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gible wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 03:51

1)Pirate <-> Empire relationships must be set to Enemy.(only just convinced - policing is work )

Bear in mind that this will prevent empires from giving ships to pirates and vice versa. I am in favor - empires rarely provided ships, they tended instead to deal with already established pirates.

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2)Empire races may not choose OBRM, Joat must leave 50points to defenses(or 100 to anything). Mine settings must be worse than 10/10/10.

I agree with Sr Seven on the mines, cost 5 cut my resource count by almost 40% relative to cost 3 (with OBRM), cost 10 mines would probably drop resources by at least 60%. While this would keep empire growth very slow for non-AR, non-f races, it would give AR or -f races a tremendous advantage. Probably not a good idea.

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GreyMatter:Make production market driven Its feasibly a good idea which I will keep for a later game. I'd rather not play reserve bank this game.

Seems like the sort of thing a macro or program could be written to handle. Rising empire tech levels or falling demand lead to lower costs, higher demand or cutting-edge technology lead to higher costs. Might be a good utility to have around for future game concepts, and is perhaps worth starting a thread about to iron out the rules for such a thing.

How were you going to do costs? I'd suggest payment in kind for mineral requirements, and payment in any kind of mineral for the resource cost. Maybe one-for-one on resources, maybe half price for resources. Pirates will have very few minerals relative to an empire, but they also have no other costs - they have at most one system to defend, no factories to build, no real infrastructure. There is the hoard, of course, but that's only important relative to the other hoards. In my arrogant opinion, keeping pirate costs similar to those an empire would pay ought to give a reasonable force balance.

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Marduk: neutral territory, off-limits to empire vessels I'm going to leave this for now and go with the "normal" scouting zones. But I'll keep it in mind and intruduce it during the game if things don't work out(ie pirates keep dying too quickly - how quickly is too quickly? not sure...they're not expected to survive too long. Making the game last long enough for pirates to come and go may be the biggest problem/failure.

What happens to the hoard of a dead pirate? Given to the next pirate, or lost to become legend? Anyway, it doesn't matter how quickly the pirates die. The smart ones survive, the foolish or just plain unlucky swing from the gallows. C'est la morte. The new pirate has some catching up to do, but all his starting ships will be nice new ones with all the latest gadgets.

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gible wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 03:51

[b] How about no OBRM and mine settings must be "worse" than 10/10/10?(double cost,normal otherwise) too much? not enough?

I like that A LOT !
This would effectively ensure that Empires *WILL* have to use RM !

Yes of course -f races will benefit somewhat, but they will still need RMs to run their Empires.

AR also becomes an interesting choice in this situation - but then AR HW will probabaly attract Pirates like a honeypot !

Bottomline is that RM will dictate use on non-standard race designs and that is a great thing ! and goes well with the theme of this game too!

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Mark:[re mine settings] I'm pretty strongly opposed...With the initial rules it felt like the pirates would be an annoyance to the empire players but perhaps not a large impact
This is a fair comment actually, the spirit of the game idea(well-conveyed or otherwise) was indeed for pirates to be an annoyance to empires rather than game changing partners and I want to keep this spirit. I also intended pirates to be killed and replaced, so I don't want things to swing too far in their favor. The kingpeice works well towads this...a daring raid with the RB should usually net much more loot than taking freighters, but the risk is much higher.
Sr Seven: Maybe cap it at x/x/10 instead
Possibly...How much of an impact can an SS race have on shipping? I know IT races can pretty much ignore them, but otherwise I've never actually seen it.
development delays that cost 10 mines.
Those delays work to the spirit of the game tho.

...so economically powerful that they will be able to eliminate the other...artificial at best.
It can't be helped tho. Not with a finite space to work in. With a limitless supply of pirates the futility of doing so might prevent all-out purges.
Having 100LY Deep no empire zones gives pirates a huge space to play their own game, to seek enterance to imperial spaces, and to bury their treasure...
I was looking at the numbers of a medium universe,with only 5 empires there's room to trim 100ly from all 4 edges. Tho remapping this may be diffuclt. If the planetary spread makes it viable I'll go that way. What concerns me is the need to police it.(I'd rather not) Accidental incursions will happen, and thats fine, but how long will empire honor stand up to pesky pirates taunting empires with the boundary?

Interecpt orders are certain to bring hostiles to these planets. If I were a pirate I'd probably find a way to make use of the mechanic. A game governed by artificial mechanics won't be much fun
Yup. and it becomes a pain to police. A possible solution: Set the PC->Empire relations to enemy and put a slot or three of Juggs on an Ultrastation, with a nasty fleet in support later on. This should be enough to dispense with any anti-pirate fleet, at least until the later-game. Pirate tactics to take advantage of this would sort-of make sense...an historical anti-pirate fleet wouldn't try taking on a nest of pirates on its own.
[re empire-pirate diplomacy] What convinced you?
Mostly the consquences of the settings. It goes with the idea of distrust between governments and pirates, even their own privateers. ie pirates and empire ships engaging on sight or having to run. Pirates not being able to take part in empire battles, still able to manipulate the battleboard but knwing they'll come under fire regardless(sorry sir, the scum,err-Greybeard fought well and took out their flagship, but was acidentally sunk by *ahem*friendly-fire)
It does limit diplomacy tho and I'm generally against that, hence only just)
early armed ship issues to Pirates
Yep I'm aware of this problem. At weap 5, betas in sufficient quantities will be out of the price range for starting cash..but 1-3 ships may be affordable depending on design.
The PC should not build anything that looks like a scrapper
Probably a wise idea. We could just make them very expensive... KingBob: Where are my tech ships? LJSilver:Yeah there a little problem with that, they turned out to cost much more than we thought. Bob: uh huh...and your profit margin won't have changed at all...

Marduk: prevent empires from giving ships to pirates and vice versa...empires rarely provided ships
it does? well bugger...not willingly anyway
cut my resource count by almost 40% relative
What resource count? The question is mines that move vs mine you can't move. How expensive do the stationary one have to be before the cost of protecting the other become attractive? worse than default? 10/5/10? It may give AR's an advantage, but they'd be much more vulnerable to pirates than other PRTs.
How were you going to do costs?
You're very close but I'm not going to disclose it.
What happens to the hoard of a dead pirate?
Its up for grabs. I'm not going to reveal where it is(or was). Its possible that suicide and restarting will be a viable option at times, just hope the pirate queue isn't too long.
I can see there will be two basic kinds of pirates. Serious ones (Edog) who try to survive as long as possible using all avaialbe means. And (me) those who just want a bit of fun and annoy the empires a bit.

GreyMatter: I like that A LOT !...Empires *WILL* have to use RM
So you want to be a pirate then?

[Updated on: Sat, 01 April 2006 18:26]

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gible wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 18:25

cut my resource count by almost 40% relative What resource count? The question is mines that move vs mine you can't move. How expensive do the stationary one have to be before the cost of protecting the other become attractive? worse than default? 10/5/10? It may give AR's an advantage, but they'd be much more vulnerable to pirates than other PRTs.

The resource count of an early empire. Slow mines mean slow factory building. Building miners means even slower factory building. You eventually ramp up to a normal speed but after a lethargic start. Add in the requirement of defending against pirate raids and you have empires dead in the water for a long time. Allowing low cost mines avoids that, but a limit of 10 for mines operated still forces empires to remote mine for half their minerals. Limiting it to lower than 10 forces the remote mining to happen earlier, but still doesn't cripple the early growth.

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So you want to be a pirate then?

It is, it is a wonderful thing, to be the Pirate King! Until you get caught, that is.

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GreyMatter wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 18:03

gible wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 03:51 [b] How about no OBRM and mine settings must be "worse" than 10/10/10?(double cost,normal otherwise) too much? not enough? I like that A LOT ! This would effectively ensure that Empires *WILL* have to use RM ! Yes of course -f races will benefit somewhat, but they will still need RMs to run their Empires. AR also becomes an interesting choice in this situation - but then AR HW will probabaly attract Pirates like a honeypot ! Bottomline is that RM will dictate use on non-standard race designs and that is a great thing ! and goes well with the theme of this game too!

I think you need to play in the RW some. The effects of these settings are interesting indeed. . .

First of all, x/10/x mines basically makes an HP race impossible to play, 1nd 10/10/10 is even worse as it forces completely G constrained economy to be short of res AND minerals for a very VERY long time.

As has been pointed out, these settings significantly show an HG race as well.

Solving the mineral problem does not simply call for imperials to build miners. . . In order to build miners you need the tech and resourse base to defend your HW from pirate raids. Then the tech and minerals to build miners and freighters. . . And since the destruction of the miners themselves make for a good source of minerals, you need to be able to build enough of an escort to at least discourage attacks directly against the miners. A player who solves this could probably make an 13/x/x HG work, but why go to the trouble?

The imperial who wins is probably going to be the first one to be able to secure a volume of space against pirates and effectively establish a 'rear area'. -F races are able to devote much of their resources to naval construction early. . . So let's look at how one would play -

Pick IS or SD, both are great choices for this game even with the penalty on SD. Pick IFE/NRSE/ISB/TT and maybe RS.
Set all 60 wide and 19%. Pick 1/1000 5/25/5 and 10/10/10. Take 3 cheap, 3 expensive. . . Live basically everywhere. TT. Sure the minerals are slow, but I don't need minerals for my economy... Just for ships... So I probably won't be sending out many freighters with minerals.

If you want to see races use remote mining, it must be made practical and rewarding to build races that use minerals to build an economy. The normal cost of mines for these races is NOT 5, but rather 3. 10 would be more than 3x the 'normal' cost.

As for AR, Only fleets with a Robber Barron are going to be able to grab and go from AR worlds, so while AR faces a threat to their very existance through attacks on their orbitals, they really shouldn't draw undue negative attention. Quite the opposite in fact. The Pirate Friend of a victorious AR has a great chance of winning the game.


I feel that banning OBRM is probably a good idea as it guarantees that everyone will have the option of building Remotes. But the Cost and Efficiency of mines should not be constrained unless we intend to effectively restrict the game to -F and AR.

At x/x/10 it is possible to run a HG race, but profitable to at least attempt remote mining. That said, I am fine with 10/10/10. . . Just don't expect me to try to build many factories.

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Ok...I've read everything discussed and given it some thought, and the thing I feared when I initially suggested limiting mines has reared itself. Namely -f becoming very attractive. Despite my toying with rules for mine settings and even the initial restrictions on empre races, I'd like to limit empire race deign as little as possible(eg SD only just didn't get banned) as little as possible. Having said that its clear that the "most effective" ways for empires to deal with pirates in the design phase is rather counter to the premise of the game. So I think I need to make some rulings...(other suggestions still welcome of course )

Empires:
* Maximum of x/x/10 or x/5/x mine settings (individual player choice)
* A limit of one -f empire race. First racefile in first served. (AR doesn't count as -f here)
* OBRM is banned.
* JoaT must leave 50 pts to defenses(or 100pts to anything)
* Will be set to enemy by PC race..and PC bases armed.(PC must still be set to friend..dunno why...it just sounds good. )

Pirates
* The RB ship Jolly Roger is a king peice for pirates, lose it and you're dead. Upgrades are available by trading the Jolly Roger in.
* PC Stargates will be available for use.
* Each Pirate is assigned one design slot for their exclusive use. The remain slots will be used for standard/popular designs.

Everyone
* Each turn in which the "common" tech levels change they will be broadcast to all via in-game message. PPS is off but these level will be roughly based on the overall current Empire tech levels.

* The northernmost/southernmost ~100ly of the map will be Frontiers (Pirates only) East/West as well depending on planet draw(crossed fingers). "Signpost" planets will be named, said planets are NOT in the frontier. 3 PC worlds will be in the interior. The remaining 8 will be in the frontiers.
A. Empire ships accidentally entering(for whatever reason) the frontiers must immediately depart exactly N/S or E/W (or NE,NW,SE,SW) as appropriate.
B. If Empire ships do not leave immediately the turn after (A), or they destroy Pirate ships within the frontier concurrently with (A), all ships of that Empire within the frontiers must be deleted or scrapped in space. (CE could cost you more than you bargained here.)
C. All infrations will be ignored unless reported by a Pirate via email. Pirates are advised to report infractions to the Empire player concerned as well.
D. If Empire ships are not scrapped in accordance with (B) a turn will be lost - a .x file with the required action(s) will be submitted by the host. No other orders will be created and/or altered.
In short, be careful hunting near the edge, unless you're willing to lose the ships concerned.
From (D) I need mention a game rule that is a constant feature of all games I've hosted (except one). If you password your game files(arguably unnecessary now on AH), you MUST keep me informed of your current password. Failure to do so will result in your race being set to Dead/Banned until an appropiate password is forthcoming. With AH as it is, my preference is to not use a password...I don't.

I still haven't decided on the Empire<->Pirate Diplomacy issue, but I'm now leaning the other way

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[Updated on: Mon, 03 April 2006 04:46]

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gible wrote on Sat, 01 April 2006 18:25

re: 10/10/10 mines GreyMatter: I like that A LOT !...Empires *WILL* have to use RM So you want to be a pirate then?

With the 10/10/10 restriction I would play an RM-Empire !

But damn it, Gible - you are making this even more interesting ! Now I want to be an Empire... but I cant play an Empire and a Pirate

Seriously though,
I think with the latest restrictions on the mines this game is going to be very exciting for both Empires and Pirates !



I am still advocating "enemy" relations between Empires<->Pirates though...

Also another question/thought:
Will the Pirates be allowed to start lootings right from the start or there will be a 10-20 turn ban on robbing HWs/colonies ?

[Updated on: Tue, 04 April 2006 19:03]

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GreyMatter wrote on Tue, 04 April 2006 18:59

But damn it, Gible - you are making this even more interesting ! Now I want to be an Empire... but I cant play an Empire and a Pirate

Start as an Empire, and if you die off you 'go into exile' as the next pirate to come along. Seek vengeance for your untimely demise!

Sr.Seven wrote on Tue, 04 April 2006 20:16

GreyMatter wrote on Tue, 04 April 2006 18:59 I am still advocating "enemy" relations between Empires<->Pirates though... Probably a good idea, but I am not sure how pirates will survive after Dooms and Disruptors come out without the overt support of an empire.

By banding together more, as was sometimes done in the past. Also, by that time their ships will be pretty cheap - remember they are to retain a tech edge over the empires. They'll also have the advantage of being able to use pretty much their entire force for a raid, and no empire is going to be able to protect everything reliably against a strong raider.

For the record, I am also in favor of enemy relations between Empires and those who prey on them. Keeps things simpler. From a theme aspect, though, you probably should allow players to ally as they want. Pirate life becomes a lot easier if they can arrange places to refuel, and the frontier is a long way from the core.

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Quote: Also another question/thought: Will the Pirates be allowed to start lootings right from the start or there will be a 10-20 turn ban on robbing HWs/colonies ? I wouldn't have a problem with them starting right off (or within the first 5) so long as they were at least 3 years travel from the nearest HW. Keep in mind that without the RB along pirates can't really steal from a planet's surface. . . of course if the RB is along it is at serious risk. On that note, the initial Jolly Roger should probably be unshielded and armed with a pair of blue lasers. Maybe a FM. And cloaks. Whacha think?

It will take a pirate at least five years to find and reach an empire HW in a medium galaxy, and that's if they're lucky and the empire is careless. More likely the first raids would come ten to twelve years in. Build an alpha torp destroyer with orders to take out unarmed ships (refuelers and transports, presumably), and maybe your minerals will stay put until you can build something better.

I think if I were a pirate I wouldn't pester anything but a colony for a while. I'd spend the early years doing as much scouting as possible. Get an idea of what worlds are likely colonization targets and keep a few ships ready nearby. Remember most build queues emphasize mines when the germ is gone, which means if you hit one it will start producing more minerals for you. Hang around looting for a couple of years, just be sure to get out when the navy comes.

Once I'd acquired a decent sum, then I'd go for more and better ships and start hitting mining worlds. Also important - keep as close an eye as possible on the other pirates without fighting them. Not only could I sell information about the pirates, I would know where the empires had been hit and thus know where they were likely concentrating their defenses.

By the way, my intelligence agency claims the Pirate Kingdom has close ties to the infamous Mystery Trader race.

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Boy that would be nice info to have but somehow I don't think would ethical info to give.

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Mark wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 15:12

Boy that would be nice info to have but somehow I don't think would ethical info to give.

God save us from the ethical considerations of pirate kings... I'll take a guess:

3 scouts, chameleon scanner
1 rogue, Pick-Pocket scanner, unarmed, mole-skin shields
2-4 destroyers, two with two X-ray lasers and a cow-hide shield, the other(s) with two X-rays and an alpha torp
1 Super-Fuel Xport ship, no scanner, two mole-skin shields
1 flagship, rogue with four X-ray lasers, cow-hide shields, Robber Baron scanner, either two manuever jets or a Sub-galactic fuel scoop in place of the FM

All FM engines except possibly the flagship. This is a difficult balancing act - once empires start to research, early tech ships get dead fast, but you don't want to overwhelm the starting empires either. What makes these ships work (more or less) is the time it takes for the pirates to get to the empires in the first place.

Make upgrading your SB in some way a high priority, whether it's adding a few beta torps or adding more shields. If your HW base doesn't have either some beta torps or quite a bit of shielding by 2410, I'd say you're going to be in trouble. I for one plan to have one of the shield slots filled by 2408. Even mole-skins help, another 12 of them will make quite a difference.

I'm expecting a couple of pirates to be dead by 2420, and about four more to be on shaky ground. One or two empires will have been slowed noticably by pirate activity, and be at a disadvantage compared to the other empires - they should be the first ones to cut serious deals with pirates. (If I can keep a pirate from hurting me, he's clearly not worth making a deal with.)

Half our original crop of pirates and maybe a replacement or two will be dead by 2450. We might have lost one of the empires that had early trouble with pirates. Slowed start + agressive neighbor = ?

Anyway, there's my theory. Let me know by 2450 if you want me to pick good stocks or winning horses for you.

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Marduk wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 17:39

Mark wrote on Wed, 05 April 2006 15:12 Boy that would be nice info to have but somehow I don't think would ethical info to give. God save us from the ethical considerations of pirate kings... I'll take a guess:

Me too, or maybe this is just wishful thinking.

1x Rogue w RB, 98% Cloaked, possibly lightly armed.
2x Armed Privateers with Pickpocket
2x Armed Privateers without scanner
2x Beam DDs
2x Torp DDGs
?x Cheap Scouts

I would not include a fuel ship in the initial alotment only because they are fairly easy to kill and are a cheap source of con tech.

I would pass out a few for free when the players reach con6.

I would not give out chameleon scanners until empires can't use them for tech, but I would pass out enough (blue laser?) scouts to make up for the lack of penscanning.

I would advocate giving free ships to the pirates from time to time. Nothing substantial of course, just enough to make sure than no living pirate is forced to wander the universe with alphatorps forever. . .

What about giving crappy miners to the pirates at some point? Pain to move them around, but they give access to minerals on inhabited worlds that lack orbitals without risking the JR.

And on a thematic note, what about no AccBBS or yes SlowTech (or both) to prolong the length of the pre-BB age?

[Updated on: Wed, 05 April 2006 19:19]

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