[MOD] Better piracy

[Scoob]

Hi,

The last ship I captured, a Behemoth Vanguard, a few days ago, I only just got around to looking at and I've updated the mod since.

Basically, at the end of last month, I boarded the ship and assigned one of the Marines as the new Captain. I then sent it, and my Marine carrying ship Buffalo, to dock at my HQ. Loading the game this evening - now with the latest version of Better Piracy - I ordered the Buffalo to transfer the Marines back from the Behemoth. However, the moment I did this, the Behemoth went yellow (rather than green) on the Map, and now only shows on the Object List view, and not the Property Owned view. I can still order it around just fine though.

Getting on the ship myself, I look at the Captain (an Ex-Marine) and while he shows green, his faction is "Teladi Company" not me. Yet I can still re-assign him and order him around as if he is mine. If I pilot the ship myself, the Behemoth goes Green on the map and is once again shown in my Property Owned list. Get out of the Pilots station, letting the Captain take over again, and the ship goes Yellow once more.

If I unassign the Captain - so there's no captain and an "assign Captain" mission is generated, the ship goes yellow again. I'm about to try assigning a NEW Captain I just hired...

... The ships remains yellow and the new Captain shows as Teladi Company, just like the old one did.

I can still use this ship, but something is a bit broken here. Any ideas what might have caused this? It's a totally new one for me.

Edit: I examined the Save and it appears the ship has applied a "Disguise" as Teladi. It was an SCA ship, but obviously fully revealed as SCA when I captured it, but it's tried to disguise its self again the moment I transfer the Marines off. I may save-edit to try to fix it.

Edit 2: I made a post about it in the main forum here It did resolve its self in the end, I describe how in that thread. Random vanilla gremlin I expect, rather than linked to your mod. Thought it worth sharing here though, just in case

Scoob.

[Alberto.Rota]

Have you looked into preventing other factions from interfering with boarding actions? (assuming you still want to do this)

Thank you for the snippet.

Yes, this is something I have in mind, but not in the short term.
My short-term/mid-term goals are:

1. Make ships in the player wing to ->SMARTLY<- participate in harass operations (Do not kill the target, keep the shields low, bonus pressure build-up, etc.)
2. Allow player to instruct his/her own NPC ships to conduct a harass operation ->WITHOUT<- player intervention. (Like "Atack" but with the goal of capping an S/M sized ship)
3. Create a new default behavior that will allow player-owned NPC ships to start harass operations by ->THEMSELVES<- against specific targets in a sector (Like "Patrol" but with the goal of capping an S/M sized ship of specific faction/size/model)

Then I will jump to the boarding side of things (L/XL sized ships), I have some ideas about how to do it, but I'm always open to new ideas.
I don't really like it now... it is just not interactive at all, not "player-centric".

In X-Rebirth it was much more dynamic, you actually helped your small insertion team by scanning areas of the ship to provide intel, hack systems to gain control of some areas of the ship, destroying targets to divert enemy forces, etc.
I cared about them, I leveled them up, we worked together in order to be able to assault bigger ships together!

But in foundations... I just fill 2 or 3 Split Boa's with fresh nameless recruits (I do NOT care about them at all), destroy engines and turrets of the target (The only good part), launch all the marines (At almost max hull), and wait (Since I can't do anything to make the difference)... 100% success rate, I don't even care about getting the marines back, it's much easier and cheaper to just add another recruit-filled Boa to the operation than moving them back to their respective ships in order to level them up.

Any idea?

[Alberto.Rota]

Random vanilla gremlin I expect, rather than linked to your mod.

Yes, I haven't changed anything about boarding (Yet), so that should be a Vanilla related bug.

[Drewgamer]

[...]
In X-Rebirth it was much more dynamic, you actually helped your small insertion team by scanning areas of the ship to provide intel, hack systems to gain control of some areas of the ship, destroying targets to divert enemy forces, etc.
I cared about them, I leveled them up, we worked together in order to be able to assault bigger ships together!

But in foundations... I just fill 2 or 3 Split Boa's with fresh nameless recruits (I do NOT care about them at all), destroy engines and turrets of the target (The only good part), launch all the marines (At almost max hull), and wait (Since I can't do anything to make the difference)... 100% success rate, I don't even care about getting the marines back, it's much easier and cheaper to just add another recruit-filled Boa to the operation than moving them back to their respective ships in order to level them up.

Any idea?

So, it's definitely possible to code boarding in X4 to be similar to Rebirth , but it would probably be a LOT of work.

As for making you care more about your marines, I'm not 100% sure. Some ideas (just spit-balling):
1) Make Boarding attempts VERY deadly for lower level marines, especially when the ideal conditions aren't met for boarding.
2) Make it so low-level Marines have a higher chance of destroying/disabling components (maybe even a chance of critical fails completely destroying the ship?)

[Alberto.Rota]

As for making you care more about your marines, I'm not 100% sure. Some ideas (just spit-balling):
1) Make Boarding attempts VERY deadly for lower level marines, especially when the ideal conditions aren't met for boarding.
2) Make it so low-level Marines have a higher chance of destroying/disabling components (maybe even a chance of critical fails completely destroying the ship?)

I'm not yet sure about how to achieve it... I think that it will need a major overhaul.

I first thought about some similar solutions, but the main problem of your points is that both of them are just a credit sink:
1) Marines dying left and right will just make me buy more of them, not to care more about them, if my 5* elite marine can still randomly die boarding an L freighter without me being able to do anything about it... Why to level it up? It is easier just to buy more rookies.
2) Breaking components/weapons/shields is, yet again, just money, not fun or engaging, just a money sink.

My main problem with the marines (Further than the UI pain of moving marines forward and backward) is that I just can't care about 100 (5 Boas with 20 marines per ship) anonymous, cheap, faceless, expandable marines that are going to randomly die without me being able to make anything to change it, for me, they are just numbers, "Boarding strength" vs "Defense strength", that's all, no empathy nor willingness to train/protect/retrieve them once the operation has ended, I just leave them on that ship and forget about them forever.

My idea is as follows (A lot of things need to be refined, this is just a rough idea.):
Before boarding starts:

1. Scrap/Disable vanilla boarding (I don't like it and I see no way of easily fixing my problems with it)
2. Disable vanilla bailing on L/XL ships, making "Harass operations" the only way to soften a target. (No more capital ships with just 1 or 2 crew members inside ready to be boarded)
3. Marines are only used as defensive forces, kind of "Red-shirts" (Star Trek) or "Stormtroopers"/"Battle droids" (Star wars).
4. Only specific, specialized ships will be able to initiate/perform a boarding operation and only one of those ships can participate, something like the "Vaygr Infiltrator Frigate" (Homeworld 2), lightly shielded, lightly armed, relatively quick.
5. Boarding experience will be tracked on that ships as a whole, not in any of their individuals, that should keep you attached to it, since you can name, customize, paint, mod, command and protect a ship, but not a marine.
6. This ships will have boarding bots (How they get/Generate/Have them is not yet clear), remotely controlled by the on-board crew, kind of "Surrogates" (Surrogates 2009 film), "Sovereign ships" (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2) or "Boarding drones" (FTL)
7. You can only start a boarding operation if the experience of the "Infiltrator ship" is bigger than the "Defense strength" of the target, that together with points 2, 4 and 5 will generate a progression and attachment to your ship.
   • First you can only board "Low pilot morale", "lightly/poorly crewed", "non-military", "pre-harassed" targets (And most likely fail, but "Failure is the mother of success")
   • Your "Infiltrator ship" will learn something after every operation, even failed ones, being able to start operations vs harder targets, that should encourage you to really protect and care about it
8. Target ship needs to be fully disabled (That means no engines nor turrets left) before starting.

Boarding operation:

1. The "Infiltrator ship" needs to be extremely close to the target for the whole operation (Under 1km maybe)
   • Lore: Transmission range to control the boarding drones is only reliable at short range.
   • More distance will reduce boarding effectiveness, to the point where you don't advance but defenders do defend.
2. Target shields need to be very low for the whole operation (Under 5% maybe)
   • Lore: Shields scramble communication with the boarding drones.
   • Higher shield % will reduce boarding effectiveness, to the point where you don't advance but defenders do defend.
3. During the operation, the defenders will try to scramble the connection between the "Infiltrator ship" and the "Boarding drones" (Strength scale with defender "Service crew" Engineering skill, the frequency with overall morale)
   • Lore: ECM warfare and hacking is a thing, and you are using REMOTELY controlled killing machines.
   • Data leaks will appear around the ship, you better scan (Counter) them ASAP.
   • Each active "Data leak" will reduce boarding effectiveness, to the point where you don't advance but defenders do defend.
4. During the operation, the defenders will try to flee to cut the connection between the "Infiltrator ship" and the "Boarding drones" (Frequency scale with defender "Pilot" Piloting skill)
   • Lore: "All power to the engines!".
   • All engines get repaired to 100% hull and the ship boosts off to gain some distance, destroy them again or point 1 will be a problem.
5. During the operation, the defenders will try to boost their shields to cut the connection between the "Infiltrator ship" and the "Boarding drones" (Strength scale with defender "Service crew" Engineering skill, the frequency with overall morale)
   • Lore: "All power to the shields!".
   • Target shields get instantly boosted by some % (Depending on Engineering skill), lower them again, or point 2 will be a problem.
6. During the operation, the defenders will try to destroy your "Infiltrator ship" (Strength scale with defender "Service crew" Engineering skill, the frequency with overall morale)
   • Lore: "All power to the weapons!".
   • Some turrets get repaired to some % (Depending on Engineering skill), and immediately target your "Infiltrator ship", you better deal with them ASAP.
7. During the operation, the defenders will try to destroy your "Boarding drones" (Strength scale with defender "Marine" Boarding skill)
   • Lore: You are trying to kill them, they are trying to kill you.
   • Defender marines will defend the ship trying to destroy your "Boarding drones", their success is determined by their Boarding skill, your "Infiltration ship" experience, and how well you are dealing with the previous points.
8. During the operation, the defenders might try to bail out of the ship (Scale with defender Morale skill)
   • Lore: They are brave, but not stupid, if the battle is lost, they will flee.
   • Defenders will consider using scape pods, depending on both their morale and how well/fast you are dealing with their defense attempts (Scan data-leaks, re-destroy turrets, shields, and engines, etc.)

I think that that's all, it's a lot of work, that's why I want to finish the "Harass" before starting with it.

[leoriq]

In X-Rebirth it was much more dynamic, you actually helped your small insertion team by scanning areas of the ship to provide intel, hack systems to gain control of some areas of the ship, destroying targets to divert enemy forces, etc.
I cared about them, I leveled them up, we worked together in order to be able to assault bigger ships together!

Yeah, I remember repeatedly boarding ten Fulmekrons just for the fun of it, boarding process in XR was very enjoyable

[Alberto.Rota]

I've just updated the mod
Create your own pirate gang.
Subordinates of the ship you are piloting will smartly participate in the "Harass operation", helping you while avoiding killing the target.
Tip: Use ships with a lot of shields and prefer high-shield/low-hull damage weapons for maximum effectiveness.

As always, feedback and bug reports are welcome!

[Alberto.Rota]

I've also posted the mod on Nexus, I do NOT use Nexus, so please let me know if I screwed it up at some point:

• Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations/mods/491

[kmunoz]

I've just updated the mod
Create your own pirate gang.
Subordinates of the ship you are piloting will smartly participate in the "Harass operation", helping you while avoiding killing the target.
Tip: Use ships with a lot of shields and prefer high-shield/low-hull damage weapons for maximum effectiveness.

As always, feedback and bug reports are welcome!

Welp, I've just turned your mod back on. This is what I was waiting for - not having to disassemble my fleet or make them stay in a corner.

[Alberto.Rota]

This is what I was waiting for - not having to disassemble my fleet or make them stay in a corner.

Glad to hear that! Let me know if you like how it works now, even if everything is alright, is good to know

[Alberto.Rota]

I've started feedback threads both in Nexus and in SteamWorkshop, the idea is to encourage people to share general feedback about the mod, not just bug-reports.
Feel free to post your general feedback there:

• Nexus: https://www.nexusmods.com/x4foundations ... id=8697138
• Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/fil ... 460044712/

[Scoob]

Create your own pirate gang.

I just started afresh and I really like this feature. Having another ship that's actually GOOD at helping out - vs. the micro-management we had to do before - is really nice. Just capturing my way to a small S and M-Class Fleet currently

Scoob.

[Scoob]

A question: Are there some M-Class ships that are hard-coded (vanilla) to NEVER bail? The reason I ask is because of this scenario:

I took a "rescue ship from mines" mission, and did exactly that, took out the mines and the ship was free. I then realised that I'd rescued an SCA ship - a Peregrine Sentinel - so I thought I'd see if I could capture it with my tiny Fighter Wing. I've been trying to make this ship bail for about an hour! I'm staying close (<3km) I've taken his shields down as well as a chunk of his hull - all as prompted - but he simply will not bail. The Pilot's stats are good, 4* Piloting but only 2/3rds of a Star Morale.

Any idea if this is hard coded as I've NEVER had to battle so long to make a ship bail before.

Scoob.

[uberex]

A question: Are there some M-Class ships that are hard-coded (vanilla) to NEVER bail?

Indeed, some mission ships are spawned with capturable="0" flag, and this mod takes this restriction into account.
As a potential idea to this mod's improvement, if a target is set as non-capturable, "Harass" mission should be automatically cancelled.

Btw, great mod! Made my gameplay a much more enjoyable experience.

[Alberto.Rota]

Having another ship that's actually GOOD at helping out - vs. the micro-management we had to do before - is really nice.

Glad to read that!
For me, it was also quite frustrating to have my own ships working against me.

Let me know how it works/feels since this will be the core part of my next step.
The next step is to create a new default behaviour (I think I'll call it "Corsair") that will be like "Patrol", but "Harassing" S/M ships instead of killing them.

Regards!

[Alberto.Rota]

As a potential idea to this mod's improvement, if a target is set as non-capturable, "Harass" mission should be automatically cancelled.

Make sense, I'll add it to the next version.

[Scoob]

Indeed, some mission ships are spawned with capturable="0" flag, and this mod takes this restriction into account.
As a potential idea to this mod's improvement, if a target is set as non-capturable, "Harass" mission should be automatically cancelled.

Thanks for confirming. It does seem a shame that the game arbitrarily changes the rules like that though.

I wonder if Better Piracy could somehow override that setting? Make it a particular low bail chance, sure, but possible. I guess that could break plot / mission stuff though potentially. I wonder if there's a way to differentiate essential Plot line ships with generic mission spawned ones?

The next step is to create a new default behaviour (I think I'll call it "Corsair") that will be like "Patrol", but "Harassing" S/M ships instead of killing them.

Interesting. Basically, you're saying we could assign ships to make other ship bail, but NOT be close by personally? I assume this will be quite heavily configurable in regards to which Faction(s) your ships will Harass as well as, perhaps, which classes. Having them "aware" of larger Wings of ships they might not want to tangle with would be good too.

Personally speaking, I'd likely be preying on SCA and FAF as bail targets, like I do in person. Though being able to pick any race - one assumes one you're an enemy with, but not necessarily - would be cool.

One thing I would love to see, which may well not be in the scope of this mod, is to be able to stealthily force a Bail or Capture. Basically, some technique / equipment etc. that means that the Faction that owns the ship DON'T instantly know what you're up to. I know in vanilla you can get away (no rep hit) with forcing S and M-Class ships to bail, if you're far enough away from a station and kill any DIstress Drones. With L and XL Ships destroying ANY surface element = instant huge rep loss though, which is a shame. I know Better Piracy adds a standing hit for making a ship Bail too, but I still think a stealthy way of doing things would be cool. Not sure how one would implement such a feature though. Egosoft looked like they were thinking along those lines with Distress Drones, but they never really finished the feature as they worked for M-Class Ships OK, but are irrelevant for L and XL-Class due to an instant rep hit upon any element (Turrets, Shields, Engines or even launched Drones) being destroyed - even if in the middle of no-where.

Thought: It'd be good if, in sectors that the Player owns, perhaps communications could be blocked so making a ship bail / capturing a target in your own sectors would mean no Rep loss. Faction might investigate why so many ships go missing though...best behave if they send a fleet and look innocent lol

Scoob.

[Alberto.Rota]

A lot of ideas there, let's go one by one:

I wonder if Better Piracy could somehow override that setting?

No, as you pointed, there is a HUGE risk, and almost no benefit, I prefer to be on the safe side and to disable the Harass operation altogether over those "Protected" targets.

Interesting. Basically, you're saying we could assign ships to make other ship bail, but NOT be close by personally?

Exactly that, you can have a ship/fleet roaming an area and harassing targets on their own, without player intervention.

I assume this will be quite heavily configurable in regards to which Faction(s) your ships will Harass as well as, perhaps, which classes. Having them "aware" of larger Wings of ships they might not want to tangle with would be good too.

Personally speaking, I'd likely be preying on SCA and FAF as bail targets, like I do in person. Though being able to pick any race - one assumes one you're an enemy with, but not necessarily - would be cool.

To be fair and to set the expectations, it will be a pretty simple implementation (Unless there is really a need to make it more complex, I prefer to keep things as simple as possible):

1. You can config the area to "Patrol" exactly like with the "Protect area" command. (Point + radius)
2. You can specify if they will harass S ships. (Checkbox)
3. You can specify if they will harass M ships. (Checkbox)
4. You can specify if they will harass combat ships. (Checkbox)
5. You can specify if they will harass mining ships. (Checkbox)
6. You can specify if they will harass trading ships. (Checkbox)

And that's all, the ship/fleet will harass ENEMY ships that match that description, at least for the moment, ideas are welcome.

One thing I would love to see, which may well not be in the scope of this mod, is to be able to stealthily force a Bail or Capture. Basically, some technique / equipment etc. that means that the Faction that owns the ship DON'T instantly know what you're up to. I know in vanilla you can get away (no rep hit) with forcing S and M-Class ships to bail, if you're far enough away from a station and kill any DIstress Drones.

Yes, this will be done at some time.
A well-planned piracy operation vs an isolated target in deep/neutral/xenon/pirate space... you can always blame Kahak/Xenon/SCA when they ask what happened.

With L and XL Ships destroying ANY surface element = instant huge rep loss though, which is a shame.

It is, and it will be the first thing I will try to remove once I move onto the boarding, I mean... destroying an S/M ship with 20 people inside is far preferable than destroying a turret, or a combat drone, or even a repair drone... makes no sense.

[Scoob]

Cool. Yes, I did wonder if trying to override that "cannot bail" setting would be opening can of worms lol. Proposed features sound great!

On another note, a slight possible bug maybe?

After forcing a ship to bail, the ships in my wing sometimes stop moving, never to move again unless either removed / re-added to my Fleet.

Basically, the ships (a Falcon Sentinel and an Baluur) are happily following me in my Buzzard Sentinel. I start a Harass operation and they do their thing, all working well. The ship Bails, I send a Marine over and send it off for refitting. However, when I start moving again, neither of the subordinate ships follow me. Edit: Even issuing a "Recall Subordinates" doesn't seem to work. I've not tried leaving the Sector to see if that wakes them up. Giving them a fly to order, then cancelling it wakes them up too.

I'm not 100% sure, but sometimes a ship bails very quickly - usually Scout class ships such as the Discoverer used by SCA - so my "helpers" don't get a look in. I think it's when they don't get to help, they lock up like this. Not sure though. My reasoning is that I hadn't seen this before, but it just happened twice in a row, and each time I was Harassing an SCA Discoverer, which bailed very quickly.

Scoob.

[Scoob]

Hi, I just had another thought stemming from my current boarding attempt...

While it's GREAT to have ships in my Wing help me bring the targets shields down, there are other use cases for Wingmen...

When I'm attacking a target during a Harass operation, they might Drop Laser Towers or Drones, ships in my Wing seem to ignore these. It'd be nice (though I'm not sure how) to be able to have some guys set to still protect me, and other Wing Members.

If I'm tackling a larger ship, it'd be great if my Wing could help with neutering the target first. It's cool they help bringing shields down, but the first steps are really to disable Engines and take out any turrets first.

Basically, smart but still configurable behaviour. Could it be done this way:

Subordinates set to "Defence" = they primarily Protect the Player in the lead ship from Drones, Lasertowers and other attackers. If no other threats to the leader (player) then they'll revert to trying to bring down shields, damage hull. The onus being on the Player to disable things.

Subordinates set to "Attack" = they primarily target Engines and Turrets on the target ship.

Obviously this behaviour is subject to a valid Harass operation being in place.

What do you think?

Scoob.