[Script][BBS] pirateID v1 - operate "alter ego" pirate fleet

[ttl]

pirate ID v1.0

This script adds a BBS entry to pirate stations, which allows you to hide under the cover of a pirate ID. While under cover, you can attack race assets with ships of pirate origin, and then come back at the pirate station to get your old ID, i.e. your old reputations, back. You need a pirate heavy fighter (M3) to install the ID to, plus 100'000 credits. The fighter will be taken from you, when your ID is returned.

download:

http://www.geocities.com/teelaurila/pirateIDv1.zip

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details in readme:

PirateID - identity scrambler v.1

This plugin adds a new BBS entry to pirate stations, which allows you to save your race reputations and take on a "pirate ID" for time being. Returning to this station will cause your reputations to return to their previous values, assuming you have not blown your cover while under the pirate ID. The pricetag for installing the pirate ID is 100k, plus your current ship when rep is returned. Your reputation will only be saved for races you are not hostile to ( rep>0 ). Thus you can openly wage war against one race while pirateID is active and protects your rep with other races.

The pirate ID can only be installed to an M3 class fighter of pirate origin. When you return to your honest ID, this fighter must be taken from you and scrapped, to prevent it from being traced. The pirate ID only works when you are in the same sector as this fighter, but you need not fly the fighter personally. When under cover, you can not be seen with a military, or "traceable", ship you own. The following ships are NOT traceable:

1) All pirate ships
2) All Yaki ships
3) All TS and TP class ships
4) Satellites and fighter drones

You will be exposed to race authorities, and will not be able to retain your reputation, if any of the following occurs:

1) You are in a different sector than the M3 the ID is installed to
2) A traceable ship you own is in the same sector as you
3) A traceable ship you own is hostile to a race. (Only applies to races for which your rep is saved)
4) The ID M3 is destroyed
5) Station you took the ID from is destroyed

The purpose is to allow the player to temporarily operate a pirate fleet, separate from his main activities. This fleet can be used for raiding the trade lanes, or possibly to conduct specific hits, as given by certain BBS missions (by other scripts). Or in any other unscrupulous activity you can come up with.

Note on mods: The pirate and Yaki ships include all ships used by the pirates (not hidden pirates) and Yaki. Used at the moment of taking the ID, to be precise. Thus extra pirate ships added by mods can readily be used, given the pirates actually use them, too. Also any ship can be hardcoded into the list in plugin.pirateID.create.pirati.xml . This means that, mods or scripts which add "honest" military race ships under pirate ownership, will interfere with the intended operation of this script.

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This the first script of mine that I "published", so please tell me if you find this useful or not. I hope this improves the pirate aspect of the game, since at least personally the rep. hit was more than enough to keep me steadily in the straight and narrow. Any comments and suggestions are welcome, especially on improving the gameplay balance. This might be too powerful a money-maker in the early game, or there might be a blatant abuse that I haven't thought of.

Cheers,
TTL

[matches]

BRILLIANT ttl! Thanks!

[voxol]

A good plan, I had a similar idea some time ago. It would be awesome to be a pirate and launder your money into a legit trading operation. Problem was, if you attacked a race you were also actively trading with, then your trade ships would be shot at when your notoriety drops, until you recover your 'real' ID. How have you got around this issue? Is it something to do with:

"3) A traceable ship you own is hostile to a race. (Only applies to races for which your rep is saved)"

So that would mean you have to keep your traders out of enemy territory or they'll be shot at, automatically turn hostile, and you get caught? You also have to manually set all your ships to be friendly to a race and turn off the option to 'see as enemy if enemy to you' for all your ships? - could be tedious if you have a large fleet.

I'd be interested to know the dynamics of this, it sounds like a perfect script, depending how you handle these issues.

[ttl]

Thanks for the encouragement, greatly appreciated

@voxol:
If your rep. with a race drops enough for them to become hostile, they will attack all your assets in their space. If any of those assets are military ships, you will get caught, since those ships will return fire. If you only have TSs and stations in their space, those will get destroyed, but you shouldn't get caught. Probably not a good idea regardless. This is intentional. You can only go so far against a race if you have assets in their space, even "under cover".

This can present a certain problem with UTs even if you have no fixed assets in a races space. They should not venture to hostile space, however, since they are not allowed to land. So you just need to give enough time between reps. of "hostile enough not to allow landing" and "will fire on sight" for your UTs and CAGs to clear the space of that race. It matters not if your traders accidentally become hostile to a race, since TSs are not "traceable".

The idea of
"3) A traceable ship you own is hostile to a race. (Only applies to races for which your rep is saved)"
is that you could otherwise wield the full might of your military fleet against a race OOS, and then get away with it.

There shouldn't be a need to manually set all your ships to "no" on "show as enemy if hostile to me". I didn't while testing this. You can use the global settings to set all ships to friendly to all races, this is particularly important for captured ships. You do need to keep your military fleet away from a race, if you pirate from them enough to make them openly hostile. And you better not have stations in their space. If you set "no" to "show as enemy if hostile to me" for all your military ships, they shouldn't get you caught by returning fire. Obviously they will die if you don't retreat them, though.

[voxol]

Ah ok, probably the best workaround possible, good job.

So, just to make sure I understand, its only possible to be a pirate with 2 ships, yours and your Pirate ship. If you bring any other ships into it, you will get caught..?

[ttl]

No. You can use as many ships as you want/can. The ships can also be either IS or OOS, but pirating OOS doesn't really yield much, I think. Although I must confess I haven't tried.

All the ships you use for attacking must be pirate ships, i.e. Pirate xxx or Yaki fighters in the vanilla game. You can also use TS and TP ships for hauling the loot, or attack with if you really want to. This is because the AI can only attack a ship it is hostile to (at least with stock scripts), and your ships that are of race military type (=traceable) can't be hostile to a race.

Furthermore, you must stay in the same sector as the pirate M3 you took the ID with. But you can fly some other pirate ship, or a TS or TP, too. And there must be no traceable ships of yours in this sector. Your OOS pirate ships can attack race assets, and can be in the same sector as you traceable ships. It would be very difficult to change this, as all TSs are considered "pirate". I don't think this is very serious as OOS pirating isn't too profitable (I think).

Finally you don't have to fly the same M3 when you dock to get your old ID back. But it does need to be in sector upto this point, as always.

It's sort of complicated to explain, but not overly complex in the end. Just don't attack with military ships, and keep them OOS. Note that TLs are considered military, or traceable. Please do ask if somethings left unclear.