Reborn as a Pirate

[phantum]

Hi it's me again,

I started playing again last week after a wee holiday, and starting off again on hard to do all my unlocks or most of em. And this time I say the beefed up starting ships available now with cargo and nice engine to hull, and thought I shall be the Pirate and try and exploit the trade war rumors which I had not really used before. I had not read the help closely enough and I had assumed that blockading was to trade wars as surveillance was to spy wars ... Not the case. I was left just burning up fuel patrolling or even surveillancing, merchants were rare and rarely the factions at war, compared with surveillance and missions.

Now I remember each class is balanced to use different rumors if you play properly, so thought I would ask for some hints how to make these trade wars work for me, or how to speed up my learning process in this rumor and class combination. Do I need to go back to Crazy to really need to get the difference between classes? No need to give the game away, but I would like to learn the pirate as it was intended rather than just capitalising on the early pilot and tactics to do surveillance and run from military and take out other pirates and hostile bounty hunters for fun.

The other thing I noticed was I don't recognise half the ships now and the starports can be so loaded, and many new ships are now fast and agile, 30+ guns and sails and good water fuel. Is it still true any new ship I buy has optimal crew for running and gunning even if engines+guns<crew ? So I only need to upgrade crew if I upgrade engines or want boarding bonuses? I am sure it used to be the case. Lots of new mixed upgrades to work out. Fuel useage still seems to get the big bonus for 30+ engines and sails. Number of guns still does not seem to be such a big deal for combat compared with tactics, and it is too easy to get into killing the enemy hull instead of engines if you do too much damage (or at least not with tactics at 1 times level). Basically I see so many awesome new ships with what used to be my dream early game stats, so I wonder if the combat or travel mechanics has changed at all from 18 months ago. Any hints on the above ramble from the small hours of my morning would be appreciated.

I love seeing the new ships though and even seems like some have been named after captians I used to know ... so much has been done on developing this game even though I see the bro's have been busy with so many new games. Thanks guys but I must not get addicted to any of the new games untill I have finished with this again, or the baby starts sleeping through the night!

[Cory Trese]

Blocking is to Solar Wars as Surveillance is to Spy Wars, just FYI.

Trade Wars -- Kill Merchant Ships without Mercy.

The rules of the ship system have not changed -- your Crew is good as designed, but there are many that are lean, razor'd crews.

Number of Guns is critical to determining how many attack rounds are used, which is a multiplier for Tactics. Many guns can sometimes mean overdamage and cascading critical.

[phantum]

Hi Cory, I am spoiled for choice now with all those new ships then and if the fuel efficient crews stay alive enough to keep them guns firing I won't spoil their dinner by boarding! I had found the blockading worked for solar war, but I was looking for some way to make the trade war really work since it was the Pirate perk and am developing an alternate persona that can work with the "killing merchant ships without mercy"... and I have always been fond of eye patches and throwing vowels from the back of my mouth.

Maybe some of the life-of-crime pirates out there could offer some tips on where to consistently find the prey of appropriate faction. I try moving around in the appropriate faction space since it seems to use less fuel than patrolling in a gravity well, looking near worlds with big economies. I checked deep space rumors mentioning merchants but did not seem to find more merchants there long term. I usually end up failing as a pure pirate and resorting to surveillance whenever there is a spy war, but such actions seem to make a laughing stock of me back in the pirate bars.

[xdesperado]

Been a long time since we had the community Pirate challenge, but you might look in that thread for some ideas.

I'd say as a dedicated pirate pick one or two factions you want to be friendly with then just pillage and loot any other factions ships whenever and wherever you find them. Keeping 2 friendly factions means your less likely to run afoul of bad politics when they decide to ally with your preferred target factions instead of declaring trade or solar war against them.
Being a Gun Bunny and/or boarding captain will mean more ships survive your encounters for you to loot than going all missile happy like a Cadarian Zealot.

[Officer Genious]

Sept 23, 2014 17:24:02 GMT -5 phantum said:

Hi it's me again,

I started playing again last week after a wee holiday, and starting off again on hard to do all my unlocks or most of em. And this time I say the beefed up starting ships available now with cargo and nice engine to hull, and thought I shall be the Pirate and try and exploit the trade war rumors which I had not really used before. I had not read the help closely enough and I had assumed that blockading was to trade wars as surveillance was to spy wars ... Not the case. I was left just burning up fuel patrolling or even surveillancing, merchants were rare and rarely the factions at war, compared with surveillance and missions.

Now I remember each class is balanced to use different rumors if you play properly, so thought I would ask for some hints how to make these trade wars work for me, or how to speed up my learning process in this rumor and class combination. Do I need to go back to Crazy to really need to get the difference between classes? No need to give the game away, but I would like to learn the pirate as it was intended rather than just capitalising on the early pilot and tactics to do surveillance and run from military and take out other pirates and hostile bounty hunters for fun.

The other thing I noticed was I don't recognise half the ships now and the starports can be so loaded, and many new ships are now fast and agile, 30+ guns and sails and good water fuel. Is it still true any new ship I buy has optimal crew for running and gunning even if engines+guns<crew ? So I only need to upgrade crew if I upgrade engines or want boarding bonuses? I am sure it used to be the case. Lots of new mixed upgrades to work out. Fuel useage still seems to get the big bonus for 30+ engines and sails. Number of guns still does not seem to be such a big deal for combat compared with tactics, and it is too easy to get into killing the enemy hull instead of engines if you do too much damage (or at least not with tactics at 1 times level). Basically I see so many awesome new ships with what used to be my dream early game stats, so I wonder if the combat or travel mechanics has changed at all from 18 months ago. Any hints on the above ramble from the small hours of my morning would be appreciated.

I love seeing the new ships though and even seems like some have been named after captians I used to know ... so much has been done on developing this game even though I see the bro's have been busy with so many new games. Thanks guys but I must not get addicted to any of the new games untill I have finished with this again, or the baby starts sleeping through the night!

Historically speaking, most real-life pirate preferred their reputations to be so terrifying that merchants would immediately wave the white flag, and on peaceful cooperation the merchants were let go unharmed. Its bad business to make merchants think the o my hope for survival is to fight to the death (costing you money) and killing merchants would make local authorities launch a total manhunt with no hope for your survival (the difference between robbing someone and a murder-robbery).

Ergo, in ST the Pirate is more of a Board/Shoot the Engines and pillage class rather than a destroyer (I think that's more MO style). You want to pillage a ship, leave it intact to avoid a bigger rep hit than necessary and sell those goods as soon as possible so you can get back to work. As such, you want a nice big score, like rumors of a treasure fleet in space.

Trade Wars love ANY hostile action, so it doesn't HAVE to destroy a ship. That's what makes it nice for Pirates. Be sure to pick on smugglers too, as they carry few hints but those things are typically moneymakers!


Now go forth and pick on House Thulun or something, you no-good Pirate!! ;D

[phantum]

Thanks for the tips guys. I am fairly ok with the reputation management and all the different conflict types from playing as an explorer or trader types. I would sometimes still resort to using spy wars to engage in any serious faction boosts, but try and use the professions dedicated bonuses, and of course never shy to liberate some cargo when I had spare rep or I could get away free with it.

What I am trying to do as I circle through different professions is to make maximum use of the inherent perks of each profession instead of resorting to spy wars, so in this case I am wondering how to make full use of the pirates bonus for trade wars. That would mean finding merchants of the correct faction faster than I run out of fuel, and keeping roughly on the experience curve. So are there any combinations of rumors, or locations between the factions x & y in a trade war where I can increase the probability of finding a Merchant of faction x or y. Patrolling a planet is not so fuel efficient, maybe moving between to close faction worlds, or maybe some deep space merchant rumors?

Otherwise the pirating is wonderfully relaxing, even if I am careless with an alliance rumor or two the pain is a lot less than missing a trade ban! Since I am just returned and learning all the new stuff I am only on Hard so the game is quite forgiving and I have not been close to having any ships I target getting away, and have +100 on all factions. I would like to learn what I can about exploiting trade rumors before this captain dies and I start the next on Crazy!

[Genghis Hank]

Usual disclaimer... I never play on levels higher than challenging...

I play little else than pirate. I think the big advantage of them is the protection from loss of morale, not the trade war bonus. You "can" have rep with all six factions. There's always a faction you can hit without penalty... the independents.

Think of pirate as "adventurer". Or think like a pirate. Why explore a planet when you can grab the explorer as he comes out of orbit? Someone has a job that needs done on an Indy world? Especially a blockade? You have the chance to hit half a dozen Indy ships waiting to nab the target. And when the target turns out to be a false flag op, go smuggle them some electronics to make it up to them. Pirates think out of the box. Never turn down the quick coin, the easy loot. Don't just be a privateer, be a pirate!

The whole goal for me as this class is to acquire as much artifacts/weapons/electronics/records as I can with as little grief as possible. That's the only way I know to keep rep growing without hurting it on another front. To this end I wind up turning my early ship into a flying wearhouse. Water-fuel, Weapon cabinet, Spybank, Databank. When I buy my second ship, I have a ready made storage locker. Pilot officer is a must because your not getting the percs of the other mods.

I can't say I'm playing the class correctly, but it's the one that suits my style best.

I also play Cadar, just because they have the only blue flag. They can keep those silly torps though... Wish list for ST2? Let me pick my colors lol!

[dragolord]

So, you believe that our traditional greeting is "silly"? I have only one thing to say to you. Hello…

[Genghis Hank]

Heh! Perhaps "wasteful" is a better word...