Re: A pirates life for me...
 

-Names are easy to change: Normal, Pirate, Nomad.
-solar sail/solar collector combo
-'small' Versions of everything + fighters very early. Small sensors, small cloaking devices, small solar sail/collector, etc.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I have yet to test if 'Solar Resource Generation' works on a component. Does it?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Nope thats the first thing I tried http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Research and Intelligence are the weak point.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Definitely, research is a problem, but intel is not. When the nomads lose their home planet, they will lose contact with all other races, and intel will not be a factor.
Research will have to be done on the homeworld, and later stolen because of how the game works.

-unique fighter hull, larger than a standard 'large' fighter.
(instead of lower engine limit, multiple engines per move)

(I really don't like arbirtary limits being imposed on stuff. This way you can decide for yourself how much to spend on engines)

Thats some good stuff. I'm on it.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Have you tried giving the solar resource generation ability to a vehicle?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

No, I didn't try giving it to the hull. I noticed the negative maintenace worked before I got to that.

--------------------
Results:
- Solar Sail/ collectors for fighters
- Small Versions of most stuff. The cloaking devices are 40KT, so they were left out, but sensors are included.
- Nomads get +3 in Fighter tech. This means you start with medium fighters (lev 0) then get Large, Heavy (35 KT), and Massive (50KT, 2 engines per move) fighters. Max engines on Heavy/Massive is 99 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
Warning: you need fighters Lev 1 to get small ion engines, so if you don't research fighter tech, you're left with lame fighters that need to use solar sails http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

You can mount Full Size PDCs on Large & better fighters http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif, as well as boarding parties. (I don't know if they work yet)
There is now a Null-space weapon for fighters.
Much more choice for armor on fighters.
Armor maxes out at 14pts/Kt, shields are Standard at 15pts/Kt.
Supply storage is available for fighters. (useful on solar-sail powered fighters, where you can cram weapons & shields instead of engines http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif)

This Mod Version is compatible with any Version of Pirates&Nomads, but not with the original game, or the Pirates Mod.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 04 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Wow... just spent way too long reading this entire thread (go ahead and laugh but I've looked at parts and it was very cool - just HAD to make sure I wasn't missing anything).

Waaayyy back someplace, SJ and WHoJo were debating pirate colonies and the idea of adding SDD to colonizers came up. I have a thought on that.

Could you just mod the colony components to self-destruct? That would ban ALL colonizer capture and the AI wouldn't need to be re-coded. I'm not sure if you can do it, I'm still playing the demo - getting the full Version this month. WOO-HOO!!! Can hardly wait.. I feel like an addict waiting for a hit *twitch, twitch*.... but I'm sure I'll hold out fine. *twitch*

In a way it makes sense.. not from the aspect of an empire killing off their own citizens instead of allowing someone to capture them, but in the sense that colonizers from one race would be of minor value to another. All of the technology of any importance would be at the very least an annoyance to use, at most impossible to figure out.

I'm of the mindset that pirates shouldn't colonize at all. This just makes it harder to do so.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Could you just mod the colony components to self-destruct? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The problem with that is that pirates NEED to expand their planet base.
For the nomads, that would be OK, since they aren't supposed to get any colonies.

The pirates are supposed to expand, just not as fast as the current AI lets 'em because of the defenceless colony ships.

Now, I suppose, you could just force the pirates to use troops to capture intact planets.

What do the rest of you guys think?
I would still prefer to change the AI to put SDDs on colony ships, to slow down, but not prevent colony ship use by pirates.
A) Leave as is
B) AI adds SDD
C) Colony module is an SDD

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ, I think SDDs on every colony ship would actually handicap the AIs. Human players would have the sense to only use SDDs when they encountered pirates.

Even then, I don't think SDDs on colony ships make sense from a game-theoretic point of view. If the ship/pop is lost anyhow what is the value of depriving a potential enemy of a potential colony?

I suspect that other than in the very early stages the benefit is less than the cost of a single SDD component - certainly not sufficient to cover the expense of installing SDDs on the other 95% of ships not encountering pirates.

Maybe a better solution is to only load minimal pop onto each colony ship and to have re-usable pop transports equipped with SDDs?

------------------
Resistence is futile.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz:

Resistence is futile.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Only if you fail to resist!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

My thoughts are this.
Pirates need colonies but they must be prevented from establishing a lot of them, otherwise they are just another empire.
Their colonies don't have the same function as a standard race. Pirates need to scrap, analyize, resupply, repair and build new ships. They don't need resource production, research or intel facilities as much. At least that is how I read the thread and from my own limited pirate experiance.
If pirates are not allowed a colony module the only way they can colonize is capturing ships.
Limiting colonies can only be done easily in a few ways, limit colonizing to home planet type and home atmosphere type. This effects all races though.
I would vote for SDD's on colony ships if nothing else was changed.
I would vote for no SDD's if Pirates were given a huge negative to happiness, you can have all the colonies you want but if they are rioting you get no benefit from them.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

first, WHoJo and SJ, great thread, its the most popular and gets bigger every day. SJ great work on your mod. Caught up on the Posts and my opinions on some of your questions.

1. pirates definitly should have ftrs, Ftrs should have capability of cloaking as well

2 as for capital ships, I like the idea of them building up to BC's only, but also include Lt. Carriers. Other then that they have to capture or steal the larger ones.

3. SDD on colony ships for sure. if they can be modded, don't know.

4. Pirates should have some form of research capabilities. In old days wasn't necessary, but with Space Pirates this would be a must.
They would either steal scientists to keep up to improve their "evil ways" or steal it. Maybe restrictions but definitly should have some type of this capability.

Like the idea of ftrs being able to capture
this would be interesting.

As for fast expansion, how about limiting the number of colony ships they could use at any one time or over a year or two? or make it tougher to make deals with AI or have at least 1 AI, blood enemies of pirate race where they never deal and seek out pirate planets and bases?

Keep up the good work, just some ideas,
Mac

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Have no idea if the following will work or not - really not sure about modding since I'm still stuck with the demo.. and the demo doesn't have refit rules that I'm aware of.

Ok, assume you are using the 'not a pirate' rules for colony ships so pirates can't have standard colony ships...

Add the rule the the colony ship HULL and then create a new pirate colony ship HULL (same size, etc as the standard one) that's much more expensive than the normal one.. that would slow down the production of the pirate's colony ships (make it take approx. a year (or two?) say to build one). Thus the pirate could still build colony ships but very slowly and at great expense. Not something to be done frivilously.

Then, add the SDD function to the standard colony components (that way the AI ship design doesn't have to be changed)...

Here's my questions - you destroy the colony component (and therefore the SDD) and capture an AI colonizer. Can you then REPAIR it(which would pretty much defeat the purpose of the SDD)? AND, could you take the damaged hull back and retrofit it into a pirate colony ship?

My hope would be that this would allow the pirate to make relatively cheaper Versions of "his" colony ship - since the expense is in the hull not the component. You capture an enemy hull.. pay a small amount to refit it with your colony component as opposed to paying a large sum for a colony ship built from scratch. All the while keeping the number of colony ships the pirate has to a minimum.

[This message has been edited by The Finn (edited 06 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

If the standard colony component was made to fit the not a pirate trait and the special colony component was made exclusively available to the is a pirate trait it should work.
I think you can repair tech that is ordinarily not available to you but I'm not 100% sure on that. You should be able to use it if you captured it undamaged though.
This may be a good way of limiting the pirates ability to overcolonize.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

It appears that you guys are not familiar with the guts of this mod (nobody expects you to inspect every line http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif), so:

The Current Guts of the Pirates MOD
Relating to most of your questions.

VJ's Qs:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Maybe a better solution is to only load minimal pop onto each colony ship and to have re-usable pop transports equipped with SDDs?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
That clearly assumes that the population is more important than the colony, but in fact, for a pirate, the opposite is true. They desperately need colony components, but will often space aliens rather than hold them for a few years until a suitable colony is captured.

The pirates cannot research colony ship hulls OR colony components, the same way that most races cannot research Organic Armor.
This means that the pirates can only colonize a world if they capture a colony ship with the colony component intact, since they cannot repair it.
The pirates are not concerned with the population on board, but rather the colony itself. All the pirates want is a military outpost with a resupply depot, space yard & slave yards as bonus. They cannot build colony ships on their own.

As for a benefit to the normal races, Self-destructing prevents the pirate race from expanding at all

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I would vote for SDD's on colony ships if nothing else was changed.
I would vote for no SDD's if Pirates were given a huge negative to happiness, you can have all the colonies you want but if they are rioting you get no benefit from them<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The problem here is with the SE4 engine. Pirate races should be designed with happiness, reproduction & environment resist (as well as other blanet-based attributes) set to thier minimum levels
Happiness at -50% seems to mean that the race is always Indifferent.
Unless that has changed in a recent patch, -ve happiness won't hurt any more than it already does.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>2 as for capital ships, I like the idea of them building up to BC's only, but also include Lt. Carriers. Other then that they have to capture or steal the larger ones<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Pirates should be designed with -50% ship construction rate.
This means that LCs take a year to build, and BC's or bigger are long obsolete by the time you finish building the prototype http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
As a Pirate, I would never build anything larger than LC, since it would take longer to build ONE than to capture and retrofit FIVE.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>4. Pirates should have some form of research capabilities. In old days wasn't necessary, but with Space Pirates this would be a must.
They would either steal scientists to keep up to improve their "evil ways" or steal it. Maybe restrictions but definitly should have some type of this capability.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Pirates start out with a planet full of research facils, but with -50% to research, they get the same staring research as any other race. The research quickly falls behind as normals build research colonies, and the pirates sit waiting for captures.
After turn 40 or so, a pirate only researches stuff they can't capture, like armor.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Like the idea of ftrs being able to capture this would be interesting.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I gave the pirates a Boarding Pod to put on fighters, the game engine may or may not allow the capture order to go through, I haven't gotten to the point where I can test it yet. Heres hoping http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Here's my questions - you destroy the colony component (and therefore the SDD) and capture an AI colonizer. Can you then REPAIR it(which would pretty much defeat the purpose of the SDD)? AND, could you take the damaged hull back and retrofit it into a pirate colony ship?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If we make a new component, PIrate Rock Colony, then you would not be able to repair the colony component you blew away.
You cannot retrofit between hull sizes, so you can't retro from colony to Pirate colony.

The idea behind not allowing pirates to build colony ships was based on a story-book idea of pirates. Ie. pirates wouldn't be able to put together an expedition to start a city in north america, but if they happened to board a ship from England, or somewheres, that was intended to start a city in the new world, then they might just go ahead and try it.

As it is, an AI colony ship has no shields or SDD, so it can be captured extremely easily. Adding the SDD would mean that a good fraction of ships would be damaged beyond usefulness before they were captured, slowing the pirates planet colonization from its currently reduced rate to a trickle.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If the standard colony component was made to fit the not a pirate trait and the special colony component was made exclusively available to the is a pirate trait it should work.
I think you can repair tech that is ordinarily not available to you but I'm not 100% sure on that. You should be able to use it if you captured it undamaged though.
This may be a good way of limiting the pirates ability to overcolonize<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Actually, that is how it works now, except there is no special colony component for pirates. As it is, the pirates must capture alien colony ships intact to start a colony, and they can still expand too fast, since the AI dosen't defend its colony ships well. The SDD will reduce pirate expansion by I'm guessing 70% or so. Currently it is easy to get a new colony every year or two, not including ground-war troop captures.
I feel that the pirates starting a new colony of thier own choice should be a momentus occasion.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 06 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ, my standard colony ship design (with one extra storage compartment for extra pop) costs 6150 minerals, 1100 organics and 1400 radiactives. The SDD adds 500 minerals and 50 radioactives to this cost (less the cost of whichever component I'd sacrifice to make room). Given that colony ships are single use designs and that in any game I'd hope to construct 100+ of them, this represents a significant overhead to my empire. As a human player I could be sure to not incur this extra expense unless there were pirates in the area and they were non-trivial rivals. To oblige the AI to blindly add SDDs in all cases would put the AI at a non-trivial disadvantage to human players.

As an alternative, adding SDD functionality to colony components just doesn't feel right from a role playing perspective.

On balance I'm pretty convinced that the AI shouldn't be adjusted to add SDDs to colony ships. Handicap the pirates (who'll only ever be played by humans) if necessary, not the AIs.

------------------
Resistence is futile.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Isn't there a setting that make a population happier and angrier, maybe it is in the anger file. Maybe that file could be used to keep the pirate population unhappier.
Also, if the pirates can't build standard resource, research and intel facilities is having a lot of colonies bad? Maybe no standard facilities should be allowed for the pirates, just the bare minimum of pirate specific ones, so even if you had 100 colonies it would only equal 10 normal ones.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 06 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Isn't there a setting that make a population happier and angrier<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Problem is, that only makes the pop move towards/away from indifferent.
Giving a -100% happiness means that the colony will never go above indifferent unless you have 1000 troops and 15 ships in orbit. Happiness won't drive the pop to anger/riot.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>On balance I'm pretty convinced that the AI shouldn't be adjusted to add SDDs to colony ships. Handicap the pirates (who'll only ever be played by humans) if necessary, not the AIs<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>If the restrictions worked, I'd design a free, zero Kt SDD for colony ships only, but until then, we have to decide how to stop pirates from getting too many colonies.
Adding the SDD dosen't increase the cost of the colony ship very much, and it would be advantageous for an AI playing against a Human Pirate to stem the growth of the pirate in this way.
The only time that the AI would be at a disadvantage in this respect, would be if the human was playing a normal race, and it would still help prevent the human from getting colonists who breathe some other atmosphere.

We could always just disable all colony ship captures by the pirates, and forece them to use troops...

Bumping the polls to the top
---------------------------------
What do the rest of you guys think about Pirates vs AI colony ships?
A) Leave as is
B) AI adds SDD
C) Colony module is an SDD

----------------------------------
Who would like to see pirates with no research ability, other than from captured ships & planets?

A) Leave it alone
B) Severly restrict research (just like resources)
C) No research for Pirates!
D) No research, and get rid of the resource gathering slave labour camps too!
E) None of the above

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz:
As an alternative, adding SDD functionality to colony components just doesn't feel right from a role playing perspective.

On balance I'm pretty convinced that the AI shouldn't be adjusted to add SDDs to colony ships. Handicap the pirates (who'll only ever be played by humans) if necessary, not the AIs.

[/b]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not handicapping the AI (and not forcing people to mod all the colony ship design files to include SDDs) was my reasoning for changing the colony component to include a built in SDD.

I agree it doesn't have a nice roleplay feel to it but I'd give up that small aspect for the simplicity of it.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:

Hmmm.. actually, another question - can you put colony components on ships other than colony ships? I've never tried it but I can't see why you couldn't from the vehicle size file. If so, the idea of making the Pirate Colony Hull more expensive would be sort of useless - you could just slap the colonizer on a Frigate or something.

Sorry, not quite following.. Could the pirates capture what's left of a colony ship with the colony component destroyed and then repait it? Also, could they take the hull home and add their own colony component to it?

If they can repair the 'not a pirate' colony comp. then my idea of making them refit the cheaper colony ship hulls with their own colony component won't work. If they can't repair it, but CAN add their own colony component to the hull then it would work to cut down on their expansion.

&lt;grumbles&gt; I really need to get the game soon so I can fool with this myself.. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by The Finn (edited 06 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Your Poll

1 B or C
2 B

"never say never" Mac

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

You can make Pirate colonies naturally get angry by giving the ability Planet - Population Anger Change to each Pirate specific facility that you think should only be built in limited quantities, but not the slave mine I think Pirates would like them! This will cause anger to increase every turn unless you counter it with troops, ships etc. If the modifier stacks or you give some facilities Planet and some System abilities, the more you build the angrier your colonies will become.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
You can make Pirate colonies naturally get angry by giving the ability Planet - Population Anger Change to each Pirate specific facility that you think should only be built in limited quantities, but not the slave mine I think Pirates would like them! This will cause anger to increase every turn unless you counter it with troops, ships etc. If the modifier stacks or you give some facilities Planet and some System abilities, the more you build the angrier your colonies will become.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, this will not work. I tried it with a "Security Police Facility" using the reduce bad intelligence chance ability. It seemed a good way to let non-religious races use this facility power. My thinking was that having the Goon Squad running around a system looking for spies would make people a bit uneasy and there should be a negative happiness effect. BUT... the game checks all happiness modifying facilities in a system and uses the best (positive) value. So, the negatice value is ignored if there is a facility with a positive value. In other words, only one modifer is applied so you'd only see the effect if there was no facility with apositive value in the system.

I suggest making a special happiness type for Pirates. Call it 'Pirate' happiness, I guess? http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif You can then modify how they react to all sorts of individual events. Check the happiness.txt file and see all the options. You could increase the reaction to enemy ships nearby, reduce or eliminate the beneficial effect of your own ships nearby, etc. I think you could find a way to represent the reactions of the population realistically and you can achieve much finer balance this way than by a facility that only pushes happiness one way all the time.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 06 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Poll reply
1. C less work in modding AI files
2. B agree most advances should come from capture, I don't recall to many Pirate PhD's

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

How does the Anarchy Group intel project work? Could you use whatever ability, at a lower level, it uses to reduce a planets happiness or is this not a facility ability?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Hmmm.. actually, another question - can you put colony components on ships other than colony ships? I've never tried it but I can't see why you couldn't from the vehicle size file. If so, the idea of making the Pirate Colony Hull more expensive would be sort of useless - you could just slap the colonizer on a Frigate or something.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yes, you can. I've built heavily armored ships to get a colony started on the far side of a damaging warp.

------------------
Cap'n Q

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by capnq:

Quote:

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yes, you can. I've built heavily armored ships to get a colony started on the far side of a damaging warp.

Thanks Cap.. well, that takes care of my idea of making pirate colony hulls expensive and slow to build - they'll just mount em on other hulls.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Poll results so far:
---------------------------------
What do the rest of you guys think about Pirates vs AI colony ships?
0 x A) Leave as is
0.5 x B) AI adds SDD
1.5 x C) Colony module is an SDD

----------------------------------
Who would like to see pirates with no research ability, other than from captured ships & planets?

0 x A) Leave it alone
2 x B) Severly restrict research (just like resources)
0 x C) No research for Pirates!
0 x D) No research, and get rid of the resource gathering slave labour camps too!
0 x E) None of the above
---------------------

My comments: Adding SDD ability to the colony component will make it completely impossible for pirates to capture colony ships. If they destroy the colony component, they can get the ship, but its useless to them now.
Pirates would then have to trade for a colony ship, or use troops on a planet.

Restricted research. How much restriction should be used? The planet crunch restricts mid to late game research already. Should the pirate research facility put out say 50% research? Then, the pirates get the same research as other empires with the same intelligence trait, but can't expand their research much. (about 7000 pts/turn for the entire game)
Then the pirates could spend some racial points to combat that inherent -50% to research, or not bother and take a -75% hit by pulling all their points out of intelligence.


[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 07 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ,
What do you think about restricting Pirate facilities to the point that the number of colonies did not matter. For example, remove the basic shipyard, research, intel, and any other facility that gives the Pirates a benefit you don't want them to have from the pirate trait, like you did with the resource facilities. Then substitute low production value buildings to give them minimal production.
Then colonies become only useful to Pirates for a limited amount of things, resupply, repair etc and it wouldn't matter how many they got.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

It would be best if we could reduce the number of racial traits that must be set to a specific value in order to get a pirate race. As for intel, that's already been done. The research is definitely going to change, but how much has yet to be decided.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>...and it wouldn't matter how many they got.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The problem is always that doubling the number of colonies doubles their output of whatever item, and you would just be squeezing the starting conditions to unacceptable levels. The pirates have to be able to build their first few ships reasonably quickly, but we don't want them to expand their construction ablilties.

I need a good way to allow the pirates to start with enough basic production facilities, but prevent them from quickly building more on their colonies.

-&gt; One option might be to give the pirates facilities that cost 50k resources, so they take 2.5 years to build each. If we can get the pirates to start with those facilities on their homeworld, it might be workable. Comments?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Good idea about making the cost high. I think by balancing what you want them to build easy and hard it can be done.
If you removed the basic shipyard, resource extractors, research, and intel from the pirates and created high cost/lower valued alternatives then their expansion would be naturally slow and of reduced value.
Pirate research facilities should generate ~250 points. Most of their research gains should come from capture so the amount of research they really need is not nearly as great as a standard empire. If pirates could get to ~20,000 research later in the game that would seem to be enough.
With low maintenance and scraping facilities their resource needs are low. They should get a large percentage of resouces from scrapping captured ships.
Intel has been worked on.
this leaves shipyards. Creating a pirate shipyard that builds at say 1000 each would be a reasonable start. No addition shipyard facilities should be availble. Shipboard one definately.
I can't think of any other area that needs to be controlled. They should be able to research all the other areas but it will be a slow process. With the built in penalties in the pirate culture there will be many more reasons to capture ships for scrap value as opposed to building an empire of colonies, which is what Pirating was all about http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ, how about that after the intial builds, they would only be allowed to build additional facilities only on the exact type of planets with the exact type of atmosphere that they started game with??
Also I meant to ask you before, Have you decided on a name for your Pirate Race yet?

Just some ideas Mac

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>SJ, how about that after the intial builds, they would only be allowed to build additional facilities only on the exact type of planets with the exact type of atmosphere that they started game with??<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I don't see how that would be done. The only way I know it to set the only colonize own type/atm planets, and that ruins everything.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Also I meant to ask you before, Have you decided on a name for your Pirate Race yet?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
My mod is not a pirate race, but a datafile change to allows humans to make their own Pirate races. You choose your own attributes and your own race name, my mod just prevents you from doing too many unpiratey things http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
Personally, I don't care too much about the name of my race, since it dosen't come up much in the game. I usually just take "Pirate Alliance" or try to come up with something mean-sounding.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ have you talked to MM about issueing your Mod into an upcoming patch? Or at least all these great pirate ideas into an expansion. A feature this good should be put in the game officially!!

BTY have you voted for the civil war feature yet in the vote thread? Any ideas or suggestions would be great. Please tell us what you think http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif And if your not up to date on the idea check out the overview in the intergalactic civil war thread http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Thanks for your time.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Here is the Pirates&Nomads mod, with some minor bugfixes, and the following:

-3 levels of Massive planetary shielding, 10K, 50K, and 75K phased. These now require shield technology too, at lev 3.
-Planetary Space yards for pirates are limited to 1000 each resource. (1/2 of SY I)
-Research facilities for pirates now produce 200 points (40% normal)
-Pirates cannot build full size spaceyards on ships, just their small yard.

So, we now have a built-in pirate traits of:
- Cunning (Intel) +100%
- Intelligence (research) -60%
- Construction aptitude -50%
- All 3 resource production -40%, with no ability to specialize in a specific resource during the game.

Pirate Race traits you still have to add yourself:
- Reproduction -9%
- Env. Resist. -50%
- Political Savvy -50%
- Physical Strength (ground combat) -50%
Anything other than these four, you can set to whatever SE4 will accept http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I'm just wondering how many people have downloaded my mod, and what you all think about a new, major change to shield components.

I'm currently testing some new shield effects.
- Shield regenerators provide bonus shielding (eg. regen 5pts gives 5 pts more total shields, too)
- Phased shields & standard shields are mixed. (normal are on odd tech levels, phased on even) The phased are slightly stronger than normal shields, but a "half" tech level higher.
This will stretch out the shield strength increase, making it comparable to the armor tech thread.

------Simulated War Story------
My prototype LCs have an interesting property with this change.
With a shield 4, and 3x S.regen 3s, they get 300+45 shields, and +45 per turn.
In a battle against two organic tech LCs, They got a string of lucky hits in, and puched through my armor, destroying my shield generator. I trashed one of the LCs that turn, since its shields were down, while the other chased me.
The 45 shields from the regenerators were restored every turn, and the enemy had weapons that did 50 damage. his normal accuracy is so bad, that he only could get one hit a turn, out of four shots, and only managed to destroy one engine in three hits before I took him down.


Comments are welcome.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Have downloaded it but won't be able to try it for about a week. I'll give you feed back then.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

SJ, just wanted to congrats on your promotion, also how is the mod coming? Anything new or new additions?

just some ideas, mac

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Just the massive planetary shielding thing.
The phased planetary shields will be all screwed up for anybody with the newest Version.

I'm in the middle of the final exam weeks, so I don't have a lot of free time.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I don't know if this has been mentioned before:

The red-colored nebulae systems seem to have sight obscuration level 5. I have checked that with every nebulae system in a medium sized galaxy, 2 races (human control), high tech, cloaking device level 3 and the best sensors available.

If you need to hide pirate bases, I would recommend to do it in red nebulaes.

[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 14 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I tried changing the description of the level 5 nebulas to be "blocks all sensors", so I'd know which were which.

Are you sure it is all red and no other colors that are level 5s?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
I tried changing the description of the level 5 nebulas to be "blocks all sensors", so I'd know which were which.

Are you sure it is all red and no other colors that are level 5s?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, there are other nebulaes (I have seen a green one which made everything invisible for level 4 scanners). But I'm pretty sure with the red ones (10 nebulaes tested yet).

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I have done another test:

In QuadrantTypes.txt I have set:

Ancient(just level 5 nebulae modification):

Type 8 Name := Storm 5
Type 8 Chance := 100

every other chance to zero.

Created a large galaxy, every one was RED.

SJ, where have you changed this one?:

I tried changing the description of the level 5 nebulas to be "blocks [b]all sensors"

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Here are the other colors:

Level 1: violett
Level 2: cyan
Level 3: orange/brown
Level 4: green
Level 5: red

I don't understand why I haven't seen anything in the level 4 nebulae with my high-level sensors (see my Last but one post), it seems that level 4 scanning just can see level 3 and lower obscurations. So you are safe in green and red nebulae systems.

[This message has been edited by PsychoTechFreak (edited 14 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>SJ, where have you changed this one?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
In my own files.

Name := Storm 5
Description := A nebulae system.
System Physical Type := Nebulae
Background Bitmap := Storm5.bmp
Empires Can Start In := FALSE
Mask Background Objs := TRUE
Non-Tiled Center Pic := FALSE
Number of Abilities := 1
Ability 1 Type := Sector - Sight Obscuration
Ability 1 Descr := This storm is opaque to all scanners.
Ability 1 Val 1 := 5
Ability 1 Val 2 := 0
WP Stellar Abil Type := Normal Warp Point
Number of System Objs := 0

When I have the time, I'll copy those storm entries so the storms have random colors.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 15 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Re: Pirates mod.

I've added miniaturized shields & regenerators.

Basically they're about quarter size components, and slightly less efficient than the full size equipment.

At 10kt shields (25-75 pts), and 5kt Regenerators (2-4 pts/turn), these things are supposed to make it easier to add some basic shielding to ES and FG class ships. They are also good on satellites, when you only have a small bit of room remaining to cram stuff in.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Almost done exams, just Quantum Physics left.

I will get a new Version of Pirates & Nomads out on the weekend, and it will include the components.txt changes from the latest patch(es).

Any constructive critisisms or suggestions are always welcome.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

There you go!

Installation:
1) Create a modfolder within your SE4 folder.
2) unzip "Pirates&NomadsV1.3.zip" into the modfolder
3) unzip "Nomad Race EMPs.zip" into your "SE4\Empires" folder
4) Change your "path.txt" to point to your modfolder
5) When creating a new game, add existing empire, and only select empires saved under this mod.
5b) Edit empires to be sure they are under computer control & using their own minister style.
5c) When creating your own race, choose one of "Regular", "Pirate" or "Nomadic".
If you choose "Pirate", also select characteristics of -9% reproduction, -50% environment resist, -50% trade, and -50% physical strength (ground combat).
These characteristics will ensure you have a truly "piratey" adventure http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


To get more races to play with:
1) start a new game with many randomly generated empires (no neutrals)
2) set all players to human control, and save them to disk.
3) start a new game, use "add existing empires" to load the races you saved.
4) edit each saved race, and add the Advanced Trait "Regular"
5) Save the race again.
6) Post all your Nomads-enabled races to this message board!

Changes:
- Miniaturized shields & regen for ES, FG size ships.
- Massive Planetary shields LVL 1-3. MPSG 3 is 75K standard shields, since somebody mentioned that in the new Versions, the phased shields were going to the facility not the planet http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif.
Still, its effective against most weapons.
-some minor changes to facilities, since I think AI's were not using the best facilities. (I think they might have chosen the pirate research center over the standard one)
Normals no longer have access to pirate/nomad research or shipyards (the 50% effective Versions)

I think I'm still short on Pirate and Nomad techs, though.

Next Version:
-More shield tech levels, which will provide "Large Shield Generators" for bases, and eventually, a (slightly weaker than ruin tech) form of the MPSG!
-An "Armor" facility! Effective even against phased weapons & shield penetrators!
Bury your cities under a layer of Fluidic Armor (flows like water to plug holes in the armor!).

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 20 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

This is one huge thread

------------------
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yes, it should be retired at 300 Posts and a new one born, in honor of patch 5 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif
And SJ, you should post #300, after all its your fault its so long http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 20 April 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Why in the world would you want to start a new thread?
When its one big thread, you can flip back through the pages to see history!


Below: people's thoughts in electronic form since <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>01 March 2001 17:31<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

You're not seriously saying that you have to load all 300 Posts to read this thread, are you?

One page of info is gonna load at the same speed as one page with links to 19 others.

If you can't seem to find stuff, perhaps someone should post a combination summary/index.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Woohoo 300 Posts!