A pirates life for me...

WhiteHojo · #1 March 1st, 2001, 07:31 PM

Seems that todays topics are leaning toward new race types (saw one on making silicoids and another about a gypsie type race)...

Thought I'd throw in my idea (actually someone eles mentioned it quite awhile back but I never saw any more info on it).

The idea is obvious from the title of this post - PIRATES!!!

OK - we have a topic, so now we (meaning I) need some ideas, feedback and help.

I've just done a quick setup of possible options and research areas that a pirate race would need/start out with.

The Race name should be "Corsairs" - always thought that was a neat sounding name.

empire type - Confederation - a loose collection of clans/planets that make up the Corsair community/confederation.

Title - need some help - was thinking either Grand Admiral (sounds awfully official/governmental for a bunch of cutthroats) or King (as in Pirate King)

Environment - Carbon Dioxide - just cause...

Planet type - either ice or Gas Giant - I thought the Corsairs shouldn't be on a rock - too many of those planet types and ice or GG seem to be a little rarer (espicially playing w/limiting colonizing to home world types only - my personal favorite right now) - want to keep the # of their planets below those of other races (rock type particularly)

I toyed w/the idea of setting em as Renegades but decided against it - went with neutral instead - any help/ideas here wld be welcomed

Demenor - Impulsive - if you can't be impulsive why be a pirate?

Happiness type - Bloodthirsty - of course.

Special racial traits - also off the top of the ole head:
propulsion experts - +1 movement - they should be the masters of the seas/space

Advanced storage tech - 120% - used to making the most w/limited space - seemed appropriate

Hardy Industrialists - 125% planet SY - didn't like the name of this trait but felt the increased SY rate would fit a race that lives/dies by its fleets.

Temporal Knowledge - liked the shield depleted wpns of this race as well as the Temp'al SY - once again, they are a space goin race

The ship design name file should be a list of classic/historic ship names - unfortuanately, my cupboard is bare of this type of info - a little help maybe?

Minister style - aggressive - why not?

and now the individual racial traits:

-10% to Research: they should take tech from others via ship capture (which I believe should be a VERY big part of this race) and not research it.

-5% to Reproduction: Limits the pop

+7% to ship Attack & +5% to Ship Def: thought about just goin w/+12% to SA but spread it out - pirates should be good at space warfare

-20% to Trade: pirates are not the most popular people in the galaxy and not many will openly trade w/em

-15% to all resource production: Not good miners, farmers, etc... they're pirates!!!

+10% to SY Const Rate: they should be experts at building ships

+6% to Repair: ships are they're life, so they should know all the tricks to fixing em.

+10% to Maint Reduction: Wld like to have this even higher but couldn't figure out where to get the extra from - this allows for large standing fleets.

As far as research priorities, I haven't really delved into that aspect yet. (also, I'm not sure my skills are up to moddin a research file just yet - any help would be verr welcome)

my thoughts are that ship capture should be the main goal of this race (not so sure planet capturing would be that high though? Maybe they just like to plunder, ie. destroy, planets instead of capturing (permanent) em?) My experience on ship capturing is you need shield depleting wpns of some type, either normal or the temporal type. You have to have good shields yourself and fast engines - to get close enough to board fast w/o getting destroyed. So those types of techs should be high priority.

Better stop for now - post is getting a little long... any feedback would be appreciated.

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

Spyder · #2 March 1st, 2001, 07:36 PM

+10 to Intelligence....their spies are EVERYWHERE

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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Spyder · #3 March 1st, 2001, 07:38 PM

Their maintenance should be more, not less. They have to cannibalize for spare parts, etc...

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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

WhiteHojo · #4 March 1st, 2001, 07:44 PM

Spyder - I agree w/the bonus to intel but for another reason - thought pirates wld be difficult to infiltrate so wanted a bonus to intell defensive ops (the counter I suppose is that a pirate has no loyalty and should be easier to co-op via PPP or crew insurrections)

the maintainence, to me, shld be lower simply due to the old axiom "practice makes perfect" - if you know your ships inside and out and realize there parts/resources are limited, you'll take care of what you have. Besides if I bumped the maint cost up coupled w/the lower resources, they wouldn't be able to field any ships.

keep the ideas commin though

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

mac5732 · #5 March 1st, 2001, 07:57 PM

pirates sound great, however, instead of destroying a plundered planet you could make them steal all the resources, or each turn that they are blocading planet they steal a certin % of resources from planet until they are gone, disrupt trade, etc, this would force owner to send ships to either chase them away or destroy them. just some ideas
mac5732

Spyder · #6 March 1st, 2001, 08:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by WhiteHojo:
Spyder - I agree w/the bonus to intel but for another reason - thought pirates wld be difficult to infiltrate so wanted a bonus to intell defensive ops (the counter I suppose is that a pirate has no loyalty and should be easier to co-op via PPP or crew insurrections)

the maintainence, to me, shld be lower simply due to the old axiom "practice makes perfect" - if you know your ships inside and out and realize there parts/resources are limited, you'll take care of what you have. Besides if I bumped the maint cost up coupled w/the lower resources, they wouldn't be able to field any ships.

keep the ideas commin though

But, if you know your history you'll know that pirates didn't do Maintenance (Maintain is root word)...they canabilized from captured ships and when their own ship got too bad off, they scuttled it and used a captured ship. They didn't do much real maintenance...only what was required, and what the captain could make them do. Their discipline was pretty poor....

Now, I WOULD give them the Recycle techs right off because they were great at using whatever they had on hand to accomplish their mission.

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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 01 March 2001).]

Windborne · #7 March 1st, 2001, 08:24 PM

Pirates should be fairly easy to simulate, just make sure your race specializes in ground combat and ship capture, a pirate race doesn't build it's own ships too often, it takes those of others so make sure it's good at that, good at repairing "canabalizing" the pilfered hulls should be a must too, as should space combat.

Suicide Junkie · #8 March 1st, 2001, 08:31 PM

For REAL pirates, I believe some good traits would be:

-50% to all production
This means that ships will be supported more by capturing and scrapping enemy ships, and less from planets.

-50% to research
This means get ship capture, and steal the rest.

-9% to Reproduction
Pirates don't get along too well when there's billions of 'em, and we don't want them colonizing. Pirates should be capturing the planet, and then selling off the infrastructure for money, and then abandoning it before the empire's fleets come.

+20% off maintenance.
They know exactly what needs fixing and what dosen't, and can live with ships that are held together by spit and alien hides.

+15/+20 Aggression and Defence
Losing even one ship can be a major blow to small pirate organizations, so it better not happen often.

Definitely have Advanced propulsion, and maybe Temporal for the shield depletion effect.

Mods required section:
Free resource storage with each ship/base.
OR
Resource storage components for ships/bases.
This way, you can keep your treasure without need for a planet.

A racial trait, where the pirates can immediately research Storm Generators, so they can hide their ships & bases.
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Basically my idea of an Ideal Pirate race, would be one that lives by stealing everything from other empires, and hides bases out in nebulas & storms for resupply & retrofitting.

The reace would probably not colonize, and would have its homeworld hidden in a storm or nebula.

Naturally, only a human player would be able to pull this off.

Maybe a multiplayer game, where you play against AIs to see who can build the largest criminal organization.

Spyder · #9 March 1st, 2001, 09:07 PM

I think the nomadic & Pirate ideas are one & the same

Also, if you think about it, they can't really win the game...if they kill everyone off, there'll be noone left to leech from...

I DO think that they'd be a great AI race that would have to be overcome though....

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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Str8_Gain · #10 March 1st, 2001, 09:13 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Spyder:
I DO think that they'd be a great AI race that would have to be overcome though....

Or one to have as a trusted ally. Sic them on your enemies!