What's the deal with outposts and the red pirate skull holo/paint

photomankc

photomankc
Last night I bumped into an outpost in a controlled system (corporate) I believe, that upon closer inspection had a red holographic pirate skull rotating above it. I have to admit the ambiance was REALLY cool. The pad with a scrapped out ship and debris laying around, scorch marks on the station hull, the strange siren sound as you approached the docking pad. I actually had second thoughts docking there. However once I got to the station menu there was nothing remarkable about the place. A corporate controlling faction, same basic services, all the same options. I forgot to check the contacts but can't imagine it was any different.

Damn, seems like a miss that they didn't make this the only place you could get tools of the trade like manifest scanner, hatchbreakers, and so forth maybe needing to smuggle some illegal goods to open up access to that station.

Is there anything I missed with this or is it just spooky window-dressing?
 

777Driver

777Driver
These have been around since day 1. Originally Pirate outposts, taken over by various factions as the BGS evolves, the station type will stay the same.

One of my favorite places back in the day was an Anarchy system called Redott, the station was buried deep within the gravity well of a gas giant called Motherlode. Last time I checked, now a fed system, the station is far out of the gravity well and high sec... Things change
 
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S0rkvild

S0rkvild
from wiki https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Outpost
Unsanctioned Outposts are usually run by Anarchy minor factions and almost always have an active black market. Coupled with Outposts' bare-bones security, they make ideal hubs for Smugglers looking to sell illegal goods or take on missions that involve retrieving illegal salvage.
Click to expand...

But that is not true. I encountered those "pirate outposts" operated and ruled under non-anarchic regimes as well
 

photomankc

photomankc
777Driver said:
Because those outposts have been taken over by non anarchy factions.
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Makes sense. If the station model was locked though, seems like they should have locked the faction. OR allow the non-anarchy station to turn-off the neon "Here be pirates" sign. Would be cool if stations converted to Anarchy lit that up. Would be awesome if Robardin Rock in Colonia had that symbol outside for instance.
 

Walter2

Walter2
It's a hangover from the early days, as outlined above, before the BGS really became a playground for players with their irreverent mucking about with factions. In those long-off days (or those long off-days), if a starport flipped from Imperial to something else the 'Bask in her glory' welcoming text over the station's entrance remained unchanged - to the chagrin of many recently victorious independent operators. That state of affairs was eventually fixed so that appropriate texts now appear to match the incumbent's affairs of state as soon as contracts are exchanged.

I suspect that the holographic skull is another example of signage that wasn't expected to change, but is far, far down the list of necessary QoL updates.
 

Adept Geraden

Adept Geraden
I raised a bug report about this years ago, back when we had a bug report forum.
Basically, FD didn't have the foresight to imagine we'd go around and change ownership of stuff, and never designed the outpost model to morph with the times.
Long since placed in the "too hard" basket.
Particularly irksome, as I led a "safer neighbourhood" movement within our player group, and flipped all anarchies within cooee of our systems.
 

Spaceman Si

Spaceman Si
Those red-skull outposts used to have some bangin’ techno audible as you land on some of the pads, but I’ve not heard that for a while either, sadly.

It always sounded like there was a full-scale permanent rave going on inside :)
 

myothershipisacobraiv

myothershipisacobraiv
Add to the pile of things the game could use, but I wish the BGS evolved visually as it changes on paper. Pirate logos and spooky noises should disappear when the good guy faction takes over. Likewise, they should appear when the bad guy one gains control. And just because an Outpost on the fringes of the bubble is owned by a good aligned faction, doesn't mean that this particular outpost should be exactly the same as one in some home system in the middle of the bubble.

And I wish there were some way to improve the stations and facilities on them themselves. Maybe even spur the creation of new stations.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
777Driver said:
These have been around since day 1. Originally Pirate outposts, taken over by various factions as the BGS evolves, the station type will stay the same.

One of my favorite places back in the day was an Anarchy system called Redott, the station was buried deep within the gravity well of a gas giant called Motherlode. Last time I checked, now a fed system, the station is far out of the gravity well and high sec... Things change
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Coincidentally, most coriolis stations change to the relevant appearance based on faction superpower allegience and/or if its anarchy.

But one particular station in my neck of the woods stays pirate- themed with the "rise up now" trappings despite ownership.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
myothershipisacobraiv said:
Add to the pile of things the game could use, but I wish the BGS evolved visually as it changes on paper. Pirate logos and spooky noises should disappear when the good guy faction takes over. Likewise, they should appear when the bad guy one gains control. And just because an Outpost on the fringes of the bubble is owned by a good aligned faction, doesn't mean that this particular outpost should be exactly the same as one in some home system in the middle of the bubble.

And I wish there were some way to improve the stations and facilities on them themselves. Maybe even spur the creation of new stations.
Click to expand...
As above, they actually do, usually, for coriolis/orbis/other large space docks. BGS and Powerplay also affect the trimmings of surface ports.

I think with outposts, the reason they don't reskin is because their type is "pirate outpost", and "civilian outpost" has a fundamentally different structure, so it can't change between them. Even if "pirate outposts" rebadged the skull holo with the relevant superpower logo, it'd still appear as a "pirate outpost" type. Basically, an unresolvable[1] impact of an early design choice.

[1] where unresolvable = would require excessive effort to resolve.
 
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