Its a Pirates Life For Me

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

In life there are always consequences.

Any act of piracy will have consquences. This could be reputation loss, attacks by the local police, military and
stations in the vicinity. Suffer a large enough reputation loss and your assets maybe attacked wherever they are.

I would also expect any ship that is under any threat would immediately broadcast a distress signal. So bringing in
any local police, militia to help protect the victim.


Theft.

Ship Destruction: You destroy a ship it leaves behind some cargo. The consequences for this would be the largest,
especially if the crew died in the attack. The size of the ship destroyed may also be a factor in determining
exactly what retribution is exacted.

Extortion: You communicate with the ship's captain and demand he drop his cargo. Now depending on the ship you are
in and the ship you are extorting from, this scenario can go off in many different ways.

Lets assume you are in a small fighter and the trade ship is a medium one. Now the trade ship may not have any
weaponry at all. So depending on the morale of the captain, this is a scenario where you are likely to see some
cargo dropped. If however the trade ship is large or even extra large, then the captain may well order his defence
officer to open fire and remove this idiot pirate with extreme prejudice. However you turn up in the biggest baddest
capital ship and again the odds are probably in your favour.

Hacking: Well hacking is everywhere, in real life and in lots of different games. The version in Rebirth could do with
a bit of a revamp.

What I would like to suggest is a hacking tool. There are lots of examples out there. Now when you start your career
you will not have such a tool but will have to obtain one. Of course at the outset it is rather primitive and will not
open a lot of doors for you. So how to improve your tool and gain access to more riches? Well there are lots of possible
avenues, rare drops, missions, crafting etc. Your rank amongst the pirate factions may earn you access to better mods for
your hacking tool.

So armed with a hacking tool you should now be able to hack ships and eventually work you way up to stations and maybe even
special rewards.

What of the consequences for hacking. Well lets assume you fail the hacking attempt, or that there is always a small chance
of discovery even if successful. Then like every other act of piracy its going to cause you problems in one way or another.

Boarding: Send in the marines and take possession of the entire ship. Well theres lots of ways that this could be done.
There is only one thing I would like to add here, what happens to the crew of the ship if the boarding is successful?
Are we allowed to make them walk the plank or send them on their way in an escape pod?

[RAVEN.myst]

Nice.
The hacking tool reminds me of Mass Effect and other, RPGesque games. I like the notion of none to start with, and several levels of upgrade/power available - just like many other things in the X-universe (going on the assumption that Rebirth is the most current and thus the most relevant for use in examples: scanners, softwares, weapons, shields, engines...)

I also like the notion that even if successful, the hack may be traced back - very good point (and, conversely, undetected failures also ought to be possible - couldn't crack the firewall, but was adept enough not to set off any alarms, not to raise any red flags - realised it wasn't going to work and backed off before pushing his/her luck.)

I'd like to add another level of marine boarding, suggested by Killjaeden in a nearby thread: the theft raid. Marines board a freighter, penetrate the cargobay, disable defenses and defenders, liberate some cargo, and then GTFO. If they are too slow prying loose the cargo, enemy reinforcements from elsewhere on the ship arrive. So, not a full-scale boarding intended to take control of the ship, only a quick in-and-out operation aimed at gaining limited access to a (usually) less-inhabited part of the ship. This would also have the advantage of adding nuance to the marines and boarding aspects.

And yes, consequences. ALL such games (that I've played, at least - I've played quite a few, though) are much too forgiving. Reputation is treated as an easily tradeable commodity, easy come easy go. However, in life it's a lot easier to break trust than it is to gain it, and I believe that this should be reflected in games. EVE Online has an interesting twist on the reputation thing: if you have a very good standing, it does NOT buy you the license to get away with murder - on the contrary, the higher your standing, the more that faction feels betrayed if you stab it in the back (which, I believe, is as it ought to be.) Furthermore, the higher your standing the slower you can improve it (much as in the Xs.) However, the converse isn't true: if you have terrible standing, it's not the easiest time to gain standing, it is in fact really difficult - the easiest "upward mobility" of reputation is around the middle and upper middle - if you are neutral, you can impress people, as they have no preconceptions, no strong feelings toward/about you - but once you get a reputation (in either direction), improving your public image gets harder.

[As mentioned elsewhere, I also think that criminals ought to be able to "wash" their identity if necessary, with varying costs and degrees of success - being on the most-wanted list may require plastic surgery and genetic alteration to get around, for instance. Essentially, identity should be a more malleable thing, just as it is in reality - not just for the sake of realism itself, but more for the sake of play opportunities that would present, if implemented elegantly.]

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

The Pirate Economy

First off, where are we going to find pirates? There is still piracy in the world, its usually found
near to failing states, where there is no effective government. So I would not expect to see piracy off
the coast of England.

Pirates are not stupid, they don't want to die they want to steal stuff, including ships and all of their cargo.
Modern pirates tend to ransom ships for money.

So in a game world I would expect pirates to stay away from well defended areas and for them to capture ships
and their cargo. Why would they take ships? As raw materials for the production of their own heavily armoured
and beweaponed ships.

The pirates need shipyards with their own distinct and peculiar economy, which is built on slavery.

Pirates may well harvest raw materials and process them, but all their stations use slaves.

So captured ships and cargo are taken to the shipyard to be deconstructed and / or repurposed. Captured crew become slaves.

A player who wishes to be a pirate therefore has a sink for boarded ships, the cargo it contains and any crew captured.

[Kitty]

The Pirate Economy

First off, where are we going to find pirates? There is still piracy in the world, its usually found
near to failing states, where there is no effective government. So I would not expect to see piracy off
the coast of England.

Pirates are not stupid, they don't want to die they want to steal stuff, including ships and all of their cargo.
Modern pirates tend to ransom ships for money.

Most of this is true, yes.
BUT:
- we also have pirates that lurk near effective states... that just act as blind because of political reasons, if not helping them
- we have also organized criminals within organized states (yes, there are carjacking IN great brittain)
- we can observe road pirates on trans-european roads ; yes they rarely attack in France and/or Germany (in fact, never heard of such things in France, which does not means it never happens), but Poland and other countries in the zone suffer this ; I would hardly call Poland a failing state, hm ? Well. It's debatable.

Yet, pirates are not stupid. They attack because they think that there is a reasonnable chance to make profits and to still live free to use it.

I would expect the return of pirate ships: ships capable to attack a cargo ship, and capable to run away with the loot, quickly. These ships may not be able to engage a fighter, but I would expect that they can board.

Thinking of it, a goot TM of X3TC is the nearest I can see in this game: can shoot, can hold a small set of light fighters and some soldiers, and can hold enough cargo for many loots. Halas, just a little too slow. M6 are too expensive. Fighters cannot hold enough loot. TS and TP cannot fight.

I'm eager to see what will be proposed as pirate ships in X4.
I would love to have the possibility to build ships from components like "structure", "life support", "energy", "motor", "cargo", etc... when I'll have my own shipyard. Disbanding stolen/second hand ships to get parts and to reassamble them my way would be fun.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Pirate Technology

There has long been a tradition, that the pirates in X games had access to exclusive technologies, not available anywhere else.

I personally would like to see this continue and be expanded upon.

First of all we need to have a number of illegal items, not just inventory but large scale illegal items.

So slaves, radioactive materials and other toxic substances, dangerous drugs, virulent plague viruses.

Then we need to have unique weapons, missiles, ships, shields, engines, paint jobs, cloaking devices,
scanners, hacking tools, explosives.

Pirates as a fully fledged Faction.

With missions chains, allowing the player to be a marauder, assassin, saboteur, trafficker, smuggler, badass.

The player should be able to build pirate stations and pirate ships.

[astreus]

What I found to be a big mistake is the transparent sight who is who.

When I attack a ship, would I turn on my transponder (or something like that) to tell everybody around: 'he, it's me!'

Out there in deep space, if I destroy a ship, left nobody alive, no other ship in communication or scanner range, who the hell could tell the police far away it was me? Do I leave my business card at the wreck? Or my fingerprints? It would be not a good idea to finger something in space without gloves....

It's a bit too easy with rep lost function.....or?

Pirates would not show up being Pirates until they attack. So, they won't come along market red, but blue. But when they attack, then they are red for you.

In real life they always tried to hide their plan (and who they are) as long as possible.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

There has always been some silliness around pirates in X games.

Why should anybody know that a ship is a pirate ship unless they are in an
area where its obvious that all of the ships are pirates?

In Rebirth there was quite a bit of this, you could board and capture ship after ship if you just hung around in the right zones.

It was possible to remove the entire pirate threat from a sector by just sitting
near a jump beacon and watching the stations totally annihilate all inbound pirate ships.

Sorry but pirates, should not suffer this kind of behaviour. Have them cloaked, broadcasting fake IDs. Until they start attacks they should seem to be ordinary ships.

A player should have to do a scan to reveal a pirate ship, as should the local police and militia.

[RAVEN.myst]

Out there in deep space, if I destroy a ship, left nobody alive, no other ship in communication or scanner range, who the hell could tell the police far away it was me? Do I leave my business card at the wreck? Or my fingerprints? ...
Pirates would not show up being Pirates until they attack. So, they won't come along market red, but blue. But when they attack, then they are red for you.

In real life they always tried to hide their plan (and who they are) as long as possible.

and

Why should anybody know that a ship is a pirate ship unless they are in an area where its obvious that all of the ships are pirates?
...
Sorry but pirates, should not suffer this kind of behaviour. Have them cloaked, broadcasting fake IDs. Until they start attacks they should seem to be ordinary ships.

Yes, this is what I've been saying (here or elsewhere, my eyes are still glued half-shut from sleep ) Pirates, except perhaps the occasional really inept one that happens to have also become 'most wanted', wouldn't go around advertising their intent. A mugger tends to act innocent in order to get the drop on his victim; in my city, carjackers are known to sometimes *literally* lie in wait in tall grass at intersections, to jump out and pounce on opportune targets selectively - they don't have to take the first target that comes along, but get to pick that juicy luxury car or that popular hard-to-track make/model, letting the rattletraps and the excessively hard targets alike go by unchallenged without revealing their presence, let alone their identity.

A player should have to do a scan to reveal a pirate ship, as should the local police and militia.

Yes, as it is done in X3TC and X3AP - some pirate ships show up as regular blues, but when scanned betray their true nature (this may even have started earlier, in X3R or even X2, but I can't remember for sure; however, in X3TC it is pointed out after a fashion in the main campaign plot, and the mechanic also exists outside of the campaign.) Sometimes, there is something incongruous about them in the first place, some clue that "something's not quite right here", so the attentive player can go "haaaaang on a sec!" and reach for the ship-scanner.

[However, arguably this should not be guaranteed to succeed every time - a cheap ID spoof job might show up quickly and surely, or perhaps something about the ship's interior configuration/items aboard (parrot and eyepatch detected on the captain ) is a dead give-away - but other times, if the pirate has taken the time, trouble, and expense to cover his identity properly, such telltale signs may be absent - he's hidden his equivalent of the spark-plug-on-a-chain in a well-concealed compartment, is carrying no (again easily found) illegal weapons, has changed his Betty not to say "YARRRR!" and "Ahoy, matey", etc. However, chance of success/failure here would merely be a refinement of this concept that needs to be reimplemented first.]

[Alith-Ahnar]

Some good ideas and arguments to be found here.

Still i am under the impression people tend to mix up Criminal syndicates, Smugglers and Pirates.
True while Pirates could be part of a Criminal Organization that also has Smugglers this is not a necessary fact in real life.

One if not the number on feature on the list would be to separate smugglers and pirates from a single entity (faction).

Instead having a Faction relation as with for example Split, Paranid, Teladi and what is this other called again the boring one ... ah .. yes Arssgons i believe.
Players should have something like a repsheet or alingment instead.

Just throwing everything criminal into one big pot called pirates is to convenient and reduces granularity.

[RAVEN.myst]

True while Pirates could be part of a Criminal Organization that also has Smugglers this is not a necessary fact in real life.

One if not the number on feature on the list would be to separate smugglers and pirates from a single entity (faction).
...
Just throwing everything criminal into one big pot called pirates is to convenient and reduces granularity.

I agree completely - turning "pirates" into a monolithic single faction would be a horribly reductive oversimplification. As I've suggested elsewhere, criminals should come in a variety of shapes and sizes: yes, you would have some organized criminal syndicates (some even highly organized - and here the Yaki spring to mind, which are effectively a small sovereign state) on one end of the scale, while on the other you'd have individual, unaffiliated criminals (lone muggers/pickpockets/housebreakers, to use an everyday analogy), with an entire spectrum of possibilities in between - small gangs, larger gangs, small syndicates - you name it. And they would certainly not all be allied with each other, simply because they share a life outlook! Especially considering that it's a selfish, predatory outlook. No, instead, there should in fact be bitter rivalries as well as shifting alliances of convenience, takeovers, turf wars... An unaffiliated lone criminal operating in a gang's or syndicate's turf would likely inspire as much ire as would cops (the unregistered thief active in a thieving guild's territory and thus not following guild practices and paying guild dues, so to speak.) Just because a player is persona non grata with the authorities should also not mean that any other criminals automagically and immediately welcome him/her with open arms - it's perhaps likely that smart up-and-comiong independents may find it convenient to team up, but established organisations may well take a very dim view indeed, especially if the player's activities might draw unwelcome law-enforcement attention to that territory.

And yes, "division of labour" - a large criminal organisation may well include a variety of criminal types: pirates ("acquisitions"), enforcers ("security" and "accounts receivable"), smugglers ("logistics/distribution"), hackers ("marketing"? "Operations"? "Market research"?), slavers ("HR"), money launderers ("accounts") and so on. Smaller gangs would more likely specialise in a field - they might, for example, be a group of pirates, who then deal with some other small specialists or a larger body in order to fence their booty and acquire specialised equipment, weapons, identity services, and so forth. The underworld is often a very intricate economy in its own right, subject to rules that often are not too dissimilar to those of legitimate economies, if more permissive in terms of methods employed...

[astreus]

Eh guys, don't ask for a complete real life environment....specially for pirates
Show mercy to the developer and their financial manager. This would be too much complicated.

Just simple would be fine enough:

As long as pirates are not scanned with a, say, police scanner or start illegal action, they should show up blue to me.
If I have good relation ship to the fraction of the sector I am in, they (online) pass me their sector info, so if they detect pirates, I know them red.

More interesting is, as said, when I am out in deep space, out of range of any such scanner, ship or whatever.......... just me and my target, who the hell could report my action except me (in case I shoot xenon, back to station, I will show my 'verfiied' combat protocol the police - or this could be done automaticaly - but NOT for any of my pirate actions, hehe, here I will erase the record or shut off the recorder... ....hmmm too easy?

Additional, I found it stupid, when my other(remote) ships move on towards enemy / pirates(when red) ships - which already seen on radar, doing nothing to get out of here or hide in time. They always react when it is too late = under fire.

[spankahontis]

I like the idea that you scan modules in order to create a Blueprint so you can build that module.

I'd love to see AI Pirate factions randomly emerge and form their own empires.
That way it is different every play through.

For instance, a Pirate called "Bob" starts off as a small time Pirate, competing with many other AI Pirate Factions.
Making more money than other factions, while other Pirate Factions aren't lucky enough to grow to be a threat and are wiped out by rival factions. A single Pirate AI grows in the number of ships they own and starts building their own Stations, producing their own wares and growing their fleet that they become a problem to others.

Scanning modules for Blueprints as a Mission for these Pirate Factions, you're making money off them while at the same time, helping that Pirate Faction grow; in the end helping that Pirate Faction could bite you on the ass later when they grow too powerful.

[RAVEN.myst]

As long as pirates are not scanned with a, say, police scanner or start illegal action, they should show up blue to me.
If I have good relation ship to the fraction of the sector I am in, they (online) pass me their sector info, so if they detect pirates, I know them red.

Nice, and nice.

More interesting is, as said, when I am out in deep space, out of range of any such scanner, ship or whatever.......... just me and my target, who the hell could report my action except me ...
...
Additional, I found it stupid, when my other(remote) ships move on towards enemy / pirates(when red) ships - which already seen on radar, doing nothing to get out of here or hide in time. They always react when it is too late = under fire.

Agreed, and agreed.

I like the idea that you scan modules in order to create a Blueprint so you can build that module.

I'd love to see AI Pirate factions randomly emerge and form their own empires.
That way it is different every play through.

I *really* like this idea - apply emergent dynamics to piracy (makes sense, too.)

Scanning modules for Blueprints as a Mission for these Pirate Factions, you're making money off them while at the same time, helping that Pirate Faction grow; in the end helping that Pirate Faction could bite you on the ass later when they grow too powerful.

Or could result in a useful alliance and further employment opportunities for the player, if the player wants to go down that path...

[astreus]

The idea that pirates (or fractions) grow if doing lucky, is fine but not possible with the actual AI/tasks.

Since past X... till XR pirates have just one job:
Being cannon fodder for the player, either in mission or to increase the game attraction on behalf of battle action.

With the known economic logic (which is not bad, it's ok), price of ships & equipment and the effort how to raise that money for, pirates will smashup right after they start.

Just think about buying a group of fighters and try to command them to attack just targets on which you see a REAL CHANCE to win - then calc your expenses.....
Pirates seen in X3 or XP attack most with absolute no chance to win! Station defend mission XR - he, a senseless waste of ships or when a few Pirates (Xenon as well) fighter run (blind?) into a Argon task force (M1+M7+...). No, they do not use their speed and run away - they attack! Every Kamikaze in WW2 had much more chance to hit the enemy hard than this poor pirate ships.

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

How about the pirates being funded by a "legitimate" faction.

There are many precedents for this. Indeed in the Elizabethan era.

"English pirates were magically transformed into patriot-heros when their plundering was directed against the enemies of the Crown. The Queen herself was known to have loaned ships and taken her share of the loot from marauding expeditions aimed at Spanish or French shipping."

So in a space based future, we can imagine factions / corporations funding
pirates to attack their rivals and to disrupt the opponent's trade.

Indeed the plot in Rebirth centred around one such corporation.

So the corporation establishes a base in a remote part of space to build ships
and to supply a rogue contingent, for use in harassing its competitors.

This group of marauders would then have missions to upset the competition.

[spankahontis]

As long as pirates are not scanned with a, say, police scanner or start illegal action, they should show up blue to me.
If I have good relation ship to the fraction of the sector I am in, they (online) pass me their sector info, so if they detect pirates, I know them red.

Nice, and nice.

More interesting is, as said, when I am out in deep space, out of range of any such scanner, ship or whatever.......... just me and my target, who the hell could report my action except me ...
...
Additional, I found it stupid, when my other(remote) ships move on towards enemy / pirates(when red) ships - which already seen on radar, doing nothing to get out of here or hide in time. They always react when it is too late = under fire.

Agreed, and agreed.

I like the idea that you scan modules in order to create a Blueprint so you can build that module.

I'd love to see AI Pirate factions randomly emerge and form their own empires.
That way it is different every play through.

I *really* like this idea - apply emergent dynamics to piracy (makes sense, too.)

Scanning modules for Blueprints as a Mission for these Pirate Factions, you're making money off them while at the same time, helping that Pirate Faction grow; in the end helping that Pirate Faction could bite you on the ass later when they grow too powerful.

Or could result in a useful alliance and further employment opportunities for the player, if the player wants to go down that path...

They say there wont be Diplomacy as far as I know in X4?
But nothing is stopping them from creating a similar Rebirth style chain mission on the level of Diplomatic aid.
Give the player the opportunity to win respect of the Pirate Clan?

Or missions that help a rival topple them. Or even a mission where you secretly conspire to topple your allied Pirate Faction in order to bring balance to the other Pirates and have them war with each other rather than having a 'unified' Pirate threat.

Also the ability to be recognized as the top Pirate boss would be pretty awesome, Other Pirates below you try to topple you, or have authorities class you as a major threat through your smuggling and looting of ships and stations and try to have you assassinated or military action to have your fleets and stations eradicated.

It's endless the possibilities for Piracy in the X Universe to occur.. From bus boy to gangster boss.

[Nanook]

...
Pirates would not show up being Pirates until they attack. So, they won't come along market red, but blue....

They sure would if they had unique ships as suggested above. Can't have both, so choose: invisible pirates or unique pirate ships.

[RAVEN.myst]

...
Pirates would not show up being Pirates until they attack. So, they won't come along market red, but blue....

They sure would if they had unique ships as suggested above. Can't have both, so choose: invisible pirates or unique pirate ships.

Ah, but a "unique pirate ship" could also be disguised - it could be made to look like another externally, or more likely could be an existing ship with internal functional modifications made for extra weapons, speed, or cargo capacity, depending on what that pirate's speciality/role is. Of course, adopting this approach would reduce visual uniqueness, but it would add intrigue - a visual identification of a ship would no longer be enough in some situations (and I would say that the ship's scanner should *initially* be IDing ships on a visual basis, with a detailed scan being needed to discover differences.)

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Avast there ye lubbers tis

Tuesday, 19 September
International Talk Like a Pirate Day 2017

So come me hearties, break out the grog and lets have a drink to the captain.

Ooh Arrgh! Now where did I leave my stuffed parrot?

On a more serious note, I think we can have distinctive ships and more secretive ones.

Some people just want to show off and fly the Jolly Roger and be seen.
Others prefer to get a whole lot closer before revealing their colours.

So splice the main brace and lets keelhaul the captives from that last ship
we plundered.

[RAVEN.myst]

On a more serious note, I think we can have distinctive ships and more secretive ones.

Agreed.

Some people just want to show off and fly the Jolly Roger and be seen.

Perhaps in a (stolen) ship shaped (infinitely improbably) like a running shoe...