Ragtag scavenger pirate swarms

[DemiserofD]

We see lots of apparently wealthy pirates; I've been dropped in on by Type 10's more times than I can count. Where are all the poor, desperate pirates? Surely there's gotta be a lot more of those than the super-rich ones, right?

What if there were added swarms of poorly-equipped pirates, mostly in sidewinders, haulers, and adders, and the like? They could start out with low hull, too, to really sell their desperation, and their chat messages could be different, too:

"I'm sorry, but the Kumo Crew has taken everything we have; we have no choice! Surrender your goods or - or - or you'll be sorry!"

"You're an ally of Sirius Corp? They drove us out of business and left us to starve! Die!"

And so on and so forth. At that point, 5-10 ships would drop in and attack; their overall DPS would be relatively similar to that of a standard pirate, just spread over a bunch of attackers, and it would give a great use for a fighter to fight them off!

 

[Dillon Fallon]

Or just swarms in general. When I was starting out I used to like the black box recovery missions because once you got into the signal source you'd generally be jumped by a bunch of ships, one usually a Python, so you had to grab what you could and get out.

In the right place, a battle you can't win would be fun. But then I occasionally go shooting at ATR so my opinion is probably in the minority.

 

[zikolach]

Very occasionally when you drop at CZ (returning back to the one you already won) - there are only enemy ships spawned, the best minutes to challenge yourself.

It would be great to have some POIs spawned in the asteroid belts and game mechanics allowing to sneak and hide behind large rocks, taking advantages of small and maneuverable ships against large ones and long range engineered A-class sensors.

 

[Sensei Jacksama]

You could get some random cargo and drop in on a pirate run faction installation. Also systems in pirate attack state can spawn pirate activity signal sources that spawn lots of them.

 

[bangermsuk]

most of the pirates are over the top. got one in an anaconda like really this pirate has made 148 million cr's plus graded.i missing something here

 

[Vardaugas]

Be careful what you wish for. A wng of five Sidewinders can be more deadly than a single Anaconda. Especially when they're using group tactics with the ship you're targeting flying evasive manoeuvrers and the other four staying on your tail.

But I agree, encounters could use a design pass. They are ageing pretty hard by now. Functional, but not very exciting.