What if... Pirates and the black market

from Sins Forums

It would be interesting if pirates were more tied into the black market.


The pirates would have a default amount of resources coming in. Since their money and resources gains are limited, black market prices would go up and down based on how much they have. (longer lasting trends than what currently happens) It would encourage players to place their own supplies on the market. Also allows for strategic draining of the market. If pirates were disabled, the market would work like it does now.

Pirates would primarily gain by sending out small fleets from their bases to destroy things, gaining a small amout of resources per ship kill. They would seek out trade routes and congregate in neutral gravity wells, since destroying trade and refinery ships would be better. Because of this, you'd have to monitor neutral wells around your territory.

Raids would only activate(start the countdown timer) at certain bounty thresholds. If they had lots of money, lots of bounty would need to be in play before they attacked, if they were near bankrupt, they would launch for anything. The severity would depend on the bounty involved.(It seems to depend on empire wealth as it is)

To avoid losing most of their fleet on their way to the planet, their base would have a stolen Kotsura Cannon or a similar device that allowed them to send a raid fleet on a one way trip directly to a planet (bonus if it disables the defenses/strike craft for a little while too, to allow at least a little initial damage.) If the pirates destroyed all the structures in a well, they would move on, returning to base once the money hit 0. In this way they could store up extra ships for a later raid (up to a maximum fleet supply) 

I think that like this, pirates could become more of a concern without just buffing them. The market would depend on their actions and they would actively seek to take your resources. Taking them out would mean you had access to less resources, but letting them form pirate controlled areas in your territory might be bad for your culture rates, although if they worked as a demi-faction you could make deals with them to let them work semi peacefully with you. (bounty would still trigger raids.)

 

Other ideas regarding pirate crafts

 

  • Their siege frigates, instead of destroying planets could steal a bit of money from your empire every time they hit a planet, since there's no reason for them to kill planets. Following the idea though, scuttling things like space stations and planets could help lower the bounty on you.

 

  • There could be a construction craft that is used to constuct things, such as spawning their gauss cannons in neutral fields they occupied.  It could also just build some sort of space station that could steal from resource collectors in the well, regardless of who owned them, or act as an underground trade port that recieved money from any trade ships passing by. The space station could also lower the culture of adjacent planets and/or give a chance for them to spawn neutral armadas. Basically something extra to look out for in the neutral wells.

 

  • There could be a raid leader ship that stole the income from a planet while it was in the well (making it's output to you 0 or similarly low, vs the siege ships actually taking money away and negatively affecting your income.)  It would probably have more defensive weapons. 

 

31,941 views 18 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

 

What happens if the Pirates are set to "Off" (which is the default setting that people use in online multiplayer)?  Your ideas aren't too bad, though, for when Pirates are turned on, though I don't like the idea of their having a Kostura or other super weapon.  Perhaps someone could make a mod for that.  (There might already be pirate mods out there if you're interested in buffing them.)

I think the black market receives its supplies primarily from the graft and corruption that would occur in any large empire.  Imagine the mining supervisor skimming 5% of the product off the top and then selling it to the Space Mafia or the Underground for a fraction of its actual value.

Anyway, if you're getting a little bored with the standard game, have you considered playing it in online multiplayer with and against other people?  You'll get to enjoy a much greater challenge (the AI is very predictable and not too hard to take down), more suspenseful, more intense, and more fulfilling games, and you'll get to enjoy the camraderie of other people.  The online game also adds additional strategic considerations and a new type of game play (teams with real allies and opponents where you try to help your team).  Come join the fun and you'll soon lose interest in pirates.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

To the op of the thread, what you are describing the pirates can be done is already done in the Distant stars mod, the pirates in addition to only having defense plaftforms have starbase and a repair center and capital ships to help defend itself, and when the pirates strikes, almost all of the pirate ships have the ability to steal income from your planet when they do attack, however they do stop once you have destroyed them, sorta like the embargo ability for the tech carrier

lol I just figured out what Op is...

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

I like some of the ideas stated in the OP. But the Pirate Base shouldn't have a stolen Kostura or something like that. IMO, if it had some kind of very powerful weapon, it should be like a giant cannon that can ONLY fire upon things INSIDE the GW it is in.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Yea, not a bad idea.  Letting them have more advanced phase jump tech isn't nice, but giving them some sort of cannon that would operate like a lesser novalith would be neat.  Hrm...   What if instead of being weaker it could only fire upon adjacent grav wells?  That could let the pirates get an opportunity to grow up a bit if left to go to seed.  What if this weapon was what their station was built around?  Hrm.....    

 

It's fun to brainstorm, that's for sure.  I can't wait to get news of what the Iron Clad has up their sleeve.  I hope it's as ambitious as some of what's been posted by players.  I know a lot of you like to sell the online game, but a lot of folks aren't interested or can't play online for various reasons.  Improvements aimed at the single sure would be appreciated by those users, and this sort of thing sure would go a long way into improving the single play, especially with the lack of story line mode.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

online?! Pshaw, I am an SP guy. One of the issues with the lesser Novalith idea though, is from what you want, the weapon would only be able to target things around 2-3 jumps away at most. Unfortunately, there is no constraint for that; however, it can be made to fire only on things within the local system (Entrenchment allows cross-system shots).

I think that it should be a super-lethal giant cannon that kills things fairly easily. Probably have it use an ability that deals 2000-3000 damage to a target (it would have to go through shielding/mitigation).

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Yeah cuz that what the pirates need, a way to kill my LVL 10 Kol in shot.<_<   I think I will pass, on the super gun idea. Though they do need some better defenses. Distant Stars mod gave them that and a Starbase. Anything more defesive wise would make them to hard to crack.

On this same note, they could use some tech to counter jump destabiztion and/or PJI.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Whiskey144, reply 3
I like some of the ideas stated in the OP. But the Pirate Base shouldn't have a stolen Kostura or something like that. IMO, if it had some kind of very powerful weapon, it should be like a giant cannon that can ONLY fire upon things INSIDE the GW it is in.
End of Whiskey144's quote

On second thought, maybe they should be able to have one, but they should have to steal it from someone and then tow it back to their pirate base.  It would be funny IMHO.

This gives me an idea for a mod--give players the ability to capture and steal orbital structures.  A new and expensive ship, a Space Tug, could be designed for this.  It wouldn't have any weapons on it, just engines since it needs to tow heavy loads out of gravity wells.  A couple of them would be needed to tow a super weapon.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

This gives me an idea for a mod--give players the ability to capture and steal orbital structures. A new and expensive ship, a Space Tug, could be designed for this. It wouldn't have any weapons on it, just engines since it needs to tow heavy loads out of gravity wells. A couple of them would be needed to tow a super weapon.
End of quote

nice idea, but with planet modules belonging to the planet it would probably need an ability to capture and load the module into it's ship, and kill the module in the planet, then spawn the module back at base after returning( i suggest spawn as it does not appear to look at the number of weapon/logistics slots in a planet)

harpo

 

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

interesting idea harpo, I like it.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

The major point of the superweapon isn't to damage things, but so the pirates won't travel through half the map, being destroyed by fleets and defenses before they even get to the place they're supposed to attack. (I like large maps, so this can be a problem. That and a not very fast connection are the main reasons I don't play online.)


As mentioned in my post, if pirates were turned off, then the market would work like it does now.

Distant Stars seems interesting, but I don't like the idea of being able to colonize gas giants.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

tant Stars seems interesting, but I don't like the idea of being able to colonize gas giants.
End of quote

 

:(  Has one never heard of Cloud City!?!??!:'(

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Cloud City, on Bespin. A lovely summer resort :) .

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

"and the weather report for cloud city... cloudy" i think that's from robot chicken :) lol

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting harpo99999, reply 8

This gives me an idea for a mod--give players the ability to capture and steal orbital structures. A new and expensive ship, a Space Tug, could be designed for this. It wouldn't have any weapons on it, just engines since it needs to tow heavy loads out of gravity wells. A couple of them would be needed to tow a super weapon.


nice idea, but with planet modules belonging to the planet it would probably need an ability to capture and load the module into it's ship, and kill the module in the planet, then spawn the module back at base after returning( i suggest spawn as it does not appear to look at the number of weapon/logistics slots in a planet)

harpo

 
End of harpo99999's quote

I like this. Put it up somewhere where the devs will see it. This is an order.

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

CI do NOT giva me da orders  or I da geta GROUCHO anda MARX you for a death

harpo

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting harpo99999, reply 15
CI do NOT giva me da orders  or I da geta GROUCHO anda MARX you for a death

harpo
End of harpo99999's quote

ha...i think that woulda been funny. but i had no idea wat u just said. something about me not giving u orders....then i lost it.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

I think the gist of it is that harpo will not take orders from C.I. otherwise he gets the 'Groucho' and marks C.I. for death.

How amusing.

Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top

hmmm. you got nice ideas actually. got me to thinking too.