Pirates and Nomads opening strategies

Texfire · #1 April 23rd, 2002, 07:18 PM

I have read the entire "A Pirate's life for me..." thread but now that I have my copy of SE4 Gold and P&N 3.0 I have to admit I am at a loss for how to transition the Nomads and Pirates from their initial planet to their destined roles. I decided that I would throw myself on the tender mercies of the board rather than sift through the entire Pirates thread. I also didn't want to confuse the Pirates thread with a sub-thread on newbie tactics. So without further ado here are a couple of questions to jumpstart the thread.

1. What are the initial steps required to start a Nomadic race on it's wanderlust?
2. What does quasi-newtonian propulsion mean for ship design and gameplay?
3. How adverse an effect on supplies do the parrot populations on pirate ships have?
4. What key do Pirates sing their ditties in?

Once again thanks in advance for your replies.

Texfire

[ 23 April 2002: Message edited by: Texfire ]

Suicide Junkie · #2 April 23rd, 2002, 09:47 PM

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.

Jmenschenfresser · #3 April 23rd, 2002, 10:20 PM

Going to start my first P&N game tonight now that I have gold, so it is good this thread popped up. I've been doing a little freshening up on my nebula strenghts, found some old threads on the topic. From experience I thought some of them were immune to all senors, and it turns out one is.

Someone must have mentioned this before, but I'll go ahead anyway.

In playing against the AI, if a said pirate were to establish a series of bases in a red nebula (I think these are the completely opaque kind), and subsequently lose all colonies and homeworld, thus making one immune to intel, then does it not follow, that the same pirate, unless he ventured out of his nebula, would never be in danger of completely being wiped out?

The reason being, I've never seen an AI use a nebula destroying weapon....

Am I right?

Suicide Junkie · #4 April 23rd, 2002, 10:37 PM

Yes and no.
If the pirate race never left the nebula, then it would quickly succumb to the ravages of maintenance with no income. You might be left with one or two vehicles by using your $1000 minimum income, but you would certainly be in no position to consider that anything other than a loss for you.

The same sort of thing occurs when a normal empire is left with only minefields, and are not completely destroyed.

Feel free to use the nebulae as a secure base of operations, but don't bother being a hermit, since the game will be quite boring if you do.

Texfire · #5 April 23rd, 2002, 11:21 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Wow! I admire your dedication!

- 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..

Is there any other way to generate research points or do you have to capture any tech after losing your planet/research centers? Would this mean that a peaceful/nomadic race would have to mind it's P's and Q's and guard it's homeworld or stagnate?

quote:
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.

Is there any peaceful way to play a nomadic race or are pirates just nomads who are misunderstood? Correct me if I am wrong but it seems like the main goal while playing a nomadic race is survival and the main reason to play it is an opportunity to roleplay. As such it seems like it would shine as an adjunct in a PBW game.

Texfire

PS- Thanks Suicide Junkie for taking the time to answer my questions and especially the time it took to make this fascinating Mod. What is it, I wonder, in human nature that makes us fascinated with pirates?

Suicide Junkie · #6 April 24th, 2002, 12:45 AM

quote:
Is there any other way to generate research points or do you have to capture any tech after losing your planet/research centers? Would this mean that a peaceful/nomadic race would have to mind it's P's and Q's and guard it's homeworld or stagnate?

Probably. You might arrange for an ally to allow you to capture one of his minor colonies in order to reestablish contact.

quote:
Is there any peaceful way to play a nomadic race or are pirates just nomads who are misunderstood? Correct me if I am wrong but it seems like the main goal while playing a nomadic race is survival and the main reason to play it is an opportunity to roleplay. As such it seems like it would shine as an adjunct in a PBW game.

The answer to that is currently classified Top Secret.

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