The Imperial Courier---Supreme Choice??

[Cmdr James]

Why would a pirate who could afford a several million Cr ship bother hunting the odd cobra for a cargo of 30t food? I dont understand the logic in pirates having supercostly ships. A rich pirate would be better to retire, would they not?

[Diziet Sma]

Why would a pirate who could afford a several million Cr ship bother hunting the odd cobra for a cargo of 30t food? I dont understand the logic in pirates having supercostly ships. A rich pirate would be better to retire, would they not?

'Cause it gets in your blood and old habits are hard to break.... Arrrrr!

[LittleBear]

Although they'd probabley mainly go after convoys of Boas, Pythons and the like, I think there would be an element of 'Because its there'. If on the way to intercept their priminary target, a cobra cross the path of a fleet, why not take a few minites to laser it and take its cargo. The pirates don't know what the cobra is carrying but a full load of computers would make them 3,500 C. Even a mixed bag of cargo could easily make them 800C. Not bad for a few minites work! Few of the RL 17th / 18th Century pirates retired. Even with "The Queen Ann's Revenge' and a lot of cash, Blackbeard still pirated until he finally killed. A notorious pirate fleet captain may simply have no choice as he has nowhere safe to retire to.

[Lestradae]

I have actually thought about a backstory for this, and if I wasn't a bit naff about putting even more additional stuff into OSE already (having spent perhaps 500 work hours into this this year alone ) I would perhaps put in the whole idea.

Outside the safe space lanes, in OSE there are the real pirates. Little fleets of really badass renegades, lurking in deep space and waiting for their big chance.

In the space lanes, there are traders of a different volume also. These bigShip NPC Commanders might harbour thousands of tons of cargo in their holds. (They won't really ingame naturally, as likely_cargo is maxxed out at 15 for reasons of RAM load, but let's suspend disbelieve here. A Dredger will have 2000+ tons of cargo onboard)

A pirate fleet that gets a Dredger with 2000t of Computers and sells it in an anarchy (who would seriously try to stop these guys?) has just earned themselves 200k Cr in one go.

Now the police and navy have such fleets too. Therefore, these uber pirates tend to stay in anarchies, feudal and dictatorship systems, and are very rare in others, and even in the former sort of system they tend to stay out of sight of the busy lanes except for a quick foray every now and then.

The super pirates distribution in my little background story here is about the one to be found in OSE, so that's really like that ingame.

What's not ingame, but we can assume it is like that (and I would put it in if it wasn't already a bit too much work for me anyways) is that sometimes, these uber pirates take a decision, move into the lane, and, leaving an apocalyptic trail of destruction in their wake, travel to the system's main station, where an epic battle between GalCop, perhaps emergency navy etc. and them will ensue.

Sometimes the good guys win, then nothing changes except paradise for scavengers for some time and big evening news for anyone not involved.

Sometimes the bad guys win, and then a democracy becomes an anarchy, or an anarchy becomes a feudal or dictatorship system - and guess who the new "lords" or dictators are, or, were ...

That's my ideas behind the whole concept in a nutshell

L

[Sendraks]

Why would a pirate who could afford a several million Cr ship bother hunting the odd cobra for a cargo of 30t food? I dont understand the logic in pirates having supercostly ships. A rich pirate would be better to retire, would they not?

'Cause it gets in your blood and old habits are hard to break.... Arrrrr!

This is pretty much it in a nutshell. Plenty of examples of real world criminals who made their millions through crime and could've retired, but didn't. Either they got really greedy and had to have more or it was too deeply ingrained in their psyche to ever walk away from.

Plus pirates being pirates, I imagine one or two of them will have stolen these expensive ships by means unknown and not available to the player.

[Lestradae]

Plus pirates being pirates, I imagine one or two of them will have stolen these expensive ships by means unknown and not available to the player.

This reminds me that someone said once they would ponder an oxp which would allow raiding parties to attack stations or carriers - something like that could go both ways, super pirates raiding main station etc. or navy/GalCop forces raiding uber pirate hideouts?

Is the idea still out there? That would be great stuff for an oxp, wouldn't it, when one or both sides could/would hire the player to help, either with the raid or with station defense?



L

[Sendraks]

Is the idea still out there? That would be great stuff for an oxp, wouldn't it, when one or both sides could/would hire the player to help, either with the raid or with station defense?

It would be an amazing thing flying alongside the naval forces in a battle against a pirate Dreadnought or stolen naval Behemoth. Naval battles are already pretty fab, especially Thargoid battles, so this would be a massive leap beyond that.

[wackyman465]

i'd be fighting on the pirate side myself, being one of those pirates with a multimillion CR ship...

What ships in OSE will be able to splat me across their windshield?
And obviously, one thing pirates COULD do in oolite, instead of blowing up a dredger (which would get them maybe 200k cr worth of cargo), is take a lesson from the somalians and take a dredger, behemoth, con store, monastary... hostage, and get millions of dollars in ransom... if they can fight off the navy... maybe a player can do this; take a station by killing all it's launched fighters and docking with it, you'd get a mission screen saying "you have taken this station for ransom, would you like to: adjust your ransom demands or issue galcop a menacing message or kill a hostage...
It would provide another route for those high end pirates out there... huge risk, huge gain... How much do you think galcop would be willing to pay for the safe return of a Coriolis or torus station?

[Disembodied]

This is pretty much it in a nutshell. Plenty of examples of real world criminals who made their millions through crime and could've retired, but didn't. Either they got really greedy and had to have more or it was too deeply ingrained in their psyche to ever walk away from.

Plus pirates being pirates, I imagine one or two of them will have stolen these expensive ships by means unknown and not available to the player.

Piracy – or a life of violence and bloodshed in general – can become a trap: this, after all, is the story of King Lear and Ran. You can't retire, you can't get out, no matter how successful you've become, because your legacy of death and destruction will always haunt you. If your enemies don't hunt you down then your followers, who haven't yet satisfied their own hunger for wealth and power, will devour you ...

[Commander McLane]

Shakespeare.oxp, anyone?




Although I could also provide some fitting biblical stories. Shakespeare got his inspiration somewhere, after all...

[zevans]

Shakespeare.oxp, anyone?

But there's only 7 basic plots... and we have more than 7 OXPs, and we haven't even done Romeo and Juliet yet!

[zevans]

Shakespeare.oxp, anyone?

But there's only 7 basic plots... and we have more than 7 OXPs, and we haven't even done Romeo and Juliet yet!

[Thargoid]

So what's Lovecats then?

[Cmdr Wyvern]

What ships in OSE will be able to splat me across their windshield?

"It comes, the Hammer of Sorrow!"
'Nuff said.

[LittleBear]

Plus pirates being pirates, I imagine one or two of them will have stolen these expensive ships by means unknown and not available to the player.

This reminds me that someone said once they would ponder an oxp which would allow raiding parties to attack stations or carriers - something like that could go both ways, super pirates raiding main station etc. or navy/GalCop forces raiding uber pirate hideouts?

Is the idea still out there? That would be great stuff for an oxp, wouldn't it, when one or both sides could/would hire the player to help, either with the raid or with station defense?



L

This is implemented with Random Hits 1.3.6, but the gang of Uber Criminals raid the Space Bar not the main station. The player has the option of launching with the NPC hunters the Bar launches (or cowering inside). To keep game balance though, you have to reach a certain elite rating and Bounty Hunters' Guild rating before the chance of this happening can be called.