A pirates life for me...

[WhiteHojo]

forgot to mention in Last post and Nitram brought it up in his - all captured colony ships should be scrapped and there cargo jettisoned - aaaaaarrrrrr ye matey!!!

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[mac5732]

SJ, bases are only hidden until found or the tech is found in order to find them. I suggested a compromise, this way both ideas are incorporated into the game. They are both great ideas we just have to figure the best way to use them. Pirates really had excellent intell on their targets, therefore they should have high intell in game, but there should be way to also combat this if and when you obtain the tech to do so. What about ships? Pirates were fast, quick and deadly, very rare did they have large warships like ships-of-the-line, etc, maybe limit them to only having capacity to build
nothing larger then BC's or BB's, no dreadnaughts or baseships. They would have to capture one in order to have it. they should also have high cunnning, violent, untrustworthy traits. Deal with them but don't trust them. they will bite the hand that feeds them. Just some ideas, I think this Pirate idea is one of the best. I just hope it all comes together. I think it would really add something extra to the game

mac

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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capture then plunder & loot (scrap all facilities) a colony b/f jettisoning the pop and abandoning the colony

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All we need for that is to set the resource production of the pirates low enough (25% anyone?) so that the pirates would get more resources by scrapping the facilities than by letting them run until the AI glassed the planet.

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I don't see pirates taking over and keeping other races colonies - just not what they're about in my mind

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Neither do I, but I really don't see them sending out their own settlements.
I mean, why would they bother building their own colony ships, when they can capture pre-built ships for free?

quote:

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I would think a self imposed limit on the rate of your colonization would be needed

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If you have to capture colony ships to start colonies, thats a pretty good limit, IMO. It's not like they're excessivly rare or well defended, but they can't be built every two turns either (every turn on E-build & full, jubilant pop).

[WhiteHojo]

Mac - are you pyshic??? I at one point was thinking about limiting em to LC or Cruiser sized hulls but didn't follow up - easily sidetracked I guess.

They would have to be able to design a ship of larger than C size so as to be able to retrofit it after being captured but I agree they shouldn't be able to build large ships from the ground up... Of course, if you are capturing BBs etc then why would you want to waste your time building em.

anybody else have any thoughts on this???

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Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[Suicide Junkie]

Wow. A lot of simultaneous Posts.

As for building big ships,

in my game, 50% build rate, even at my homeworld it takes 2 years to build a BC, and I could capture one from the drushocka in two turns, and have it back and retrofitted in 1/4th the time. Plus once I'm in their system, I'll probably cap two or three in a row before they amass a fleet to drive me away.

Theres no way I'm gonna build one on my own.

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SJ, bases are only hidden until found or the tech is found in order to find them

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Thats true , but by the time anybody has super sensors, I'll have them too, and my bases will have MassiveMount deathrays with 250 missile sats spread around.

{by 'deathray' I mean I'll have whatever the best beam tech the enemies have come out with so far }

[Nitram Draw]

SJ,
IIRC you are playing with no maintenance. I think pirates should pay at least normal maintenance, tough to get parts, or at best 5-10% less. This would give them an incentive to keep the fleets small but powerful.
In a Last man standing game the Pirates really should not be able to win but they should be fun to play
Don't know how you could get a Pirate victory if no one wins? Have to look at the victory conditions a little closer, I always play Last man standing like the rest of the players seem to do.

[Suicide Junkie]

Normal maintenance would hurt bad. I'd be scrapping 5% of my fleet per turn just to maintain 'em.

Consider that I generate 7000 minerals per turn, and have to support 40 LCs to maintain control of my 4 systems. I have an alien race right beside me, who really likes large fleets, but may be a neutral.

[mac5732]

SJ In your game, have you tried taking another player and fighting against an AI controlled pirate yet? If so how did that come out? Maybe that would give us some ideas as to what to use or not. Also what if we took some of the various ideas and make some of them options? that way you could play them with the different ideas and see which ones worked or didn't work, or for each persons personal preferences. just an idea or two. mac

[mac5732]

From reading the different ideas, i think we need to first decide.
1. should the pirates have a chance to win the game or just be a fun playing pain in the neck race. if they are to have chance to win, what amount or same as other races
2. Should they be allowed to colonize or just capture planets in order to have a chance in the game.
3. playability, maybe some ideas should be made options that way everyone could pick which way they want to set it up and would the AI be able to play the pirate race without to much tweaking of game?
4. What should their largest ship size be?
Definitly nothing larger then a BB or BC
5. what should they be allowed to research?
6. Racial traits. such as Berserker, violent, schemers, high intell, high cunning, and the percentages. Also should they start with hi intel or research it,
7. What type of bases, small, med, large,
and what type of cloaking should they have?
8. do they get special (their race only) research areas, weapons, clocking, etc)
9. Will they be allowed to use captured population to colonize other planets?
Maybe hojo and/or SJ could make up a list and have everyone vote or give ideas on these or others you can think of. This could give us a starting point. Just some idea's
10. I forgot, maintenance,
mac
sorry about the double post, i over clicked

[This message has been edited by mac5732 (edited 09 March 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, IMO,

1) Yes. a reasonable chance to win, (but AI's would really screw up and lose every time I'm sure)

2) only captured colony ships for me. I believe that the pirates should not need a planet to survive.

3)AI is really not flexible and I seriously doubt that anybody could get them to play decently as Pirates (even MM). Against a human, the Human would glass their planets & only use large fleets. The Strategic capture routines are tough, too.

4) With 50% construction rate, I find that it is not worth a Pirate's time to build even LCs. Allowing full sizes of hull does not mean the pirates will build them. I find LCs take over a year to build.

5) Pirates should be allowed to research all the normal techs (mainly by theft) plus any special techs they are given.

6) Research 50%
Intel 500% if possible
Mineral/organic/radioactives 25% if possible
0% or 1% maintenance (requires Merchants w/o modding)
Bloodthirsty would make sense.
Construction rate 50%
Reproduction 91% (minimum)
Environment resist 50% (minimum)

Everything else is optional.

7) All bases, normal cloaking. Space stations take 1&1/2 years to build, so a Starbase sized place in unlikely but possible.

8) Pirates need only early ship capture, & early mobile space yards.
Perhaps just a new hull that's 550KT, requires 50% construction components. (ie escort plus ShipYard) available right away, like a colony ship for everybody else.

9) Yes. How would you stop them from using slaves?

10) As in (6), zero to one percent would be good.


Pirates require a somewhat disorganized military to feed off of. Humans would be nearly impossible to Pirate against, especially by an AI.

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