Pirates = Looters

[Alith-Ahnar]

Has it been mentioned somewhere that this time Pirates act like pirate?

Running around destroying everything instead of disable and plunder ain't that sustainable longterm.

Would love to see pirates disable propulsion and shields and com trade ships to drop Cargo instead of going straight for the throat.

[Falcrack]

On the topic of pirates, will they be subject to the same rules of "no spawning from thin air"? In other words, if they do exist, will they owe their existence to their success or failure at looting and criminal activities?

Honestly though, I find the obsession of space games (and space gamers) in general with pirates to be kind of stupid really. I never really enjoyed their existence in X3 or Rebirth. They seemed like just an excuse to put into the game to justify the guns on the ship.

Inter faction warfare would be much more interesting than having to contend with random homicidal maniacs flying around in friendly space trying to blow up ships.

[ADMNtek]

have to agree. in most games the so called pirates are nothing more than terrorists. and i so hope thatz it will be possible to exterminate them like any other faction.

[RAVEN.myst]

I think that piracy, if properly conducted as described in the OP, is not only justifiable but necessary. It is something that can and has (and to this day does to some extent still continue to) happen - criminals (muggers are essentially "pirates", by the way) preying on the defenseless or underdefended for their own gain ie. yes, not just for the sake of making things go BOOM. But as mentioned above, I also believe they ought to be handled in an economically consistent fashion. This latter would entail not just their own shipbuilding or modifying abilities, but some limited industry (not a full economy, obviously - pirates do things their way because it's EASIER than to w*rk honest jobs), as well as an underground trade economy ie. black market - looted items that are of no immediate use to them would then be smuggled through back-channels into the legitimate economies and fenced, and likewise some hard-to-acquire via piracy items would make their way outward. Piracy is inherently parasitic in that it takes what it wants/needs from its host society, and then also has to interact with that society to diversify its commodities as needed (muggers will take your money and then go buy what they need/want with it, as well as taking your valuables in order to fence them for money, once again in order to be able to buy stuff) - consequently, the location of piracy also needs to be factored in: you wouldn't have pirates operating in Xenon territory, for example - much too high-risk, and then requiring too much effort to fence highly specialised tech, with little immediately usable booty to be had; they would obviously stick to outskirts of civilization in order to make it harder to be stamped out, while allowing them to prey on isolated convoys - escape and anonymity are important factors for them. So you shouldn't see these mindless raids you see in Rebirth where squads of pirates suicide against stations: there's no dividend there - extreme risk (aka 'certain death') with little prospects for gain.

On the other hand, however, criminals DO also hide in plain sight, so I think there should be black market/underground opportunities at established stations: given some sort of effort on the player's part, including reputations with other factions and how much enmity a player has engendered with the pirates, it ought to be possible for a player to interact with criminals in ways other than only the adversarial. Also, pirates shouldn't always be monolithic organisations - while there's certainly such a thing as "organised crime" and it's usually a formidable force, the majority of crime is informal and disparate. So one's relations with pirates ought not to be homogeneous (and this is where X3TC/AP handled it not too badly, in a rudimentary sense) - not necessarily are all pirates immediately hostile; conversely, even if a player is on good terms with a pirate organisation, it shouldn't guarantee safety from unaffiliated pirates, or even some members of that organisation (after all, thugs who are not constrained by moral/ethical considerations tend to have a high incidence of hotheads and opportunists that are willing to act on their aggressive impulses.)

EDIT: Just to expand on some notions for a pirate economy: I think it would make it interesting if pirates also engaged in boarding operations, to bolster their fleets. Additionally, I would expect their ships to be less homogeneous, but rather composed of often ragtag assortments of ships and weapons - essentially, whatever they carjacked, wielding whatever weapons they've scavenged from ships that wouldn't give up their cargo and needed some stronger persuasion (this would necessitate a return to previous Xs' system of installed weapons being possible loot drops - which I think would be a good thing overall in any case.)

Also, another aspect, anonymity: I don't think pirates should be automagically identifiable as such, certainly not the more successful ones. It's extremely rare for a social predator to walk around advertising his/her nature to the world! So, most pirates (along with all or nearly all of their smugglers and such) would declare their identity as private citizens, modify their ident transponders to impersonate the signatures of bona fide factions, and so on - rather than always immediately showing up as red. Of course, you could have their identities get compromised and them end up on most-wanted lists, which would make those particular ones immediately identifiable. Also, a pirate that attacked an innocent would get its identity broadcast (except if it silenced its prey quickly enough, perhaps), and would then show up as a known felon until such time as able to return to an underground location (not literally, of course) in order to change ship, or re-hack the transponder, or whatever.)

A more all-round handling of piracy would allow the player to assume that as a role/career, which in previous Xs could be done (albeit in somewhat limited fashion), but which in Rebirth is almost absent (as there's no way, as far as I can tell, to make friends with the true pirate factions, and even The Cartel and Uguras Armaments are flawed in how one can interact with them.)

[Killjaeden]

As a privateering expert i expect to be backstabbed by folks with similar aspirations (but lack of talent or intelligence...). But i dont expect everyone in this business to take note and hate me for it, when some clown wannabe pirate decides to take on the most powerfull pirate in the universe and gets pulverized in return. Put plainly: Pirates spawn with random relation to the player in X3. Even if you have high reputation with the "pirate faction", hostile pirates will spawn. When they attack you, you lose reputation with all pirates... This is just silly. Either have them as one faction and have them behave consistent (not very fitting), or make it so that they are not a faction, but many diverse groups. Every single pirate base, outpost or even patrol group could have their own reputation counter, obviously a bit more simplified/ not with as many ranks. This requires an overhaul over the underlying reputation system.

In fact, i think faction based notoriety does not give a lot of leverage and interesting mission/gameplay possibilities.
What i propose is to add a behaviour rating system - maliciousness<>benevolency, agressiveness<>peacefullness, honesty<>dishonesty - stuff like this can offer a wide variety of applications for game and mission design.

In the operation, pirates should use some intelligence... shooting up any random transport is idiotic (maybe rookies will do it). Intelligent business men like myself search for ships with particularly valuable cargo, and protect the base-trade vessels -> because they keep the economy flowing to produce said valuable goods. They need to shadow the trade lanes. Except heres the issue - in XR you have highways, so you can only chase them and scan every ship per chance, as the ships are way faster in normal flight. In X3 you could strategically chose to lurk in a where tradelanes from many "high tech" centers crossed and make enormous profits from that.

What needs the most improvement is the responses and consequences of stealing cargo, persons or ships. First response should be form law enforcement and later bounty hunters (depending on location and severety). And with a good system that would work both ways - for players to get missions to hunt a pirate, or for npc's to hunt the player.

In X3 and XR the consequences where laughable. Stealing cargo in XR is consequence free, just like stealing from lockers What age rating did XR have again?

[Kitty]

Lots if very intelligent ideas over there.

But:

Honestly though, I find the obsession of space games (and space gamers) in general with pirates to be kind of stupid really. I never really enjoyed their existence in X3 or Rebirth. They seemed like just an excuse to put into the game to justify the guns on the ship.

Pirates are a definitive fun part of the game. X3 is a broadband sandbox game. It does many things, each of them poorly, but the whole is fun. Pirates are not exception. I agree it is frustrating to see dummy killers. But what about people selling you a nova for 200k at 20km from the shipyard where you can sell it 800k ?

This is a game, dude. And we love to have pirates, because it is fun.

Anyway, I agree with other posts saying that they could be nearer to reality. In our planet, you know, there are pirates. They take ships. They take hostages. They take also trucks on the roads. They rarely destroy ships, because they just want to sell them. X4 pirates could be like this. Or not. What I expect is a game where this is fun. And I will know if this is fun when I'll be playing. If it's too realistic, we will loose cargo ships but will never fight with pirates because we will not wait days for their next random attack, just to hear it was on another cargo at the other side of the universe. Not fun.

You know, interior walking was asked by the community, and it is one of the reasons of X:R failure. Highways were asked by the community as replacement for gates. This is another failure of X:R, even if much less discussed. Beware of what we ask for.


Side note. Many people love the films about pirates in caribeans - you know, with this guy named Sparrow. Do you find it realistic in any way ?

[Santi]

I like pirates but only if they are a full fledged faction, with own ships, weapons wares, stations and so on. Lots and lots of work but it is worthy for some reasons

They do add a level of difficulty to the game and they do help immersion. Nothing like hostiles showing in your radar when piloting a fat merchant ship.

Being able to play from the other side of the law, being a pirate, smuggler, thief or mercenary are always roles that call to the players.

Otherwise is that with no pirates you cannot engage in combat without a hit to your relations with the "proper" factions of the game. Say you play as a trader, so you want to have good relations with everybody. Pirate factions allows you to engage in combat with no damage to those relations.

[Alith-Ahnar]

This is a game, dude. And we love to have pirates, because it is fun.

It is a game it is about fun is such a over used and rated phrase.

Games are not supposed to be fun they are supposed to be engaging that might equal for certain people to be fun.

Some Games are all fun other are the challenge and some are story and there are that mix those up.

If i wanted to play a fun space Game i could play something goofy like Star Fox, that one is all about fun.

For me fun is something that comes with a challenge either via the game or goals that i do set for myself.

That's what a good Sandbox game makes or breaks for me, as Sandbox does not equal free for all but a extensive collection of rules and assets to work with and shape the experience with what the game hands to me as tools.

Think about it if everything would only be motivated and designed around fun why bother with factions and economics or station building or even that pesky space ship flying reduce it to something like Goat Simulator in Space.

Certainly this post sounds harsh even as it is not supposed to be, it is supposed to make people take a step back from all to often use the out of jail card "It is all about fun".

[Kitty]

This is a game, dude. And we love to have pirates, because it is fun.

Games are not supposed to be fun they are supposed to be engaging that might equal for certain people to be fun.

No. Games are supposed to be fun. When I wanted be be engaged, I married. When I wanted to learn, I opened a book. When I wanted to earn money, I got a job. And yes, this does not prevent me to find my job fun most of the time and to find a marriage challanging, and to find some games educational.
If a game is boring, I stop playing, and I expect many of us would do.

But, agreed, not everybody has fun with the same things.

Yes, challenge is fun (if it is balanced enough so that we have a chance to do something and/or to progress). Indeed, unchallanging games, what are they ? Films ?

[RAVEN.myst]

Indeed, unchallanging games, what are they ? Films ?

I enjoyed that comment, hehehe...
In fact, they are films in which you have to keep clicking and stuff just to keep it rolling - to manually wind the projector, so to speak...

[Morkonan]

Has it been mentioned somewhere that this time Pirates act like pirate?

Running around destroying everything instead of disable and plunder ain't that sustainable longterm.

Would love to see pirates disable propulsion and shields and com trade ships to drop Cargo instead of going straight for the throat.

In X3TC, pirates would attack merchants, who would then usually jettison some cargo, eventually, but the pirates wouldn't stop attacking them after that. (At least I don't remember them doing so.) So, it may have just been a trigger that was overlooked. ie: Pirates attack merchant, merchant may, or may not, eventually jettison some cargo. If target jettisons cargo, random/100 - rep difference check to see if pirates continue attack or go after cargo.

I don't ever remember seeing any pirate actually pick up an cargo, though. The flight would just get back into formation and continue on... until one of them bumped into a gate or something...

So, yeah, a bit more improvement on their behavior would be welcomed.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

XR pirates stop to collect the loot of their victims so I'd imagine that X4 will have improvements over the purely homicidal approach X3 too.

[RAVEN.myst]

XR pirates stop to collect the loot of their victims ...

And a damn good thing, too, not just on principle, but also because if not for this, it would be impossible by a certain point for any trader to get past the Marauder blockade in Serpentine Haze. As it stands, though, at any given time some of those marauders are too busy picking through their ill-gotten booty, to bother attacking someone else (unless provoked, of course.) Also, those Marauders only attack freighters carrying cargo (meaning that it's possible to buy the excellent Vulture freighters without worrying about losing them every time straight out the gate), which is pretty much as it ought to be - no profit in pissing off people without getting something else out of it...

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

[MegaJohnny]

XR pirates stop to collect the loot of their victims so I'd imagine that X4 will have improvements over the purely homicidal approach X3 too.

Have you observed this happening? I do remember the introduction of move.plunder, but sadly I still only ever see "Marauder" ships spawn 20km out from a station and feed themselves to the targon tracers. To know the plundering is happening as intended somewhere would make me very pleased.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

XR pirates stop to collect the loot of their victims so I'd imagine that X4 will have improvements over the purely homicidal approach X3 too.

Have you observed this happening? I do remember the introduction of move.plunder, but sadly I still only ever see "Marauder" ships spawn 20km out from a station and feed themselves to the targon tracers. To know the plundering is happening as intended somewhere would make me very pleased.

The feature was first trialed and introduced with the Teladi Outpost DLC. I've watched it happening in Fields Of Opportunity and it's pretty cool.

I'm under the impression that the feature was ported over to pirate ships with cargobays in other parts the galaxy later on (4.0?). Having said that, looking back at the changelogs I can't see a related entry so I'm not entirely sure now.

[Killjaeden]

Shooting something until it explodes and then hoping for scraps to pick up is very inefficient and a silly mechanic that ingrained itself in people from standard shooter/roleplay games...

The cargo stealing in XR itself is just bad. "Hack" (if you can call that minigame that) random points on the model to have it conveniently catapult it outwards. It's a bad mechanic - it doesnt add anything interesting, it's just tedious and removes any interaction with the crew of the victim ship.

X3 way wasnt interesting either, but at least you interacted with the pilot and he may be stubborn and simply would not be intimidated by you - this is something that should be expanded upon - having it depend on your ships power, your maliciousness, dishonesty and agressiveness how likely the victim will drop cargo and maybe abandon ship.

If uncooperative, marines could be usable to free some cargo from the uncooperative captain - which would likely be much easier than just boarding the ship outright.

[RAVEN.myst]

Yes, in TC/AP one could strip a freighter's shields and then, provided a cargo scan had been performed (presumably to call the trader on any "But I'm running empty" bluffs), persuade the pilot over comms to take a load off - and while this was perhaps a simplistic system, it's still way more 'realistic' (I hesitate to throw that word around, but there it is...) and immersive than anything else I've seen in the Xs (or most any other game, really.)

If uncooperative, marines could be usable to free some cargo from the uncooperative captain - which would likely be much easier than just boarding the ship outright.

Nice idea. Marines cut their way through the hull into the cargobay - only a single deck/round of combat (depending on whether we're comparing to X3TC/AP or XR) is needed, to secure that immediate area; the marines hack an airlock/loading bay which is now accessible (they are inside) and not very hard (they are INSIDE - it's locked to keep people OUT, right?); they un-secure some cargo and toss it out that airlock/loading bay, then follow it out. Expands the functionality of an existing set-piece (the marines) without adding entire new elements/set-pieces - depth/quality over breadth/quantity of expansion.

[MegaJohnny]

The feature was first trialed and introduced with the Teladi Outpost DLC. I've watched it happening in Fields Of Opportunity and it's pretty cool.

I'm under the impression that the feature was ported over to pirate ships with cargobays in other parts the galaxy later on (4.0?). Having said that, looking back at the changelogs I can't see a related entry so I'm not entirely sure now.

Ah, good to know - I'll have to visit FO more often in the near future to try and catch it. Call me a Teladi anthropologist, or something.

Shooting something until it explodes and then hoping for scraps to pick up is very inefficient and a silly mechanic that ingrained itself in people from standard shooter/roleplay games...

The cargo stealing in XR itself is just bad. "Hack" (if you can call that minigame that) random points on the model to have it conveniently catapult it outwards. It's a bad mechanic - it doesnt add anything interesting, it's just tedious and removes any interaction with the crew of the victim ship.

X3 way wasnt interesting either, but at least you interacted with the pilot and he may be stubborn and simply would not be intimidated by you - this is something that should be expanded upon - having it depend on your ships power, your maliciousness, dishonesty and agressiveness how likely the victim will drop cargo and maybe abandon ship.

If uncooperative, marines could be usable to free some cargo from the uncooperative captain - which would likely be much easier than just boarding the ship outright.

Totally agree. That the game is always wanting you to do what boils down to "fly near point, do reaction test" leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I love the idea of using boarding for this instead. Boarding as it is in XR is still heavily flawed IMO (strip all surface elements, click "board", go afk) but it's a lot more interesting than hacking.

[Alith-Ahnar]

Shooting something until it explodes and then hoping for scraps to pick up is very inefficient and a silly mechanic that ingrained itself in people from standard shooter/roleplay games...

The cargo stealing in XR itself is just bad. "Hack" (if you can call that minigame that) random points on the model to have it conveniently catapult it outwards. It's a bad mechanic - it doesnt add anything interesting, it's just tedious and removes any interaction with the crew of the victim ship.

X3 way wasnt interesting either, but at least you interacted with the pilot and he may be stubborn and simply would not be intimidated by you - this is something that should be expanded upon - having it depend on your ships power, your maliciousness, dishonesty and agressiveness how likely the victim will drop cargo and maybe abandon ship.

If uncooperative, marines could be usable to free some cargo from the uncooperative captain - which would likely be much easier than just boarding the ship outright.

You missing the point the OP was about how the NPC Pirates would operate not what options the Player has as those always had been more granular in design but equal indifferent to how NPC operate.

I would disagree on the X:R analoge hacking a Station is not the same as boarding a Freighter the One thing is a heist the other an open act of piracy.
To say one is a bad option of something different does not feal right.

Still i do copy your sentiment that the piracy interaction for the player should be more polished (improved).

Same thing with the station hacking this could evolve into a disaster kind a event in wich Pirates enter your Station Zone and instead going into a shooting frenzy sneak up onto one of your transports/station and start hacking and clearing out the cargo-hold.

With enough advance warning time this could evolve into a nice chase and fight scene.
And for late game there could be something like a Security Force installation for your Stations that limit the chance of such an event and actualy fight back any wanna be Robbers.