- Joined
- Oct 16, 2015
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Currently, there is not a whole lot of incentive to fight pirates, other than for space. Their stations only sit there, and as long as you are far away, they won't send ships out. In addition to that, there isn't really any true reward for defeating a massive station with 3 mil shields.
Station Distribution:
First, pirate station spawning to be toned down a lot. Currently, every system (except for wormholes) has pirate stations in it, around a dozen, even in completely empty otherwise intergalactic space.
To make this less spammy, make only 1 or 2 pirate stations spawn per "normal sector," which refers to a normal star system in a galaxy. Intergalactic space should be truly empty, with pretty much nothing in it.
Difficulty Levels:
Stations as of current will spawn with a fairly random (to my knowledge) amount of shield Hp, the least I've seen being 120K and the most about 3 mil. This as of currently does help, but a ship with a powerful weapons system will win regardless.
A solution to this is to in addition to "more difficult" stations having more shield HP, attacking them causes more fleets of more difficult ships (I'll explain this in a bit) to warp in and go on the defensive.
More Dangerous Foes:
Pirate ships are currently the Isanth ships, which although death to new players and extremely well-designed, are almost identical.
The solution? More ships! StarMade has a great community with tons of ship blueprints available, so no problem there. Maybe a contest?
For the spawning problem, depending on the power of the vessel you are in, more/more advanced ships will spawn randomly around you when mining or sitting at your base.
So say you are in a tiny mining vessel, no shields or weapons. No pirates except for an occasional Isanth (far away) should spawn, since the game realizes you are defenseless and it wouldn't be fair or fun to get in a fight like that.
If you are in a million mass ship, you won't get swarmed with pirates everywhere you go, but a pirate dreadnought will occasionally stumble into you while mining.
* If your system is completely free of pirates, the spawning rate for them goes down to almost nothing.
Waves:
Imagine tower defense in StarMade, where you have an incentive to load up your base with defenses and weaponry. A giant wave of pirates will warp to your base, trying to destroy it, with you going on the defensive solo or with friends. This will be followed by a large dreadnought warping in at the end.
In order for a wave to spawn, the following criteria must be met:
Rewards can be tons of drops, as well as being able to salvage the ships (presumably stocked up with plundered treasure!)
Rewards:
In order to make players want to fight the pirates, there has to be a strong reward system.
First, the difficulty of the target determines the loot dropped (a 120K shield station will have less rewards than a 3 million one, same applies to ships).
Stations: Stations currently have plenty of chests scattered around in them, but are only decoration. Why not give them some random goodies, like ores, hulls, maybe even unique rewards not obtainable anywhere any else, like longer-jumping warp drives, blueprints, etc. The unique rewards would only apply to the most difficult stations for balance.
Ships; Upon defeat of a ship, it's hull will slowly lose momentum and stop dead in space, able to salvage. A pile of loot will be dropped when it stops, containing hulls, ores, weapon systems, etc. depending on how tough it was. Chance ranging from 0.001% to 100% chance to drop a unique item, depending on it's difficulty.
Pirate-Dominated Areas:
Since stations spawn so rarely, they aren't a threat once I defeat them, right?
I propose 3 new structures/areas for absolute endgame players armed to the teeth:
Making Ground Combat A Thing:
With some more recent updates is the introduction of mechanics such as the thruster update to give fighters an advantage in fights, grappling beams and welding torches for ship infiltration, and mass changes. But what if it was like that for pirates as well as their stations?
A solution to the lack of ground combat in the game would be to make pirates actual NPCs like the Shop Keep from advanced shops. This way, fighting a pirate ship could involve boarding it, using the welding torch to defeat the captain!
For stations, depending on how difficult it is, pirate NPCs would spawn with lasers on the station. Imagine this scenario:
A small cloaked ship with a few well armed-and prepared players flies over to a large pirate station, docks to the side of it (maybe add docks to the current stations?) and exits the ship, stealthily sneaking in, killing the pirate NPCs, making their way to the faction module, where they could activate a self-destruct on it or claim the station for their own.
Other Ideas and Questions:
Q: Wouldn't this make pirate raiding O.P., since there are unique rewards and tons of loot?
A: No, because the unique loot would have downsides attached to their upsides, such as a jump drive that jumps slightly farther but charges slower. In addition, the loot would most likely be more combat-based than raw materials, which could lead to increased trading between, say, players who mine more and players who raid stations.
Q: StarMade is a building game, I don't want to be fighting pirates all the time!
A: This is why I wrote this thread. Pirates and their stations will spawn less frequently in normal space, and leave you alone if you leave them alone.
Thank you for reading this thread! Feel free to ask anything.
Station Distribution:
First, pirate station spawning to be toned down a lot. Currently, every system (except for wormholes) has pirate stations in it, around a dozen, even in completely empty otherwise intergalactic space.
To make this less spammy, make only 1 or 2 pirate stations spawn per "normal sector," which refers to a normal star system in a galaxy. Intergalactic space should be truly empty, with pretty much nothing in it.
Difficulty Levels:
Stations as of current will spawn with a fairly random (to my knowledge) amount of shield Hp, the least I've seen being 120K and the most about 3 mil. This as of currently does help, but a ship with a powerful weapons system will win regardless.
A solution to this is to in addition to "more difficult" stations having more shield HP, attacking them causes more fleets of more difficult ships (I'll explain this in a bit) to warp in and go on the defensive.
More Dangerous Foes:
Pirate ships are currently the Isanth ships, which although death to new players and extremely well-designed, are almost identical.
The solution? More ships! StarMade has a great community with tons of ship blueprints available, so no problem there. Maybe a contest?
For the spawning problem, depending on the power of the vessel you are in, more/more advanced ships will spawn randomly around you when mining or sitting at your base.
So say you are in a tiny mining vessel, no shields or weapons. No pirates except for an occasional Isanth (far away) should spawn, since the game realizes you are defenseless and it wouldn't be fair or fun to get in a fight like that.
If you are in a million mass ship, you won't get swarmed with pirates everywhere you go, but a pirate dreadnought will occasionally stumble into you while mining.
* If your system is completely free of pirates, the spawning rate for them goes down to almost nothing.
Waves:
Imagine tower defense in StarMade, where you have an incentive to load up your base with defenses and weaponry. A giant wave of pirates will warp to your base, trying to destroy it, with you going on the defensive solo or with friends. This will be followed by a large dreadnought warping in at the end.
In order for a wave to spawn, the following criteria must be met:
- The player has defeated a powerful enough station recently (1,000,000+ shields).
- The player has a station with X amount of shields (1,000,000-ish.)
- There are pirate stations in a radius of 1 system.
Rewards can be tons of drops, as well as being able to salvage the ships (presumably stocked up with plundered treasure!)
Rewards:
In order to make players want to fight the pirates, there has to be a strong reward system.
First, the difficulty of the target determines the loot dropped (a 120K shield station will have less rewards than a 3 million one, same applies to ships).
Stations: Stations currently have plenty of chests scattered around in them, but are only decoration. Why not give them some random goodies, like ores, hulls, maybe even unique rewards not obtainable anywhere any else, like longer-jumping warp drives, blueprints, etc. The unique rewards would only apply to the most difficult stations for balance.
Ships; Upon defeat of a ship, it's hull will slowly lose momentum and stop dead in space, able to salvage. A pile of loot will be dropped when it stops, containing hulls, ores, weapon systems, etc. depending on how tough it was. Chance ranging from 0.001% to 100% chance to drop a unique item, depending on it's difficulty.
Pirate-Dominated Areas:
Since stations spawn so rarely, they aren't a threat once I defeat them, right?
I propose 3 new structures/areas for absolute endgame players armed to the teeth:
- The first is pirate sectors. A handful of these will spawn per galaxy, and may be in a normal system which has a few dozen pirate stations scattered about, with one Home Base in it. This Home Base will have shields ranging in the tens to hundreds of millions, a dozen pirate ships patrolling it 24/7, and entire fleets of dreadnoughts spawning when under attack. The rewards will be incredible, with several thousand, maybe even millions of hulls and ores, 4 or 5 guaranteed unique items. A special grand prize will be completed blueprints of dreadnoughts, ready to spawn in.
- The next is sleeper ships. This idea is inspired by the MushroomFleet's server, which has massive dreadnoughts that spawn in other galaxies. This system would work differently by spawning inactive capitol ships several thousand blocks long in intergalactic space, that could be boarded and shut down, but will walk up if disturbed.
- A final, ultimate battle scenario is pirate Homeworlds. Imagine as if a group of pirates somehow ripped a planet from a system's orbit, dragged it out into intergalactic space, and set up shop. These nasty places would spawn rarely in intergalactic space, and have a billion+ shields, dreadnoughts everywhere, just near-indestructible. I chose this idea so that servers and factions could team up for an event. The rewards, of course, would be something ridiculous like a million of every block!
Making Ground Combat A Thing:
With some more recent updates is the introduction of mechanics such as the thruster update to give fighters an advantage in fights, grappling beams and welding torches for ship infiltration, and mass changes. But what if it was like that for pirates as well as their stations?
A solution to the lack of ground combat in the game would be to make pirates actual NPCs like the Shop Keep from advanced shops. This way, fighting a pirate ship could involve boarding it, using the welding torch to defeat the captain!
For stations, depending on how difficult it is, pirate NPCs would spawn with lasers on the station. Imagine this scenario:
A small cloaked ship with a few well armed-and prepared players flies over to a large pirate station, docks to the side of it (maybe add docks to the current stations?) and exits the ship, stealthily sneaking in, killing the pirate NPCs, making their way to the faction module, where they could activate a self-destruct on it or claim the station for their own.
Other Ideas and Questions:
Q: Wouldn't this make pirate raiding O.P., since there are unique rewards and tons of loot?
A: No, because the unique loot would have downsides attached to their upsides, such as a jump drive that jumps slightly farther but charges slower. In addition, the loot would most likely be more combat-based than raw materials, which could lead to increased trading between, say, players who mine more and players who raid stations.
Q: StarMade is a building game, I don't want to be fighting pirates all the time!
A: This is why I wrote this thread. Pirates and their stations will spawn less frequently in normal space, and leave you alone if you leave them alone.
Thank you for reading this thread! Feel free to ask anything.
