C# Aurora v0.x Suggestions

[Bughunter]

The reason there are currently no 'space pirates' in Aurora is that it is very difficult to create any form of in-game justification for them. An NPR that raids other races may be possible (and is on my list) but they need the infrastructure to support that effort, some form of safe harbour or well-protected base (which needs an economic base to build it) and an economic or political justification for that behaviour.

They could split off from your own civilian sector. Justified simply by that some enterprising individuals find a more profitable way by mounting lasers on their ships. Pirate bases are created similar to CMC:s, on planets, asteroids or anything really. I don't think they would need much supporting economy as they would simply be a hidden site to keep their ships and transfer stolen goods. The pirates are otherwise economically part of your empire and make use of your civilian infrastructure. The economy part of it could be abstracted by saying stolen cargo finds it way back into the civilian economy through black market channels and pays for pirate ship fuel/maintenance and even upgrades. Which means the longer they survive the more military hardware they can manage to get their hands on (out of your own designs, or from whoever else they manage to raid?).

Done like this they would be unlikely to be any serious military threat, they would rather be a reason for you to do some patrolling. And they should try to establish themselves in interesting places. Like in the outer part of an empty system where freighter traffic is passing. Or somewhere in the borderlands between two empires.

Just thinking that if you want to work some pirates in I'm sure we can find a way.

[tobijon]

pirates could also be the result of unrest in your empire, a chance of a pirate faction spawning based on the unrest at a planet

[Garfunkel]

Why would a corporation establish a pirate branch? It's the Lex Luthor problem - he can make all the money he wants with his genius inventions, but instead, he wastes his time and money by fighting Superman.

And my earlier questions still stand unanswered. The current spoilers have valid reasons for existing and provide a military challenge to overcome that is somewhat different from NPRs. If pirate faction can be neutralized as easily as taking care of PPV unrest on colonies (ie having patrol ships in a system), then what's the point of wasting Steve's time in coding it in? If they are a serious challenge that will interfere with civilian shipping, then there must be methods to prevent their creation in the first place - what if I'm playing a hivemind race or a totalitarian dictatorship that rules everything with an iron fist through a telepathic KGB - as well as a logical method for wiping them out, meaning bases that can be discovered and occupied, as well as ships that can be destroyed. How are they getting designs for weapons and where are they building them? Are my shipyards just leaving 19cm spinal lasers lying around? Are my research labs handing out blueprints for active sensors to anyone who asks? Maybe there be a mechanism that pirates have access to stuff 2 levels behind the cutting edge, which could be a reasonable thing, as that's the point when technologies are leaked between factions sharing the same homeworld.

Currently, if I need space pirates in my game for story/RP reasons, I can SM them into existence easily enough and then handwave the rest as per story needs. Anyone can do the same. I'm all for putting in more content to the game but we should be wary of throwing things willy-nilly into it because one of the best things about Aurora is how it's so flexible with regards to the details. You can make it work for almost any sci-fi universe or story setting. At the very least pirates should be toggleable on/off like spoilers and NPRs are.

[Barkhorn]

Pirates shouldn't be a spoiler race.  They should appear naturally from your own, or neighboring civilizations, like they did in real life.  Pirates in real life are not a nation, they're organized criminals.  They have no economy, they don't build their own ships, they have no ground units, they have no research apparatus.

Pirates in Aurora should spawn on/near colonies with poor oversight by the central government.  Their ships should look like cargo ships until you get really close and can see how well armed they are.

Ship detection really should reveal less information about contacts.  How is it that I know what faction a particular active sensor contact is from?

[joeclark77]

You mentioned that you're coming up with new ideas for spoilers.  I'd like to suggest space pirates.  These would be NPC combat dropships that come out of nowhere, capture your commercial and civilian ships, then (like an infection) they add a combat drop capability to those captured ships.  By "coming out of nowhere" I suggest they're either very stealthy (disguised as commercial ships?), or they hide out in nebulas and on the unwatched sides of jump gate to strike where you might be vulnerable.

The reason there are currently no 'space pirates' in Aurora is that it is very difficult to create any form of in-game justification for them. An NPR that raids other races may be possible (and is on my list) but they need the infrastructure to support that effort, some form of safe harbour or well-protected base (which needs an economic base to build it) and an economic or political justification for that behaviour.

I think the core of my suggestion is the "viral" nature of the proposed enemy.  The image in my head is that certain areas of space would gradually get more and more dangerous if left unchecked, as more and more ships are captured/converted.  Your military ships wouldn't really be threatened, but your freighters and things would be vulnerable, so you might want to give them weapons or at least make them fast enough to outrun any civilian designs.  The civilian shipping companies might react in a realistic way, by paying ransoms to the pirates, by building civilian armed escorts, or by traveling in convoy and requesting your protection.

As for justification, the pirates would be primarily doing it for the ransoms (a protection racket).  They might pick a remote planet or moon as their base, so non-trivial to detect... this would be particiularly troublesome in those binary systems where the B component is a zillion miles away with no LP shortcuts.

[joeclark77]

Another suggestion: can we get an option to use miles instead of kilometers, knots instead of km/s, and gallons instead of litres?  The metric system implies a dystopian future and I prefer to imagine a future where the good guys win. 

[Seolferwulf]

If a corporation doesn't make much profit because too many rivals take the juicy contracts then they may resort to contracting mercenaries to make trouble for the other shipping lines.
The mercenaries of course would disguise themselves as pirates to not reveal themselves and their contractor.
Another possibility could be for the corporation to establish a private military branch and do some pirating themselves, if security is lax.
Crime only needs motivation and an oportunity.

Another type of pirates would be destroyed civs, or rather the remnants of one.
If an NPR has no colonies left its remanining ships could be converted to vengful pirates, which would try to sneak into your populated systems, establish some kind of outpost inside an asteroid belt and start harassing and capturing civilian ships.
If they manage to take one they would suicide ram it into military ships and colonies.

Edit:

Another suggestion: can we get an option to use miles instead of kilometers, knots instead of km/s, and gallons instead of litres?  The metric system implies a dystopian future and I prefer to imagine a future where the good guys win. 

It's only a matter of time.
The metric system will eventually replace the imperial one.
Surrender yourself, resistance is futile.

[King-Salomon]

for me pirates make sense for one thing (and an important one) - to bring the player to patrole even save systems with some mobile forces...

I would suggest pirates could be implemented as this:

part of the "requested protection level" - but that the player is not allowed to create this protection level with ground units only but to have a mix of ground unit and warships...
the more wealth a system generates the more "protection request" it has for mobile units

these mobile units have to be given a command "patrole system" which let's them auto-patrole the shipping lanes, refuel, rest, resupply etc (so no micro for the player)

if the "protection request" for mobile units is not reached, there is no "planetary unrest" but a significant cut in the system-wealth creation..

no ship looses as pirates are not "strong" enough to destroy/threaten actual starships but are strong enough to own shuttles for small criminal intention (like docking on a trader and getting some of it's cargo without notice, smuggling, stealing at offloading etc)

the longer the time the protection level was not reached, the longer it will be in the future to reduce the "pirate influence" on the economy

so no "pirate fraction" is needed but the player has to do something even in secure systems...

I would depend the "protection request" for mobile units on system-wealth, body's in system with population in system (more pop body's - even or especially small ones - means more hidding/possibilities for pirates), number of jumppoints in system (a system with is poor but acts as a "highway for rich systems" is made for piratecreation)... maybe even more factors...

maybe it wold make sense to reduce global wealth as well as system wealth if the system is a "highway system" with main shipping lanes going through it...

this would add to the game:

- pirates for role playing and something to look at
- the need for the player to actually "patrole" his systems with is realistic - instead of just parking ships or PDC or ground-units somewhere in the system
- a choice for the player if he is "taking the wealth hit" for a medium/long time in a war where he needs to order the "patrole ships" out of the system - or letting the ships to patrole and going to war with less ships

[Steve Walmsley]

I have no problem with the idea of a threat that requires the player to actively patrol systems. However, there needs to be an in-game rationale and capability for that threat to exist. For 'pirates' to exist they need:

1) A shipyard to build their ships
2) Maintenance facilities to support them
3) Fuel Production facilities
4) Ordnance factories if they are missile-armed
5) Some way of building or acquiring all of the above and transporting/towing them to their destination
6) Population to man all of the above.
7) An economic rationale for their activity - why not use their ships for trade instead? Why is piracy more profitable or desirable when the potential (and likely) downside is destruction of their ships and loss of their lives?

It will be easier in C# Aurora to hide such facilities (due to reduced sensor ranges), but they still need to be created and moved to their destination. Also, the easiest way to destroy the 'pirates' would be to locate and destroy their support infrastructure so they would need defences for that too. I know 'Civilians' have support infrastructure we don't see but that infrastructure is not an active threat (and could be logically added if really needed).

BTW we aren't talking about a few guys in a skiff using RPGs to threaten a tanker. The 'pirates' in Aurora would be operating in deep space within the constraints of the Aurora economic model. Also, even if we draw parallels with Somali pirates, in the Aurora-verse the Western Powers would likely solve the problem by nuking the entire Somali coast.

I do have some ideas about spoilers or NPRs that will fulfill a 'raiding' function, using a logical rationale for their behaviour and with an economic support structure. However, having pirates in the classical sense is difficult to envision within the logical constraints of the game.

[Panopticon]

The main issue I see with pirates is that they don't make a ton of sense under the rules of Aurora, you need a source of minerals to build, repair, and maintain ships, a shipyard and/or maintenance for same, a way to pay for it, and a population to man those installations.

I like the idea of sort of having them in an abstracted form like described above, as a sort of passive drain on resources on improperly secured shipping routes, at least from a role-playing perspective but I gotta ask exactly what benefit does it bring to the game? It adds a lot of micromanagement but doesn't bring in a ton of fun I don't think, especially when you can just SM those same consequences yourself.

Since pirates need a base to operate from, that suggests a couple options that might be fun though, let's say, as was mentioned earlier, a civilian corporation wants to get into the more direct acquisition of wealth, we already have a mechanic for them building ships, so having them launch a ship that registers as a freighter until it is feels safe enough to go raiding might be fun, it could hit your civilian shipping, or maybe even that of your allies or other factions. Maybe we could have an additional function of ECM be to penetrate that deception so you can root them out.

Another option is mutiny, currently morale on ships only really matters to military vessels, and even then they can still function with low morale, what if we have ships with low enough morale have a chance to defect to another faction? Say your sentry picket who you forgot about on station for three years gets fed up and decides to rehome to the civ you've been having it keep an eye on, incidentally providing that civ your sensor data or research, or your poor overworked freighter who has been shipping automines from Sol to your newest outpost eight jumps away without a break for sixteen months decides likewise and makes a gift of it's cargo to a (hopefully) grateful new employer? Those could actually be fun and make an impact on the game, while still taking advantage of mechanics that already exist.

[Father Tim]

this would add to the game:

- pirates for role playing and something to look at

We already have this.  The player can SM in a few ships and fight it out themselves, or SM an entire civilization for Aurora to run by AI rules.
  --  Choose the system body you want to base the pirates on
  --  Add an Oxy-Nitrogen or Methane atmosphere
  --  use the Add NPR button to create an empire there, setting its strength to reflect the level of threat you want

- the need for the player to actually "patrole" his systems with is realistic - instead of just parking ships or PDC or ground-units somewhere in the system

THE ONLY PERSON STOPPING YOU FROM PATROLLING YOUR SYSTEMS IS YOU.  I already have system patrols in my game.  If your empire is "just parking ships or PDC or ground-units somewhere in the system" then it is doing so because YOU chose to have it do so.  Aurora reflects the level of realism you choose to put into it.

- a choice for the player if he is "taking the wealth hit" for a medium/long time in a war where he needs to order the "patrole ships" out of the system - or letting the ships to patrole and going to war with less ships

Again, this is solved by THE PLAYER choosing to operate their empire realistically,* or by exploiting the minimum requirements forced upon them by the software.  Since literally nothing is stopping you from running your empire the way you want, what you are asking for is to 'stop those other people from having their fun the wrong way.'


*THE BEST FEATURE of Aurora is the near-total ability of the player to decide what is 'realistic' for their empire.  It's almost the only reason to play.

[King-Salomon]

We already have this.  The player can SM in a few ships and fight it out themselves, or SM an entire civilization for Aurora to run by AI rules.

...

*THE BEST FEATURE of Aurora is the near-total ability of the player to decide what is 'realistic' for their empire.  It's almost the only reason to play.

sorry, but with this argument - while not false - you never need any feature or Ai - only the game mechanics and SM... why bother with an AI and NPR...

[TMaekler]

For 'pirates' to exist they need:

1) A shipyard to build their ships
2) Maintenance facilities to support them
3) Fuel Production facilities
4) Ordnance factories if they are missile-armed
5) Some way of building or acquiring all of the above and transporting/towing them to their destination
6) Population to man all of the above.
7) An economic rationale for their activity - why not use their ships for trade instead? Why is piracy more profitable or desirable when the potential (and likely) downside is destruction of their ships and loss of their lives?

Here is how a rationell could go:
Criminals would threaten the personell of civilian or player mining colonies. They would then provide either resources / maintenance / hidden shipyards for ship construction and repair.
1) The shipyard could be hidden in an extension of a civilian mining colony or one of a players automated mining sites.
2) likewise for maintenance
3) likewise for fuel production if they can afford it and don't steal enough
4) likewise for missile production
5) towing capacities are not needed this way
6) manpower will be provided by the civilian or player facilities
7) it could be state supported piracy (a player who wants to weaken another player but not attack him openly could support pirate activity), or freedom wishes. Maybe a colony with "low morale" wants to be independend but are not granted. They could resort to piracy (or more politically correct: rebellions).

[Steve Walmsley]

Here is how a rationell could go:
Criminals would threaten the personell of civilian or player mining colonies. They would then provide either resources / maintenance / hidden shipyards for ship construction and repair.
1) The shipyard could be hidden in an extension of a civilian mining colony or one of a players automated mining sites.
2) likewise for maintenance
3) likewise for fuel production if they can afford it and don't steal enough
4) likewise for missile production
5) towing capacities are not needed this way
6) manpower will be provided by the civilian or player facilities
7) it could be state supported piracy (a player who wants to weaken another player but not attack him openly could support pirate activity), or freedom wishes. Maybe a colony with "low morale" wants to be independend but are not granted. They could resort to piracy (or more politically correct: rebellions).

If all that was true, why can't players or NPRs benefit from the shipbuilding, maintenance facilities, fuel production, missile production and manpower of a civilian mining colony?

[Rabid_Cog]

On a somewhat related and possibly prerequisite note, an idea is perhaps some non-commercial civilian ships. Police frigates, pleasure yachts, bounty hunters, mercenaries, corporate guards, etc, some of which may be armed. They perform no actual function, just fly from place to place. They fight if hostile ships come in range, but dont go seeking enemies. They are armed with outdated tech (maybe 1-3 tech levels behind current tech, only created if the result > 0).

If they get destroyed, they cause a temporary small malus to wealth generation of colonies in nearby systems.

The function of these ships gameplay wise?
Battlefield terrain to use up attackers resources or forces them to avoid these ships (or get shot at)
Things for enemies to attack that hurts you less than a full nuclear assault on a homeworld or a lost fleet.
Raiding targets for small fleets
Hooks for potential future development such as pirates (Pirates dont build ships, they steal/buy these and use em till they break)

With regards to the pirates, I dont think pirates appearing to be civilian ships is going to work very well unless they only appear to be that way while inside sensor range. Can still be a bit noticable if they are off conventional trade routes.