Slightly more scientific poll

http://snappoll.com/poll/250401.php

It's certainly the most annoying part of the game for me - if it was once an hour, or maybe 'you can buy an attack for X,000 credits', with 'X' doubling after each attack, that would seem far better.

In my first game I was repeatedly attacked by pirates, I had no idea that you could bribe them (everything else is covered in the tutorial - attacking planets, building, research - but afaik the tutorials do not ever mention pirates...)

Still a good game though .

Actually, we tended to like having the pirates.

That said, as far as pirate options go... A slider would be nice to increase their strength and frequency!



A) turn that into a link, you forgot the "leave alone" option.

Personally I'd say C) (leave it alone), all the necessary changes will be moddable (and the remove-the-pirates option is already available via GalaxyForge).

That's because I take the attitude of "If I want it changed, I'm willing to work for it", and if the mod tools let me do it, I'm fine with that.

But if lots and lots and lots of people want it and don't want to fiddle with the mod tools... well, do what you think is best service for the customers, balancing the other changes you could be making with that time.

second that.

If I manually amend the frequency in the gameplay.constants file, would it also be worthwhile increasing the value of "MaxBountyBidCount" for the AI (especially the Economic one) to ensure that an AI strategy using Pirates remains viable?

I was thinking of changing the Pirate First Freq to 15 mins, and thereafter to 20 mins.

Hi guys, I don't even have the game yet (live in Canada), but I thought I'd jump in anyway. Please correct me if any of my assumptions are wrong.

1) The frequency and size of the pirate attacks should be based realistically on economic conditions. Pirates are about pillaging - no loot, no attack. So if the player is slow building up, the pirates should demand less money, attack less and in smaller numbers (i.e. no "slider" necessary).

2) Pirates should attack for maximum gain with minimum effort (i.e. survival instinct). They should act like parasites effectively.

3) Pirates don't schedule their attacks - they should be somewhat random. Generally, they should attack when they're not too drunk.

4) Bribing pirates is done so they don't attack you, *not* so that they will attack the enemy. They're pirates, not mercenaries.

5) Even when you do pay off pirates, they might still attack you (too drunk to remember), the enemy (sober), both (too drunk to care), or no one (too drunk).

In other words, if pirates are integral to the game, make them *act* like pirates.

Cheers!

This is especially true. ATM the Pirates are mercenaries hired by the highest bidder. It would be better (IMHO) for the Pirates to attack whoever had offered the lowest bribe. Just like a protection racket.

I say A as soon as possible, B for later

I personally think that turning them off as a newbie (i.e., myself) would help one to learn the game... then turning them back on would help scale up the difficulty/strategy more. right now they're the reason i lose

A

Definitely B. I like the pirates as a game mechanic, but right now I find them to be overpowered. While I haven't been playing that long, in all the games I've played so far pirates have been the deciding factor. So far, my games have just been about who can keep the pirate's attention on the other guy, so that by the time I even get any serious contact with the other players the game is pretty much won or lost already.
I definitely want to keep pirates in the game, since I think that they are interesting, but right now they are just having too great of an impact on games.