Where are all the space pirates at?
- Thread starter Mesina2
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
This.
Lol you are not alone in this friend. That was just too overt an Earth symbol and I don't even think its the only one. I instantly was like seriously what is a human skull doing on an alien pirate faction.
- 1
- 1
Not a fan of pirates. It's just silly, when a ragtag group of raiders is somehow a serious thread to an interstellar empire spanning multiple star systems. If it gets modeled as an interuption and thread to trade, once trade is actually implremented, it's a fine mechanic. They should not spawn massive fleets, though. That's just rediculous.
- 2
- 2
And cart them back to commorragh. Maybe also have certain mechanics by which one can sacrifice slaves for bonuses (e.g. high end space magic could use sacrificing slaves to the dark gods for powerful daemonic armies, or being able to use them to gain happiness, dark eldar style >: D ). But seriously, having mechanics like this would be useful to keep pop growth important after your empire has reached max population and been boxed in.
They're in Space Tortuga. Arr.
But seriously, I think there's implied an invisible interstellar civilian economy outside of your government fleet, which is enough to open the door to pirates.
Somalian pirates don't use military vessels, and neither did the bulk of historical ones short of those actually run by governments (i.e. Malta). What probably confuses things is the "classic" age of Carribean piracy when almost *all* ships carried cannon and it was easy to weaponise civilian ships by adding guns and crew.
But seriously, I think there's implied an invisible interstellar civilian economy outside of your government fleet, which is enough to open the door to pirates.
Somalian pirates don't use military vessels, and neither did the bulk of historical ones short of those actually run by governments (i.e. Malta). What probably confuses things is the "classic" age of Carribean piracy when almost *all* ships carried cannon and it was easy to weaponise civilian ships by adding guns and crew.
- 4
Yeah no they should probably spawn in a system with a hidden base, ideally with decent stealth tech. They should be a threat to trade (reducing the value of routes based on length) and also occasionally raid planets without sufficient defenses - basically buzzing the station rather than engaging, landing on the planet, engaging in ground combat and taking one or maybe even two pops if they win. Having a Fortress should be enough to deter them, but medium level stations might be enough to deter most pirates, but not the most fearsome. They should retreat is a significant fleet turns up though.
- 2
Agreed. Pirates should be raiders and annoyances. When they start fighting pitched battles then you know that something is wrong.
- 4
Sounds really REALLY annoying. WHat's the point of something like that?
Forcing the player to scan his huge empire for stealthed pirate bases every so often?
That's not fun. I'd rather have piracy as some sort of abstract system that you can counter with defensive fleets or edicts.
- 1
Well I mean if they catch like one of your small ships with half a dozen of theirs (probably because yours blundered into the system at the wrong time - they aren't looking for trouble. Well not the kind that can fight back anyway
) they would probably fight it, but they aren't sticking around for anything close to a fair fight.
Well presumably the hidden bases would have to be:
* Outside sensor range - and bear in mind that stations have sensors and sensor range increases throughout the game
* Near the border (internal bases should be very rare if possible at all)
And there should be a "hunt pirate" automation you can put a fleet on to specifically go and hunt down pirate ships and patrol for the hidden bases.
The point of these should be to tie up a section of your fleet but also provide experience for leaders assigned to hunt them and be a small bother to undefended systems so that everyone has an incentive to have a defensive fleet. It shouldn't force you to micro though.
- 2
- 1
Please, please, please no totally suicidal pirates that are only there to increase difficulty and stop me from expanding too fast. Sooo gamey. As long as there is no (civilian) trade, pirates have no place in the game. *taking cover*
- 3
- 2
Looking at some mid to late game maps that leaves basically no space to actually place pirate bases.
I mean Where would you place pirate bases for the mushroom friends in the blorg stream?
- 1
Except that now you have pirates who are getting way too out of the realm of being pirates. Where did they get the capital to build all your structures and ships?
They've become a nation at that point. I have no problem with nations that engage in state sponsored piracy in game. But some randomly generated pirate group that magically gets free infrastructure and production facilities? How? That's just not for me.
- 2
- 1
That would be a bit difficult to represent. A planet has say 12 pops and you come along and raid it. How many pops do you steal? 1? How many ships do you need to raid 1 pop (considering it's representing a billion people). Only way i could see it working is if you could have "incomplete pops" working tiles. So for example you raided 3% pop, and next raid gets 10% pop, now you have 13% pop, but the issue with that will be difference in species and ethos. Not sure if they can represent this well at all with pops.
Imho there are few ways:
1. Pirates take some merchant ship, make it look damaged, plea for help and when military ship arrives to rescue them they do some action movie crazy boarding action resulting in getting the prize. Or maybe they can raid shipyards to get finished but not yet staffed ships. In Star Wars EAW Forces of Corruption Zann got his hands on Eclipse SDD this way
2. Maybe they search battlefields for wrecks that still might be in somewhat usable order ie. possible to fix in space. Far fetched, I know, but you do not need shipyards to piece smth together in 0g.
3. They pay for military spaceships build by other empires. They damage enemies but hands are always clean. Proxy war.
But for the most part pirates should not even dream of engaging your fleet.
- 1
as long as pirates are done right I am ok....Galciv3 has pirates but never explains where they come from. You can't negotiate. They are basically annoying speed bumps...
Maybe we'll get to see some alien skulls instead, that would actually be pretty cool