Pirate bases are useless to raid now?

[AURAvulpes]

Ok, so it's been a while since i last played StarMade, months in fact, but after being bored i decided to try it again and been having fun building my ship and stuff..

I got to the point where I'm like "Alright.. i think i can take on one of these pirate bases now :P"
I head to the nearest one, and it turns out my ship wasn't as powerful as i thought, but i could still beat it.. after about 30-40 minutes of constant shooting at the enemy turrets from a distance to make sure my shields stay above 10% after that time i FINALLY was able to destroy all the turrets, allowing me to come close to the faction module and take it out..

As soon as i finally destroyed the module the whole base SOMEHOW became decayed
I know i left it in a bit of bad shape after all the holes i riddled through it.. but it was still fully functional and working, it makes absolutely no sense.. and not only that, after searching through the entire thing there was not 1 single storage module.. not.. one..

So after a long raid on a pirate base, there was absolutely no reward..
No ability to harvest the blocks from the pirate base, no storage modules to raid, nothing..
The only way i could get the blocks from the station is if i bought it..
Essentially the same thing as if i actually bought all the materials anyway..

It seems like there isn't even any point in attacking one anymore..
Even if there are no storage modules, it should at least leave the station intact so that the players can actually accomplish something, be that claiming the base for their own (by way of victory rather than buying it) or by being able to harvest the blocks from the station..

What do yous think?
Are pirate bases now useless to raid?
Should stations magically decay after the faction module is destroyed?

 

[timethatswasted]

Yes you have been gone a while as it has been nearly a full year since this was in place.

The "decayed" station feature is to prevent people from gaining a huge amount of essentially free blocks from neutral and pirate stations.

Currently the only real purpose of killing pirate stations is to keep pirates from spawning.

If you poke around however you can find the older style pirate stations, they are normally just labeled "pirate station." They still have the loot chests in the bottom section.

 

[Andir]

they are normally just labeled "pirate station." They still have the loot chests in the bottom section.

On the
latest build, at least on my unmodified server, they are actually called "Prate Station".I generally leave stations alive but take out the turrets, but I agree, they are generally worthless and it's more productive collecting loot clouds from pirate ships.( This editor is shit on Firefox mobile, it keeps placing my cursor for me .... sorry for the format.)

 

[Edymnion]

Oddly enough, I've seen TURRETS on pirate stations drop loot recently. The delta stations specifically (the diamond shaped one) has turrets that seem to have loot chests in them.

 

[FatCobra]

I can understand the abandoned stations being decayed but I think the pirate stations should at least have a chance of getting some of the resources. If pirates are using the station then it probably isn't decayed? Right? Perhaps a percentage change on salvage that could be adjustable in settings for getting the original block back instead of scrap.

 

[aceface]

Ok, so it's been a while since i last played StarMade, months in fact, but after being bored i decided to try it again and been having fun building my ship and stuff..

I got to the point where I'm like "Alright.. i think i can take on one of these pirate bases now :p"
I head to the nearest one, and it turns out my ship wasn't as powerful as i thought, but i could still beat it.. after about 30-40 minutes of constant shooting at the enemy turrets from a distance to make sure my shields stay above 10% after that time i FINALLY was able to destroy all the turrets, allowing me to come close to the faction module and take it out..

As soon as i finally destroyed the module the whole base SOMEHOW became decayed
I know i left it in a bit of bad shape after all the holes i riddled through it.. but it was still fully functional and working, it makes absolutely no sense.. and not only that, after searching through the entire thing there was not 1 single storage module.. not.. one..

So after a long raid on a pirate base, there was absolutely no reward..
No ability to harvest the blocks from the pirate base, no storage modules to raid, nothing..
The only way i could get the blocks from the station is if i bought it..
Essentially the same thing as if i actually bought all the materials anyway..

It seems like there isn't even any point in attacking one anymore..
Even if there are no storage modules, it should at least leave the station intact so that the players can actually accomplish something, be that claiming the base for their own (by way of victory rather than buying it) or by being able to harvest the blocks from the station..

What do yous think?
Are pirate bases now useless to raid?
Should stations magically decay after the faction module is destroyed?

I have never even considered stealing stuff from pirate bases after that STUPID "feature" came around where the station are decayed. Little to no loot exists in them since an update long before they became decayed, and along with that they are neither powerful, nor salvageable, making them ultimately an on/off switch to spawn free mobs and a slight sense of immersion that you are not completely alone in the universe.

A complete waste of space in the game code in my opinion with the current game mechanics.

 

[GRHayes]

What I use pirate bases for it simple attack them and have the pirates spawn to collect the loot from the loot clouds and the ship I use also has enough salvaging cannons to strip the ship down in short order leaving he core which I can care less about.

 

[Colonel Sheppard]

What I use pirate bases for it simple attack them and have the pirates spawn to collect the loot from the loot clouds and the ship I use also has enough salvaging cannons to strip the ship down in short order leaving he core which I can care less about.

I believe you can do the same with trading guild though.

 

[GRHayes]

I believe you can do the same with trading guild though.

I guess I like to RP not the bad guy as much.
That said you can always dump better ship designs in the pirate folder and make life more interesting and more realistic.

 

[Colonel Sheppard]

I guess I like to RP not the bad guy as much.
That said you can always dump better ship designs in the pirate folder and make life more interesting and more realistic.

Pirates and Trader Guild also use the same ships. One is just more likely to actually spawn however. I attacked a Pirate Base and despite it's constant calls for aide none came.

 

[FatCobra]

Pirates and Trader Guild also use the same ships. One is just more likely to actually spawn however. I attacked a Pirate Base and despite it's constant calls for aide none came.

I think this is a bug in the current version. Last version they would come but I haven't seen them in this one.

 

[GRHayes]

Pirates and Trader Guild also use the same ships. One is just more likely to actually spawn however. I attacked a Pirate Base and despite it's constant calls for aide none came.

Notice Pirates aren't doing anything also. Even when they do show up for me they just sit there in a strait line.

This should be their number 1 priority. It is after all the only risk on single player.

 

[AURAvulpes]

So i went to this "Prate station" and defeated it, i destroyed the module and stuff, but STILL the chests in the structure were complete empty

Pirates and Trader Guild also use the same ships. One is just more likely to actually spawn however. I attacked a Pirate Base and despite it's constant calls for aide none came.

I noticed this too.. However, it only does so for the non-generic pirate bases..
I attacked the pirate base that was in older versions of the game, in this version there is a spelling mistake and the base is called Prate station, and pirates did in fact spawn, except they spawned about 2.2-2.8KMs away and they didn't notice me for some reason..
From what I've seen, their range of noticing is about 1.65KMs..

I'd battle them all but because after i updated i forgot to separate the catalog permissions and 2 of them were in my "Shadow-Cruizer", which is huge and powerful xD (Thank goodness none of them spawned in my Vulperis-MKI though..) I was able to defeat a generic pirate ship and make a bunch of money from their loot (Some dropped items i couldn't sell, one of them was even called "placeholder" like an undeveloped item xD) thanks to the computers they dropped

I've also noticed the pirate battles are still bugged, and that the AI tends to ignore ship rotation when trying to turn and face you, it's not smooth or ramped, it's "Ok, I'm facing away from you, and BAM! Now I'm facing you, pew pew!", which makes no sense..

 

[StormWing0]

Well sometimes the storages have things in them that can be taken out but other times you have to blow them up to get anything.

 

[Colonel Sheppard]

Contest Stations (Alpha-Gamma) will never drop loot currently. Their not scripted to regardless of whether or not they have crates.

 

[sayerulz]

The thing with the decay feature is that, before, a single abandoned station gave enough blocks to build a large ship, and whatever you did not get from it, you could buy by selling the blocks that you don't need. They were huge resources for nothing. But now, they just give scrap, which is useless since you get tons of composite and mesh just by refining ores. So now no one salvages stations unless they are really desperate. What I would say is a good compromise is to have there be a chance-I am sure that the exact values could be worked out-to give scrap, and a chance to get the blocks. Makes sense, and can mean that they are worth salvaging without being OP. Pirate stations would have a better chance to give blocks than abandoned ones, since even pirates have too keep their stations more or less functional.

 

[PizzaPress]

Pirate bases do give too little, besides silly farming of Isanths.
Loot should definitely be improved, right now it's tedious to get and sort, and also difficult to locate.
Randomness belongs in loot chests only, and even then it should be somewhat controlled.

Scrap salvaging should instead have a config for how much you get from the pirate or abandoned station.

Perhaps 1/4 the resources used to make a block should be the amount you get from pirate stations, and 1/8 or 1/16 for abandoned stations?

(perhaps individual values depending on block count(salvagers needed), difficulty(pirate stations) and the resource yield of the station.)

Instead of randomness, there should be a buffer(on the decayed structure) of each resource type when divided past 1. So if you get 8 1/8ths(even from different blocks), you always get 1.

Takes a little more work but is infinitely more sane. RNG just causes frustration, and should go back to Mario Party.

 

[StormWing0]

They could make it so all AI driven ships and stations spawn loot into their storages if they have any. More storages = higher chances of finding loot. Now there is no need to worry about scripting a particular station or ship to do this.

 

[GRHayes]

Pirate bases do give too little, besides silly farming of Isanths.
Loot should definitely be improved, right now it's tedious to get and sort, and also difficult to locate.
Randomness belongs in loot chests only, and even then it should be somewhat controlled.

Scrap salvaging should instead have a config for how much you get from the pirate or abandoned station.

Perhaps 1/4 the resources used to make a block should be the amount you get from pirate stations, and 1/8 or 1/16 for abandoned stations?

(perhaps individual values depending on block count(salvagers needed), difficulty(pirate stations) and the resource yield of the station.)

Instead of randomness, there should be a buffer(on the decayed structure) of each resource type when divided past 1. So if you get 8 1/8ths(even from different blocks), you always get 1.

Takes a little more work but is infinitely more sane. RNG just causes frustration, and should go back to Mario Party.

You sort your loot?
I posted a thread with my solution to it. http://starmadedock.net/threads/dockable-station.21283/
I put a chest at each of my docking ports. I unload the chest in the ship to my inventory then dump it in that chest. It is then pulled to my storage area which auto sorts them. Since you can click on a chest and have it pull by item or by category it was very easy to setup.

My pirate hunting ship also has enough salvage cannons on it to strip most ships in a few seconds. It auto dumps those into a chest. My chests are setup in the ship to pull from one another thus if an item in another chest I drop the stuff in after running through a loot cloud it somewhat auto sorts them even before dropping in the sort system on the station.

Doing that 5 or 10 min of work makes life a lot easier.
[DOUBLEPOST=1444327546,1444327256][/DOUBLEPOST]I think they should create separate folders for pirate ships and merchant ships. Rather than the default. Then you could create and specify fleets for each and separate them.