impressions of Pirates and Nomad mod? - Page 2

Merry Jolkar · #11 August 13th, 2003, 05:17 PM

Could someone point me to a summary of how P&N works in practice? I understand from the general description that the Pirates have some ability to infiltrate enemy territory and Nomads have enhanced technology, including fighter technology. I also know that Nomads cannot colonize planets. Is there more specific info available somewhere? e.g., how do Nomads acquire resources? How do they counter Intel attacks, without intel facilities? I am planning to play a bit to test game play to some extent, but cannot devote the time needed to fully explore the game, and in fact, part of the idea is to give people like me (who have played the basic game) a bit of a competitive disadvantage against other players who are just starting out, so mastering nomad or pirate play would defeat this purpose! Thanks in advance for any pointers or descriptions that people can offer...

Merry

Suicide Junkie · #12 August 13th, 2003, 06:01 PM

You could browse the Pirates Life For Me thread for details.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...3;t=001696;p=1

Basically, you can leech off of a normal race through trade, or steal their ships and scrap / analyse 'em. With many variations on the theme.
You could arrange to be paid for privateer work against their enemies or even allies.

Pirates have to be more active, since they don't have the maintenance reduction components. They'll be using smaller ships, including the civilian ships which are completely undetectable if they want to be.

Nomads get -99% base maintenance, and the racial maintenance modifier multiplies with that.
They can afford to be more laid back, with dreadnoughts and stuff hanging around at basically no cost.

As for intel, if things get bad, the homeworld can be abandoned to break contact with the other races and instantly eliminate intel interactions.

jimbob · #13 August 13th, 2003, 08:33 PM

Quote:

As for intel, if things get bad, the homeworld can be abandoned to break contact with the other races and instantly eliminate intel interactions.

Of course if you've had a long history of working as a privateer for another race, you may be able to convince them to "hold onto" your planet for a period of time. Getting it back from them may prove a bit difficult, but this may be a better move than full abandonment!

I'd suggest large numbers of small ships with ship boarding capacity. Swarm tactics with cheap, fast, replaceable (read: small) ships is far more effective in most cases. This runs contrary to most games where the larger hulls give a weapons mount advantage. Boarding parties have no mounts and enjoy a "100% to hit bonus" once shields are down, so why use mounts?

Fyron · #14 August 13th, 2003, 08:37 PM

Keep in mind that abandoning your HW will also cut off all trade treaties, thus destroying all trade income. That could be disastrous.

Merry Jolkar · #15 August 14th, 2003, 01:05 AM

Sounds fun. I'm going to ask some new players to join our group, each paired with a nomad or a pirate experienced player. Who are stronger, Pirates or Nomads?
Merry

Suicide Junkie · #16 August 14th, 2003, 02:35 AM

Either would be good without pre-arranged teams.

If you go with a nomad partner, they can give you the no-maintenance ships...
If you go with a Pirate, they can get your super-stealthy ships. The Pirate Hoards might come in handy for all the trade income you'll be getting...

I'd say the Nomad would be more powerful as an ally.

[ August 14, 2003, 03:39: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Merry Jolkar · #17 August 17th, 2003, 01:12 AM

I'm playing around with P&N mod, and the graphics look great. But, when I run host, I get a message stating that:

"Unknown value "Drone Attack" for Default Strategy in record "Anti-Ship Drone.
"Unknown value "Drone Attack" for Default Strategy in record "Anti-Planet Drone."

The error comes up multiple times and I suspect it might therefore have to do with an error in executing the A.I. scripts.

What am I missing here?
Thanks, Merry
Thanks,
John

Suicide Junkie · #18 August 17th, 2003, 01:38 AM

There are no drones in P&N, so it dosen't really matter.

Copy the defaultstrategies.txt from TDM to get rid of that.
I'll upload a fix for that in just a bit.

Merry Jolkar · #19 August 17th, 2003, 01:46 AM

Thanks for the quick reply. It occurred to me :what happens if you are playing with a mod on PBW and an error like this occurs? Manually hosting, I have to hit "OK". (I assume people have successfully played P&N on PBW, right?)

[ August 17, 2003, 00:49: Message edited by: Merry Jolkar ]

Fyron · #20 August 17th, 2003, 02:33 AM

PBW processes turns using the command line switches, which include options for ignoring some error Messages. And, I believe it is set up to specifically ignore common error Messages that occur.