Let's make pirates more interesting

Nice ideas, but I believe that the pirates will be getting attention in the next expansion.

I think that pirates should retreat eventually when they have finished their raid.

Its stupid how the pirates will do the same amount of damage regardless whether you can put 250 credit bounty or 25000 credit bounty.

I also think that it is absurd that the pirates fight to the death yet the AI empires' military forces retreat. How can miserable criminals be braver then soldiers???

braver or more stupid?

i think credits should be refunded if you make a losing bid... it just gets too expensive sometimes

interesting story. i was just playing a map against 4 hard AI, and one vasari AI expanded into a large neutral system, which happened to be where the pirate base was.

once i started kicking ass, everyone was putting bounty on me, it got up to like 20,000 credits at one stage, because even though i lost the bid every time ( i didnt even try to fight it) the pirates would not come out and attack me.

like most pirate bases, they were set up adjacent to the star, i sent scouts to both the base and star, and found the pirates were still alive and the vasari AI had done nothing to stop the pirates coming out to get me.

i have no idea what was wrong.... just a weird story i guess

yea that would be sick, and For the other races give each of them  research to be able to steal form other players I.e Ships, Bulidings, and there research to follow, SO the more of there military buildings you steal the more ships and research of THERES you can build. so if i want a fleet of Lrm frigits  and purge vessles. And for Tec we need marines to be able to steal star ships and capital ships

Gikane, I like the idea of being able to become an "ally" (to whatever extent you could consider pirates an ally).

I believe a lot of possibilities could open up if pirates were no longer called pirates and simply called "Mercenaries." I would get rid of the bidding wars as they are right now.  You should also be able to give the mercenaries orders like you can AI allies, though with a price of course.  Opponents can then bid against the order to convince the mercs to stay neutral and not take the order.  If the order stands, then the mercs will become temporary allies with the player who gave the order and will help them out.  It would be great to pincer attack an enemy planet with the aid of mercenaries, or have them safeguard a planet while your big fleet goes marauding.  And as Gikane suggested, allow players to develop a good report with the mercenaries that can lead to discounts or, if the mercs really like them, even spontaneously help them out (or if the player gives the mercs unreasonable orders that result in lots of casualties for mercs, the mercs will charge more for their services).

The way I see it, set prices for mercs to attack a planet, support a fleet, or defend an area for, say, 15 minutes, then another price for 30 and then 45 minutes.  All players should be able to see what player the mercs are currently carrying out orders for as well as the diplomatic standing that each player has with the mercs.

While my experiences are mostly limited to single player, I think it could also serve to be interesting in multiplayer because it would allow players who go econ and "feed" to have another way to help their allies.

On an entirely separate note, I would love Ironclad to develop unique ships for the mercenaries rather than TEC counterparts, but this is certainly on the bottom of priorities should Ironclad implement any of the above suggestions.

the reason the pirate ships are based on TEC tech is because we are actually fighting in Trader space. all the planets are occupied by humans, thats why all the local militias have TEC-esque ships. its a bit confusing, at first i thought you had to destroy the militia ships guarding the planet then you go down and colonse an empty planet yourself... apparently there are already populations down there... however new ships and even bases and base defenses etc for pirates would be good. maybe some sort of ship that, instead of SC supports fleets of remote controlled droids that act much the same as bombers? could do more damage but be less armored, have fewer droids per squadron and, of course, no fighter support.

(fyi, im not a carrier spammer or anything just noticed people want a pirate carrier, so, in keeping with a logical universe where pirates wont be trained to fly SC, this is my idea to sort of compensate)

perhaps and even heavier heavy cruiser just for pirates. maybe make it have lasers and autocannons over 4 or more banks so that it can fly into a fleet and cause serious grief. i dont think pirates/mercenaries would use support cruisers all that much... although maybe an idea would be that when pirates steal income or resources from you a new ship comes to transport it away, so you can attack that and maybe recover it?

anyway, back on topic, i think this mercenary idea is good, both in form and function. i had a similar idea that had pirates relagated to a more specific role whereas mercenaries took the place of pirates now, im just trying to remember how it worked.

i think you would hire pirates to just cause mayhem. i.e. attack trade lanes or undefended planets, whereas mercenaries would be able to effectively take on a fleet or heavily defended planet and give the target something to think about...

pirates would have much more ships, but mercenaries would be MUCH more powerful

Your suggestion for pirates to conduct mayhem than rather large strikes is a good idea.  What if pirates could appear suddenly in gravity wells like the Insurgency research can--small strikes to wreak havoc where players aren't expecting them.  If pirates enter a gravity well in this way, they would prioritize destruction of trade ports, refineries, and extractors first rather than military structures or research labs (leave that to the big guns of the mercs).

EDIT:  The combination of pirates and mercs would really add depth to the underworld aspect of the game.  Hell, players could even hire mercs to wipe out the pirate base if they wanted to, and players can place bids on the mercs for pirates to carry out raids on.  Players should be able to disable pirates and mercs exclusively of each other.

Pirates are not suicide attackers. They are after loot. I don't understand why they fight to the death. They can't be that dumb.

Some good suggestions.

As I posted in an earlier thread on the same topic, I wouldn't mind seeing pirates essentially reworked completely from "reliably purchased suicide attackers" to "unreliable, greedy buggers in small ships masquerading as civvies, but raiding convoys and the like".   Seemed more suitable for criminals to be raiding refineries, trade ships and the like, rather than trying to engage actual interstellar-empire-class navies in head-on battles.

That said, the current way is much more straightforward to code than a custom  AI radically different from anything else in the game.  And adding imperfect spotting where ships aren't always ID'd as what they really are would also be a radical departure from what we have, so I can fully understand them never going in that direction.  Even small steps towards making them more interesting late-game and more consistent with expected behavior should be useful.

If we were adding mercenaries, you'd expect them to have somewhat greater willingness to actually stand and fight, but the history of mercenary loyalty has had its blemishes; if they're dead, the amount of money you offered them isn't necessarily as good a deal.  Unflagged operations using mercenaries would be interesting, perhaps; false-flagged even more so, heh... but could you really trust them to keep your deal a secret?

As for bids, they're never 'lost', per se; they just accumulate until they're claimed.  Doesn't have to be the pirates who collect the bounty, just anybody who is neither the victim nor the person who placed the bounty, IIRC.

I'd quite like it if piracy were a more endemic problem - say, in low-loyalty systems, you had the occasional problem of craft appearing and raiding your trade ships and the like.

Bonus points if pirate bases could be more often based on the little 'useless' rocks you have floating in some star systems.

Not that I mind the mercenary nature of them too, but some home-grown piracy could help the feeling of scale.