Pirates and Custom Ships

[FMK]

So I might just be crazy, but custom ships beyond "Isanth value" seem infinitely too rare when the game decides on what to spawn for pirates/trading guild.

I'll just use my current setup for example: 20 default Isanths, 20 retrofitted Isanths (both same mass/similar value), and then 130 upgraded Isanths (2x the mass/worth of the others)

At a threat level of 1 for a spawn, I would expect every 1/3 spawns on average to be an upgraded Isanth in this case, however out of the 20 or so pirates that I forced to spawn by shooting a station, not even a single one was an upgrade. Instead, just a mixture of the 40 low-tier Isanths.

So I suppose my question is, is it intended/what kind of formula is used to determine what type of pirate ship spawns?

Since as it currently stands, there's basically no chance of ever running into a threatening pirate unless you disable all the mooks, which entirely defeats the purpose of more threatening pirates if every pirate is that threatening -- I don't want pirates appearing in 500k mass ships every time, but I also don't want the chance to be so low that you're more likely to be struck by lightning before seeing one.

 

[fire219]

Last I checked, the higher the value (or mass) of a ship, the less likely it is to spawn as a pirate. Therefore, the itty bitty stock Isanths are going to show up a lot more than the big ones.

 

[FMK]

Last I checked, the higher the value (or mass) of a ship, the less likely it is to spawn as a pirate. Therefore, the itty bitty stock Isanths are going to show up a lot more than the big ones.

Well I deduced as much from my testing, but what I'm saying is that anything beyond the stock isanths -- even things remotely close to them in mass/value, seem to be exponentially less common. It's to the point that you could summon 1000 pirates and still not see something that is merely double a stock isanths mass/weight.

The other two things I noticed while testing, is that the game will never pick the same ship twice in a spawn if possible (which could be used to circumvent the issue to an extent, but completely removes variety), and that beam isanths are the most common, while missile isanths are the least common.

Which is why I was hoping for a more... concrete answer on how AIs pick their ships. Since it just seems broken or way too rare for stronger ships to spawn.

 

[fire219]

Well I deduced as much from my testing, but what I'm saying is that anything beyond the stock isanths -- even things remotely close to them in mass/value, seem to be exponentially less common. It's to the point that you could summon 1000 pirates and still not see something that is merely double a stock isanths mass/weight.

The other two things I noticed while testing, is that the game will never pick the same ship twice in a spawn if possible (which could be used to circumvent the issue to an extent, but completely removes variety), and that beam isanths are the most common, while missile isanths are the least common.

Which is why I was hoping for a more... concrete answer on how AIs pick their ships. Since it just seems broken or way too rare for stronger ships to spawn.

I am pretty sure it's intentional that bigger ships are much less (maybe exponentially, like you said) common. New players already have a hard enough time fighting the stock Isanths. Imagine what would happen if pirates with more power than them were almost as common? (Hint: rage quitting players at massive rates). Maybe this could be fixed by the game difficulty setting tweaking the spawn variables? (Maybe this is already in place, but IDK)

But as for an exact answer for how the game chooses ships to spawn, I can't help there.

 

[Gristle]

I have been manually managing this for my small private server by disabling the lower level / strength ships as my players have increased in ability and resources. It would be nice if the admin controls for spawns were more refined. I'd really like to see an ability to specify vessels by faction so that the TG has different ships than Pirates for example.

 

[mrsinister]

I have been manually managing this for my small private server by disabling the lower level / strength ships as my players have increased in ability and resources. It would be nice if the admin controls for spawns were more refined. I'd really like to see an ability to specify vessels by faction so that the TG has different ships than Pirates for example.

which is why my thread for folders for faction ships was made