Making Pirates Interesting

from Sins Forums

I've been thinking a bit lately about the pirates and trying to think of how they could be made more interesting.  I like the idea of having them in the game, but they seem to get just plain tedious in their blind "attack until we're all dead" philosophy.

I haven't played a lot yet, so I don't know all of the rules regarding how they play, but how about some of these ideas:

  • Do they get harder as the game progresses?  I'm not sure, but if not, they should, in terms of numbers and ship strength.
  • The pirates could gain in strength as a direct result of bounties paid to them - if nobody "pays" them, they don't grow in strength (or at least grow more slowly), but the more you use them, the more they use the bounty funds to upgrade themselves, in whatever way they can/might (ship upgrades, weapon upgrades, home system defense upgrades, ...)
  • Given the idea of them using bounty funds for upgrades, perhaps they could simply spend their bounty to buy any sort of ship from any of the existing player fleet types to add to their own fleet (pirates buying their own Serevun Overseers, or Hoshiko's, for example!)
  • Perhaps their AI could be improved to make them more intelligent - doing things like retreating when overwhelmed, or to simply divert to another, hopefully less well-defended, system to continue their attacking (instead of just committing suicide).
  • A method of capturing ships could be pretty cool - they can have some sort of new board-n-capture ships available to them - when they manage to capture a ship, they return to their base and add that ship to their fleet for future attacks - would make their attacks much more interesting, especially when they start capturing and using Cruisers!
  • As upgrade options, pirate home base could be slowly toughened up with eventual upgrades to their gauss cannons (I noticed they always maintain the same basic models), maybe a planetary shield, hangar defenses, etc.  Or... ooo!  how about they obtain a phase stabilizer to let them warp anywhere?  Then you'd have a reason to make your own targetted strike against that structure!
  • I've heard mention that the Pirates can't do wormholes or star-to-star navigation - goes without saying to add that if missing.
  • Can there be multiple pirate bases in a map?  Could be interesting to not know which base from which they are launching.
18,101 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I've seen them return to their base after raids with use of PSIDAR, not sure what's needed for this though because they always act suicidal when attacking me (maybe if they clear out a planet they stop)?

They can also grow more powerful.  It's either due to high bounties being paid, high bounties being collected by successful raids, or the aforementioned finished raids returning and just hanging around (since each raid spawns a new fleet out of thin air and the ones at the base stay there).

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screenshot/natural/c13644a8290f46191e4cf76e8f5d6e5e5a206e53.png

Also in Random Huge Multi-star map there was a pirate base at each of the five stars.

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Can there be multiple pirate bases in a map?  Could be interesting to not know which base from which they are launching.

Yes you can...

But you have to manually create them, but editing the galaxy files....

planet
        designName "Planet6"
        inGameName ""
        type "PirateBase"
        pos [ 198 , 171 ]
        owner ""
        isHomePlanet FALSE
        normalStartUpgradeLevelForPopulation 0
        normalStartUpgradeLevelForCivilianModules 0
        normalStartUpgradeLevelForTacticalModules 0
        normalStartUpgradeLevelForArtifacts 0
        normalStartUpgradeLevelForInfrastructure 0
        quickStartUpgradeLevelForPopulation 0
        quickStartUpgradeLevelForCivilianModules 0
        quickStartUpgradeLevelForTacticalModules 0
        quickStartUpgradeLevelForArtifacts 0
        quickStartUpgradeLevelForInfrastructure 0
        planetItems
            templateName ""
            subTemplates 0
            groups 0
        spawnProbability 1.000000
        useDefaultTemplate TRUE

that is a code for calling up a pirate base, just copy and paste that into any galaxy file, don't worry about the design name, I once copy and pure pasted and then ran that galaxy and it didn't crash, it just automacially renames ingame, same with the position

and on the pirates and wormholes, I think they don't do star-star jumps, but if put a phase line from one galaxy to another, pirates will certainly use the phase line (don't qutoe me never tried that though), as for woreholes, they do use wormholes, I once had pirates came to me thru worm holes

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Just use galaxy forge; you can create multiple pirate bases easily, and you don't have to worry about the hassle of mucking around in the text file.  When there are multiple bases, they usually launch from the one closest to their intended target.  Pirates will not do star jumps or wormhole jumps.  There are some conditions on which they will return to their base rather than continuing an attack, one of them being their target planet was destroyed.  They do get stronger as the game goes on, and it is based (in part) on the bounty paid to them.  However, in practice the growth of player economies is a much greater reason for their increasing strength.

 

I tend to agree that pirates as they are right now are stupid.  Their attacks are senseless, their behavior quite unintelligent, and the game mechanics more annoying than interesting.  So, here are my thoughts on what should be done about pirates:

  1. More than one pirate raid can be active at a time.  Each group of raiders acts independently.  The number of raids (and strength thereof) is dependent on how long the game has been going on.
  2. Pirates raiding parties will decide their target based on three parameters:  risk, reward, distance, and competition.  They will favour less defended targets with higher reward (a combination of bounty, trade/refinery vessels, and perhaps logistical structures as well).  They will also avoid targets that are a long ways away, since it may no longer be a good target by the time they get there.  Finally, they will avoid competing with other pirate raiders who may be operating nearby.
  3. Pirates will re-evaluate their situation regularly, changing their targets or fleeing as they find appropriate.

This would have a couple of effects.  First, there would no longer be these inane bidding wars which are winner-take all. Because there are multiple pirate raids at once, and they prefer to avoid attacking the same target, multiple players will likely be attacked even if one has slightly more bounty.  It would also mean that if there is no bounty on you, the pirates might not even bother to attack.

Another effect of this system is that pirates would no longer be an excellent source of experience.  Because they suicide currently, the raids are often actually a benefit to the player who is attacked because they level up his capital ships.  If the pirates chose their target based on poor defenses and retreated when they were outgunned, actually killing them would be a challenge so you'd have to work for that experience.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

I would like to see the pirates with ships from the advent or vasiri. they also should be able to travel from star to star.

They need alot of improvment. Come on, show the pirates some love.See full size image

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting cwsault, reply 1
I've seen them return to their base after raids with use of PSIDAR, not sure what's needed for this though because they always act suicidal when attacking me (maybe if they clear out a planet they stop)?

They can also grow more powerful.  It's either due to high bounties being paid, high bounties being collected by successful raids, or the aforementioned finished raids returning and just hanging around (since each raid spawns a new fleet out of thin air and the ones at the base stay there).

 
End of cwsault's quote

They return to their base if and when they completely destroy everything in a Grav Well that's within their capabilities(If they have Pillagers, this includes bombing, if they don't, it doesn't), and only then.

THAT is also how pirates grow in numbers at their base as near as I can tell - Successful raiding parties return to the base and stay there as defenses. If every single Pirate that launches from the base in raiding parties are destroyed, their numbers at the base should never increase beyond the starting number.

But on topic, yes, the pirates need love.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

just look at the 7 Deadly Sins mod. Besides playing as the pirates, the Stock pirates (the guys who chill at the pirate base) were nearly revamped including:

- Custom Capital Ships

- abilty to Capture enemy ships

- Custom criusers including a carrier that has 4 (yes 4) squadrons, bombing capabilities, and rapid manyfacturing.

- other abilities including stopping and disabling ships, custom structures, Capturing enemy structures, andother neat stuff.