I think this was suggested already, but I didn't see this pop up in a while so here goes:
I suggest adding a piracy contact or broker to the game. Said contact would kinda replace the black market, and take hot cargo without questions. However, that contact would also offer piracy missions. Yes I know, could just be rolled into the mission board, but I think giving piracy its own section and UI does make sense within the game's universe.
Here's the thing: Piracy missions would be either location or time based, and would require you to pirate a certain amount of cargo. Efficiency is key, and just like a bank robber, you don't want to kill someone unless you really have to. In addition, certain goods would be especially sought for by the mission, so you can choose to just pirate stuff in general, or hunt the specific type of cargo that's asked for.
When it comes to turning in the robbed goods, the piracy contact would then evaluate your efficiency and, based on how well you did, either largely or completely wipe your bounty, without you having to pay anything. Robbing something from a targeted faction, or robbing the right type of sought-after cargo for the mission would further add a considerable bonus on top of the black market value.
The idea here is that if you're a pirate, and you actually rob stuff, your friends in high places will sort out the details for you as long as you're efficient. And they'll pay you well.
Piracy should also offer its own career path, with you having to work to get "in" at first, and then being able to work your way up. Eventually, you'd become a pirate lord, and thus might end up as a target for NPCs and perhaps even other players.
Piracy should NOT be constrained to NPCs, it should include other players. Efficiency rating would include how much time it took and how much damage you had to deal. The less damage you dealt, the higher your rating. Killing a robbed ship would result in a very low rating and thus you'd only get a fraction of the bounty cleared, if at all. There's only so far your friends will go for you.
Ultimately piracy missions could be wing-enabled and allow a group of players to prey upon hapless traders. And as long as they actually pirate stuff, they should not only not have to worry TOO much about having a huge bounty on their head, but they should rake in a good profit too.
What do you think?
I suggest adding a piracy contact or broker to the game. Said contact would kinda replace the black market, and take hot cargo without questions. However, that contact would also offer piracy missions. Yes I know, could just be rolled into the mission board, but I think giving piracy its own section and UI does make sense within the game's universe.
Here's the thing: Piracy missions would be either location or time based, and would require you to pirate a certain amount of cargo. Efficiency is key, and just like a bank robber, you don't want to kill someone unless you really have to. In addition, certain goods would be especially sought for by the mission, so you can choose to just pirate stuff in general, or hunt the specific type of cargo that's asked for.
When it comes to turning in the robbed goods, the piracy contact would then evaluate your efficiency and, based on how well you did, either largely or completely wipe your bounty, without you having to pay anything. Robbing something from a targeted faction, or robbing the right type of sought-after cargo for the mission would further add a considerable bonus on top of the black market value.
The idea here is that if you're a pirate, and you actually rob stuff, your friends in high places will sort out the details for you as long as you're efficient. And they'll pay you well.
Piracy should also offer its own career path, with you having to work to get "in" at first, and then being able to work your way up. Eventually, you'd become a pirate lord, and thus might end up as a target for NPCs and perhaps even other players.
Piracy should NOT be constrained to NPCs, it should include other players. Efficiency rating would include how much time it took and how much damage you had to deal. The less damage you dealt, the higher your rating. Killing a robbed ship would result in a very low rating and thus you'd only get a fraction of the bounty cleared, if at all. There's only so far your friends will go for you.
Ultimately piracy missions could be wing-enabled and allow a group of players to prey upon hapless traders. And as long as they actually pirate stuff, they should not only not have to worry TOO much about having a huge bounty on their head, but they should rake in a good profit too.
What do you think?
