Please more variety in Wing Pirate Lord missions!

[Surprize960]

The Pirate Lord missions with the heavily engineered Fer-de-Lance and Vultures are about the only real challenges in the lategame when it comes to PVE combat.

Unfortunately, you only ever encounter one Fer-de-Lance and 2 to 3 Vultures.

Since there is also variety in the composition of enemy ships in the easier Pirate Elimination missions, it should be easy to make the Wing Pirate Lord missions more varied as well.

Why not an Anaconda and 2 Chieftains, a Corvette and 3 FAS, a Cutter and 2 Clippers, a T-10 and 3 Mambas? (all modified, of course)

Our own heavily modified ships need REAL opponents!

I'm sure this suggestion has been made before, well, here's another kind request

 

[[VR] Bulbulunufus]

So much variety is lacking, even low hanging fruit of just not making them all identical. Also, they should be more aggressive, they will not become active until you actually fire on them. It's even worse in the deserter assassination missions, they don't even move until you fire on them.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The game needs more random mission enemies really as well as more rando wings of pirates like the old days.

A wing of four Sideys with G3 mods would be just as much fun (if not more) than a pirate Corvette all the time- it would make loadouts more important and that you can't easily predict what you'll face.

 

[Misty_Dark]

The game needs more random mission enemies really as well as more rando wings of pirates like the old days.

A wing of four Sideys with G3 mods would be just as much fun (if not more) than a pirate Corvette all the time- it would make loadouts more important and that you can't easily predict what you'll face.

Also, why not allow the pirates to break some more "rules", what about a wing of 8-12 G3+ Eagles with a late arriving Type 7 or Type 9. and so on.

but then I am also wishing for a custom adjustment of difficulty, set the mission difficulty before accepting mission, and everying can go absolutely bonkers when you add more difficulty... like that wing of sideys turns into a wing G5 Corvettes... and more... so +1, +2, +3 extra difficulty would be OK for most players, but getting to +25, +50, +75, and +100 and everyone of us should be able to hit our limits...

And they should also use many more of the ships types. So it should be possible to give a ship a power rating based on loadout and engineering level, and adding difficulty rating to your mission, add to what the powercap for the mission pirate fleet, and then add ships until we have reached the power cap. Also engineering will affect the power cap.

There should be a few variants of the pirate fleets, like, as this would govern how we add ships to adjust to the extra difficulty settings

• All the same ships
• All random ships
• Small ships with a Medium or Large ship.

I expect this to be a very rude and crude system, but would allow us to get totally bonkers mission pirates, especially on higher difficulty settings. and I do expect that when you get lots of small ships instead of a few large ships to be alot more challenging, expecially if you try a ship designed to take out large ships with lots of Fixed weapons. I hope such a system could generate a wing of 20+ G5 Eagles for example...


And just think about how much more bonkers the wing versions of these missions could be!

 

[Rubbernuke]

Also, why not allow the pirates to break some more "rules", what about a wing of 8-12 G3+ Eagles with a late arriving Type 7 or Type 9. and so on.

but then I am also wishing for a custom adjustment of difficulty, set the mission difficulty before accepting mission, and everying can go absolutely bonkers when you add more difficulty... like that wing of sideys turns into a wing G5 Corvettes... and more... so +1, +2, +3 extra difficulty would be OK for most players, but getting to +25, +50, +75, and +100 and everyone of us should be able to hit our limits...

And they should also use many more of the ships types. So it should be possible to give a ship a power rating based on loadout and engineering level, and adding difficulty rating to your mission, add to what the powercap for the mission pirate fleet, and then add ships until we have reached the power cap. Also engineering will affect the power cap.

There should be a few variants of the pirate fleets, like, as this would govern how we add ships to adjust to the extra difficulty settings

• All the same ships
• All random ships
• Small ships with a Medium or Large ship.

I expect this to be a very rude and crude system, but would allow us to get totally bonkers mission pirates, especially on higher difficulty settings. and I do expect that when you get lots of small ships instead of a few large ships to be alot more challenging, expecially if you try a ship designed to take out large ships with lots of Fixed weapons. I hope such a system could generate a wing of 20+ G5 Eagles for example...


And just think about how much more bonkers the wing versions of these missions could be!

Long ago wing sizes were much bigger, and the first generation of big wing pirate lord missions skirted being brilliant. I really thought FD were going in the right direction but.....eh.

Having more random things will make some situations unwinnable (which would elicit squeals from specific quarters) but it would bring back the edge ED has lacked for so very long.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Long ago wing sizes were much bigger, and the first generation of big wing pirate lord missions skirted being brilliant. I really thought FD were going in the right direction but.....eh.

Having more random things will make some situations unwinnable (which would elicit squeals from specific quarters) but it would bring back the edge ED has lacked for so very long.

I totally agree, that is why this should be a player opt-in option, so the standard difficulty level can stay as is, so that is what everyone should be able to complete these missions with some effort. and then the rest of us, can go bonkers and pushing the limits on how high can we go on the difficulty setting...

This could also work for those who like to go after Thargoids, as if we spawned kill Thargoids missions, and they now could just ramp up that difficulty settings, they could get their hard to fight Thargoid battles. And while the rest of us that more or less sucks at it, scrape by learning how it is done on the normal difficulty...

 

[Rubbernuke]

I totally agree, that is why this should be a player opt-in option

Yes, and no- but mainly no.

For ED to have an edge it cannot be opt in all the time- there has to be (IMO) at least one NPC running about in a system that scares you in SC, or a group- and that weapons, loadout and engineering should be random.

Is it unfair? Depends- for me at least EDs early game is you v the galaxy and you tiptoeing about learning to survive in it. There has to be times where an NPC or situation pops up where you get flustered and it forces you out of your comfort zone a little- POIs should be a gamble (like some are now), or that SC becomes hazardous as that NPC you want to avoid sees you.

This also spices up late game stuff because then you can have NPCs on par with you too.

Now, I'm not a monster and wish ED becomes this rock hard game, but it needs to pull back from how soft its become and how its drifted. Things like NAV point redundancy, drop zones being so small, predictable NPCs etc have made the vanilla core of the game slide into something routine rather than you remembering that day a squadron of Eagles came after you....because in the end its those moments you remember and come back for because the game pushed you a little.

 

[YORKSH1RE NEO]

So much variety is lacking, even low hanging fruit of just not making them all identical. Also, they should be more aggressive, they will not become active until you actually fire on them. It's even worse in the deserter assassination missions, they don't even move until you fire on them.

The last few deserter missions I’ve done where multiple ships are present, the ships don’t even actually move at all! Didn’t really wanna make that public as it’s easy kills and mats but they seem few and far between to find on the mission boards and it doesn’t seem like any fdevs actually read the forums!!

 

[bangermsuk]

i think pirates need a overhaul?

1) before and indicting pirate, there should be a scan of your ship. after all when players do it, they need a manifest scanner,hatchbreakers and fsd indictor
2) once all the above down then they can indicted you. unless it mission related.
3) choose the pirate ship from the lower classes,has pirates in 148 million cr's anaconda's is really pushing it,then the mini game.

reason : i really don't like the current system has getting indicted everytime you have or have not cargo is getting obtusive.in every way to your current goal.
yes i was on a mission from my minor faction to carry 1208t of cargo, i'll expected to be indicted, but not when your not carrying 256t of empty space or Air.
let just say the mission was a sucess even thou it was infrurating to get indicted 2 times a run everytime,that twice i jumped out and face that annoying avatar that pop everywhere.

hence my suggestions.

 

[Big Malibu]

totally agree: ADD CUTTERS & MAMBAS to pirate lord missions

 

[Jmanis]

Yes, and no- but mainly no.

For ED to have an edge it cannot be opt in all the time- there has to be (IMO) at least one NPC running about in a system that scares you in SC, or a group- and that weapons, loadout and engineering should be random.

Is it unfair? Depends- for me at least EDs early game is you v the galaxy and you tiptoeing about learning to survive in it. There has to be times where an NPC or situation pops up where you get flustered and it forces you out of your comfort zone a little- POIs should be a gamble (like some are now), or that SC becomes hazardous as that NPC you want to avoid sees you.

This also spices up late game stuff because then you can have NPCs on par with you too.

Now, I'm not a monster and wish ED becomes this rock hard game, but it needs to pull back from how soft its become and how its drifted. Things like NAV point redundancy, drop zones being so small, predictable NPCs etc have made the vanilla core of the game slide into something routine rather than you remembering that day a squadron of Eagles came after you....because in the end its those moments you remember and come back for because the game pushed you a little.

Reality is... this is what Massacre missions should be.

Notwithstanding this junk, Massacre missions are just non-content... it's a financial reward for destroying ships... wait... isn't that what bounties are? Oops....

Granted, if you go to a mission USS now for massacres, there's exactly what's being asked for; a collection of different ships which, incidentally, you can aggro as many or as few as you want, which leans in to some of the concerns here.

The problem being... what's seen as a "good thing" in that you can complete these in any way you like because they're arbitrary kill quotas... you can either run the mission as-intended, hitting up mission-rank-appropriate targets at the requisite mission USS, or you have people like me, grinding-up novice-rank peashooters for ridiculous amounts of credits, which is just a completely unstable implementation.

Massacres should be retooled to offer rank-appropriate spawns in wave-based combat. Retooled, this would look like:

• Solo Assassinations, vanilla big-ship targets, starting from competent-rank medium-size ships at the lowest ranks, up to Elite, unengineered anacondas, cutters etc for the highest ranks.
• Wing assassinations as above, but with engineered targets.
• Solo Massacres, where lowest-rank has waves looking like 4 mostly harmless sidewinders, through to two competent Vulutres, while highest-rank might be 8 elite sidewinders, up to a Deadly Anaconda with two Elite Viper III escorts, all unengineered.
• Wing Massacres, as above, but again, engineered.

Each USS might spawn 2-5 waves, determined by the reward (and corresponding to rank). Other tweaks which may/should be necessary

• For the love of all that's holy increase the bounty payout on engineered targets. Vanilla and Engineered paying the same (all other features identical) is really dumb.
• Arguably, you should be able to set the threat level/rank of missions offered. Elite-rank in combat doesn't necessitate you're any good in combat, but you'll be stuck with hard opponents forever. Ideally as well, there's a lot more mission generation features you should be able to "configure", but that gets OT fairly quick.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

Aren't there some ship builds that are tied to the type of mission it is? Assassinating a venerable general over a Pirate Lord might spawn a different set of ships, not all of the alternatives to pirate lords are civilians. I agree with that there should be more builds for those in general though.

 

[Jmanis]

Aren't there some ship builds that are tied to the type of mission it is? Assassinating a venerable general over a Pirate Lord might spawn a different set of ships, not all of the alternatives to pirate lords are civilians. I agree with that there should be more builds for those in general though.

Not really. Almost all missions ( venerable general may be an exception... I'd have to double check) have roughly the same type of ship, regardless of type (e.g deserter, pirate lord, terrorist, biohazard)... the main distinction seems to come whether it's lawful or criminal

 

[Rubbernuke]

Reality is... this is what Massacre missions should be.

Notwithstanding this junk, Massacre missions are just non-content... it's a financial reward for destroying ships... wait... isn't that what bounties are? Oops....

Granted, if you go to a mission USS now for massacres, there's exactly what's being asked for; a collection of different ships which, incidentally, you can aggro as many or as few as you want, which leans in to some of the concerns here.

The problem being... what's seen as a "good thing" in that you can complete these in any way you like because they're arbitrary kill quotas... you can either run the mission as-intended, hitting up mission-rank-appropriate targets at the requisite mission USS, or you have people like me, grinding-up novice-rank peashooters for ridiculous amounts of credits, which is just a completely unstable implementation.

Massacres should be retooled to offer rank-appropriate spawns in wave-based combat. Retooled, this would look like:

• Solo Assassinations, vanilla big-ship targets, starting from competent-rank medium-size ships at the lowest ranks, up to Elite, unengineered anacondas, cutters etc for the highest ranks.
• Wing assassinations as above, but with engineered targets.
• Solo Massacres, where lowest-rank has waves looking like 4 mostly harmless sidewinders, through to two competent Vulutres, while highest-rank might be 8 elite sidewinders, up to a Deadly Anaconda with two Elite Viper III escorts, all unengineered.
• Wing Massacres, as above, but again, engineered.

Each USS might spawn 2-5 waves, determined by the reward (and corresponding to rank). Other tweaks which may/should be necessary

• For the love of all that's holy increase the bounty payout on engineered targets. Vanilla and Engineered paying the same (all other features identical) is really dumb.
• Arguably, you should be able to set the threat level/rank of missions offered. Elite-rank in combat doesn't necessitate you're any good in combat, but you'll be stuck with hard opponents forever. Ideally as well, there's a lot more mission generation features you should be able to "configure", but that gets OT fairly quick.

While I agree MM need love, the general game needs these random layouts more- SC is the only real time you face the unknown in a dynamic (i.e. you can drop, run to SC, HW/ fight, see enemies / avoid them via flying). Having better SC traffic better reflects the BGS state too, unlike POIs that are optional and stiff.

 

[Jmanis]

While I agree MM need love, the general game needs these random layouts more- SC is the only real time you face the unknown in a dynamic (i.e. you can drop, run to SC, HW/ fight, see enemies / avoid them via flying). Having better SC traffic better reflects the BGS state too, unlike POIs that are optional and stiff.

Oh yeah... don't even get me started on underused assets... https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...echanics-left-at-back-of-the-cupboard.515476/