Scalling pirates "levels"

[lemdoran]

Hi

That should be my last suggestion for a while, as i have put 3 in like.... less than 24h, but still, i think it's an interesting one. As the 2 others, a quick search haven't show similar suggestion, forgive me if already suggested.

Actually, if i don't mistake, pirates have totaly random ships. I mean, they use all ships they have permission to use, and they don't care about spawn 3 - 4 cruisers right on you, regardless of you're on a massive powerfull ship or a single core...

The problem in multiplayer is that it's frequent admin give permission to pirate to use bigger ships to make fight more interesting. It's good, but it's a threat to new players who log and basicaly are "naked", without shields, etc...

I think a pretty "easy to code" scalling of pirate power can be do.

Using the actual cost of the ship (the same than for buying from catalog) can be use by pirates fleet.

Exemple:
-I'm a pretty new player, who fly a little ship who have a 500k value.
-I'm on a multiplayer but i'l totaly alone, no other player arround.
-The game make a pirate wave warp in for "me" (as i'm the only player entity arround) who is function of my actual value.
-It can be a totaly random number of ships, but the total value won't exceed 1.5 time my value, so 750k
->In this case, let's say the server make warp 3 ships 200k value and 3 50k value.
The fight shoul be not too hard, but still interesting and balanced.

In the case there is more player ships on the sector, we can imagine pirate just do a basic addition of the catalog value of all players ships currently controled around, and spawn a fleet with the same formula than upside.

 

[ToyotaSupra]

There are like 5 or 6 things in game that are really irritating that simply haven't been fixed, such as falling through planets on respawn and the ship thing. I don't know why they haven't been fixed yet, but I boil it down to 'difficult to fix'

Anyway I like this idea. It might be (one of) the reason people have mega killer ships.

 

[starhaiden]

you could make a ship for running

 

[lemdoran]

ever possible to run yes, but everyone should be able to "play" with some pirates :p
Actualy you can barely see 15 pirates with so poor ships that you destroy them all with a single missile swarm. And at the opposite mining peacefully then being savagely put on fire of 5 - 6 cruisers x_x'

 

[aceface]

+9999999999999999999
Why hasn't this been suggested before?!?!?!? This is what ruins gameplay completely and discourages advancements because as long as you can kill the tiny ships you are fine. If you have to big pirates then you can't do anything. It's one of the things I hate about starmade, this simple thing can change so much.

Oh @lemdoran can you edit your post and say that when pirates spawn around you they warp in? It would just be a cool touch than them magically appearing.

 

[lemdoran]

+9999999999999999999
Why hasn't this been suggested before?!?!?!? This is what ruins gameplay completely and discourages advancements because as long as you can kill the tiny ships you are fine. If you have to big pirates then you can't do anything. It's one of the things I hate about starmade, this simple thing can change so much.

Oh @lemdoran can you edit your post and say that when pirates spawn around you they warp in? It would just be a cool touch than them magically appearing.

I have edit my post, i have initialy think using classic terms will works, didn't think about RP as it's a suggest board :p but i have fix it for you

 

[SchnellBier]

Actually I have thought about this too. But I see a problem with specifically this idea. If the enemys scale up with you you´ll lose more of the sense of progress than winning. It´s like pointless leveling. Also RP ships are really weak compared to other ships if you only use the ship value to balance enemys. Don´t get me wrong. I also want pirates that are more of a thread.

What if an admin can give each pirate ship a certain spawn chance? A high possibility to get only a few small ships. And a smaller chance to get bigger ones. So new players can fight the small ships and have to escape from the big ones. The number of spawned ships can depend on the number of players and the big ships could be more common in pirate sectors. It can also be merged with your suggestion that flying big ship rises the chances of spawning bigger pirate ships.

Pros:
- Scenarios in which you have to escape.
- Scenarios in which you overwhelm enemys easily.
- Scenarios with a fair fight.
- You have to watch out for hard groups of pirates.
- Big pirate ships can drop more loot and are a desirable target.

I know that new players have still a hard time but it would be more of a realistic space experience. With all this in mind i can´t give you a clear "yes" or "no".

 

[lemdoran]

You put the finger on some rpetty good points i haven't thinked about.

Considering RP ships, i think some pirate ships can be RP too, so they can have a medium - high value with a not so big power. Some servers i have visit use players ships for pirates, some other use specialy designed or imported from "everywhere else", i think on a certain part of balancing is up to admin, while they choose what they put for pirates.
Anyway, i like your idea to make possible the edit of spawn rate of every ships, who can also be a really good way to make the fight fair, not all of them, but without making barely impossible the bounty hunter job for a new member.

 

[HerrColonel]

If done nicely, I think this will greatly increase the amount of fun we have dealing with the pirates. And nerf big ships, let me explain: I usually let the pirate with an Isanth ship or one of my own fighter-sized ship. So if a wave of 3 of them attack me I have big chances to fail and get shot if I use a fighter sized ship or any not-cruiser-of-death ship. I hope Im understandable. Going around with a small ship will not be more dangerous than using a big one because the number and strenght of the enemy will rely on its own mass. For a fighter sized ship a wave of smaller drones or 1-2 smaller ships will be expected.
And using a big sized ship will allow the waves to be more challenging because of the scale

 

[WaffulMann]

There should be a way to dial down your bounty too, since you can't really have fleets jumping on you all the time. Perhaps the pirates get "scared" and come less often?

 

[jayman38]

There should also be an in-game way to reduce pirate attacks, if you don't want to encounter them as often. Maybe have the option to pay a hefty "protection tax" at shopkeepers to reduce the chance of a pirate encounter by 50% (server configurable, of course). (Ah-ha! THAT is how they can afford ships!)