Please change pirates

[solops]

While I welcome pirates as a space based challenge I detest actually playing with them. They manifest themselves in game play primarily as a guerilla-like insurgency on almost every planet in my empire. When playing in a big 1400 star galaxy the game becomes a boorish repetition of going through almost every planet every turn to check and fight the pirate influence on each one. This is not "fun" and certainly not what I want in a space empire game. I want exploration, expansion, fleet construction and space battles, not fighting the equivalent of a communist insurgency on all my planets. Please do something to change pirates or add management tools to combat them. I'd rather play with them than without them, but right now they are just too tedious to combat on the ground. In space? Bring them on!

[Mad Igor]

play legends.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Solops, have you tried turning them down to their lowest setting?

We're also planning to add another setting that weakens pirates, based on the feedback here. Adjusting this new setting will gradually increase their maintenance costs, which will allow them to be scaled all the way back to the power level of the original DW pirates if you wish.

Regards,

- Erik

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

We're also planning to add another setting that weakens pirates, based on the feedback here. Adjusting this new setting will gradually increase their maintenance costs, which will allow them to be scaled all the way back to the power level of the original DW pirates if you wish.

Very happy to hear this, its great to see devs listening to player feedback. Being able to vary pirate difficulty will greatly increase the variety of games we can play. I look forward to being able to choose to play with either tough, weak pirates or anything in-between. Thanks again.

[Bosk]

I am still fairly new do Distant Worlds Shadows and the pirates are certainly creating lots of problems for me, but I have to say, that its been a very very long time since I had my butt handed to me by the computer so from my perspective I am thankful they are so dang strong. So far its just forcing me to get better and more careful with my play style.

[Lucian]

My understanding is that you will still be able to have strong pirates if you wish. The upcoming change simply gives you a choice where before you had none.

[Tehlongone]

Well I can't really disapprove of an optional option of weakening the pirates, but I am quite happy with the current version so I'd prefer it being fully optional.

[solops]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Solops, have you tried turning them down to their lowest setting?

We're also planning to add another setting that weakens pirates, based on the feedback here. Adjusting this new setting will gradually increase their maintenance costs, which will allow them to be scaled all the way back to the power level of the original DW pirates if you wish.

Regards,

- Erik

Yeah, but at the lower settings pirates are kind of worthless. Pirates in space are FINE. The issue is micromanaging the fight against pirate influence on dozens of my planets every turn. That is tedious and consumes incredible amounts of time. No fun at all. Blasting pirate fleets...THAT is great fun. The more pirates the better, in that respect. Cutting down on the number of pirates does not really address the issue of how the player interacts with them. We need some sort of global planetary pirate influence suppression/eradication tools.

[turtlefang]

I guess I'm in the make pirates stronger later in the game. Have them build more ships besides just the escorts in mid to late game.

As far as the ground combat issue, for me, your right, it gets tiring. So you need to garrison up. If you playing a race with decent troops, then 8 troops and 1 planetary defense unit will defeat 90% of the pirate rates. Only the strongest one will give you a problem.

If your playing a race with weaker troop strength, you need a larger garrison. 12 troops should do it even with a weak race.

This has "solved" the constant pirate raids on my planets.

Five to 15 ships blowing thought and destroying mining bases and space ports is a different issue. Best have a fleet to fight them off. And it usually arrives too late.

[Antiscamp]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins


We're also planning to add another setting that weakens pirates, based on the feedback here. Adjusting this new setting will gradually increase their maintenance costs, which will allow them to be scaled all the way back to the power level of the original DW pirates if you wish.

Regards,

- Erik

This sounds like a really good idea. Go for it! I n my current game, I'm quite enjoying pirates at one of the lower settings. They can get a bit overwhelming and supply some really tedious and no-fun situations, like the OP tells, in most of my games though.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: solops

While I welcome pirates as a space based challenge I detest actually playing with them. They manifest themselves in game play primarily as a guerilla-like insurgency on almost every planet in my empire. When playing in a big 1400 star galaxy the game becomes a boorish repetition of going through almost every planet every turn to check and fight the pirate influence on each one. This is not "fun" and certainly not what I want in a space empire game. I want exploration, expansion, fleet construction and space battles, not fighting the equivalent of a communist insurgency on all my planets. Please do something to change pirates or add management tools to combat them. I'd rather play with them than without them, but right now they are just too tedious to combat on the ground. In space? Bring them on!

I'm in agreement with you but possible not quite as strongly. In my last game I turned them down a notch and they are now livable with.

[Strat_84]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Solops, have you tried turning them down to their lowest setting?

We're also planning to add another setting that weakens pirates, based on the feedback here. Adjusting this new setting will gradually increase their maintenance costs, which will allow them to be scaled all the way back to the power level of the original DW pirates if you wish.

Regards,

- Erik

That's a good news !

I'm a bit masochist (playing with very many pirates [:D] ) but it's a good thing if there's something that somewhat limits their forces. Their ability to field endless amounts of ships without paying any sort of maintenance is a bit too much (that's how things work currently, right ?).
BTW that made the legendary pirates underpowered. When you're used to be attacked by dozen of ships from the regular pirates everywhere, once you discover a legendary pirate your first thought isn't to be scared, but rather " oh, a sweet ! I'm hungry "

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Tehlongone

Well I can't really disapprove of an optional option of weakening the pirates, but I am quite happy with the current version so I'd prefer it being fully optional.

+1

Think if your a new player the best option is to turn pirates off completely and just get a good few games experience and then come back to them, the pirates in DW, ROTS and Legends were a totally different animal, they were nothing more than a fly on a wall, thus players with more experience of the game are able to cope and enjoy the pirates and the challenge they represent now with Shadows.

Darkspire

[elanaagain]

All I ask is that this slider, (or whatever 'control' Eric and his band of merry gamesters add - smile) allows actual changes mid game. This will allow players to beef up pirates in a current game should they get too weak. This will also enhance re-playability of DW:Shadows games.

[Lucian]

ORIGINAL: elanaagain

All I ask is that this slider, (or whatever 'control' Eric and his band of merry gamesters add - smile) allows actual changes mid game. This will allow players to beef up pirates in a current game should they get too weak. This will also enhance re-playability of DW:Shadows games.

I certainly wouldn't have any objection to this idea, but I fear that it wont be easy to implement compared to what it appears they intend to do, which is simply add a pirate difficulty slider in the setup screen.

Since it currently isn't possible to alter any other setup options mid-game, I'm guessing this one wont be alterable either.

[Tehlongone]

It definitely would be tricky to do, you can't change difficulty through the editor either. Perhaps something along the lines of the "difficulty scaling" setting could be implemented as a toggleable setting if there was desire for it, and if it wouldn't be too much trouble to implement.

I do believe pirates are supposed to eventually be surpassed by the empires and as such get weak, however.

[elanaagain]

Ah, yes. I see the difficulty re: in game changes. Perhaps the set up check box that scales up difficulty the closer one is to 'victory' might be used as a model for the pirates difficulty as well. Make the check box scale 'pirate difficulty' up as one gets closer to 'victory?'

[Starke]

ORIGINAL: Strat_84

BTW that made the legendary pirates underpowered. When you're used to be attacked by dozen of ships from the regular pirates everywhere, once you discover a legendary pirate your first thought isn't to be scared, but rather " oh, a sweet ! I'm hungry "

I don't think this has really been discussed yet and deserves to be emphasized as well. Compared to the regular pirates, the Legendary Pirates are now basically pushovers - pushovers you get a giant tech pinata for killing. =P (although that's currently broken, see this thread)

[Shark7]

Personally I'd be happy to keep them powerful, just have them bugging me less with extortion requests. Late game if you allow them to respawn you spend more time dealing with pirate extortion requests than anything else. [:@]