[Radi]

To be any kind of bad guy in Jumpgate was hard. Pirates were notoriously hunted down and generaly this line of action wasn't very profitable. I still remember when band of all pro-factional pilots ganked band of pilots that tried to do pirate RP in KH.

Mercs, well they did not had better because they usualy ended up being shot by everybody at some point.


Should there be a faction for rogue pilots to sustain their activity?

Sounds reasonable. Own stations. No tags thought. This might increase work for the dev team. Also, I fear that all factional squads will gank "bad guys" simply because they are bad. Happened before, will happen again I'm sure.

Should players be given a choice to join such faction later in the game? Well, at that stage you should know what are you getting into.



If there should not be a separate faction, how should pilots, from different factions, engage in those kind of activities?


Or maybe there isn't a room for pirates, merc etc in Jumpgate Evolution?

[Nanaki]

Pirates were supposed to be based off the Derelict stations, I beleive. That is why the Derelict stations are unreg.

Giving Pirates/Mercs/etc. their own faction isnt quite ideal (or make much sense, it gives me images of a pirate newb starting off in a newb shuttle with a Insight/Burglar). Hyperial is supposedly harboring pirates, which could give Hyperial players the choice of either going Hyperial military, Hyperial Civilian, or going pirate.

[GrimGriz]

I'd like it if every action you did affected your PR, which in turn affected where you could dock/take missions from.

[Liet]

I dunno, I think it's possible to run a perfectly neutral merc squad. Mine ran wonderfully... we made a ton of money and no one shot at us except the enemies of the people who hired us. My guess is a lot of merc squads failed after a few weeks because their member didn't adhere to the rules.

Griz - Ideal, but too complicated to ever work. If I kill Tyke, how is the game going to decide whether I'm a hero to Octavia or a villain?

[GrimGriz]

Based on his reputation with Octavia. Specifically, if I recall correctly everyone disagreed with Tyke's belief that HG of other factions had no business in Octavia. Assuming he stuck to his guns with that (and got kills) he'd lose oct pr when he shot down oct allies in oct space, and gain it when he shot enemies. If they were neutral mil instead of nothing HG, he'd have little to no Oct PR if not negative Oct PR, so oct would not care, or give you PR for ripping him.

[Liet]

But if I kill him before he can kill an ally in Oct space, I'd take a PR hit, which wouldn't make much sense. It would be awesome, but no system is going to understand the nuances behind every situation.

[Injustice]

IIRC we discussed this in detail on the JGCentral forums about a month ago. For the most part I agree that having a neutral faction (with their own ships, weapons, and equipment) is stretching it a bit too much. My solution to the problem of pirates getting the shaft due to PR loss was to make unreg stations virtually the inverse of faction stations when it came to PR costs of equipment (just equipment, not commodities).

It's still possible to contract a hauler to stock an unreg station, but with the PR requirement for, say, dream engines being negative rather than positive, it'd be virtually impossible for another hauler to strip the station. For the sake of fairness the negative PR requirement would be substantially less for low end equipment (LF, MF, and Scout gear mostly), as an "honest" pirate wouldn't generate that much negative PR.

To further the argument, I'd like to resubmit an idea I came up with a couple of years ago. The term bounty as applied to civ-rippers or pirates always seemed off-key to me. A criminal doesn't carry a "bounty", he carries a "reward". Whereas a factionalist PvPer that often rips civvers or pirates could recieve a "bounty" from the shaddy organizations that contract to pirates. Said bounties would be significantly larger than their opposing rewards since pirates and others with negative PR don't recieve insurance payouts when they take a pod ride. That would balance things from my perspective.

[Wild_Bill]

Injustice, just to give a RL example, look at all the cruise ships and freighters who fly under a foreign flag for various reasons (tax advantages, looser regulations, political considerations, etc). So a neutral faction makes a kind of sense. Then again, if you look at RL piracy currently, you see countries with weak or corrupt governments being havens for pirate activities, so again, this fits. In Sci-fi literature, pirate or neutral Space Stations are fairly frequent occurrences as well. I don't see it as being that big of a problem but that could be just my lack of imagination or experience.

I like GG's PR effects and I generally agree with Injustice's spin on PR for market privileges on Unreg/Neutral/Pirate Stations.

I like the idea of having some kind of level or experience requirement before switching to pirate/neutral/foreign tags. It shouldn't require a re-set, nor should it be an initially choseable option, even for a 2nd or multiple account.

[TexMurphy]

One of the biggest problems with Jumpgate Piracy was the lack of anti piracy. Sure pirates where at times hunted by a hoard of ships but that really isnt anti piracy.

Anti piracy imho is patrols and escorts. Jumpgate has no incentive to prevent piracy just incentive to punish pirates (collect the bounty).

Problem with patrols and escorts is that their objective is to ensure that nothing happens. If nothing happens then pilots get boored. Pilots need something to happen inorder to do a task.

Also the merchant is very unwilling to pay for escort when most of the time nothing happens.

The escort part I think should be done with player createable miissons. If a PC hasnt accepted the mission by launch a NPCs will take it.

Problem is to actually get people to ask but at least that eliminates the "no one ever wants to escort me" part of the problem.

For patrols Id like to see missions that interact with each other. Patrol missions to identify hostiles in a sector, once hostile is identified a intercept mission is created.

I think these issues need to be adressed before any issues with piracy are adressed, still obviously piracy needs a overhaul as well.

Tex

[Chemdog]

Originally Posted by Liet

But if I kill him before he can kill an ally in Oct space, I'd take a PR hit, which wouldn't make much sense. It would be awesome, but no system is going to understand the nuances behind every situation.

And on top of that, you would need to have a display to show the pr of every pilot you come across in space in order to know whether or not you could shoot at them.

[Wild_Bill]

Chemdog, in Jumpgate Classic we've pretty well got our PR indicator now. If you have MT tags then you are hostile to another MT; if you have a bounty, then you have Pirate tags (for your negative PR of course) and that pretty well makes you "meat for any one's spear". Civ tags mean you are in good reputation with the factions. How much more simple would you like it? It can't determine intent but it's about as close as you can expect to get. If you've got a better system, please share it. I'd be interested in looking at it.

Liet you can attack anyone you want, anywhere you want. If you succeed it might cost you a big bounty depending on your relative PR and levels. If you lose it will likely cost you a good bit as well. You are the one choosing to attack civs for whatever reason. At the same time, it shouldn't cost you anything extra to defend yourself. If you are attacked, you should be able to fight back without additional penalty. There should be no absolute safety anywhere or at any time, but if you are civ and minding your own business then it should be expensive for someone else to attack you. That would discourage random griefing, while still allowing RP.

TexMurphy, I agree on the escort, but I'd make it a separate mission (like the current Patrol mission where you fly to a sector, fly through the beacon and go on to the next). With the "escort mission", it would be from one station to another station. Length of journey, time required to complete the mission and level of danger expected would determine the compensation. By making it a escort mission, it would be the faction government paying the fee, not the pilot being escorted.

If you are a PC hauler and request an escort, either a PC or an NPC takes it. If you are a PC escort pilot, then you either get a PC hauler/miner to escort or an NPC. If you complete the escort mission with no combat *or only flux*, you get the base payout. If you have to fight during the escort then you get a combat bonus. If you "kill" the aggressor you get a bonus based on the attackers PR/lvl (obviously Liet would get you a bigger bonus than a AI attacker would). If you lose the fight, but your escortee gets away, you get half the payout. If your escortee doesn't make it, you get nothing and take a PR hit for failing your mission. If you fail to complete the mission for any other reason, it would still count as failing a mission and would include a PR hit. Any bonus would come out of the escortee's bank account. Having it as a mission means the hauler/miner would be more likely to request it (since the pilot requesting the escort would only be financially responsible for the payment of a bonus, if any). With it being a mission paid by the faction government, it could be made to pay well, or great even depending on the danger/boredom level expected. A high paying mission would either be long and boring or dangerous. Anything in between (short duration escorts in faction space) would be moderate payouts.

I would expect an escort for a miner to have a fairly high payout just due to the boredom factor. For that matter, a miner escort could well have a time limit, say x hours equals y payout, plus bonuses. Not as hard on the escorting pilot. Near the end of the original mining escort mission, the nearest station would automatically creat a NEW escort mission. If no one accepted it, either you would get a new NPC escorter or else a warning you were about to lose your escort and to head for the nearest faction station for "your own safety".

An escort for a hauler from say, Oct Core to Depot or GP would be a very moderate payout. An escort to GBS would have a very high payout due to the expected danger. I'm not sure how you would work a civ hauler going to a hostile faction destination. If your escorter was MT (or it's equivalent) it would just about guarantee an attack from hostile MTs as well as any Pirate. In fact, I don't think a MT could do a hostile faction escort mission at all because of the MT/MT factor. Any hostile faction escort would have to be either a Merc escort (with a tag that only allowed retaliatory attacks against civ or MT attackers or preemptive attacks on Pirates) or else a total MT mission (where both the hauler and the escort are MT which would probably be a different mission anyway).

I'm thinking now that escort missions outside of faction space would have to be either to unreg/unclaimed space for a MT to do them or only done by a Merc. For an escort mission outside of faction space or to a hostile faction location, if the escort wasn't already a Merc, accepting the mission would give a temporary Merc tag.

Basically a Merc tag to me means "I'm a fighter looking for work & a fight, but not for government employment". It wouldn't be a Civ tag (if tags exist in Jumpgate Evolution for that matter) but it shouldn't automatically make you a target for other Mercs or MTs. Not real sure how that would be handled. Would the Merc Tag (Privateer Tag to avoid confusion) be like the old HG tag, removeable only at a friendly station? Or would it be like the current MT, requiring a number of missions? Shucks! Would an escort mission require ANY tag? I mean the escort is only supposed to shoot if he or his "customer" is attacked, right? So why would he need a special tag?

[daslog]

I'd take pirating right out. It's not ever going to work right. We just need to find something to replace it with.