Idea: Pirate Hideouts

[IronDuke]

This is aimed as a sort of solution for if you have a really really powerful hyper-engineered ship, or a wing of such ships, and will become extra useful with Multicrew. I'm kinda suggesting this as I'm a bit nostalgic for the base assault missions in Independence War 2.

A pirate hideout is an advanced conflict zone with only one faction: the pirates, and one station present, which would likely not be very large. They are all wanted (no combat bonds, just normal bounties) and spawn at about the rate of a High Intensity CZ, varied by a difficulty level for giggles. They will only stop when the station is destroyed. Depending on the difficulty, the destruction of the station will provide 5-50 million credits, split between wing and multicrew members as normal. (50 million station might require a Multicrewed wing of engineered Corvettes. )

The station would have guns, of course, making things more interesting as you try to draw the pirates away from it to destroy them, and as you try to destroy the station itself.

Finding the station could be as simple as random USS spawns (threat 10 [wacko]), or it could be a mission-only thing, or even something new.

Is this gonna be implemented? Heck nope, it'd be a pain to implement. Is it fun to discuss? Heck yep. So what do you think?

--IronDuke

 

[Chris Simon]

I thought something similar could be implemented when they announced the asteroid stations.
It would be really cool to have these things that add mass to the game, though I'm afraid that things like this aren't likely.
Instead, we will receive a 624th plasma accelerator re-balance, because that's where the main problem of Elite lies, apparently...

 

[Threeofseven]

Pirate bases would be cool, but for use by actual pirates like myself. I'm not sure a near endless spawn camp for bounty hunters in highly engineered ships would be too interesting. It's basically a glorified hirez site.

IMHO I think hirez sites lame and bounty hunting would be a lot cooler with fewer targets that have very high bounties (such as over a million) that you have to actually track down. Each station could have a list of wanted npcs with hints/leads along with updated info messages to help you actually hunt them down. I think this would be a lot cooler than having a spot full of cops where an endless supply of wanted ships spawn in only to basically commit suicide.

 

[IronDuke]

Pirate bases would be cool, but for use by actual pirates like myself. I'm not sure a near endless spawn camp for bounty hunters in highly engineered ships would be too interesting. It's basically a glorified hirez site.

IMHO I think hirez sites lame and bounty hunting would be a lot cooler with fewer targets that have very high bounties (such as over a million) that you have to actually track down. Each station could have a list of wanted npcs with hints/leads along with updated info messages to help you actually hunt them down. I think this would be a lot cooler than having a spot full of cops where an endless supply of wanted ships spawn in only to basically commit suicide.

Yeah, I agree, that'd be perfect. We both know that's really unlikely to happen, so I'm inventing a solution that might play better in Frontier's eyes. Plus it's not an endless spawn - kill the station and the ships stop coming. What's to prevent a player from sitting there farming kills forever? Combat attrition. There's a TON of enemies, and they'll wear you down eventually.

--IronDuke

 

[Aussiedroid]

Was something I really liked in Freelancer for example. +1 for the idea!

It would be good if they were hidden off the system map until you find them. Could only appear when in close range to the area. Would also have the flow on effect of encouraging further exploration of a system or area too!

They may be restricted in accessing the station based on your standing with a faction etc, offer some different services or discounts or even some pre-engineered mods and some unique missions obtainable from them.

 

[Stealthie]

Said it before but I'd be happy with the idea of more stuff happening near to other things in ED.
For example, quick missions where a shipyard near a station (such as the one in Cubeo) was being attacked and you could just get out there and fight the attackers as if you were in a RES or CZ.
In fact, I guess the same sort of thing could apply at any station; just spawn a bunch of hostile ships and give the player the opportunity to spend a bit of time helping to defend the station.

So yeah.
I'd be quite happy with them bunging a few hostile asteroid-bases in various places to give people something new to shoot at.
Not sure you'd actually be able to destroy a base without some serious changes to the way the game works though.

Maybe it'd be easier if they made it so that if you cause a lot of trouble at a RES you get a message from the local cops saying that you have to neutralise the base where the pirates are coming from?
Then you could go into SC, scan the rings, locate the base, go there and try and take on waves of more powerful ships until the pirates were defeated.
Once you'd done that, the RES would be safer to mine at for, say, an hour.

 

[Threeofseven]

Yeah, I agree, that'd be perfect. We both know that's really unlikely to happen, so I'm inventing a solution that might play better in Frontier's eyes. Plus it's not an endless spawn - kill the station and the ships stop coming. What's to prevent a player from sitting there farming kills forever? Combat attrition. There's a TON of enemies, and they'll wear you down eventually.

--IronDuke

Put it in the suggestion page. It could be a good idea with some tweaks such as them being very hard to find (I.e not on the nav panel), accessible to actual pirates (maybe players who are allied with the pirate faction) and mobile (like the mega ships) to keep people from compiling a list of locations.