Pirates?

[AcePalarum]

Since I haven't seen an opinion yet in this discussion that quite matches mine, I suppose I shall toss in my 2 cents:

I would like to have an IND faction option for a simple reason: As a strictly non-combat pilot, I don't like the idea that fully half the galaxy is off-limits for peaceful exploration. (The Vonari, in my opinion, provide sufficient "danger zone" to establish that the galaxy is not an entirely safe place.)

From a mechanical standpoint, I agree that allowing an IND faction that can dock anywhere, anytime needs to have some balance factors. I think not offering the IND pilot combat contracts is good (from a practical standpoint, as I said, I'm of the non-combat persuasion anyway; in-universe, why would FDN or ALC give shoot-em-up contracts to "unaligned" ships when they've got loyal pilots to handle that?) As a further "cost" for getting the wider docking options, maybe IND pilots get paid less per contract than faction-aligned pilots (hopefully not 50% less or something equally silly, given the hideous time I had early on getting enough money to upgrade to a "real" ship). I also like the idea that if an IND pilot starts attacking other ships willy-nilly, that pilot loses IND status (what the alignment changes to, I'm not sure). If there is a way to achieve/regain IND status (I could see that as a one-way transition), it should take some real effort.

In-universe, the IND faction would effectively represent those sectors of society that are so necessary for continued function of civilization that even in a state of war, they remain largely unmolested. Surely the Evoverse has something comparable to the Geneva Convention in place, so that exploration, medical, transportation and other similar industries are granted free passage through both FDN and ALC territories. (I find it hard to conceive of a galaxy-spanning civilization where literally everyone is either a Hatfield or a McCoy. A galaxy-wide policy of "you're either with us or against us" strains the suspension of disbelief.) In that vein, possibly IND pilots see distress calls with slightly higher frequency to compensate for the loss of combat contracts? (Sisters of Mercy at your service.)

The key, I think, to making the IND faction both distinct from FDN/ALC and explicable within Evochron history is to craft the faction as being explicitly non-military. Sure, some IND ships are armed (and heavily-armed at that), but as soon as those weapons start being used for anything beyond self-defense and shooting up Vonari vessels, the offending pilot no longer qualifies as independent and loses the protection that goes with that status.

[Vice]

I would like to have an IND faction option for a simple reason: As a strictly non-combat pilot, I don't like the idea that fully half the galaxy is off-limits for peaceful exploration

Hopefully, the latest update goes a long way toward remedying that scenario. That is, you can now change your single player faction affiliation to explore the other half of the game's territorial galaxy when you want to. But the point is understood that to have a fully IND faction would be a benefit to players looking for a truly unaffiliated condition.

I also like the idea that if an IND pilot starts attacking other ships willy-nilly, that pilot loses IND status (what the alignment changes to, I'm not sure). If there is a way to achieve/regain IND status (I could see that as a one-way transition), it should take some real effort.

That is one of several key lines of functionality that would need to be addressed. Namely, if the player's actions cause them to switch factions, should they even be allowed to select a different faction as they can now (as of version 1.0308), or should they be blocked from changing factions (probably a negative for a lot of players considering the volume of requests for the ability to change their single player faction affiliation)?

[Marvin]

I also like the idea that if an IND pilot starts attacking other ships willy-nilly, that pilot loses IND status (what the alignment changes to, I'm not sure).

Most likely, that's at least one situation where the idea of having a "pirate" tag comes in handy. Pirate, lawbreaker, enemy of the people, criminal, bandit ... you name it. Which then makes me wonder if there should be contracts specific to criminals ... like smuggling or hit-man or maybe even bodyguard (guarding who ... and against who else?).

[WeirdWill]

If everything is perfect there's nothing to discuss anymore I guess.

[XenonSurf]

Along the line of a neutral option for faction affiliation WeirdWill mentions above, I'd like to hear additional thoughts on that from those interested in a 3rd faction option. That is, if an 'IND' or independent faction were to be added, how you would like to see it function? Some considerations:

- IND affiliated ships (including human players) would have the benefit of being able to dock and trade at any station.
- Trade, delivery, placement, racing, mining, and emergency distress contracts would all continue to be offered to IND ships, but not combat.
- For IND ships, combat would be much less of an option, if much at all (save for perhaps war zones), and mostly designed for players interested in trade, racing, transport/delivery, recovery, mining, and/or exploration.

A 'pirate' or 'raider' system could still be incorporated in addition to an independent affiliation, there could be ALC or FDN (or even IND) pirates that operate outside of the normal AI confines of their faction, but still have a territorial home base of sorts in their faction's space. There would just be separate AI behavior threads for such ships as opposed to fixed conditions based on faction affiliation only. Could go either way and I'm still just in the concept phase of it all as it's still not yet a firm direction things may go in the future. I'll really want to have most functional aspects of such a potential addition ironed out well before I consider implementing such systems.

Hi Vice
first I'm enjoying the possibility in the new version to switch factions and other options. This makes the gameplay deeper, I'm sure. Thank you for that.
IMO, a neutral IND faction together with a pirate faction would make the gamplay a lot more interesting, I think that the behavior balance of the pirates is a main consideration, also the IND career has not to be too easy. The normal career needs a lot of cash for the player in order to sustain military activity, and that's fully ok. As an IND player, without encountering any resistance to my actions (say pirates) it would be way too easy to accumulate profits: the game would get boring soon. To avoid that, pirates should 'mess up' with the player at a good rate, without overdoing it, and please: also make them attack player stations, at least in SP.
Pirate stations: Pirates should only being able to dock at such stations, unless you code some exceptions mentioned by Marvin, and: for a more interesting gameplay these pirate stations should ramdomly change their location (maybe with a preference a little outside of the known quadrant systems) with the result that a player playing as a pirate would have a hard time docking anywhere. Any prices for goods or equipment in pirate stations should be approx. 40% under the normal prices because most of these wares have been stolen. Oh, of course only pirates can dock at pirate stations...
Any successful attack on pirate stations should slow down their activity in the whole systems for quite a bit.

I still have to invest time to read all those interesting posts from page 3 and beyond... It's hard to come up with better ideas

So far my suggestions. Go ahead and continue to make EL a challenging Adventure

Greets,
XenonS

[XenonSurf]

DaveK has done enough to turn this idea into a ridiculous request, but I will add some meat to it:
For all those who want to be a 'CAP ship pilot', ask yourself: When watching Star Trek, how many times do you see Captain Picard or Janeway fly the ship, he?
I had the same discussion in another game: XRebirth which includes NPC 'actions', and I put the word actions in tirets because there is almost nothing to it...

XenonS

[Marvin]

When watching Star Trek, how many times do you see Captain Picard or Janeway fly the ship, he?

Probably never. Kirk, on the other hand, flew Decker's Constitution class starship into the mouth of the Doomsday Device ... saving countless billions of lives among possibly millions of star systems. (Now, that's a real captain for you.)

[WeirdWill]

Just had some thought; how about making the IND faction an open faction for all, peaceful freetraders as well as pirates?
You would have the benefit of flying relatively free between the factions but on the other hand you could get attacked by other members of "your" IND faction because they aren't a congruent faction working together but are a bunch of different individuals with pirates included. And nobody of the Alliance or federation would help you if you get attacked. And if you attack one of these factions that faction will turn hostile to you (at least the ships in range). Other downsides like higher docking fees, less payment, worse equipment etc. could still be in place when docking at ALC or FDN stations.

IND Bases could be free ports where you can dock but are basically smuggler dens and places for pirates and criminals to take cover and sell their plunder. Which means you can dock at them but you have to be aware of potential hostiles attacking you.

[Vice]

Just had some thought; how about making the IND faction an open faction for all, peaceful freetraders as well as pirates?
You would have the benefit of flying relatively free between the factions but on the other hand you could get attacked by other members of "your" IND faction because they aren't a congruent faction working together but are a bunch of different individuals with pirates included. And nobody of the Alliance or federation would help you if you get attacked. And if you attack one of these factions that faction will turn hostile to you (at least the ships in range). Other downsides like higher docking fees, less payment, worse equipment etc. could still be in place when docking at ALC or FDN stations.

That could be one viable approach. The 'IND' faction could simply be an all-encompassing category that represents not being linked to any formal faction, whether just a lone trader or someone with more malicious intent. There could be some kind of pirate/raider score that might still apply as a separate value, but the core IND category would still be a factor for such independent players.

Lack of assistance from a main territory faction would be a good additional compromise. IND's battling on their own would truly be on their own in that regard. Trading and contract pay could still apply at fair levels, just no combat contract options (which tend to be pretty high paying on their own).

IND Bases could be free ports where you can dock but are basically smuggler dens and places for pirates and criminals to taker cover and sell their plunder. Which means you can dock at them but you have to be aware of potential hostiles attacking you.

One mechanism that could facilitate this might be a threat to drop cargo. It would work the same way as trade offers do now for allied pilots, but a pirate could send the notice as a threat and if the receiving pilot didn't open their trade console to accept the demands, then pirate ship could then attack the player for 'rejecting' their trade demand.

[Arei]

If I may add my opinion again on the back of what XenonSurf suggested I believe pirate attacks (from IND pirates or whatever their implementation might become) ingame would be a nice idea, but I'd really wish to see them implemented cleverly and not the same way they are in Elite Dangerous for instance. In the later, you get a good chance of getting attacked by pirates spawning randomly at you whenever your cargo is not completely empty or when you are running a mission and it's pretty ridiculous to have pirates trying (and sometimes succeeding) to literally murder you in high security systems to take 150 credits worth of scrap floating between what's left of your ship...

Even if it contradicts some of the points discussed here, even my own, I must say one of the aspects that I enjoy the most about this game is the ability do to things peacefully, without having hostiles constantly swarming at you if you stay a little careful. What I mean by that is that it is, for instance, relatively easy to go and explore systems controlled by the opposing faction (or even the Vonari) as long as you stay quiet, avoid being too static and going too close to the buildings etc.

I'm all for an increase in danger, but in my opinion such an increase should mainly concern "dangerous" trade routes, contested regions, remote regions, pirate regions etc and pirates should still more or less behave like pirates (they would just leave you alone if your cargo is not worth it and you don't attack them for instance). Regarding pirates randomly attacking stations for no reason: In my opinion pirates are not murderous psycopaths, but poor people who try to make up for their lack of ressource/income or wish for freedom with piracy. Sure they should be able to attack a rich station, or try to destroy a threatening station, but they should be more than just Vonari in human flesh or yet another warring faction.

And lastly, still in my opinion, all of the above should come with an upgraded way of handling crimes: It just wouldn't be right if all pirates had to do in order to escape the authorities was to simply jump away... Unless they would always be attacked on sight by the other factions which would put them in a state of permanent danger whenever they come close to inhabited areas they don't control or something.

[WeirdWill]

I'm all for an increase in danger, but in my opinion such an increase should mainly concern "dangerous" trade routes, contested regions, remote regions, pirate regions etc and pirates should still more or less behave like pirates (they would just leave you alone if your cargo is not worth it and you don't attack them for instance). Regarding pirates randomly attacking stations for no reason: In my opinion pirates are not murderous psycopaths, but poor people who try to make up for their lack of ressource/income or wish for freedom with piracy. Sure they should be able to attack a rich station, or try to destroy a threatening station, but they should be more than just Vonari in human flesh or yet another warring faction.

I agree that it shouldn't become tedious by constantly getting attacked by pirates and they ahouldn't be just another attacker who wants to just blow you away. I think it should be a kind of special event in peaceful regions and nothing you have to constantly expect. Maybe make spawning of piates in such regions rare and authorities should be able to step in in a relatively short time window. And generally they should be focused on acquiring your cargo and not primarily in destroying you (it could damage or destroy the cargo afterall).

[AcePalarum]

Personally, I still lean toward an IND faction allowing an option of "go anywhere, behave yourself and trouble won't get started". However, I can see IND pirates attacking other IND ships. Few thoughts:

- Pirates should be found primarily in contested regions. Places where a government has good consolidated control tend to come down harsh on such activity.
- If possible, pirates should be equipped with the equivalent of cargo scanners. If I'm toting several loads of metal for station building, harassing me holds no profit. Holds full of diamonds, on the other hand...
- IND pirates are one faction where shooting one of them up should not make others automatically hostile. Pirates are not one big, happy family that come to each others' aid.
- Following the previous point, if possible, blowing up a couple IND pirates should make the rest of them go away and look for softer targets.

(Anywhere I say "if possible" above, I am acknowledging that programming has limits, and Vice is the best judge of what can and cannot be done within the code.)

[DaveK]

DaveK has done enough to turn this idea into a ridiculous request, ... XenonS

Was that a compliment or a complaint??

[XenonSurf]

DaveK has done enough to turn this idea into a ridiculous request, ... XenonS

Was that a compliment or a complaint??

Not a complaint of course. I was amused by reading your post with the yellow lines...

XenonS

[DaveK]

That's a relief!

[Serayl]

After I decided to install the latest patch on a whim and noticing the new IND tag, I came to the forums in a confused manner and saw this thread, so I'll pitch my thoughts in.


I feel that a RDR/PIR faction should be AI-only that is hostile to everyone, with some (code-pending) tricks to keep them fresh and fairly entertaining.

- RDR-tagged stations/modules/etc. ought to exist as the spawn-point for these ships. To spice things up, their station beacons (ie. the markers on the Navmap) should not be displayed outside of a given distance (3 sectors?), similar to how it works for FDN seeing ALC and vice versa. Finding their hideouts should take some sort of effort. Some NPCs could cough their locations up as PoIs though...

- These bases would be intended as targets for players to go and destroy when they feel prepared: in SP, this could mean bringing a few AI wingmen or another player in MP. When a raider base loses its command module, the rest of the base should (probably) self-destruct after a minute or two - I would personally find this to be a timesaver versus having to pop every single module, just to be sure. I'm also aware there would be a lot of work needed to get the difficulty just right between a one-pass cakewalk or an unkillable fort. A typical raider base attack shouldn't take any longer than 20-30min at the most.

- Once destroyed, a raider base would respawn at a different random location bound within a list of defined regions/sectors (not Pearl or Sierra + Agate) with a %-probability after a given time has passed. A simple check would be made at spawn to see if a player is present in the given sector: if this is a YES, the location is re-rolled. This means that not only can players not somehow camp a base spawn, it also means the base can just 'magically appear' when spawned. There would be a fixed limit to the # of bases that can exist at any given time.

- Some RDR ships would employ IFF spoofing/mimicry technologies, posing as ALC/FDN/IND until they decide to jump you. Their disguise would work up to a given distance; inside that, your ship's radar can unmask the target and register it accordingly. A piece of equipment performing a similar spoofing/mimicking function could be made available as a blueprint as a reward for clobbering a bunch of RDRs/a RDR base/doing something else. This could tie in with the new radar thingys I read about in the update notes - devote one equipment slot to radar, receive added protection against spoofers/mimics. A target scanner may also help counter this.

As a piece of equipment, said IFF spoofer would work on a basic level like the stealth generator: push button, receive disguise (with a button + 1,2,3 for choice of spoofed tag). It'd consistently eat a bit of your weapon battery while on, though not as much as the stealth gen as you can be revealed. Command modules can't be fooled, and neither can turrets or the Vonari. When revealed, you're revealed to every ship nearby and informed about this development via an annoying mosquito tone or other appropriate alarm.

A player running the IFF spoofer would appear to be an NPC to another player (maybe?). In the case of player -> player detection, the reveal radius would need to be bigger than in the player -> NPC case to mitigate ganks via unloading masses of Exoduses into some poor, unsuspecting soul. When spoofing, your status via tilde does not change - if you connected as FDN and are spoofing ALC, tilde will show you as FDN.

- I'd also expect some RDRs to come equipped with Lynx, Leech and Rage missiles for crippling their prey, along with some of the specialized particle guns to compliment their disable-first mentality. Perhaps a select few can make use of the one-shot stealth generators to sneak around or to escape? Once they disable their target, they ought to have the ability to forcibly jettison cargo from the target and/or steal some credits, then flee.

EDIT: I'd also give a thumbs-up to having RDR bases spawn planetside, with a heavy bias towards placing them on uninhabited, station-free worlds both within charted and nearby non-charted systems. It'd give players a good reason to descend to a planet and do battle with RDR ships in the atmosphere, or to roll out some slick combined-arms strategy by deploying their TW with air support from the aforementioned NPC wingmen or other players.


The basic idea of the bases is to provide an outlet for those among us who like the taste of station modules a little too much and some incentive in the form of removing the raider threat. RDR ships would roll out tricks not often seen and with the IFF spoofing, I know I'd get a little paranoid of anybody getting anywhere near me. At the same time, RDR ships wouldn't be so common as to make suspicion a reflexive reaction - they'd generally pop up when a base of operations exists in the solar neighbourhood and away from new player hangouts.

As for IND, I figure that's best left for NPC merchant ships or players who want to opt out of the FDN/ALC war. With spoofing tech, it'd be a handy tag to leverage against NPCs, less so against players.

[Serayl]

I would like to see the RDR tag appear as NPC-only with a few special tricks if possible, spawned only from either RDR space stations or planetside bases with the general idea of adding a little more danger to the universe without causing too much upset to players who prefer a more peaceful game (as said RDRs would not shoot to kill, but shoot to subdue, loot and then run like hell).

[Marvin]

You probably wouldn't need to run away from RDR O'RLY. All he would want is your grape Nehi.