A pirates life for me... - Page 11

Suicide Junkie · #**101** March 10th, 2001, 06:50 PM

quote:
Does this limit you to kind of a small area of operations?

It sure does. For the first while, you are going to be limited to a three-or four system maximum range.
Note: once your ships get out there & capture a ship, its OK if they run out of supplies on the way home. You can resupply them with another ship, or bring in a SYS to analyse and scrap.

[quoye]Seems like you would need to wait for an alien race to sort of blunder over your initial start area before you could really get into action.[/quote]
In the 100-system game I started, there were three races within 3 systems from me (15 races total). In a 250 system game, you have to travel much farther, but that's what 5kT supply storage pods are for.

PS. Please don't tell me you still have engines that store more supplies than a box of supplies the same size!?!

quote:
It's too bad we can't build facilities on asteroids since the asteroid pirate hideout seems to crop in sci-fi novels etc quite a bit. I agree pirates shouldn't be colonizing much if at all, but the idea of hidden supply bases on moons or asteroids would have been interesting. Maybe even one pirate haven, the homeworld with minor intel facilities etc, although it should be possible to build a ship/base intel component.

Hidden supply bases, are merely space stations with a cloak or in a storm system. By fleeting with the base, you get resupplied, and the base probably has a construction component for repairs/retrofits/analysing/scrapping, so you don't need a planet out there.

If you also put your base in a shield-depleting storm, you can whomp on the helpless attack ships' hulls with armored ships

Thing is, you don't really need intel to survive as a pirate. If you have no planets, then the other players can't make contact with you, and you are impervious to intel.

Marty Ward · #**102** March 10th, 2001, 06:56 PM

Been messing around with the Pirates Last night. I agree that full maintenance is to big of a handicap but zero is to big of an advantage. 10-15% seems right. It makes you choose between either Big ships/ low numbers or small ships/ higher numbers in your fleets. I have been playing the later. So far I can take on 3-4 cruisers but larger fleets than that usually spank me pretty good. I haven't built anything larger than a BC and I only built one due to the cost and time. My self imposed ship size limit is BB.
I have played like I think a pirate should, only colonizing tiny and small planet of the home type, ice. No trade, no treaty, capture, analyize and scrap any ships. Have added a few special items but still need to work out the bugs. It's working great. I think with a tech tree for Pirates it is a great addition to SE4.
Victory is very difficult with the current point scoring system. Points are gained through expansion and colonization, two thing I feel Pirates don't care to much about, give me the cash! I'm not the best player but I ain't the worst, altough in my game I am Last. If they victory points could be changed then Pirates and Nomads could actually win. If you received points for each ship captured or detroyed and this was scaleable, i.e. Pirates get 1000 points for each captured ship while standard races got 10 for example, and you got points for each game turn you survived, same way, then Pirates and Nomads could play true to style and have a real chance of winning any game except winner take all. I don't know if the victory conditions will be changed, the suggestions for hard code changes is quite large and this request would probably be far down the list.

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 10 March 2001).]

Suicide Junkie · #**103** March 10th, 2001, 07:23 PM

Perhaps 5% maintenance would be better, you could trade merchants for warriors, or something to boost your ships' attack/defence even more, while still having low enough maintenance to keep up with the pack, and have a chance to win.

With all the sneakyness of a human, you should at least be able to manage 3rd or 5th place, more than halfway up the rankings.

Marty Ward · #**104** March 10th, 2001, 08:13 PM

I think if you were a Pirate in a game with all humans just surviving would be a challange and surviving 100-200 turns after being discovered should be a victory!
5% might be enough, just enough to keep you from massing a huge fleet but not so high that you HAD to colonize to keep a small fleet in being. To bad there are no leader units in the game. Pirate captain bonuses would be great!

mac5732 · #**105** March 11th, 2001, 02:34 AM

SJ, in your game after you built your space station and yard, did you expand outward into other systems if so did you build hidden bases or what and where? Do you think the ship capture is to easy or leave as is? I was wondering on re-supply, that's why I thought pirates could at least colonize tiny/small moons as supply bases sounds like you have problem solved. What tech did you start with in your game?

WHojo, From what I see your topic has the highest interest, seems like everyone wants to be a pirate.. "shiver me timber". With everyone contributing, we should be able to come up with one heck of a pirate race.

I agree with the bloodthirsty, violent traits, what about diplomacy? Should it be made easier or leave as is? Sj did you have any problems with Diplomacy with the other races? Or did you just like loot, pillage, and be gone.. Did you use cunning or schemer as part of your traits. How about you WHoJo
hows yours going?? Just curious
mac

As far was winning by points, My opinion only, is that I like playing game out until I either know I'm going to win or lose. Pirates should be a challenge for Human, that's what makes it fun. If you win to easily by points I think it would take away from the game, just my 3 cents worth..

[This message has been edited by mac5732 (edited 11 March 2001).]

Suicide Junkie · #**106** March 11th, 2001, 03:45 AM

I have two secret bases in nebulas, which are not really being used anymore. They're more as backup, and make occasional ships to add to my fleets. What I use more, is CRs with spaceyards in the fleets. That way, I get to analyse the tech right away & can retro & repair without leaving the prime territory.

I've mainly switched to semi-autonomous fleets that can rove around and penetrate deeply into my "host"'s territory.

Headaches that have come up for my pirates have been:
-Shields (I take a lot of damage when having to tear down 750 shields before capping)
-SelfDestruct (15% of ships are no longer capturable, since the SDD is the Last component remaining. Also, and ships that are captured are heavily damaged & tech is often lost. My recent aquisition of Psychic Crew converters had allieviated these two problems
-Minefields. Really sucks when your fleet goes through the wormhole to prey on colonies, when the next thing you know, every ship is crippled beyond belief & the repair ship was killed.
Nobody has been kind enough to build me a minesweeper ship, either.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 11 March 2001).]

Sirkit · #**107** March 12th, 2001, 07:50 AM

Would anyone mind explaining to me how to get the pirate race? mod, or just messing with the stats?? Explain for us not really in the mood to read 105 Posts

Sirkit · #**108** March 12th, 2001, 07:50 AM

Would anyone mind explaining to me how to get the pirate race? mod, or just messing with the stats?? Explain for us not really in the mood to read 105 Posts

Sirkit · #**109** March 12th, 2001, 07:51 AM

Would anyone mind explaining to me how to get the pirate race? mod, or just messing with the stats?? Explain for us not really in the mood to read 105 Posts

Sirkit · #**110** March 12th, 2001, 07:52 AM

I apoligize for the annoying triple post thing, not intentional hit the button too many times