Brad, for some of us, at this point so early with the game, this is more of a burden than a fix. I can understand that Pirates are an integral part of the gameplay (even if I think they are not well implemented) but AT LEAST, you should introduce the option to modify the frequency of the raid. This shouldn't a HUGE modification.

Like someone said, when you play a huge game that last days, having to deal with pirates every 12 minutes is not fun, it's just damn annoying. Right now, this is my biggest grip with the game and I can't believe this wasn't brought up with 1 year of Beta testing. I pre-ordered the game 1 week before lunch and with that 1 week with Beta4, I already had the pirates 12 minutes timmer on my list of annoyance with the game. Also, adding some "randomness" to the encounter would also make things a little more "likeable". I can't picture Pirates waiting in their cockpit saying: "dang I wich we could attack but we can't there is still 6 minutes lefts on the counter...".

Allow us to modify the frequency to 12 minutes (like now) to something like 60 minutes.

Thanks Brad, I look forward to seeing what those other in-game methods could be. Whilst I like the pirates, the way they are currently implemented into the game is frustrating.

You could just make it so that, the pirate raid timer is random. That will be more benificial I think. Of course it would be an annoyance to check everytime, but it is, What I think a good annoyance. Because it is Random, you will have to check the pirate raid every time, but it would be random so it could be one minute or to 60 minute. You would not know until u check it. I think that is a better idea for pirates.

I'll just add my 2 cents and say that I agree with everyone - pirates should be easily modded/removed.

Overall, a good game though. I bought it at release based on the quality of GalCiv2 and I'm not disappointed.

I'd like the AI not to know exactly when the last picosecond to bid is and be able to instantly drop 12,000 credits to out bid me on easy difficulty. It'd be nice if the pirates launched when the timer reaches 0:00 instead of warning at 0:00 and then some unknown time (to players, the AI seems to know Exactly when it is) later bidding has to stop, how about last bid at 0:00 and then the attack launches xx later?

Love the game.

Let's do an unscientific poll:

Who here would like to see a game setup option of:

A) Toggle Pirates off on (easy to understand)

Slider setting Pirate strength (more flexible but more complicated)

C) Keep it as it is.

 

Actually, both A+B would be the ideal. Personally, I would not set pirates weaker in my games, or turn them off, but in general being able to and to adjust raid frequency/strength wouldn't hurt anything.

I find right now, the only issue I have with pirates is that they occasionally destroy a trade ship, but I've got my planet fortified since they keep attacking the same one... I definatly look forward to being able to change the time they raid, simply because its going to be easier to build up my fleets then not having to defend against them so often.

That's both normal, and not usually a problem since your trade posts pump out free trade ships when existing ones get destroyed

A) since its easier for you, but a combo of B and A when you guys get more time later on.

To be honest, it's about offering a choice overall to the player, and thats the most important thing I feel in game design. Do I feel like pirates today? Maybe not? Etc etc. If you look at it, some of the greatest games that have ever existed offered choice to players on how they wanted to play it.

I mean just picture playing an epic 8 hour game thats still going on... every 12 minutes you have to click on the bounty screen... bid bid bid bid bid... then wait till they launch.. and THEN go back to do what you were doing before. It really destroys the pace of the game sometimes.

PS: I just want to add that I REALLY REALLY appreciate the developers and everyone posting their thoughts. This is a very cool community and makes me glad that I purchased this game to support you guys.

The game rocks!

I forgot to mention this: the easiest way (at the moment) to do this is to use the in-game map designer. Just don't include any pirate bases when selecting your planet types.

The timer isnt part of the galaxy file. So the toggle could just make the timer infinite , so pirates never come.

One of the devs mentioned the other mod tools would be able to to adjust the raid frequency and such, so I imagine that'll be a welcome addition for many folks

Won't need to worry about the galaxy file specifically then, because you could (in theory) just do it across the board as a mod, rather than just changing each map

I'd vote for option D: Length between pirate raids. I don't think pirate raids should be taken out but how often they happen should be settable.

As i stated in another thread this is how you can change the frequency between attacks, the file in question is not in binary and no forge tools is needed, just notepad.



goto your sins of the solar empire/gameinfo folder, open the file called gameplay.constants and search for these lines

firstWarningTime 900
normalWarningTime 720

Change values to whatever you want, but make a backup copy just incase

Just curious, did you test it? Might just be the trigger for the actual warning, not actual departure?

yes this was tested to make sure changing these still worked in the release version, the beta did have different but similiar demands, i changed the firstwarning time to 3600 and the pirate screen started to count down from an hour till raid warning, which is when the bidding start, you can also change the ammount of time in the bidding in the same file below the lines i listed above.

how about D) slider for frequency of the pirates, no need to "modify" their strength. This should be easier to modify.

But if I had to choose, it would be B, then A.

C, keep it as it is for the ones who like it, there's plenty of ways already to reduce or get rid of pirate attack altogether

From what I've read of people's comments thus far, I would say to go with Option D: Allow the players to adjust the frequency of pirate attacks. It sounds like that's more of an issue than how powerful they are.

I'd like an on-off switch: A.

Also, unless it's designed to be some sort of big surprise, I'd like some indication on the scenario selection screen as to which maps have pirates and which don't.

Pirates may be "fairly integral to the game", but I find that they make it a LOT harder on me just trying to figure out what I'm doing. The learning cliff is tough enough without getting random beatdowns every five minutes.

Oh, and if not in gameplay options, It'd be great to have a "no pirates" option for random scenarios.

I like option B the most.

Slider setting Pirate strength (more flexible but more complicated)

Sometimes those pirates are damn anoying. Hell sometimes they attack me even when I bribed them to stay away

When a pirate raid launches they will always attack a planet of the current highest bountied player. If you attempt to bribe them after they have launched, it won't help your situation until the next expiry of the raid timer (assuming you win the bounty bid).

Again - it's not their strength, it's their frequency.

So given the options above, I'd have to go with (A). Or (D): A slider for the delay between raids. And (A) definitely for the random maps. (Not the designer created ones, but the truly random ones.)