A pirates life for me...
 

Seems that todays topics are leaning toward new race types (saw one on making silicoids and another about a gypsie type race)...

Thought I'd throw in my idea (actually someone eles mentioned it quite awhile back but I never saw any more info on it).

The idea is obvious from the title of this post - PIRATES!!!

OK - we have a topic, so now we (meaning I) need some ideas, feedback and help.

I've just done a quick setup of possible options and research areas that a pirate race would need/start out with.

The Race name should be "Corsairs" - always thought that was a neat sounding name.

empire type - Confederation - a loose collection of clans/planets that make up the Corsair community/confederation.

Title - need some help - was thinking either Grand Admiral (sounds awfully official/governmental for a bunch of cutthroats) or King (as in Pirate King)

Environment - Carbon Dioxide - just cause...

Planet type - either ice or Gas Giant - I thought the Corsairs shouldn't be on a rock - too many of those planet types and ice or GG seem to be a little rarer (espicially playing w/limiting colonizing to home world types only - my personal favorite right now) - want to keep the # of their planets below those of other races (rock type particularly)

I toyed w/the idea of setting em as Renegades but decided against it - went with neutral instead - any help/ideas here wld be welcomed

Demenor - Impulsive - if you can't be impulsive why be a pirate?

Happiness type - Bloodthirsty - of course.

Special racial traits - also off the top of the ole head:
propulsion experts - +1 movement - they should be the masters of the seas/space

Advanced storage tech - 120% - used to making the most w/limited space - seemed appropriate

Hardy Industrialists - 125% planet SY - didn't like the name of this trait but felt the increased SY rate would fit a race that lives/dies by its fleets.

Temporal Knowledge - liked the shield depleted wpns of this race as well as the Temp'al SY - once again, they are a space goin race

The ship design name file should be a list of classic/historic ship names - unfortuanately, my cupboard is bare of this type of info - a little help maybe?

Minister style - aggressive - why not?

and now the individual racial traits:

-10% to Research: they should take tech from others via ship capture (which I believe should be a VERY big part of this race) and not research it.

-5% to Reproduction: Limits the pop

+7% to ship Attack & +5% to Ship Def: thought about just goin w/+12% to SA but spread it out - pirates should be good at space warfare

-20% to Trade: pirates are not the most popular people in the galaxy and not many will openly trade w/em

-15% to all resource production: Not good miners, farmers, etc... they're pirates!!!

+10% to SY Const Rate: they should be experts at building ships

+6% to Repair: ships are they're life, so they should know all the tricks to fixing em.

+10% to Maint Reduction: Wld like to have this even higher but couldn't figure out where to get the extra from - this allows for large standing fleets.

As far as research priorities, I haven't really delved into that aspect yet. (also, I'm not sure my skills are up to moddin a research file just yet - any help would be verr welcome)

my thoughts are that ship capture should be the main goal of this race (not so sure planet capturing would be that high though? Maybe they just like to plunder, ie. destroy, planets instead of capturing (permanent) em?) My experience on ship capturing is you need shield depleting wpns of some type, either normal or the temporal type. You have to have good shields yourself and fast engines - to get close enough to board fast w/o getting destroyed. So those types of techs should be high priority.

Better stop for now - post is getting a little long... any feedback would be appreciated.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

+10 to Intelligence....their spies are EVERYWHERE http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Their maintenance should be more, not less. They have to cannibalize for spare parts, etc...



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Spyder - I agree w/the bonus to intel but for another reason - thought pirates wld be difficult to infiltrate so wanted a bonus to intell defensive ops (the counter I suppose is that a pirate has no loyalty and should be easier to co-op via PPP or crew insurrections)

the maintainence, to me, shld be lower simply due to the old axiom "practice makes perfect" - if you know your ships inside and out and realize there parts/resources are limited, you'll take care of what you have. Besides if I bumped the maint cost up coupled w/the lower resources, they wouldn't be able to field any ships.

keep the ideas commin though

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

pirates sound great, however, instead of destroying a plundered planet you could make them steal all the resources, or each turn that they are blocading planet they steal a certin % of resources from planet until they are gone, disrupt trade, etc, this would force owner to send ships to either chase them away or destroy them. just some ideas
mac5732

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by WhiteHojo:
Spyder - I agree w/the bonus to intel but for another reason - thought pirates wld be difficult to infiltrate so wanted a bonus to intell defensive ops (the counter I suppose is that a pirate has no loyalty and should be easier to co-op via PPP or crew insurrections)

the maintainence, to me, shld be lower simply due to the old axiom "practice makes perfect" - if you know your ships inside and out and realize there parts/resources are limited, you'll take care of what you have. Besides if I bumped the maint cost up coupled w/the lower resources, they wouldn't be able to field any ships.

keep the ideas commin though

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

But, if you know your history you'll know that pirates didn't do Maintenance (Maintain is root word)...they canabilized from captured ships and when their own ship got too bad off, they scuttled it and used a captured ship. They didn't do much real maintenance...only what was required, and what the captain could make them do. Their discipline was pretty poor....

Now, I WOULD give them the Recycle techs right off because they were great at using whatever they had on hand to accomplish their mission.


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 01 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Pirates should be fairly easy to simulate, just make sure your race specializes in ground combat and ship capture, a pirate race doesn't build it's own ships too often, it takes those of others so make sure it's good at that, good at repairing "canabalizing" the pilfered hulls should be a must too, as should space combat.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

For REAL pirates, I believe some good traits would be:

-50% to all production
This means that ships will be supported more by capturing and scrapping enemy ships, and less from planets.

-50% to research
This means get ship capture, and steal the rest.

-9% to Reproduction
Pirates don't get along too well when there's billions of 'em, and we don't want them colonizing. Pirates should be capturing the planet, and then selling off the infrastructure for money, and then abandoning it before the empire's fleets come.

+20% off maintenance.
They know exactly what needs fixing and what dosen't, and can live with ships that are held together by spit and alien hides.

+15/+20 Aggression and Defence
Losing even one ship can be a major blow to small pirate organizations, so it better not happen often.

Definitely have Advanced propulsion, and maybe Temporal for the shield depletion effect.

Mods required section:
Free resource storage with each ship/base.
OR
Resource storage components for ships/bases.
This way, you can keep your treasure without need for a planet.

A racial trait, where the pirates can immediately research Storm Generators, so they can hide their ships & bases.
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Basically my idea of an Ideal Pirate race, would be one that lives by stealing everything from other empires, and hides bases out in nebulas & storms for resupply & retrofitting.

The reace would probably not colonize, and would have its homeworld hidden in a storm or nebula.

Naturally, only a human player would be able to pull this off.

Maybe a multiplayer game, where you play against AIs to see who can build the largest criminal organization.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I think the nomadic & Pirate ideas are one & the same http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Also, if you think about it, they can't really win the game...if they kill everyone off, there'll be noone left to leech from...

I DO think that they'd be a great AI race that would have to be overcome though....



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Spyder:
I DO think that they'd be a great AI race that would have to be overcome though....
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or one to have as a trusted ally. Sic them on your enemies!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Spyder - I believe you are thinking along the same lines as me. I was hoping to be able to build a race for the AI to run that would be rather annoying and fun to play against. like a cross b/t a neutral and the EA.

As the race is taking shape, w/o the ability to research and expand rapidly, I agree that they would not be able to win the game - at some point they would collapse in on themselves (no one readily availble to capture and plunder = no more growth). However, I believe they would be as viable a race even w/o the realistic ability to win the game as most of the other so called active AI empires. (always seems to be just 7 or so AI empires that always seem to be near the top in most games)

I like the idea of givin em some advanced techs early (kinda offsets the low research rate)... maybe both Resource Manipulation facilities (ulta-recycler & resource converter - max levels?)... maybe ship and fleet training techs... start out w/Light Cruiser hulls & repair tech???

my concern would be to in makin em too powerful right off the bat - but remember that it will be the AI using them, not a human - so not as much chance of takin advantage of the advances.

Also, if you did give em more advanced tech at start, the penalty to their research would have to be rather drastic (-50% is the max)

I am still concerned over the effect the higher maintanence cost would have on the races ability to field a respectable sized fleet... more argument is welcome.

taking all the ideas in so far, the latest Version of the Corsair's traits:

removed Hardy Industrialists - joining the capture more/build less ranks

-50% to Research
+10% to Intell
-9% to reproduction
+25% to Ship Attack
+20% to ship Def
-30% to trade
-15% to all resources
+20% to repair rate

all other traits stay at default 100%

Wanted to boost the ground combat up by 20% but then I remembered that I've never seen the AI try, let alone capture, a planet via ground combat...

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[This message has been edited by WhiteHojo (edited 01 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Okay, but only if someone with a lot of familiarity with Gilbert and Sullivan do the speech file.

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I had a bunch of good ideas while posting in the Nomadic Thread.

It would be possible to force the race to live without planetary support, by preventing colonization tech, and minimizing the returns from planets. With zero maintenance, they can survive without a planet, and grow by capturing ships and tech.

In fact, they'd be very virus/borg-like, assimilating all they can, and then upgrading the ships to capture more ships.

In fact, if you give them zero maintenance, then they do have a chance to win the game.

---------------

As soon as exams are over, I'm gonna design a race like that, 0 maintenance, and max negative planetary traits, with no colonization tech allowed.

You'll start with a planet, and use that to build SYS's which will hide out from the AI, and scavenge crippled ships for survival.

Underdog victories, with a hint of desperation, and tons of sneakiness, oh Yeah!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

w/a 0 maintenance though, they would be more cancer like than pirate like. Imagine the horror - a race w/no maintenance cost shows up in your systems w/ship capturing tech and a mean disposition - you send out a fleet to stop em, WHAM - they are now turned against you - you send more - oops - those also. Not sure I'd like where that is heading.



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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

That situation can be easily defended against by having mines/sats/fighters which can't be captured.

Your ships would already be heavily shielded, and you would likely add self destruct if you knew pirates were in the area.

You could always ram if your shields are about to fail, and security stations work well too.

Besides, If ship capture tech was so dangerous, why do you run around with phased polaron beams and WMGs, when you could just have a fleet o ship capture tech & a space yard to scrap what you can't support?

The pirates will have to do hit-and-run tactics on your lightly defended colonies and solo ships.

Anything you lose, you can replace.
Anything Pirates lose, they've lost for good.

So, in a straight out fight, the pirates will be crushed. The pirates have to completely win blowout battles, if they hope to capture more than they lose. You, on the other hand, can build more ships and fight back after losses.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Invading pirates could be defeated with fighters, which can't be boarded. Or maybe just surround your fleet with fighters, so the pirates can't get close enough to board.

By the way, can fighter Groups be rammed?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Hey, suicide_junkie, great minds think alike.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Maybe pirates should be Psychic, so they can keep going in the later game.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Try to play a game using ship capturing tech - it's alot easier than it seems once you get past the ridiculously high research cost to attain Ship Capture tech. (once got it very early in a game via ruins - made the game rather easy after that) PPBs are good - very good in fact but only till the other side gets 2nd gen phased shields then they're just as effective as any other wpn.

the self destruct device is a rather tough obstecle to overcome but w/the new fleet option allowing destroying a ship till X% of it is disabled it might be more feasable to combat against.

I just hate mines but you're right about the fighters and mines being a good counter - untill you run into PD-Vs - then it gets a little tougher.

However, another thought accured to me for the little pirate race - fighters should be involved somehow - no maintenance fee and they're cheap to build. Send in the Fighters to soften up the fleet then follow w/a wave of ship capture. Ideas.


EDIT - that 1st line sounds rather tacky and rude - didn't mean it to sound that way - sorry
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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[This message has been edited by WhiteHojo (edited 01 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yeah, fighters can (and should) be rammed.

They have almost no hitpoints, so you can bump piles of em out of the way provided you have some heavy armor.


Yeah, in summary:

- Ship capture tech is easily beaten by non-capturable units.
- Pirates lose in big Fleet-to-Fleet confrontations, since they must capture to recover losses.


Additional:
Fleet situations make capturing dangerous, since the boarding ship loses ALL shielding, and the captured ship has no shields.
Any remaining Loyal ships, now have the opportunity to take out two defenceless enemy ships.

Plus: Boarding parties must be repaired after capturing. SOooo, Once the pirates have all they can carry, they'll be heading off into deep space again, hoping you won't follow.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
Anything you lose, you can replace.
Anything Pirates lose, they've lost for good.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Yes, but pirates would win some ships in every battle (unless appropriate countermeasures have been taken beforehand). So they do have a way to replenish.

But you're right, they should only attack isolated ships and small fleets. That's more likely to yield a net gain of ships. More importantly, if they don't take much at one time from any one player, then there's less incentive for players to use up space on ships with anti-pirate gizmos. So they need to keep their depradations below the "pain threshold."

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 01 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Suicide - disregard my previous post - after I wrote it I went back and actually put my mind to work - you are correct, obviously large fleets would win out over ship capturing fleet - the little problem of the shield being permanately dropped on a ship that has captured another ship makes em rather easy targets - god but I hate that quirk.

Another thought - make em Organic. Instead of shields, load up w/regenerating armor.

thoughts.

(man I should be working)

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>So they need to keep their depradations below the "pain threshold."<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point. However, even if they do enrage the race, they can lie low for a while.

Adding all that anti-pirate tech, will make his ships less efficient in battling his real enemies, and he'll have to switch back eventually.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>the little problem of the shield being permanately dropped on a ship that has captured another ship makes em rather easy targets - god but I hate that quirk<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, I don't mind it too much. Thats what regenerators are for.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>(man I should be working)<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hehe me too. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Arrrrr! Maybe we should make "Parrot" a required component.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

my god!!! I've had an Epefani (no jokes bout ma spellin)!!!!

Shield regenerators ARE for puttin back up shields!!!!

Just call me Homer. Dohhhh!

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by WhiteHojo:
my god!!! I've had an Epefani (no jokes bout ma spellin)!!!!
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
epiphany

At least your vocabulary is good;
that's more impt nowadays, what with
spell checkers. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gif

As long as you can recognize the correct spelling from a list of possibles! http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

EDIT: Just checked. Word 97 knows what you meant.

[This message has been edited by dmm (edited 01 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I think this is a great idea for a rade style but you have to give them planets or else create a whole new tech tree with extremely low research cost. Without it they will take forever just to research Light Crusiers much less any of the techs needed to pirate effectively.
They also should have special facilities available with the Pirate racial trait. A pirates den facility to store all their loot! This could also generate tons of intel and whatever other bonuses you want to give them.
You could really do a lot with this idea.
I think it certainly can be done and would be a bLast to play!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by dmm:
Maybe pirates should be Psychic, so they can keep going in the later game.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It would make sense, since it'd allow them to capture ships (relatively) intact without worrying about them using Self-Destruct. Then again, sticking Master Computers on is an easy counter to Alliegance Subverters.

Possible idea for new component (this ties in to my idea about a new racial trait, Machine Cultures): A way to subvert Master Computers. Of course, this would require hard-code changes to implement, since the current Abilities won't permit "Crew ConVersion" on a ship w/ Master Computers. A counter for this could be an Anti-Viral program running on the MC, that also protects against Computer Virus.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Marty Ward:
[b]I think this is a great idea for a race style but you have to give them planets or else create a whole new tech tree with extremely low research cost. Without it they will take forever just to research Light Crusiers much less any of the techs needed to pirate effectively[b]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, this could be one reason to ally with them. You could always build "export" Versions of your ships to sell to the pirates (presumably one or two tech levels below what you have, to prevent them from stabbing you in the back). Give them better ships than they can research/capture in exchange for their support (not attacking your ships, and becoming a force of marque and reprisal against the other empires).

Another possible idea:RANSOM. Especially if they capture population transports.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

As for technology, the pirates will STEAL it.

With only your homeworld, you would want to research a couple of ship sizes, and ship capture, and then depend on pirating to grow in tech and power.

Pirate racial traits would best include a resource storage component for starbases.

Speaking of which, maybe everybody should be able to build storage in orbit. say 1000KT of resources in a 500KT bay. If you keep costs & maintenance low, it could be useful.

Watch out for raiders though. Losing your storage could be dangerous...


Given a proper early priority on ship construction and ship capture, Human Pirates should be able to flourish.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

How bout starting em w/Light cruiser tech, ship capture tech, 2nd gen engines, cargo III tech, some type of shield tech (3 or 4 or 5?) or maybe make em organic w/org tech III (org armor III works pretty well for ship capture - don't have to worry bout droppin shields), recycle tech III, some type of shield defeating wpns and PDIIs??? All this coupled w/very low research rates should keep em from getting ahead too fast.

Maybe design their own ship yard construction tech tree that will only yield planet bound space yards to level I and allowing the space based Version to go to level III (couple this w/a 150% increase in space yard production and they could be competitive in the construction field w/o dominating - would also force em to build ships in orbit which for some reason to me seems more appropriate for pirates, no rational reason)

Increase their Intel production and lower reproduction rate (the combo of lower repro rate and the org tech of gestation vats, etc could be problemsome)

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

That all sounds good, but, you'd also have to make ship-bound recycle techs to improve their efficiency in the recycling of captured, obsolete ships. I'd also add a tech that allows them to be more efficient with robo miners/farmers/extractors, and maybe a tech that reduces the rate at which the value of the planet/asteroid is reduced. We need to give them a way to get the necessary materials...

I'd make Repair cheap and Maintenance moderately expensive....it'd be cheaper to scrap an old ship and rebuild, than upgrade it, in that light, you should (somehow) make upgrading less feasible...Say, instead of have a 50% more expensive limit, make it 25%...


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 02 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

can you make a ship component w/planet facility abilities? I thought that was not possible, such as trying to make a ship based research component.

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well, the thing is we're trying to create a ship-bound race. He needs a way to do those planet-ty things on board his ships. Research, recycling, intelligence, etc all need to be performed on a base or ship somehow....

Maybe MM will have to make some code changes, I think this is a great idea....&lt;looks across the pond at MM&gt;


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

That, plus a way to specify that a race would get ships to start with (and no planet), and probably a way to specify that a race awards certain specific tech at once, too. A ship-borne race has a LOT of problems to deal with, such as resupply (they'd need either some solar collectors, or perhaps a large engine that doesn't need supply (or maybe small, but only providing bonus movement ala a Solar Sail))... they'd need to start with a shipyard ship as well, or have a way to get one.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

ooops... "ship bound race"... uhhhh, I kinda thought a pirate should have a port (ie, planet). Anyway, the ship recycler abilities would be nice to have for the pirates but the storage, etc aspects, to me, just aren't as important for a pirate race as they would be for a nomad race (as talked about in another thread)... I envision pirates as being similiar to other earth bound races, just w/different abilities and disadvantages.

A true "ship bound" race would be more of a parasite type race than a pirate type. (not sure I could actually expound on what the exact definition of those 2 descriptions would be though - I suppose it's like Marshall-I believe it was him- said regarding pornography "I can't tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it")



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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I like the idea of both pirates and the Nomads. Possibly incorporate both races, each with their own racial profiles, and options for their particular races and specific tech trees designed for just their particular race. This would make the game quite interesting.

Pirates usually had hidden and secret bases, therefore, give them either the ability to have a form of cloaking at beginning or as a research tech. you could start them out in 2 or more random selected areas of the map with hidden bases. Their bases could be cloaked and/or hidden in astroid fields, nebulas etc. and the bases should be heavily armed. Their fleets should have ability to attack planets even if defended by defense systems to steal population, resources to help build, research Tech etc.
They would have to be race that eventually has to be dealt with sooner or later and give them something that they could win the game, that way they are not just an irratint
but an actual threat. Possibly have them interdict systems stopping all trade, resources etc coming from those systems until they are removed, destroyed or forced to flee. just some ideas. mac5732

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Well, both ideas (to me) were half-ideas. The nomads couldn't make it unless they were pirates, and, pirates wouldn't work (very well) unless they were nomads. Combining them made sense. Both need shipboard capabilities for normally planet-bound activities.

Pirates (not privateers) had bases of operation, but, they were not continents or countries, they were isolated islands away from scrutiny, and they moved when discovered. Consequently, SEIV Pirates would not have a planet, but, a constantly moving base of operations...nomadic.


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 02 March 2001).]

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

One point that I'd like to make is that a Pirate/Nomad race is possible already with the correct racial choices.

ie. maximum negative values on everything planetary.
maximum positive on research, so you can start off with a decent tech.
merchants,maintenance bonus, so you have 0 or 1% maintenance (0 is better, 1 is really hard)
And all the rest of your points into whatever you feel is good.

As a human, you should be able to grow & win via Pirating.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Small moons would be perfect hideouts for the Pirates! Could they be programmed to only pick those types?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

My ideas for Pirate building, available only through Pirate trait.
Pirate Den: 10,000 intel;sy builds 1000 ea
Pirate Mine:300 ea resource
Chop Shop:resource reclamation 50%; repair 5 components
Black Market: resource reclamation 75%; repair 8 components
Tavern: 2,000 intel; solar resource collector all resources
Pirate Bank: Spaceport; 100,000 storage all resources.
More if work slows up.
Thinking of Pirate weapons next!
Is someone going to do an AI?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Some types of special tractor beams; shield disablers; kill-people-without-damaging-hardware weapons; special cloaking mechanism(s) requiring special detection techs; Light Sabres for small weapons tech http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ...I'll think of more


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Oh yeah!
Ships:
Sloop, Universal Colony Ship, Schooner, Clipper, Frigate, Ship of the Line, Man of War, Galleon. Cheap hull costs for all.
New Intel project: Ransom gives you lots of resources.
This could be great!
Can facilities be cloaked? That would make them hard to track down.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

The main problem I see with Pirates would be getting started. You would not want the colonizing as rapidly as others but by the time they made contact they may be so far behind in technology that they are just a roving neutral.
I think they should have high intel, combat and repair, lousy production and research, and normal build and maitenance.
They also have to have special techs,grappling hook stronger boarding parties,shield busters etc.
If I knew how to make a new tech tree I'd give it a first pass for one of the mod squad to refine!

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Yes, that indeed would be a problem....you'd have to start them with several planetary bases and several ships to begin...maybe some propulsion advantages too. But, you are right, they'd need a jump-start..



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

The nomad race is certainly different from the pirate idea because they have the chance to win, special facilities that make SPACE itself their home planet, things like being able to mine nebulae, research centers on ships, population that lives and grows on ships, etc . .

However the pirate race could easilly be a nomadic MINOR race option, limited to only maintaining a small fleet of their own ships and a larger fleet of captured vessels, limited in how much they could mine/refine themselves, etc . . . This would lead to a situation where the small pirate fleet couldn't support all it's ships/troops without tribute and plunder from other races.

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I'm playing as a pirate race right now.

Game settings of Note:
Warp Points anywhere in system.
Hard AI, Medium Bonus

Race Settings:
Intel: 101%
Cunning: 50% (no intel tech allowed)
Environment: 50%
Reproduction: 91%
Happiness: 50%
Ship Attack: 125%
Ship Defence: 125%
Political Savvy: 50%

Mining Apt: 50%
Farming: 50%
Refining: 50%
Construction: 50%
Repair: 121%
Maintenance: 120%

Racial Traits:

Merchants.
Propulsion Experts.
Psychic.


Homeworld: Rock : None

Self-imposed Limitations: No colony Designs

--------------------

So Far;

Date: 2407.9

Homeworld: X141 VIII: Large, 116%, 125%, 123%
Colonies: X141 VI: Huge (domed) 92%, 108%, 2%
X141 VI A: Tiny, 104%, 9%, 54%

Budget:
Research: 9,335
Priorities: Armor, Psychic Tech.

Produced: 7,145 (M) : 1,100 (O) : 1,082 (R)
Maint: Zero
Used: 6,200 (M) : 400(O) : 1,000 (R)
Treasury: 25,622 (M) : 50,000 (O) : 49,613 (R)

StarFleet:
C&R -&gt; Captured & Retrofitted to ship capture
BBM -&gt; Built By Me as ship capture design

Escorts:
- (1) C & R

Frigates:
- (0) (All lost in battle)

Destroyers:
- (4) C & R
- (1) BBM.

Light Cruisers:
- (33) C & R
- (3) Captured & Used (temporal tech)
- (5) BBM

Cruisers:
- (3) BBM (Space Yard Design)

BattleCruisers:
- (1) Captured & returning for Analyzing

Space Stations:
- (7) Space yard Bases
- (7) Antiproton Defence Bases


Technology:

Ship Con: 5
Propulsion: 4
Shields: 5
Sensors, Combat Support: 2
Stellar Harnessing: 1
Repair: 2
Armor: 3
Ship Capture: 1
Point Defence, Psychic Weapons: 3
Energy Stream: 5
----------------------
Score:

I'm currently in the lead by 6K points (299.0K points)


Heavy use of tactical Combat is required, and I've only lost one major battle. Most battles that actually get fought, I have a 5:1 advantage. Self Destruct Devices are really annoying at this point http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif (15% of ships are destroyed before losing their SDD, and every ship I capture is mangled beyond recognition.

----------------------------
PS. As a Pirate, I feel that I have a very good chance to win the game, having gained BattleCruisers (thanks to the drushocka)

Even without my planets, I would still be making a base 200 of each resource per turn. In fact, not having any planets would not have stopped me at all (after I got ship capture)

Having minimal resource production would have slowed me down, but not significantly. 90% of my army is refitted enemy ships anyways.

In fact I'm building my first Storm System Secret Base right now. That should expand my operations to the north-west area of the map. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


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

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Pretty good actually, I have control of about 5 systems (250 systems, 16 players), and have three colonies.

I've got two secret bases going up, one in a nebula, one in an asteroid belt.

Every AI has self-destruct devices & heavy shields, so I usually jump one or two of them with eight LC's.

I've been defeated twice, once by mines, and once by a fleet of equal size.

The mines incident destroyed my mobile space yard ship, and left the fleet crippled, but with two turns of repairs & some new recruits, they're waiting for a replacement SYS.

In the fleet battle, they had 4 LCs to my 7, and so I lost, destroying 2, and crippling a third (one component left). The main problem was my solo shield generators & weak weaponry (meson 2's VS AP 5's)

Life is a series of small victories with an occasional setback via Crushing Defeat.

Still waiting for a Crew converter to get researched. (what area is that under, anyways?)

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

Sounds cool. The secret bases are they a mod?

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

I think Crew Converter is a Psychic Weapon (I captured a Cue Cappa ship via Crew Insurrection Intel op, and they have Converters - worked out well, as my captured ship has captured another ship - I'm hoping to continue the trend...)

Re: A pirates life for me...
 

So how's it playing, Capt'n Hook?