Topic: Economic War: Piracy Points

[Herr Burt]

When I posted my early planning thread about the rules for Economic War, Chuut asked if we'd be allowed to betray our cartels in order to increase our own individual profit.  That's a wonderful roleplay idea for a piracy server, but I balked at the idea of players being able to swap sides at the drop of a hat.  That could lead to problems.

Then Chuut offered this idea:

What about this as a propossal for betrayin'

In any mission where a bug takes place and you and your wingman are hostilke to each other, all alliances are off and you cain claim wealth equaling 1/2 the price of his ship if you destroy it, representing salvage value, the full price if you capture it.  Of course the pilots could simply choose to fly off the map, but then again they might not.  Be a shame to waste such a rare opportunity, and wouldn't it be fun to be happy to get a bugged mission like that for a change 

I liked this idea.  In face, I liked it so much that I'm thinking of instituting a seperate score-keeping count called Piracey Points.  Naturally, the profit you make from such a betrayal would not be reported to your Overlord.  (He'd have you strapped to a slow drone and fired at an NEC.)  Instead you'd keep this money to enrich your own worthless black life.  With Piracy Points we could keep track of something outside of game VC's and have a sperate contest of who's carved out the biggest name for themselves as the blackest, most foul-hearted or swashbuckling pirate.

I don't know if we can think of any other ideas as good as this one for Piracy Points, but we may as well try.  Sooo...... put on your thinking caps, best beloved, and figure out other ways to enrich yourself without teling anyone else.  Perhaps even enrich yourself at the cost of your Cartel.

What other ways might you -- in-game -- be able  to be a better bastard?  A certain way to finsih a mission?  A certain mission in a certain place?  A way to place or collect a bounty?  Something much more creative?

I'd love to hear any ideas.

One big restriction:  It can't involve me giving you or anyone else a different ship via DB edit.  That's the (only?) one thing my editor isn't going to be able to do.  It would also be nice if it didn't involve the person you are backstabbing/pickpocketing to have read a rule and abided by it.  Better if it is entirely something you do to some unsuspecting simpleton.

Other than that be as viscious as you like.

-Herr Burt

[762_XC]

Only problem is those missions always CTD as soon as one ship blows up.

Could still work I guess, just something to keep in mind.

[Herr Burt]

Only problem is those missions always CTD as soon as one ship blows up.

Could still work I guess, just something to keep in mind.

Good point, but I don't see that as a problem yet.

You'd definitely have to report the kill for it to count, but that's OK.  You have to do that with all kills.

The mission crash I'm actually looking at as a feature rather than a bug.  Lack of the script reporting the outcome to the DB -- and thus no changes on th map -- would help reinforce the idea that you are doing this to enrich yourself rather than to support your cartel.

-Herr Burt

[EschelonOfJudgemnt]

The only downside I can see to this would be that it is very much "luck of the draw".  If everyone gets these missions fairly often, then it isn't a problem.  If they are sporadic and random however...

Along the same vein, perhaps if the scripting community is game you could introduce a few new missions with similar effects, ala 'The Dilithium Crystal Asteroid".  These are missions where all alliances are off and he who hauls off the most booty, derelict spacecraft, freighters, etc. gets a huge 'pirate prestige' bonus.

BTW, has anyone tried snagging that crystal or whatever from the other player after he beams it off the derelict in that derelict mission?  Or perhaps stealing the ambassador in the diplomatic mission?  Just curious if it could be done.

Also, it'd be cool if all those freighters in those 'convoy raid' missions had goodies you could beam off for bonus prestige.  Perhaps one freighter is carrying a particularly valuable commodity (Orion Slave Girls?), and he who makes off with it gets rewarded handsomely!!!  If these convoy raid missions draw multiple players, then again all bets are off as far as the goodies are concerned...

And the convoy defender would also be wanting to 'protect' these special items, and would similarly be rewarded for saving them from the predators (i.e. beam it onto YOUR ship if you can't save the freighter, which would give YOU the bonus prestige for the goody).

As far as your cartel boss is concerned, he'd probably overlook any 'transgressions' when you hand him his percentage of the booty... Results are what counts, and he who brings home the most assets is an asset!!!  And as for the guy who came home empty handed, well that is why his prestige reward would reflect his pirating skills...

[Hexx]

Also of concern (although I do like the idea) are the missions where only one person isn't allied
ie I can be in a match with you and not showing you as an ally, yet you show me as an ally.

[762_XC]

Those are the best!

[GDA-S'Cipio]

The Frog says 
The only downside I can see to this would be that it is very much "luck of the draw".  If everyone gets these missions fairly often, then it isn't a problem.  If they are sporadic and random however...

I agree with your concern.  That's one of the big reasons I thought this would be best as Piracy Points, a fun side-game, rather than campaign Victory Condition points.

The Kitten says   
Also of concern (although I do like the idea) are the missions where only one person isn't allied
ie I can be in a match with you and not showing you as an ally, yet you show me as an ally.

Hmmm..... is that a bug or a feature?   The evil Herr Burt leans towards feature.   

The t00l says:   
Those are the best!

 

-Herr Burt

[Bonk]

Using missions that are known to CTD will foul the db more quickly, requiring more frequent db cleans and adversely affect server stability.

[762_XC]

Is it only certain missions that do this, or is it just a sporadic connection issue? I always assumed the latter.

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Hiost left missions seem to hit every type of mission from my experience....

Moving right along,

Here is another idea for Pirate points.  You know those little odd icons of things you can beam out on certain missions that have been labeled various things such as Romulan ale, tribbles, a spy, etc.  Make some of these icons worth something.  In particular have some represent pieces of treasure maps.  A player gets one and takes a screenie of it one his ship and Herr Burt PMS the individual with a piece of one of his treasure maps.  Each map can have several pieces and could be part of the actual webmap, or clues. There could be several diffent maps as well.  When the player got them all they could go to the proper hex take a screenshot and collect the treasure.

Might be a bit too admin work intensive but figured I'd throw the idea out for consideration.  A pirate campaign would need treasure maps I think.

[Herr Burt]

Is it only certain missions that do this, or is it just a sporadic connection issue? I always assumed the latter.

Like 762, I believed the issue to be connection issues between the players.  That means that this will be DB errors we are having to deal with anyway, so no extra trouble will be caused by using them for something good for once.

If I'm wrong let me know.

-Herr Burt

[Herr Burt]

Here is another idea for Pirate points.  You know those little odd icons of things you can beam out on certain missions that have been labeled various things such as Romulan ale, tribbles, a spy, etc.  Make some of these icons worth something.  In particular have some represent pieces of treasure maps.  A player gets one and takes a screenie of it one his ship and Herr Burt PMS the individual with a piece of one of his treasure maps.  Each map can have several pieces and could be part of the actual webmap, or clues. There could be several diffent maps as well.  When the player got them all they could go to the proper hex take a screenshot and collect the treasure.

 

Outstanding!!!!!!!!  That's a brilliant idea!

Might be a bit too admin work intensive

That's my worry.  Don't fret about it.   I love the idea.

Anyone got a complete list of all the little things you can find?

I recall:
Romulan Ale
Dilithium Crystals
Tribble
Harry Mudd


Any others?

-Herr Burt

[Hexx]

medical supplies

[762_XC]

Scotch.

[Riskyllama]

diplomat?

[Dfly]

Better be some Gold pressed Latinum in there somewhere.

[Bonk]

From the scripting API:

Code: [Select]

enum eScriptTransportItems
{
kTransNothing = 0, //kNothing
kTransGornEgg,
kTransSpareParts,
kTransCaptain,
kTransBlueStar,
kTransDilithiumCrystals,
kTransGravTank,
kTransMarineDude,
kTransHarryMudd,
kTransInfiltrator,
kTransNovaMine,
kTransRomulanAle,
kTransTribbles,
kTransAlienArtifact,
kTransCaptainDude,
kTransWeaponSchematic,
kTransMedicalSupplies,
kTransAwayTeamItem,
kTransDiplomat,
kTransInjuredDude,
kTransMedicineJar,
kTransScientists,
kTransLifePodDude,
kTransDeathPlague,
kTransBlackBox,
kTransPsionicDisruptor,
kTransIonicProjector,
kTransEngineers,
kTransPrisoner,
};

Though I doubt all of them are in existing dynaverse missions.

[Riskyllama]

darn i was about to do that too bonk.. i had it copied as well but from the strings file

[NuclearWessels]

I don't know about any of the other mission sets, but three of the NW scripts can contain these beasties:
 - Met_NW30Salvage (which isn't recommended for servers - can't remember what the bugs were)
 - Met_NW14Enigma (I think that's strictly 1v1, but has lots of the goodies)
 - Met_NW19Scan (which can be 2v2, and has a chance of goodies)

Lists of which things are in the scripts are below,
dave

---

The 14 enigma/derelict mission can contain these:

kTransBlackBox
kTransHarryMudd
kTransRomulanAle
kTransTribbles
kTransAlienArtifact
kTransWeaponSchematic
kTransMedicalSupplies
kTransInjuredDude
kTransMedicineJar
kTransDilithiumCrystals

The 19 Scan (planet survey) mission can sometimes contain one of these:

kTransDilithiumCrystals
kTransHarryMudd
kTransRomulanAle
kTransLifePodDude
kTransBlackBox
kTransAlienArtifact

And the 30 Salvage mission can sometimes contain one of these:

kTransBlueStar
kTransDilithiumCrystals
kTransGravTank
kTransRomulanAle
kTransTribbles
kTransAlienArtifact
kTransWeaponSchematic
kTransMedicalSupplie
kTransMedicineJar
kTransDeathPlague
kTransBlackBox
kTransPsionicDisruptor
kTransIonicProjector
kTransSpareParts

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

 

Outstanding!!!!!!!!  That's a brilliant idea!

Your finally catching on, all of Chuut's ideas are brilliant. I'll likely think up a few more after I give it a bit more thought.

[Herr Burt]

Not really a "Piracy Points" issue, but in the interest of adding to the piracy atmosphere, I've decided to add a few more tweaks to my setup.  Why not?  I haven't broken it yet thus it must need more tweaking.

For one thing, how realistic is it for you to expect to square off against warcruiser after warcruiser in mission after mission?  Usually when a warcruiser shows up and looks likely to stick around, a pirate would want to leave.  Daddy don't get rich knocking heads with Mr. Warcruiser.  Daddy wants a nice, fat cargo hold full of stuff he can sell.  So I'm doing some alterring to make it look like you are attacking convoys or pieces of convoys a little more often whenever you fight an AI mission.

Second:  The life of a pirate is hard.  Repairs draw questions, living off the "land" doesn't.

"How did you get this huge hole in the side of your ship, Mr. Honest Jedd?"

"Arrr..... why, I hit a rock."

"A rock that fired a civilian phaser with a type 6 phase coil at you?  Only the police use that kind of phase coil."

"Well, mabye the police hit the rock first and I picked up some residue.  You know how those police are around here.  They can't pilot.   Arrrr.... They can't find their butt with both hands.  They're useless.   That's why crime is so high around here.  It's not safe for an honest buisnessman like myself.   Why, I hear a convoy of electronics was pirated just yesterday."

"You mean, a shipment of subsapce transister equipment, like the ones you are selling now?"

"Arrr... I don't like what you are implying."

"And why do you want all these spare parts before your three hour tour tomorrow?  What do you plan to show these passengers?"

"Arrr.... why, I plan to show them the beauty of the Mutarr Nebula."

"And you need three spare warp cores for that?"

"Well, you never know, Arrrr......  There be radiation out there.   Would you want to be stuck if your first three warp cores broke down?"

"I don't think we believe your story, Mr. Honest Jedd.  We'd like a look at your data core before we effect any reapairs on your ship."



Anyway, a lot of piracy is about stealing stuff you can use and paying off people to fix the stuff you can't fix yourself.  So, I thought I'd up the cost of magic screws in spacedock, but fix the missios so that you could raid cargo boxs dumped by desperate freightors.   (Sure, Jabba might kill them if they get back to dock without their spice shipment, but in the meantime they've got a pirate on their tail and they want all the speed they can muster!)  It will cost you a little time to pick up these dumped cargo boxs, but will save you a lot of money if you want to keep your supply of screws topped off.  And pirates are all about storing up money.

I'll likely leave the price of the repair button at dock fairly cheap, since I can't fix the missions to let you "raid" hull repairs.

-Herr Burt

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Great idea!  too bad you can't steal T-bombs and admin shuttles, fighters, and drones  as well.

[Riskyllama]

are there .gf settings that can be used to restock a ship, or is there just that one that can repair a ship?

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Another idea for "Piracy Points"

All really cool pirates were surrounded by bigger than life stories, I think roleplay should be featured with rewards given for good stories or creative character concepts.  The judge of these of course being the server admin.  If its an effort but not too much out of the ordinary, a small reward, if its got some aspects that are more interesting than the usual roleplay a bit more, and if it is a piece of really good work some major rewards.

There could also be a downside, the better the story the player writes, the more infamous the pirate,  as such an tale of minor interest might be locally spread but a very interesting tale is spread far and wide and exaggerated more and more with each telling.  Such a famous story of a pirate is an embarrassment for the authorities and rival clans so bounties are placed on the offending pirates head.


Of course this might go even further as a particularly clever pirate might invent stories about his rivals in order to draw attention away from himself 

[Herr Burt]

are there .gf settings that can be used to restock a ship, or is there just that one that can repair a ship?

There is a setting to set the price for all expendables, and for the "repair" button.

There is also a setting that controls how many reloads of drones a ship gets for free at the start of each mision.   The lowest is 1 (meaning you start each mission with a full load plus one complete reload for free) and the highest is 4.

There is no setting to automatically restock you with marines/mines/shuttles etc. after each mission.

-Herr Burt

[Herr Burt]

All really cool pirates were surrounded by bigger than life stories, I think roleplay should be featured with rewards given for good stories or creative character concepts.  The judge of these of course being the server admin. 

This would be incredibly fun, but I fear tht this actually would be too much admin overhead for me.  I am also leary about introducing the concept of subjective victory or piracy points.  I or someone else would have to judge these on "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" rather than simply looking at something and saying , "you did it ".

Keep the ideas coming.

-Herr Burt

[Herr Burt]

One I should have thought of long ago:   Ransom!

If you have someone clearly beaten and are coming around for the kill shot, you could offer them a chance to buy their life.  If they agree to transfer X prestige points from their account to yours, you will give them a tow to the edge of the map.  If they don't pay up then you are going to kill them.

If ransom is paid, then the ship would not be killed and the Pirate Cartel would not get kill poiints towards winning the game.  However, the pirate who collected the ransom would get Piracy Points equal to the ransom paid.  The Cartel would still get to count the Prestige Points paid in ransom towards their "cash on hand" total, since I am not going to keep two sets of books for each player.

-S'Cipio

[NuclearWessels]

And you called me evil??? 

j/k - sounds cool S'cip!

dave

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

All really cool pirates were surrounded by bigger than life stories, I think roleplay should be featured with rewards given for good stories or creative character concepts.  The judge of these of course being the server admin. 

This would be incredibly fun, but I fear tht this actually would be too much admin overhead for me.  I am also leary about introducing the concept of subjective victory or piracy points.  I or someone else would have to judge these on "I liked it" or "I didn't like it" rather than simply looking at something and saying , "you did it ".

Keep the ideas coming.

-Herr Burt

Fair enough but perhaps some form of reward could be made non subjectively as typing roleplaying posts does keep people from flying missions.  Two benefits can't be ignored however, 1 the stories would be fun to read and write, 2 It would give people who could access the forums from work the chance to "participate" even when they couldn't actually be flying on the server. 

[Herr Burt]

You say that you and your ally have a fat haul all squared away, but that there is really just too much bounty to share with that scalawag?  Well, now you won't have to.

I briefly ( a week or so...... ) considered keeping this secret, then I figured it's best to announce before the campaign starts rather than waiting for people to discover it on their own.   (As cool as that would have been, there may have been some complaining that the surprise was unfair.)

So, thanks to some inspired work by Evil Dave, I will be using versions of (at least) the three standard patrol missions that allow allied ships to target one another.    Feel like your "ally" deserves a good backstab?   Then let him have it!  The outcome of the mission will not change, other than the fact that you or your wingman may die.   If someone from your side is still the last man standing, then your side still wins the mission.

Your cartel will be robbed of a ship, and the Overlord might get a little testy and may even slap a bounty on your thieving behind, but your personal pocket (and your personal piracy points) will get fat.   And that's what really counts, yes?

By the way, be careful of missions that involve AI.   Once you shoot an allied AI it will forever more treat you as an enemy.  You might be able to talk a live ally into believing that you *accidentally* shot him, but the computer never forgives.

-Herr Burt the Friend-Maker

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

I love that!

[Wraith 413]

Here is another idea for Pirate points.  You know those little odd icons of things you can beam out on certain missions that have been labeled various things such as Romulan ale, tribbles, a spy, etc.  Make some of these icons worth something.  In particular have some represent pieces of treasure maps.  A player gets one and takes a screenie of it one his ship and Herr Burt PMS the individual with a piece of one of his treasure maps.  Each map can have several pieces and could be part of the actual webmap, or clues. There could be several diffent maps as well.  When the player got them all they could go to the proper hex take a screenshot and collect the treasure.

 

Outstanding!!!!!!!!  That's a brilliant idea!

Might be a bit too admin work intensive

That's my worry.  Don't fret about it.   I love the idea.

Anyone got a complete list of all the little things you can find?

I recall:
Romulan Ale
Dilithium Crystals
Tribble
Harry Mudd


Any others?

-Herr Burt

   Sex Bots ??               

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

So, thanks to some inspired work by Evil Dave, I will be using versions of (at least) the three standard patrol missions that allow allied ships to target one another.    Feel like your "ally" deserves a good backstab?   Then let him have it!  The outcome of the mission will not change, other than the fact that you or your wingman may die.   If someone from your side is still the last man standing, then your side still wins the mission.

Just occurred to me, this is a great tool for cutting down on "gang-banging"  I mean imagine this scenario.

Soreyes jumps into a hex where Die Hard and 762 are awaiting for him, he draws on of the "special" missions.  t00l gets on Soreye's rear shield and Die Hard follows in behind so to concentrate the fire power.  after breaking through the shielding on Soreyes ship t00l lands a decent volley of internals and waits for Die Hard to land a crippling blow on Soreyes.  Die Hard thinks to himself, "If I finish off Soreyes I get one ship split 2 ways, If I get t00l first I get two ships all to myself.  Die Hard then fires an Alpha Strike into t00l who had just noticed some hesitation in his wingman's firing sequence on Soreyes ship and begun to pull away.  t00l curses Die Hard lands 3 t-bombs on DH's nose and turns his weak shield away from both Soreyes and DH.  Soreyes notices what happened and immediately HETS and catches DH on his weak shield that he was turning away from t00l and fires doing some internals, sending a scatterpack at t00l to encourage his movement away from Soreyes and to DH's other side.  Suddenly it is no longer a 2v1 but a 1v1v1 and alot of fun for all.

[KBFLordKrueg]

So, thanks to some inspired work by Evil Dave, I will be using versions of (at least) the three standard patrol missions that allow allied ships to target one another.    Feel like your "ally" deserves a good backstab?   Then let him have it!  The outcome of the mission will not change, other than the fact that you or your wingman may die.   If someone from your side is still the last man standing, then your side still wins the mission.

Just occurred to me, this is a great tool for cutting down on "gang-banging"  I mean imagine this scenario.

Soreyes jumps into a hex where Die Hard and 762 are awaiting for him, he draws on of the "special" missions.  t00l gets on Soreye's rear shield and Die Hard follows in behind so to concentrate the fire power.  after breaking through the shielding on Soreyes ship t00l lands a decent volley of internals and waits for Die Hard to land a crippling blow on Soreyes.  Die Hard thinks to himself, "If I finish off Soreyes I get one ship split 2 ways, If I get t00l first I get two ships all to myself.  Die Hard then fires an Alpha Strike into t00l who had just noticed some hesitation in his wingman's firing sequence on Soreyes ship and begun to pull away.  t00l curses Die Hard lands 3 t-bombs on DH's nose and turns his weak shield away from both Soreyes and DH.  Soreyes notices what happened and immediately HETS and catches DH on his weak shield that he was turning away from t00l and fires doing some internals, sending a scatterpack at t00l to encourage his movement away from Soreyes and to DH's other side.  Suddenly it is no longer a 2v1 but a 1v1v1 and alot of fun for all.

 
I can hear the "conversation" on TS now...

[Dfly]

Even those not on TS would be able to hear that one 

[CaptJosh]

Chuut, have I told you lately that you're evil sometimes?