[Pnakotus]

I've been playing a bit of SCP lately (the new builds work again ) and something struck me.  Pirates are everywhere!  They could appear at a moments notice!  Their warships wait, ready to strike... ... ... where?

Pirates are never based anywhere.  Obviously, having them jump in is quite useful from a FRED perspective, and you could hardly give a pirate faction an Arcadia.  However, there are alteratives, that would make the 'fighting pirates' parts of campaigns a little more interesting.

First, pirates have no notable shipbuilding capability.  All their vessels and platforms should be available elsewhere.  Secondly, they can't be based in civilian or military bases, since they would be arrested or killed.  They can't just fly their fighters through jump nodes, either, since they are patrolled.  They must be largely independent, and indeed this makes pirates instantly more interesting from a campaign perspective.  Three ideas present themselves:

1) Small platforms.  I've seen of platforms, but I don't recall anything along the lines of simply a small base.  A living area, a pad or docking bay, thats it.  It should be much, much smaller than an Arcadia, and could be used in some missions to replace the 'science base' that a Faustus often stands in as.  It should also probably be either 'TV' vintage or a new 'reconstruction' type.

2) Escort carriers.  TV or Great War relics.  An escort carrier would probably end up being about a third the size of an Orion: just engines, accomodation and launch bay.  These would be availible surplus to pirates, and would allow them to move between systems.  Their appearance would not be a direct threat, but a signal that pirate activity could be expected.

3) Tenders.  Converted freighters or merchantmen (not that there are any ATM) used to carry fighters.  A low-budget alternative.  You could get away with simply modifying a Triton container to carry a few fighters.

This suggests a gap in civilian ships, one that I'm sure people have noticed before - large freighters.  Freighters with docking bays.   Freighters that dwarf destroyers.  If a larger merchant vessel existed, it would be an obvious choice for pirates/rebels/ne'er-do-wells to modify as a light carrier for their fighters.  It'd also let them attempt to smuggle forces past node blockades, move bases, etc.

I have always felt that pirate forces consisting of fighters and the odd cruiser or corvette leave something to be desired.  The pirates never have bases, leaders, areas of control, etc.  They are never tracked back to their bases, their ships never retire for repairs... in short, they are treated like filler bad guys, who simply jump in and die.  With a few new models and a bit of thought, pirates could be given a bit of depth, a base of operations, an ability to project power and the potential to surprise the player.  All good stuff.

[brugger]

I've always kind of thought as fs pirates as the organized crime of the future. they would basically have legitimate business fronts that give them a reason for having military craft, maybe a security firm or some type of valuable commodity transport company, but when the oppurtunity for a big score comes along they remove the serial numbers from their craft and launch.

[Trivial Psychic]

TrashMan has some pirate designs HERE.

[NGTM-1R]

There's the multi-docking GTT Argo Stratcomm released for hauling small groups of fighters about.

And pirates are not always pirates...

[FireCrack]

Pirates should have posidens that carry around open ended cargo pods that fire missiles.

[WMCoolmon]

You're absolutely right about pirates being filler.

However, the Freespace universe in its basic incarnation isn't really suited for long missions. It's good for big wars, but small skirmishes, not so well. Unfortunately, most campaigns seem to like to bring in pirates or HOL or NTF, or all three combined. You can't really have the Shivans popping up all over the place.

Although I sort of wish there was a campaign where you started fighting the Shivans right off. The minor-skirmishing-then-Shivans-arrive has gotten old.

Anyway, Derelict handles this pretty well by giving the pirates funding from Morgan Mining Tech, and using drones.

[Singh]

pffft....why have mere missiles when you could probably stuff a few cyclops or Helios in there?

[StratComm]

Maybe because Helios bombs are NOT something that a pirate would ever have access to.  Those things are special issue to bomber wings in the GTVA, deployed only in times of utmost crisis and only when there's no way a smaller Cyclops warhead could even pretend to do the job.  The GTVA would never let any private group get their hands on one.   We're talking levels of security much like present-day nukes, if not greater.

[Nuke]

this ship has a fighter bay and a wet bar

[WMCoolmon]

Looks more like a strip club.

Wait, is that...yes, it is...no- must resist! Noooo-

Arr, matey! Pass me a wee bit o' the scotch would ye, afore I shoot your othuh eye out! :arr:

[Singh]

Originally posted by StratComm
Maybe because Helios bombs are NOT something that a pirate would ever have access to.  Those things are special issue to bomber wings in the GTVA, deployed only in times of utmost crisis and only when there's no way a smaller Cyclops warhead could even pretend to do the job.  The GTVA would never let any private group get their hands on one.   We're talking levels of security much like present-day nukes, if not greater.

Yaaar! All the better reason to pull off the greatest hiest in history! YAAR!

Still, I bet they'd at least have cyclops, especially after considering how many were thrown around in the NTF rebellion/GW2

[Colonol Dekker]

Come on now, bring on the Indies, Pirate vessels always have more intersting names, GTVA are always like the "GTD northeast anglia" or GTCV Scumthorpe" but pirate vessels could be called the "Brazen hussy" "Topless Cheerleader" "Jolly Rancher" Etc.  Indies are the way forward.........


NB Plus paint schemes kick St00Pid A$$ !!

[Pnakotus]

Legal, moonlighting pirates are a possibility... but not with pirate organisations with literally hundreds of fighters, usually military grade.  Having hundreds of fighters, a few cruisers, and no major caps is silly.  Even if they had large, armed freighters for capturing civvie cargo ships, 1660 style, that'd be fun.

Every one of those 'endless repeating wave of 4 Hercs' is a ship that cost money, that has a ground crew waiting for it somewhere, that sat on a TO&E chart, etc etc.  Having them just show up for cannon fodder has always been weak: I'd rather fight 4 difficult or well-placed enemies than eighty-seven crap ones.

I guess noone makes civvie designs since most mods try to stay with the standard shiplist.  Thats a shame: you can't even really have an independent area, since Arcadias are too big, there aren't any civvie ships apart from freighters and medical ships, and so on.  I think most interesting stories would take place miles away from a massive military base like an Arcadia.

Then again, civvie ships bring the whole 'whats a convoy doing in realspace in FS' issue up again.  Even a toll-booth ship would be cool, charging everyone as they use the node.  Gotta pay for the ships to kill the faceless pirate filler somehow!

[Boomer]

Technically, a pirate organization could get their hands on old Great War era technology and upgrade.

Wouldn't it be interesting to fight a wing of modified Athenas with A couple of banks of Cyclops?

[Lukeskywalkie]

Originally posted by Pnakotus

Every one of those 'endless repeating wave of 4 Hercs' is a ship that cost money, that has a ground crew waiting for it somewhere, that sat on a TO&E chart, etc etc.  Having them just show up for cannon fodder has always been weak: I'd rather fight 4 difficult or well-placed enemies than eighty-seven crap ones.

If there's one thing that's always annoyed me about freespace campaigns, it that. the endless, expensive fighter wings that, even though you're firing at them, have the courage to jump in RIGHT next to the ship you're escorting, and fire their untoppable swarm missile barrage, knowing that it will mean certain death .2 seconds after they fire. And while 'the enemy' alwayd has 60 or 70 fighters, sent in waves, you have...4. Now I understand the logic, to some degree. Having two equally numbered forces in this game would make the mission a cakewalk for the player - how hard is it to shoot down two wings? The great alpha one can do that all on his own.  So, having 20 or 30 fighters jump in consecutively isn't bad. and, if there's a known destroyer or carrier in the area, than the amount of fighters is justified. But having them just start appearing, while you have to defend a massive area with your 3 useless wingmen, is just dumb. That's why, despite my deepest desire to do so, I have yet to complete one Lightning marshall campaign.
I'm having the most misterious feeling of deja vu, I think I've said this before.

ON TOPIC- I would love to see a seperate pirate culture, with their own, cheaper to make, or more cobbled together, bases and warships. Even the fighters could be modifed to feel more..customized. Using old/fs1 ships is understandable, but what about having so called 'civilian' fighters, with weapons attached. how bout it, anyone got the guts or the gumption to make a REAL pirate force? I have no skillz beyond Quake-style shooters, so someone else is going to have to pick up that flaming torch.
(I know, I know, it's easier said than done. shoot me.)

[karajorma]

Actually although no one here has mentioned it, it's quite possible that piracy simply doesn't exist in the FreeSpace universe.

Consider the following

- The GTVA possesses some sort of instantanious communication system that at the very least works anywhere in the system and may or may not work anywhere else (The range of the GTVA's FTL system is never conclusively proved one way or the other).

- The GTVA can redeploy a fighter wing currently on patrol to anywhere else in the system in a time dependant on how long it takes them to charge up their jump engines (Which seems to be about 4 seconds!).

-  The GTVA can deploy a capship with subspace tracking ability to anywhere else in the system in the time it takes to charge up its jump engines.

-  The only ship in the game that ever displayed any kind of jamming equipment is the until recently top secret terran AWACS.

So basically whether or not pirates even exist is a simple matter of whether they are able to build a device capable of jamming a freighters comms systems. If not the GTVA will be able to send fighters to kick the crap out of them within a range of somewhere between 4 seconds and a couple of minutes. Sometime within that range they may even be able to send a capship and track the pirates back to their HQ/rally point once they decide to run away.

Don't give me that "out of the way systems only" crap either. With any of those systems only about 1-2 hours away from a big GTVA system (or less) they could easily send a destroyer or corvette with escorts to deal with any pirates as soon as they are known to be acting in the area. It would be logical for the GTVA to do this. Stomp hard on the first signs of any pirate activity and no one would ever be stupid enough to think it a viable system for making money.

It all depends on if the pirates can build a jammer. If they can then they stand a good chance. If they can't though piracy is idiotic.

[aldo_14]

If we don't have pirates, how else are we going to pad out our missions with easily dispatcheable enemies before the big-baddy arrives?

What I reckoned, was that piracy is rare, but not impossible; after Capella and the Great War beforehand, the situation was pretty dire; the fleets of the GTVA were damaged/decimated, there would be a lot of refugees, and the economy, government, and authorities would be geared towards the war,  I think that could easily lead to a power vacuum that allows criminality to occur, simply because the GTVA has bigger fish to fry than criminals.

They're a useful plot device, anyways; so I say use them for that when needed.

Oh, and presumably a 'good' (i.e. surviving) pirate group would be trained to target comms first and then engines, which would partly solve the issue of jamming comms.  Or they could have agents working within the originating docks that sabotage the target vessel /s before they leave.

[Lukeskywalkie]

Or they could have agents working within the originating docks that sabotage the target vessel /s before they leave.

That's my reconing, is that most raids would begine with a more clandestine operation onboard the target vessel or convoy, so it's more like smuggling with a little piracy thrown in.

[NGTM-1R]

Originally posted by karajorma
Actually although no one here has mentioned it, it's quite possible that piracy simply doesn't exist in the FreeSpace universe.

Except...there is canonical evidence that pirates do exist, as they appear in a Silent Threat mission as your primary opponents.

The only time I have a mission where you respond to an in-progress attack is because one of the frieghters made an emergency jump, at the cost of frying their drives, and got the word out. Otherwise I generally assume that they have semi-competent Electronic Warfare skills.

I tend to think pirates lack most of the support crew that a GTVA fighter would have; the pilots might be maintaining their own fighters. I also set limits on their numbers, actually on anyone's numbers: attrition of Shivan fighter groups played a major role in Cleaning Crew.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by ngtm1r


Except...there is canonical evidence that pirates do exist, as they appear in a Silent Threat mission as your primary opponents.

And 32 years later they could be extinct.

I'm not saying pirates have to be extinct. Just that there are good reasons why they could be.