quote:
I have read the entire "A Pirate's life for me..."
Wow! I admire your dedication!
1)
- Build mobile spaceyards.
You can get a mobile spaceyard on an escort, but in order to get your recycler node on as well, you'll need frigates. Research ship construction right away.
- Establish outPosts in Storm Systems.
A safe port of call is always welcome, and you can fleet with the base in order to resupply your ships and continue your journeys.
- Decide whether to play nice and make friends using your planet, or whether to capture ships for tech and lose your planet.
- Once you lose your planet, you lose contact with all races, and are immune to intel ops. This can be good or bad depending on your situation. Be sure to research troops and/or capture & mothball a colony ship before you desert your planet, or you will have a very hard time reestablishing contact later.
2) QNP means that in order to go the same speed, you must spend the same fraction of total space on your engines.
Researching engines can mean either faster ships, or same-speed ships with much more firepower/defenses.
What you get is a three-way tradeoff between Attack, Defense, and Speed. Any of them can be increased at the expense of the other two, and you will probably find a Rock-Paper-Scissors game somewhere among your options.
QNP also means that you will have more variety in your ships.
Low tech scout escorts in the PBW game I'm in are flying around at 11 Movement while carrying extra fuel. (No weapons or armor)
Heavy Ships-of-the-Line move slowly, but can carry More/Bigger guns and shielding/armor.
Interceptors will fast, but limited in firepower.
3) Pirate Parrots are a rare species indeed, but they are generally considered a symbiote. The Pirate Parrot rapidly precipitates cracker crumbs out of the zero-G environment, thus protecting vital systems, while the ship provides shelter for the Parrot. It all works quite nicely.
4) The most common Key sung by Pirates is the Skeleton Key. It is a very low key, powered by cosmic rays, and the songs are hummed by the skeletons of those who've walked the plank.