Dev: Please balance the attack behavior of pirates!

[japp_02]

You have a junk shuttle with 0 tons cargo on board, yet you hear the alert bell, you go away quickly just to see that 5 missiles are in your tail, which probably are worth more than your junky ship... And there are plenty of better targets in the system...

The game needs balance urgently, it's fun to play with great grafics but when playing I think the pirates are - in the first place - always after me which should not be the case. My example given here above (and played for real) illustrates that.

Suggestion:
Make a slightly larger time delay between the Alert Bell and the appearances of pirates. And if possible: make them going first against more important targets if they have scanners or if they are visibly better ships to attack.

[mrluu132]

There are ways to litterally outrun a missle in a shuttle. It also depends on the location of you ship. Is your ship down in the pirate infeseted far north or south? Etc.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by mrluu132:

There are ways to litterally outrun a missle in a shuttle. It also depends on the location of you ship. Is your ship down in the pirate infeseted far north or south? Etc.

Yeah yeah, missile evasion...but that's not the point, the game - and the pirates - should not focus only on ME.

[Belteguesian]

Spoiler Alert but, you ARE the center of the Universe my friend, being the only live player and all that so, yeah they come after you.
Personally I think it's the developer's way of saying "Stop Fooling around with useless ships and get on with the storyline".
I always start with the Barge striped down 9yes stripped DOWN) to the bones, because I know for a fact that it can offer no resistance whatsoever.
Sell it's battery, replace the power shell (you DO need one) with the smaller one and you find yourself with enough outfit to put a large bunk addition, a small one and a Fuel pod. this makes it's range 4, and gives you 10 bunks for passengers, then "hunt passenger transport missions with the occasional cargo mission just to fill the gaps.
Within 20 mins (about 3 reloads)you have payed the mortgage and have enough money to buy something that does not die when ANYBODY looks at it.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by Belteguesian:

Spoiler Alert but, you ARE the center of the Universe my friend, being the only live player and all that so, yeah they come after you.
Personally I think it's the developer's way of saying "Stop Fooling around with useless ships and get on with the storyline".
I always start with the Barge striped down 9yes stripped DOWN) to the bones, because I know for a fact that it can offer no resistance whatsoever.
Sell it's battery, replace the power shell (you DO need one) with the smaller one and you find yourself with enough outfit to put a large bunk addition, a small one and a Fuel pod. this makes it's range 4, and gives you 10 bunks for passengers, then "hunt passenger transport missions with the occasional cargo mission just to fill the gaps.
Within 20 mins (about 3 reloads)you have payed the mortgage and have enough money to buy something that does not die when ANYBODY looks at it.

Well, thanks for these tips, but money-making and game progression is not so much my problem here (I do quite well on it by boarding derelics early, for that I dont' need a super ship and I make money fast to buy other stuff soon, much faster than missions, also asteroid mining is fine).
Problem is, as I said, the horrendous unbalanced game. You have about 1 second after the alarm bell to press the UP key to accelerate away, that's not enough, sorry, it makes the game almost unplayable, you just throw a coin each time to decide if you die or not, not very challenging...
And: when you get disabled, it's not so bad afterall, in EV you got your money stolen from pirates (strangely only part of it...), not so in ES,...I can always call a merchand for repairs - for free (another thing to fix IMO). It's when I don't shoot or just stand still that nothing will happen to me: pirates disable me and go their way for other shootings, I call a merchand for repair, then guess...I go board the pirate's derelics all around (ok, sometimes they all got shot down)...Not very challenging because too easy, something goes wrong here...too unbalanced all this...

With a few code changes to make the pirates more 'intelligent' the game can play out alright I think.

[TheMarksman]

Originally posted by japp_02:

Originally posted by Belteguesian:

Spoiler Alert but, you ARE the center of the Universe my friend, being the only live player and all that so, yeah they come after you.
Personally I think it's the developer's way of saying "Stop Fooling around with useless ships and get on with the storyline".
I always start with the Barge striped down 9yes stripped DOWN) to the bones, because I know for a fact that it can offer no resistance whatsoever.
Sell it's battery, replace the power shell (you DO need one) with the smaller one and you find yourself with enough outfit to put a large bunk addition, a small one and a Fuel pod. this makes it's range 4, and gives you 10 bunks for passengers, then "hunt passenger transport missions with the occasional cargo mission just to fill the gaps.
Within 20 mins (about 3 reloads)you have payed the mortgage and have enough money to buy something that does not die when ANYBODY looks at it.

Well, thanks for these tips, but money-making and game progression is not so much my problem here (I do quite well on it by boarding derelics early, for that I dont' need a super ship and I make money fast to buy other stuff soon, much faster than missions, also asteroid mining is fine).
Problem is, as I said, the horrendous unbalanced game. You have less than 1 second after the alarm bell to even press the UP key to accelerate away, that's not enough, sorry, it makes the game almost unplayable, you just throw a coin each time to decide if you die or not, not very challenging...
And: when you get disabled, it's not so bad afterall, in EV you got your money stolen from pirates (strangely only part of it...), not so in ES,...I can always call a merchand for repairs - for free (another thing to fix IMO). It's when I don't shoot or just stand still that nothing will happen to me: pirates disable me and go their way for other shootings, I call a merchand for repair, then guess...I go board the pirate's derelics all around (ok, sometimes they all got shot down)...Not very challenging because too easy, something goes wrong here...too unbalanced all this...

With a few code changes to make the pirates more 'intelligent' the game can play out alright I think.

Unfortunately, the thing is, you're someone weak. The pirates prey on the weak.

A fleet of unarmed star barges won't earn you any money because it's such a good bait for every pirate in the system. You're literally waving to them a "Come and make my life miserable" Flag. This is also why you are expected to have weapons to defend yourself, or a scram drive to be ahead of pirates.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by TheMarksman:

Originally posted by japp_02:

Well, thanks for these tips, but money-making and game progression is not so much my problem here (I do quite well on it by boarding derelics early, for that I dont' need a super ship and I make money fast to buy other stuff soon, much faster than missions, also asteroid mining is fine).
Problem is, as I said, the horrendous unbalanced game. You have less than 1 second after the alarm bell to even press the UP key to accelerate away, that's not enough, sorry, it makes the game almost unplayable, you just throw a coin each time to decide if you die or not, not very challenging...
And: when you get disabled, it's not so bad afterall, in EV you got your money stolen from pirates (strangely only part of it...), not so in ES,...I can always call a merchand for repairs - for free (another thing to fix IMO). It's when I don't shoot or just stand still that nothing will happen to me: pirates disable me and go their way for other shootings, I call a merchand for repair, then guess...I go board the pirate's derelics all around (ok, sometimes they all got shot down)...Not very challenging because too easy, something goes wrong here...too unbalanced all this...

With a few code changes to make the pirates more 'intelligent' the game can play out alright I think.

Unfortunately, the thing is, you're someone weak. The pirates prey on the weak.

A fleet of unarmed star barges won't earn you any money because it's such a good bait for every pirate in the system. You're literally waving to them a "Come and make my life miserable" Flag. This is also why you are expected to have weapons to defend yourself, or a scram drive to be ahead of pirates.

I'm alright being on the weak side - it can only get better, but have you read my post and how easy it is to do 'plain nothing' and earn a lot of money? Maybe you understand now what I mean with 'balanced game' ?

[Amazinite]

Note that if you're the only ship in the system for pirates to attack, they're gonna attack you. But, if your ship is unarmed and there are other targets, pirates will generally ignore you until they've taken everything else out. The only way they'll attack you when you're unarmed and not the only target is when you get too close to them and they aren't focusing on another target.

There have already been balance changes made for the next update to missiles. Missiles will now fire slower but pack more of a punch when they do hit, but they have also had their tracking retuned so that dodging them in smaller ships is much easier, at least when it comes to Meteor missiles that are used by the majority of pirates. Sidewinder missiles will see more use by northern pirates in the next update, and Sidewinders are the ones that can cause real trouble for smaller ships. (But as far as I can recall in the current version, pirates only use Meteor missiles when it comes to tracking missiles.)

Originally posted by japp_02:

you go away quickly just to see that 5 missiles are in your tail, which probably are worth more than your junky ship... And there are plenty of better targets in the system...

5 missiles is 2,500 credits, so you must have a pretty cheap ship. :)

[Amazinite]

I also believe that the Shuttle and Star Barge have been changed so that Meteor missiles are more likely to lose their lock on to these ships, making it easier to dodge while in said ships.

[japp_02]

Originally posted by Derpy Horse:

Note that if you're the only ship in the system for pirates to attack, they're gonna attack you. But, if your ship is unarmed and there are other targets, pirates will generally ignore you until they've taken everything else out. The only way they'll attack you when you're unarmed and not the only target is when you get too close to them and they aren't focusing on another target.

There have already been balance changes made for the next update to missiles. Missiles will now fire slower but pack more of a punch when they do hit, but they have also had their tracking retuned so that dodging them in smaller ships is much easier, at least when it comes to Meteor missiles that are used by the majority of pirates. Sidewinder missiles will see more use by northern pirates in the next update, and Sidewinders are the ones that can cause real trouble for smaller ships. (But as far as I can recall in the current version, pirates only use Meteor missiles when it comes to tracking missiles.)

Originally posted by japp_02:

you go away quickly just to see that 5 missiles are in your tail, which probably are worth more than your junky ship... And there are plenty of better targets in the system...

5 missiles is 2,500 credits, so you must have a pretty cheap ship. :)

I'm very glad to hear all this, thank you to take the time to enlight me on this, I appreciate. If not these terrible 'sudden' pirate appearances out of the blue the game is really great, much more cured than EV or everything else I have seen in this space RPG genre. I like it :)

[japp_02]

Originally posted by Belteguesian:

Spoiler Alert but, you ARE the center of the Universe my friend, being the only live player and all that so, yeah they come after you.
Personally I think it's the developer's way of saying "Stop Fooling around with useless ships and get on with the storyline".
I always start with the Barge striped down 9yes stripped DOWN) to the bones, because I know for a fact that it can offer no resistance whatsoever.
Sell it's battery, replace the power shell (you DO need one) with the smaller one and you find yourself with enough outfit to put a large bunk addition, a small one and a Fuel pod. this makes it's range 4, and gives you 10 bunks for passengers, then "hunt passenger transport missions with the occasional cargo mission just to fill the gaps.
Within 20 mins (about 3 reloads)you have payed the mortgage and have enough money to buy something that does not die when ANYBODY looks at it.

I'm comming back to your advices, Belteguesian, and indeed this and avoiding high Nord / Deep South locations should increase my survival chances a lot. I have also taken out thrusters to replace them with Atomic Reactors, this frees up a lot of outfit space and increases my speed enough to evade quickly.
I'm now in a Wasp ship were I did the same replacement and I can afford to change my shield generators for a 2-class better one. I'm hoping to lurk around in battle zones and play the 'chacal', picking up cargo from the deaths... Well, I have to start somewhere :)

[Husky306]

Hehe, yeah, one pirate ship is in the system, ALL friendly ships attack him and he keeps attacking only your empty 375k bucket. It's hillarious.

But with all seriousness, the very battle system needs a reworking. It's stupid that I can easily get destroyed by pirates since all I need to do after that is load. Nothing is lost. Only time. So sometimes it takes 5-6 tries to make a trade trip. It's a pointless difficulty. Nothing depends on me since their ships may be top tiers, 5 on 1. They rip me apart in 2 shots. Right the moment I leave the planet. So what? The only option I have is load? "Fun".

And being a fighter is also idiotic. You try to fight someone and he's destroyed by a giant ally fleet. They never leave a carcas. They annihilate. It becomes a life of "find someone of your size to fight, he must be alone and you must be alone". And pray an ally Bactrian doesn't warp out next to you to destroy the poor guy.

The game is great and seeing it developed into something much better would be lovely. There's such a wide arsenal going to waste otherwise. For example, for trading it's Barge-Hauler-Behemoth evolution. That's it. No batteries, no shields, no turrets required. Because all you need is to be swift and endure a few shots. No way to actually defend yourself. It takes balance. And the game is too chaotic to be able to do anything. The only reliable way to defend is to have a strong battleship for lead. Burn everything with massive spam. But then you have 30mil+ and don't need much else. Getting Bactrian is rather the end of the game. Have a few pirates roasted and it gets boring.