My current working idea is something on the ideas of making pirates more... "Piratey". Hostile pirate ships often just destroy, they don't really steal anything, Playing a pirate doesn't really fare much better usually.
Thing's i'm planning on doing with this idea:
- Pirate NPCs fly around and "Challenge" npc and player ships for a Ransom, for npc ships it does a skill check against the captains or pilots (Currently unused)skills with a threat factor defined by the ship size, and loadout.
- Examples would be if the ship is a more combat orientated freighter it would be more likely to defend itself.
- Or if the ship has no engines or jump drive (It can't jump) it will fork over the cash as it can't run away or defend itself.
- Pure Combat ships (EG. Taranis) will never be challenged and instead pirates would normally avoid them if at all possible, or if the Difference in power is in the favor of the pirates and they're feeling froggy, will decide to remove the threat.
- If pirates challenge a Player ship this branches off into two sections.
- If it's THE player ship. the player will get a UI Challenge requesting a payout, should the player pay out, the pirates(of the same faction) would be pacified for a period of time.
- If it's a NPC ship the player has the option to define the default behavior. This can be one of the following "Pay out, flee, Defend, NPC Choice" Where the NPC choice is the default pirate-npc interaction. If the payment isn't possible it will default to one of the other positions.
- PLAYER PIRACY: The player has the option to assign a captain to "Plunder" an area where the ship will run through the same challenges to designated hostile faction ships, Avoid combat ships, and will generate some passive income within an area.