A pirates life for me...

[Spyder]

Some types of special tractor beams; shield disablers; kill-people-without-damaging-hardware weapons; special cloaking mechanism(s) requiring special detection techs; Light Sabres for small weapons tech ...I'll think of more


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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[Nitram Draw]

Oh yeah!
Ships:
Sloop, Universal Colony Ship, Schooner, Clipper, Frigate, Ship of the Line, Man of War, Galleon. Cheap hull costs for all.
New Intel project: Ransom gives you lots of resources.
This could be great!
Can facilities be cloaked? That would make them hard to track down.

[Nitram Draw]

The main problem I see with Pirates would be getting started. You would not want the colonizing as rapidly as others but by the time they made contact they may be so far behind in technology that they are just a roving neutral.
I think they should have high intel, combat and repair, lousy production and research, and normal build and maitenance.
They also have to have special techs,grappling hook stronger boarding parties,shield busters etc.
If I knew how to make a new tech tree I'd give it a first pass for one of the mod squad to refine!

[Spyder]

Yes, that indeed would be a problem....you'd have to start them with several planetary bases and several ships to begin...maybe some propulsion advantages too. But, you are right, they'd need a jump-start..



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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[Windborne]

The nomad race is certainly different from the pirate idea because they have the chance to win, special facilities that make SPACE itself their home planet, things like being able to mine nebulae, research centers on ships, population that lives and grows on ships, etc . .

However the pirate race could easilly be a nomadic MINOR race option, limited to only maintaining a small fleet of their own ships and a larger fleet of captured vessels, limited in how much they could mine/refine themselves, etc . . . This would lead to a situation where the small pirate fleet couldn't support all it's ships/troops without tribute and plunder from other races.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm playing as a pirate race right now.

Game settings of Note:
Warp Points anywhere in system.
Hard AI, Medium Bonus

Race Settings:
Intel: 101%
Cunning: 50% (no intel tech allowed)
Environment: 50%
Reproduction: 91%
Happiness: 50%
Ship Attack: 125%
Ship Defence: 125%
Political Savvy: 50%

Mining Apt: 50%
Farming: 50%
Refining: 50%
Construction: 50%
Repair: 121%
Maintenance: 120%

Racial Traits:

Merchants.
Propulsion Experts.
Psychic.


Homeworld: Rock : None

Self-imposed Limitations: No colony Designs

--------------------

So Far;

Date: 2407.9

Homeworld: X141 VIII: Large, 116%, 125%, 123%
Colonies: X141 VI: Huge (domed) 92%, 108%, 2%
X141 VI A: Tiny, 104%, 9%, 54%

Budget:
Research: 9,335
Priorities: Armor, Psychic Tech.

Produced: 7,145 (M) : 1,100 (O) : 1,082 (R)
Maint: Zero
Used: 6,200 (M) : 400(O) : 1,000 (R)
Treasury: 25,622 (M) : 50,000 (O) : 49,613 (R)

StarFleet:
C&R -> Captured & Retrofitted to ship capture
BBM -> Built By Me as ship capture design

Escorts:
- (1) C & R

Frigates:
- (0) (All lost in battle)

Destroyers:
- (4) C & R
- (1) BBM.

Light Cruisers:
- (33) C & R
- (3) Captured & Used (temporal tech)
- (5) BBM

Cruisers:
- (3) BBM (Space Yard Design)

BattleCruisers:
- (1) Captured & returning for Analyzing

Space Stations:
- (7) Space yard Bases
- (7) Antiproton Defence Bases


Technology:

Ship Con: 5
Propulsion: 4
Shields: 5
Sensors, Combat Support: 2
Stellar Harnessing: 1
Repair: 2
Armor: 3
Ship Capture: 1
Point Defence, Psychic Weapons: 3
Energy Stream: 5
----------------------
Score:

I'm currently in the lead by 6K points (299.0K points)


Heavy use of tactical Combat is required, and I've only lost one major battle. Most battles that actually get fought, I have a 5:1 advantage. Self Destruct Devices are really annoying at this point (15% of ships are destroyed before losing their SDD, and every ship I capture is mangled beyond recognition.

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PS. As a Pirate, I feel that I have a very good chance to win the game, having gained BattleCruisers (thanks to the drushocka)

Even without my planets, I would still be making a base 200 of each resource per turn. In fact, not having any planets would not have stopped me at all (after I got ship capture)

Having minimal resource production would have slowed me down, but not significantly. 90% of my army is refitted enemy ships anyways.

In fact I'm building my first Storm System Secret Base right now. That should expand my operations to the north-west area of the map.


[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 04 March 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Pretty good actually, I have control of about 5 systems (250 systems, 16 players), and have three colonies.

I've got two secret bases going up, one in a nebula, one in an asteroid belt.

Every AI has self-destruct devices & heavy shields, so I usually jump one or two of them with eight LC's.

I've been defeated twice, once by mines, and once by a fleet of equal size.

The mines incident destroyed my mobile space yard ship, and left the fleet crippled, but with two turns of repairs & some new recruits, they're waiting for a replacement SYS.

In the fleet battle, they had 4 LCs to my 7, and so I lost, destroying 2, and crippling a third (one component left). The main problem was my solo shield generators & weak weaponry (meson 2's VS AP 5's)

Life is a series of small victories with an occasional setback via Crushing Defeat.

Still waiting for a Crew converter to get researched. (what area is that under, anyways?)

[Nitram Draw]

Sounds cool. The secret bases are they a mod?

[DirectorTsaarx]

I think Crew Converter is a Psychic Weapon (I captured a Cue Cappa ship via Crew Insurrection Intel op, and they have Converters - worked out well, as my captured ship has captured another ship - I'm hoping to continue the trend...)

[Nitram Draw]

So how's it playing, Capt'n Hook?