[Taqwus]

Hrrrrrrrrrrm.

More neutral AIs? I'd worry that, from a human perspective, they're going to mean precisely one thing: free tech, particularly colonization tech. There is, after all, no apparent diplomatic penalty from bullying the small and weak in this game, or, for that matter, for simply genociding them. I'm not sure that the AI is nearly as good as exploiting them -- in my current game, for instance, the Noraks appeared to have simply annihilated the Cluk-Ruks, with no evidence of using them for their atmosphere (Methane; Noraks use O2) as a human might have. I only found out of the C-R previous existence since the Norak ships (carrying missiles as their main armament) left behind a C-R satellite they couldn't shoot (apparently the combat AI doesn't know about shooting sats with PD).

If there were a penalty -- perhaps interfering with a helpless neutral should cause a LOT of unhappiness, at least for peaceful types then it might not be as tricky an issue.

As for pirates, I'd rather not have practically undetectable fleets wandering around. It's a bit bizarre (that's more advanced tech than anybody else can have), and leads to gamey aspects (because somebody *will* capture one eventually regardless of self-destruct, master computers and so forth -- and then arguably should get such advanced tech. But then, it can't be allowed to happen because it'd completely unbalance the game...).

If you want to give them nifty abilities, some might be --


* high base experience (otherwise, they wouldn't have remained alive as outlaws for that long)

* Innate power conservation, learned due to life on the run (same reason for repair skill)

* ability to move components from ship to ship, damaging them in the process (again, life on the run, in space, without planetary support is going to require some DARN good mechanical skills to stay alive. This would be used for taking components from captured ships and using them in their own. So instead of necessarily coming from an advanced culture from the start, they salvage parts, even if it results in some extremely weird ship designs -- like ships with organic armor and allegiance shifters and so forth. Actually, the stranger, the better... So they take whatever components they like, siphon off the supply, and blow up the rest.)


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night