Right now the game gets very very very slow for non traders after a while.
You can beat those 150k missions with anacondas even in an eagle and once you start hunting for multiple millions (let aside the 150 million things you might want) bounty hunting becomes sort of impossible or too grindy.
Let aside that repeating the same action over and over again is boring, no matter how nice fighting is we need challenges and new objectives.
This idea describes a great extension of Elite, all fighting players could be held busy for a long while as there is always a bigger challenge.
Clans and groups would build up as well.
Concept:
1st class pirates are made up from 1-2 medium ships (eagle, viper) and 2-5 sidewinders.
2nd class pirates are made from more medium ships and one larger one
3rd class pirates are made from a mixed bunch of small ships around one ASP or similar
contineu up to level 10
This should go up to multiple anacondas, dropships etc.
The hideout itself can have a weapon and defend the perimeter but a simple beacon would be enough for a start so we get something faster.
Aside of hideout bases a scrap-built moveable shop (like a mother ship carrier) would be awesome to have, imagine a wrecked Type 7 transport which was rebuilt to serve as a pirate host.
They aggress in a simple manner, if you come close they will attack. Some might stay at home some might attack you on sight.
I would like some randomness here, give them a little bit of personality so the fights will all be different and different tactics are possible.
For example, some ships can be drawn out by getting closer while other ships will always decide to guard the base or a big ship.
So it is not always possible to get them out one-by one but it should sometimes be possible, this opens up possibilities for groups as well as loners depending on which ships they fly.
When there is a pirate base closer then make them ROAM in groups at nav beacons or in hyper space.
If you are at a nav beacon and you see a group of roaming pirates flying together you should already guess that there is a pirate base close by.
If you destroy a pirate base then it should be gone, for all and everyone! Including a threat reduction for the systems around it.
Big pirate hideouts will make such groups more likely and they will also make them more frequently (depending on the distance to the hideout)
Stations will make missions, the pirate threat would make SENSE now and instead of hunting single ships you will get a reward for removing the pirate hideout!
Normally it would be nice to see small bases slowly increase in size but that won't work out without a lot of think-thank.
Aside of that we also have pirate players, maybe we can later add a faction possibility. Players can SIDE with the hideout and be paid for kills in defense. (no idea how that would work but sounds nice and maybe we could even DOCK there and trade if they like us)
Location:
The first 2-3 classes of bases can be found in small systems that are civilized / under faction, pirates should ORIGINATE from there. Suddenly they make more sense too.
The less civilized a system the larger the pirate hideouts
The larger classes should only appear in anarchy space but of course not too far from known space, after all they live from attacking.
The larger the hideout the more far of known space it will spawn.
The more wealthy a system the more likely a strong base will spawn in surrounding area.
The location of such a base is not totally random. It is spawned in a specific part of a star system, for example close to asteroid belts or other plantes/moons.
So it needs effort and some experience to find it, groups will have it easier.
So that really means you need to find the location, unlike now where locations will permanently spawn around you randomly.
A hideout is persistent, if you have to jump out and reload/rebuild the NPCs are NOT respawned, health of the base is not restored.
However, if you let it go for a while it will repair over time and NPC pirates will join in.
Reward:
Aside from usual faction bounties there are 3 sorts of rewards:
1. If the hideout was found based on a mission there is a mission reward, I think about 30k reward up to a million
2. When a mother base is destroyed then all players who fired at it and are still alive will get a share of the reward, 50k up to millions for huge hideouts
3. I want to see the base lose alot of cargo after explotion, including rare commodities and later on rare items once the game supports that (illegal weapons, better ammunition, etc). It should not be marked stolen after picking up.
Searching:
I want to SCAN a new signal and obtain information through that without entering it. (either an existing scanner, or pointing at it or a new module)
The information can be vague, for example:
1. estimated mass (ships have mass, pirate hdeouts have mass, items have mass)
2. threat level (determined by ship AI, might show "unknown" regularly)
Maybe more information, those infos should be useful for other activities. However for finding pirate bases it's important.
Once we found a base we can let the location (planet, moon, system, etc) know to the others who help us and then we together join in. Or we try solo.
The jump in point should be a bit away from the location, out of scanner range of the bulk (but maybe we hit a patroling ship and the whole base goes alert, ship might happen)
While the idea leads to deep gameplay and up to thousands of hours of fun for players it is (hopefully) not such a big work to implement it.
It would open up PVP next to PVE, after all someone might not want to share the profit when the hideout goes boom and decide to attack his fellow fighters.
Here it would make sense to kill another player before the hideout goes boom, after all you might get a lot of more reward.
Players: please support the idea
Frontier: please make that
You can beat those 150k missions with anacondas even in an eagle and once you start hunting for multiple millions (let aside the 150 million things you might want) bounty hunting becomes sort of impossible or too grindy.
Let aside that repeating the same action over and over again is boring, no matter how nice fighting is we need challenges and new objectives.
This idea describes a great extension of Elite, all fighting players could be held busy for a long while as there is always a bigger challenge.
Clans and groups would build up as well.
Concept:
1st class pirates are made up from 1-2 medium ships (eagle, viper) and 2-5 sidewinders.
2nd class pirates are made from more medium ships and one larger one
3rd class pirates are made from a mixed bunch of small ships around one ASP or similar
contineu up to level 10
This should go up to multiple anacondas, dropships etc.
The hideout itself can have a weapon and defend the perimeter but a simple beacon would be enough for a start so we get something faster.
Aside of hideout bases a scrap-built moveable shop (like a mother ship carrier) would be awesome to have, imagine a wrecked Type 7 transport which was rebuilt to serve as a pirate host.
They aggress in a simple manner, if you come close they will attack. Some might stay at home some might attack you on sight.
I would like some randomness here, give them a little bit of personality so the fights will all be different and different tactics are possible.
For example, some ships can be drawn out by getting closer while other ships will always decide to guard the base or a big ship.
So it is not always possible to get them out one-by one but it should sometimes be possible, this opens up possibilities for groups as well as loners depending on which ships they fly.
When there is a pirate base closer then make them ROAM in groups at nav beacons or in hyper space.
If you are at a nav beacon and you see a group of roaming pirates flying together you should already guess that there is a pirate base close by.
If you destroy a pirate base then it should be gone, for all and everyone! Including a threat reduction for the systems around it.
Big pirate hideouts will make such groups more likely and they will also make them more frequently (depending on the distance to the hideout)
Stations will make missions, the pirate threat would make SENSE now and instead of hunting single ships you will get a reward for removing the pirate hideout!
Normally it would be nice to see small bases slowly increase in size but that won't work out without a lot of think-thank.
Aside of that we also have pirate players, maybe we can later add a faction possibility. Players can SIDE with the hideout and be paid for kills in defense. (no idea how that would work but sounds nice and maybe we could even DOCK there and trade if they like us)
Location:
The first 2-3 classes of bases can be found in small systems that are civilized / under faction, pirates should ORIGINATE from there. Suddenly they make more sense too.
The less civilized a system the larger the pirate hideouts
The larger classes should only appear in anarchy space but of course not too far from known space, after all they live from attacking.
The larger the hideout the more far of known space it will spawn.
The more wealthy a system the more likely a strong base will spawn in surrounding area.
The location of such a base is not totally random. It is spawned in a specific part of a star system, for example close to asteroid belts or other plantes/moons.
So it needs effort and some experience to find it, groups will have it easier.
So that really means you need to find the location, unlike now where locations will permanently spawn around you randomly.
A hideout is persistent, if you have to jump out and reload/rebuild the NPCs are NOT respawned, health of the base is not restored.
However, if you let it go for a while it will repair over time and NPC pirates will join in.
Reward:
Aside from usual faction bounties there are 3 sorts of rewards:
1. If the hideout was found based on a mission there is a mission reward, I think about 30k reward up to a million
2. When a mother base is destroyed then all players who fired at it and are still alive will get a share of the reward, 50k up to millions for huge hideouts
3. I want to see the base lose alot of cargo after explotion, including rare commodities and later on rare items once the game supports that (illegal weapons, better ammunition, etc). It should not be marked stolen after picking up.
Searching:
I want to SCAN a new signal and obtain information through that without entering it. (either an existing scanner, or pointing at it or a new module)
The information can be vague, for example:
1. estimated mass (ships have mass, pirate hdeouts have mass, items have mass)
2. threat level (determined by ship AI, might show "unknown" regularly)
Maybe more information, those infos should be useful for other activities. However for finding pirate bases it's important.
Once we found a base we can let the location (planet, moon, system, etc) know to the others who help us and then we together join in. Or we try solo.
The jump in point should be a bit away from the location, out of scanner range of the bulk (but maybe we hit a patroling ship and the whole base goes alert, ship might happen)
While the idea leads to deep gameplay and up to thousands of hours of fun for players it is (hopefully) not such a big work to implement it.
It would open up PVP next to PVE, after all someone might not want to share the profit when the hideout goes boom and decide to attack his fellow fighters.
Here it would make sense to kill another player before the hideout goes boom, after all you might get a lot of more reward.
Players: please support the idea
Frontier: please make that
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