Bounty mission/pirate ideas

[Psyco Diver 69]

I was thinking to make bounty missions more interesting, what if instead of destorying a ship, what if we had to capture it. If you destroyed it you would get paid, but if you didn't and dragged it into a base you would get paid more. I was thinking of a way to do this, like maybe being able to target just their engines and weapons. Then having tow cables. Of course towing them would be hard, slow, and make you a target, but bringing the criminal in for trial would reward even more money. Same could go for pirates, destroy the engines and weapons of a ship, haul it to a bigger pirate ship (like a pirate mule) or base and then either fix and keep the ship or part it out and sell it. Could make pirating funner for anyone that decides to go that route. Could even play out that you can capture aera ships and tow them to confed space to collect special rewards

[kraehe]

Moin Psyco,

I was thinking to make bounty missions more interesting, what if instead of destorying a ship, what if we had to capture it.

I like the idea, especialy for bigger ships. I would also like to make pirates themself more interesting.

The current pirate mission is, that one gets a mission, jumps and SPECs there, drifts towards mission point, and pirates appear suddenly out of nowhere, when one is close enough to the mission point. I wonder, if all pirates have a cloaking devices. I still don't have one on my Franklin, but I have good class X shields, so I close up evading and wait for the point defense to hammer down the opponents shields, turn into at range and shoot to take the bounty. Then I look around for the other pirates realizing there is a battle going on, as my friends are attacking the pirates. I sometimes score a lucky kill at long range with my point defense, but often my friends are ripping them faster apart than I can turn my ship around to get in razor range.

The other pirate encounter is the random pirate somewhere. The insane plowshare or hyena. Its easy to kill them, even for a Llama, if one uses heatseeker or friend or foe missiles. But then Uln and Forsaken are starting to fight the player, if their relation are at low newbie level. Its possible to escape into Area space, but this is a hard fight. So the best a newbie can do, is to pray that shield are holding long enough to evade the pirates, and let your friends score the kills. A few cargo missions are enough, that in system authority fights for you.

Pirates currently don't make any sense. At first, they are dead fish, if they appear at busy points, and they often do. And they don't make any money, don''t have any income. Everything is driven by economy.

So random pirate encounters should not happen at busy places. Backwater moons and other low pop colony would be their pray. Then they wont appear as pirate on display immediately starting to attack. But they would be a normal green ship, closing up, and opening a line, telling that my ship is target locked by missiles, and that I should stop engines. They might be a bit more harsh than normal customs patrol boat, but they request search for contraband and show a warrant of local authorities, close up and come on board. Once on board, the result is that you lost your cargo, or a part of it, to support a local revolution, ISO, Rlan resistance or whatever. You know who they are, so next time this flight group is on your screen they appear as pirates. They of course know, that you know them. So next time, they just close up enough for missile lock, they just ask for a money transfer, of a lumped sum to support their revolution, milking the cow on a low risk level. But unlike the current pirate system, those pirates would be locals somewhere. Currently pirates come out of nowhere, and one has fun with Uln and Forsaken, if one kills a pirate.

The anti pirate mission would also need to go into some low pop area, remote enough that real authorities dont have the power to care for it. The flight group of those pirates would also appear as pirates on HUD. But official missions against those belonging to their own faction is seldom. And even if you have an official warrant declaring the Catskills flight group as pirate, you still have killed the brother or sister of someone local. Using non lethal weapons, e.g. crippler and tractor on smaller ships, or emp torpedo and targeting the engine subunit, would allow to disable a ship to board it, so you didn't kill someones kitten.

So my suggested idea would be:

- Pirates are locals of some faction. Every faction should have a smaller or bigger chance that a flight group is a doing extra money with bullying newbie merchants around. Their goal is not to kill you, but to earn money for their good fight. They are fighting for the right side, against some invasion or other thing, and they have all the right to collect the necessary money, so that those at home can continue to fight against whatever. Killing a pirate would lower the relation of that faction and of course of that flight group.

- Every ship needs some default subunits to target when shields are down. Sensors, engines, weapons come in mind. Targeting those would be work of the PD/AI trying to score minimal hits at the right place. The main problem with non lethal weapons is, that one can not use them against several opponents. One has to kill the escort before being able to disable the bounty. Currently one can kill the bounty and watch the fight. Disabled fighters could be boarded once they are tractored into the cargo hold, bigger ships have docking possibilities.

- Make the pirates more intelligent. They should ask for money, or cargo, and not just appear and die. Its of course players choice and risk to accept boarding party. Some pirates might decide to take ship and crew as hostage, once on board. So it might be better to evade and fight, risking that everybody of that faction thinks you killed a lawful citizen.

ciao,Kraehe

[loki1950]

Lots work on the AI here good thing it's in for a rewrite check this thread for safemode's musings on said rewrite http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 27&t=13278

Enjoy the Choice