Hi all,
My friends and I are all very excited about Sins Rebellion, however one feature we all hate and believe that needs an overhaul is the pirates. There are 8 of us total and we play Sins online. Almost all of the games we have played have been very entertaining, however after the second ever online game we played together with pirates enabled we all came to the conclusion that they require radical change.
Pirates at the moment suck in online play because it's incredibly easy to gang up on someone by placing a colossal bounty upon them. When the pirate timer eventually runs out everyone begins to panic in Teamspeak. The player with the largest bounty always dumps credits onto the player with the second largest bounty, then it spirals out of control (Sometimes players with no bounty at all chip in for the lulz). It becomes a pathetic duel.
Later on in the game when everyone playing has a more developed economy (Thus more disposable money), placing bounties at the eve of the pirate arrival becomes an absolute frenzie. I've had opponents defeated in battles because they spent all their money on placing bounties instead of building ships.
Stardock, Ironclad, please! Change the way the pirates function for the sake of larger online games. Don't let this feature go ignored.
To agree with others they do need changes. Here are some suggestions:
1. Randomize or allow the timer to be set prior to the game. At the beginning of the game it is to frequent and at the end it is too long.
2. Give pirates abilities to specialize their attacks. Similar to missions you can give to other players such as capital ships, civilian structures etc. It would make it more interesting atleast if the pirates told you they were hunting your capital ship instead of the predictable 'nearest planet' attacks.
3. Make it so that you can bribe yourself limited immunity from the pirates. For example, they are coming but if you pay them x credits then they will only kill 50% of their initial bounty.
4. Leftover pirate ships from raids always accumulate at the pirate base instead of being reused. Leads to huge numbers and in later games end ups being simply a killing ground to level up your titan over multiple attacks and retreats. Sometimes I will jump capital ships in and out just to level them up as-well.
5. Pirate ships and defenses should upgrade over time, inline with the least performing player. Late game they still have low tec gauss cannons and basic hulls.
6. Defeating a pirate base basically is a script as it is now. They should have a varied defense instead of the standard ships/mines/ring of gauss turrets. Here is the recipe to doing it regardless of the pirates:
a.. Jump in your fleet and have their engagement range set to 'hold position'
b. Wait for the pirate ships to come to you and destroy them outside the mines/gauss cannons
c. Send in strike craft to destroy the turrets
d. Arcovas to clear a path to the planet
e. End life on the planet.
7. Diplomacy with a pirate AI. Seriously, something all privateer about it.
-Jason
