a 1 second refire rate... you cannot beat them basically if they attack a planet... you lose the planet. To me that isn't fun.

 

Diplomacy also adds interactions with pirates that goes beyond the simple "bidding" war system in that you can actually employ the pirates to attack specific players even to the point of specific planets. It's a very fun system except for the entirely overpowered ships. I'm okay with pirates becoming powerful... heck I'm even okay with pirates becoming near as powerful as the player factions if enough money is thrown at them. But at the higher "levels" of their power... 1 of their ships is probably equal to 10-20 of your ships. Take that in stride and then say they're throwing a 500 ship fleet at you. Do you really think you're going to survive that? Heck no. The only saving grace about it is that they tend to attack a single planet... level it then just linger. Basically right now you have to stay on top of the bids in late game because you REALLY don't want them coming after you cause it will hurt. Especially if others take advantage of their impending raid.

 

Quoting DirtySanchezz, reply 1
Most of the pros regard pirate attacks as "capital ship food, thanks for the grub!" and at worst merely annoying.  So, in online multiplayer the pirates are almost always off much to the chagrin of newer players who can't fathom that anyone would want to play without them.  In practice not having the pirates doesn't detract from the game in any sort of a way because playing against real human opponents is so strategically demanding, intense, and challenging that no one ever misses the pirates.  I don't miss them at all; I never think about them.  Sometimes I'll play a game hosted by a newer player who has the pirates on and just laugh.  However, I can't say I've ever gone up against the Diplomacy pirates; perhaps they're not as laughable.

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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I didn't know the Diplomacy pirates were that tough.  I guess that's another excellent reason to keep them turned off in pro games.  There are a couple Australian players out there and they have difficulty finding games because of the time differentials, but there are some who are around to play with Americans on the West Coast.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Hmmm I think the game would be kinda boring without the pirates in a player game. Though I guess pirates are really a fairly unique feature in a RTS. If the scaling was capped and/or they tied the the pirate power directly to the money they have going in then it would be quite balanced and a lot more fun. But I guess it's really just a matter of waiting for a patch to hopefully get released.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

pirates are capped (10 levels for most research) and are tied to how much money you give them, but they are tied to how big your empire is as well which explains why they never drop down at a certain point

personally I too enjoy the pirates (love them in MP but Im the only one) and have even made them more powerful (seems how the AI is never good enough and the crew I play with aren't always online)

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah but when pirates are pushing out 100 ships that are all equal to what would be a level 20 capital ship... that's too far and really almost everyone knows it I think pirates should scale up to your empire but not to the point that if they attack a planet no matter how defended it is... you're going to lose it. That's not fun. The only way that should happen is if people have sunk a considerable amount of money into them and not beaten their previous fleets. Or they were sent on a mission with a very high amount of money. But still its not the amount of pirates that's the problem... its the power of their ships.

 

Quoting Ryat, reply 5
pirates are capped (10 levels for most research) and are tied to how much money you give them, but they are tied to how big your empire is as well which explains why they never drop down at a certain point

personally I too enjoy the pirates (love them in MP but Im the only one) and have even made them more powerful (seems how the AI is never good enough and the crew I play with aren't always online)

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

I suspect that Ryat only plays the Distant Stars mod which, last I checked, would allow him to build a huge fleet very quickly, making it easier for him to counter the pirates.  Ryat, you know that if your buddies aren't around you're always welcome to come play in the 4v4 and 5v5 games.  (Won't allow you to make DS tweaks and test them, though, which is what I assume you do when you play single player.)

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Hmmm Distant Stars mod? I don't play with any mods and haven't really particularly had much interest in playing with any. The game is very solid as it is... except for the pirates really. And its not like its even unplayable... but I like to play on huge random maps and I find that a few things seem to ALWAYS occur in these games. I have an AI player in my local system so essentially it becomes a planet "tug o war" very quickly which essentially puts a cap on how high I can build up due to lack of income/infastructure... then throw growing pirates into the mix and if I get hit with both pirates and one of the AI's in another star systems that have had time to build up... I tend to end up losing several planets all in rapid succession.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

just increasing intervals would help greatly.

btw would love if pirates had a one of a kind mishmash of a capital ship that roamed and did some serious damage, maybe instead of a pirate fleet. Something with like 50k hps, It would be fun chasing it down and taking it down. :digichet:

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting DirtySanchezz, reply 7
I suspect that Ryat only plays the Distant Stars mod which, last I checked, would allow him to build a huge fleet very quickly, making it easier for him to counter the pirates. 

I also play the base level to do research, though it is a lot harder so I have to drop the AI level a bit

@bgilliford - so what you are saying is that the caps for the pirates are still set too high (which I do agree with and have the DS pirates turned down a notch in key areas in that regard) and that you would like to remove the scaling power levels of each individual ship and increase the size of the fleets based on credits thrown their direction

I say no, due to the game mechanics (phase lanes, choke points) and starbases, pirates just get eaten, throw in a cap or two and you can home grow your very own lvl 10 cap (can be a little slow and time consuming)

flipside I do agree that just upping the power of the individual pirates ships is not the answer, personally I would prefer something along the lines of the TEC tier 8 research Insurgency where the pirates randomly attack one or two planets of the player that loses the bid much in the same manner as the Insurgency effect only with a bit more stronger force and also change up the attack and destroy planet idea to more of a pillage idea, some damaged to the planet is caused but you lose income at high rates to show looting. This would stop or make useless the idea of pirate fed caps and would force players to be a bit more mindful of their rear areas.

 

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

The problem with the "farming" of pirates based on numbers concept is that it can happen anyway. The idea of the pirate's being aimed via bounty is meant to serve two purposes... harrassing the enemy and leaving them "preoccupied" while you deal out your own attack.

I don't want pirates to go back down to being fodder for starbases and/or a fleet... but at the same time I don't want pirates to send 50 ships and take out a starbase and 200-300 of your ships. That to me does not make any sense.

It would be tough to balance no doubt. I just think as it is now isn't really working. The pirates don't even start out weak.. I played a "test" game on a small map just to test some ship abilities had full lvl 1 fleet supply wasn't really paying attention... pirates came after me and nearly destroyed my entire fleet on one planet then within 2 minutes attacked my capital and destroyed what was left of my fleet as I was trying to rebuild it. Now sure I didn't build up or expand but that wasn't the point of the exercise. Nor do I expect a small pirate raid to completely trump my level 3 capital ship and full fleet supply of ships.

Quoting wbino, reply 9
just increasing intervals would help greatly.

btw would love if pirates had a one of a kind mishmash of a capital ship that roamed and did some serious damage, maybe instead of a pirate fleet. Something with like 50k hps, It would be fun chasing it down and taking it down.