SpaceTroll wrote:
As it was already mentionned the background was chosen by vote, which was not my favorite... I even tried to influence the vote towards the fanatics *shame on me*... but nope they all wanted simple pirates..



Regarding the gameplay implementation of them today, we'll revisit them as soon as we have a minute, we are not very happy with it (very random, sometimes too hard, sometimes hard to find)



As for the multiple factions of pirates that would cool, definitely something to track for post release.

I'm all for it if you also include the abducting aliens?

Stargem wrote:
Maybe there could be minor factions that represent different facets of society. For example, Terrorists are generated by worlds with unhappy populances, Pirates stem from economically poor worlds, and are attracted towards rich trade routs, while Zealots are not fond of research-happy worlds and try to keep exploration forces from defiling untapped worlds and artifacts.

Seriously agree.

I like your idea, but i would still like to see pirates have an active role in the galaxy rather than just a -%dust effect.



How about the pirates in Sins of a solar empire? They have a heavily fortified base, and they only leave it to hunt bounties and trade ships.

And then if trading looked more like in Total War, with trade vessels travelling through the galaxy all on their own.

Pirates could focus on hitting unguarded points in the trade lanes from their bases around the universe and then fight or flee when the big empire fleets show up.



Edit: After writing this i noticed there were three more pages in the thread, sorry if i missed anything or am repeating stuff.

OP is spot on. A very thoughtful post worthy of dev attention.

Pirates - especially in early game - should be way weaker. Otherwise one has to explain why they are so powerful compared to the industrial output of entire star systems.



This can then be offset by a penalty you get for your production in systems were pirates are active unchecked and in health penalties in unoccupied systems when non-combat ships pass through.



And then I agree with the threadstarter that the devs should check their suicidal tendencies, but this is another problem which involves the missing option of retreat from battles.

I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing, but playing on medium, as soon as I build my first couple of defenders, I generally have no problem with pirates

i really like the ideas posted here, but i must agree to the one who said, if we revote things we postpone the whole progress of developement.



the suggestetions of more depth for the game is probably somthing that will scare a lot of people away, especially those who have not at much experience with this kind of game.

what i really would like to see is the option for every player to add those complex parts to the current session by actively choosing them from some kind of "advanced gameplay options" menu.

this would surely mean that the dev team had to do a lot of extra work, but it is mostly the little things that add to the whole experience of a game, sadly it is kind of like the pareto principle which means that to make a game feel more complete u have to do a buddload of extra work.

endoria wrote:
i really like the ideas posted here, but i must agree to the one who said, if we revote things we postpone the whole progress of developement.



the suggestetions of more depth for the game is probably somthing that will scare a lot of people away, especially those who have not at much experience with this kind of game.

what i really would like to see is the option for every player to add those complex parts to the current session by actively choosing them from some kind of "advanced gameplay options" menu.

this would surely mean that the dev team had to do a lot of extra work, but it is mostly the little things that add to the whole experience of a game, sadly it is kind of like the pareto principle which means that to make a game feel more complete u have to do a buddload of extra work.

they set up this games2gether system with the express purpose of giving us unruly lot a say in how things end up being



and even if this cannot be made into this game



im thinking archived for dlc and expansions



because yanno what, thinking about it , op is exactly right about pirates



this is a whole galaxy of people



i want pirates, terrorists, fanatics, i want shady corporate alliances that try and influence everything,



all of course optional in options



but it would make things so much more varied than it is right now,

I love the pirates as they are... I was having a rather boring time with a map, until I entered space practically infested with pirates, now I'm constantly fighting them off. However, I agree we should have a bigger range of space-terrorists that do different things. Spice things up a bit.

Pirates in these games annoy me, so I turn them off!

Yeah I've turned them off for similar reasons. I liked the pirates from Sins of a Solar Empire? where they started with a system and would raid whoever they got bribed to attack. Still a ways from "earth" pirates of the day(s), but it made more sense to me than these randomly spawning "barbarians" (Civ game reference) that would perform suicide attacks on anyone for no apparant reason. (Though admittedly I like the fact that they take over systems - I had a game where pirates kept an enemy player completely at bay by taking their systems diving our borders completely)

I agree with the first topic. Pirates could have more background.

Anyway, during my games, pirates proves to be really annoying. As I love spreading till start of the game, I'm obliged to face them whereas I encounter the others nations. During my last game, pirates in major fleets (double fleets of 9x pirate ships) were able to steal 3 star system at the same time. I was forced to split my force between pirate front and war against other nation. It was a really pleasant/challenging party.

Someone touched on it briefly a few pages earlier, but alongside with Pirate tweaking, I wouldn't mind a "Dread Lord" event like in GalCiv2. Randomly in your game (if you were unlucky) the "Dread Lords" would invade the galaxy. To survive, every civilization had to turn towards this new combined enemy or else face destruction. It was fun, game-changing, and really made it fun for the player to adapt.



I am a big proponent of an idea like this. "Mega Events". Imagine if some extragalactic race suddenly invaded with a high tech, hard hitting fleet and started devouring planets in the system. You could choose to try to end your wars and work with the other races to end your otherwise ultimate demise, or you might try "thriving" off of the chaos - exploiting and taking advantage of the downfall of other civilizations at the hands of this foreign menace.



Oh man, that event was so fun when it happened. It makes me want to go play GalCiv2 again...but after tasting this game, I don't know if it would suffice!



Any dev who reads....the things I will do for such a mega-event to be incorporated...

As it was already mentionned the background was chosen by vote, which was not my favorite... I even tried to influence the vote towards the fanatics *shame on me*... but nope they all wanted simple pirates..



Regarding the gameplay implementation of them today, we'll revisit them as soon as we have a minute, we are not very happy with it (very random, sometimes too hard, sometimes hard to find)



As for the multiple factions of pirates that would cool, definitely something to track for post release.

Stargem wrote:
Maybe there could be minor factions that represent different facets of society. For example, Terrorists are generated by worlds with unhappy populances, Pirates stem from economically poor worlds, and are attracted towards rich trade routs, while Zealots are not fond of research-happy worlds and try to keep exploration forces from defiling untapped worlds and artifacts.

That's a good point imho

@Spacetroll:



One way to implement them could be to make them an actual faction with a home planet (an asteroid perhaps for fluff / flavour?). They drain systems of money/production while blockading them (much like the hero passive abilities). They'd have to actually build raiding fleets, instead of having them spawn in the fog of war.



For more "!!FUN!!" you could make it possible for them to colonize asteroid fields while staying hidden, so you'd never know exactly where they come from. Until you try and colonize their planets/systems or research enough influence/spy techs? (a thought more than an actual thought out suggestion)

Mesthione wrote:


I am a big proponent of an idea like this. "Mega Events".

Count me in as well. I really would like to see mega events (like invasions (Borg, Reaper, Species 8472, Yuuzhan Vong, call-them-what-you-want-race), supernovae, solar storms and stuff like that. Everything that makes it more epic and space opera like. ;-)

Great point OP well thought out and rather than just criticse you proved some alternatives and some ideas

That actually makes a lot of sense now that you mention it.



Also, could we have some sort of faction specific civil war break out if unhappiness grows too low in some systems?

Hmm... I must admit, unhappiness doesn't really feel so threatening without the threat of rebellion... but to counter this, unhappiness should be perhaps slightly harder to achieve, as in such a case, you might get a rebellion just for colonising a gas giant due to the unhappiness penalty of the planet type.