Just a thought

[DrunkenTeddy]

As Cracker points out I see Piracy as a grey area for us as well. If we assume that all players that are part of an org will be shown as part of that org in the game, then any piracy activity would need to take into account any alliances or truces our org has in place with other orgs. The way I see it, if we do have a piracy division, it's going to end up being fairly limited on who they can steal from. If we build a separate org for this purpose it won't take long for people to figure out they are an arm of TEST. I can see a war starting with another org because we pirated the wrong ship.

That being said, I am not opposed to a Piracy division, with the right regulations in place it can work. I just wanted to highlight some concerns.

 

[Soven Taliesyn]

As Cracker points out I see Piracy as a grey area for us as well. If we assume that all players that are part of an org will be shown as part of that org in the game, then any piracy activity would need to take into account any alliances or truces our org has in place with other orgs. The way I see it, if we do have a piracy division, it's going to end up being fairly limited on who they can steal from. If we build a separate org for this purpose it won't take long for people to figure out they are an arm of TEST. I can see a war starting with another org because we pirated the wrong ship.

That being said, I am not opposed to a Piracy division, with the right regulations in place it can work. I just wanted to highlight some concerns.

All that has already been discussed to the point of, we don't know how the mechanics will work stand still.

All I'm suggesting is that we get a few heads together to start some combat and/or piracy related stuff since it combat is a functioning game mechanics. My current thought on it is for now, that the combat and pirates minded to start working group on a general combat cohesive unit and when we finally learn more about piracy and it becomes more of a thing then the 2 will split up and depending on game mechanics and leaderships decision go from there on piracy.

If it comes down to it then we can have a completely separate org that is alts for pirates or place where players can go to for some pirating and then come back. Something that will still be under our great leadership but not apart of the org to drag everyone else down.

I have more thoughts and opinions on this but I'm seeing what can be done now and then I'll go from there.

 

[Black Sunder]

Honestly I see Shadowrunner-esque pirates being valuable to TEST. Not necessarily in the sense of "you have a thing I want, and me killing you to take it will get me in trouble, so 'these unrelated guys' are going to kill you and I'm just going to conveniently take it while you're dead." Even in Star Citizen, pirates are a means of producing and controlling a market.

The Rock Raiders have effectively demonstrated that a large noncombat core of TEST wants to make money mining, right? Based on what we know of Star Citizen's node-based market, a large force of organized but concentrated miners can saturate a market and drive the local price of ore down. The obvious solution would be dispersing, flying to far away sectors and selling the ore there for a markup, risking product loss and requiring logistical organization.

But what if we opened an ore sink in the host sector?

What if the logistics arm of TEST did the research and found out which tradelanes carried NPC ore into the market, and sent the Blackout Drunks to kill everything that moved on those lanes, driving the cost of ore up? What if the Blackout Drunks were just encouraged to start more fights and do more ship-destroying in the sector (or a sector nearby), driving up the number of people buying ships from that location's NPC ship builders - and thus driving up the NPCs' demand for ore? The Rock Raiders could keep selling ore close to home, saving time and logistics on shipping, and the Blackout Drunks would get to blow things up.

Oh, the RR Industry Division covers much more than just Mining. :)

All that has already been discussed to the point of, we don't know how the mechanics will work stand still.

All I'm suggesting is that we get a few heads together to start some combat and/or piracy related stuff since it combat is a functioning game mechanics. My current thought on it is for now, that the combat and pirates minded to start working group on a general combat cohesive unit and when we finally learn more about piracy and it becomes more of a thing then the 2 will split up and depending on game mechanics and leaderships decision go from there on piracy.

If it comes down to it then we can have a completely separate org that is alts for pirates or place where players can go to for some pirating and then come back. Something that will still be under our great leadership but not apart of the org to drag everyone else down.

I have more thoughts and opinions on this but I'm seeing what can be done now and then I'll go from there.

Montoya wants people to come up with things, see if they float with other people and go from there. So if you say you have an idea, a structure of some kind that people say "yeah this is a good idea for this" then start iterating on it. You don't need to know how to play baseball to get a group of people together to play baseball. Think any of us knew how to really play T-Ball at 7 years old before we joined the team? :)

 

[Shadow Reaper]

All I'm trying to do is get the idea out there to start the planning process.

IMHO, the best sort of organizing you can do right now is simply "vision casting" what you'd like to do and see who has similar interests. I did this in the Privateering thread some weeks back and there was quite a healthy response which says to me people do like the idea of piracy but don't like indiscriminate griefing, nor the RP repercussions of true piracy. Quite a few people gravitated automatically toward the Privateering notion and that was all I need to know. There are quite a few of us and so I know when the time comes, and there is enough game detail to form a plan, we can.

On game detail--just noting it is not just the actual mechanics of ship stealing we need in game to make plans. There needs to be sufficient number of worlds, and types of worlds in various empires available, for us to make a decent stab at Privateering. I can note such and such a location may be a good one, and vision-cast what it might be like to fly out of there, but we don' know how many months or years it will be until such a system is open. Could be the best path to Privateering is to fly all the Descendants of Orion missions against the Vanduul, practice with the Jokers and pick up a Warlock just for the EMP. Sure would love to see how that works in a vid! So far I haven't even seen the Jokers much.

And just to note too, all successful projects maintain a necessary momentum, and it is really early to have much momentum. Starting too early to form a group and then failing to hold it together is in some ways worse that starting too late, so I am content to just enjoy the folks here. We already know we're the baddest of the badasses. Anyone with common sense should fear us, for we are the mighty testies, and we drukn whi8le flying.

 

[maynard]

piwates need to practice immobilizing ships without destroying their cargoes or hulls

It's not too early to do that

 

[marcsand2]

The general nature of TEST makes this a challenge.

:D That is a firm point!

Honestly I see Shadowrunner-esque pirates being valuable to TEST. Not necessarily in the sense of "you have a thing I want, and me killing you to take it will get me in trouble, so 'these unrelated guys' are going to kill you and I'm just going to conveniently take it while you're dead." Even in Star Citizen, pirates are a means of producing and controlling a market.

The Rock Raiders have effectively demonstrated that a large noncombat core of TEST wants to make money mining, right? Based on what we know of Star Citizen's node-based market, a large force of organized but concentrated miners can saturate a market and drive the local price of ore down. The obvious solution would be dispersing, flying to far away sectors and selling the ore there for a markup, risking product loss and requiring logistical organization.

But what if we opened an ore sink in the host sector?

What if the logistics arm of TEST did the research and found out which tradelanes carried NPC ore into the market, and sent the Blackout Drunks to kill everything that moved on those lanes, driving the cost of ore up? What if the Blackout Drunks were just encouraged to start more fights and do more ship-destroying in the sector (or a sector nearby), driving up the number of people buying ships from that location's NPC ship builders - and thus driving up the NPCs' demand for ore? The Rock Raiders could keep selling ore close to home, saving time and logistics on shipping, and the Blackout Drunks would get to blow things up.

And that doesn't sound like piracy, that sounds like special ops, but the people attending this kind of operation better be not tracked back to TEST or even an alt org.

 

[Black Sunder]

piwates need to practice immobilizing ships without destroying their cargoes or hulls
It's not too early to do that

That and boarding with FPS combat. A Starfarer can be used for that because of the interior corridors.

And as for a pirate division, best advice I can offer is to write up an idea like @Shadow Reaper said(Vision Casting) and post it in the Professions forum to see if it gains attention along with a mention here in General Discussion. And from there iterate on it. I mean hell did you see what Rock Raiders started out with when I wrote that first post?

 

[AntiSqueaker]

I would prefer a minorly anarchist approach to TEST Piracy. No real "official" division leadership because fuck you, I'm a pirate, don't tell me what to do.

Instead we could have a basic democratic Council of group leaders to set very basic rules (no Blue on Blue, stay out of territory already in use by another TEST pirate group, etc) and to enforce them if necessary.

Beyond that have at it. Some people will naturally want to be more or less violent (disable + board vs DAKKA DAKKA) and that's fine. Join whoever's crew you want, run your crew how you want. I'll run my crew fair and square and if people don't like it I won't get broken up over it.

I really don't want Piracy in TEST to get all bogged down in bureaucracy with strict chains of command, for several reasons I could go over in more detail if people are interested in, but namely Operational Security. Piracy is one of the professions that could get screwed over real good by some white knights leaking intel. I don't need anyones permission for me and some buds to go hit a random NPC convoy, why would I need to bother asking?

 

[Han Burgundy]

I would prefer a minorly anarchist approach to TEST Piracy. No real "official" division leadership because fuck you, I'm a pirate, don't tell me what to do.

Instead we could have a basic democratic Council of group leaders to set very basic rules (no Blue on Blue, stay out of territory already in use by another TEST pirate group, etc) and to enforce them if necessary.

Beyond that have at it. Some people will naturally want to be more or less violent (disable + board vs DAKKA DAKKA) and that's fine. Join whoever's crew you want, run your crew how you want. I'll run my crew fair and square and if people don't like it I won't get broken up over it.

I really don't want Piracy in TEST to get all bogged down in bureaucracy with strict chains of command, for several reasons I could go over in more detail if people are interested in, but namely Operational Security. Piracy is one of the professions that could get screwed over real good by some white knights leaking intel. I don't need anyones permission for me and some buds to go hit a random NPC convoy, why would I need to bother asking?

I agree with this 100% TEST piracy should be more like a bar where scurvy scum can swap stories and tactics. Many deals and alliances can be formed as well with a loose club-type structure where everyone basically agrees on a basic set of guidelines (No Blue on Blue, Adhere to a no-kill list of allied orgs and groups, Everyone must have at least six beers on board for each crew member, ect)

 

[Soven Taliesyn]

I would prefer a minorly anarchist approach to TEST Piracy. No real "official" division leadership because fuck you, I'm a pirate, don't tell me what to do.

Instead we could have a basic democratic Council of group leaders to set very basic rules (no Blue on Blue, stay out of territory already in use by another TEST pirate group, etc) and to enforce them if necessary.

Beyond that have at it. Some people will naturally want to be more or less violent (disable + board vs DAKKA DAKKA) and that's fine. Join whoever's crew you want, run your crew how you want. I'll run my crew fair and square and if people don't like it I won't get broken up over it.

I really don't want Piracy in TEST to get all bogged down in bureaucracy with strict chains of command, for several reasons I could go over in more detail if people are interested in, but namely Operational Security. Piracy is one of the professions that could get screwed over real good by some white knights leaking intel. I don't need anyones permission for me and some buds to go hit a random NPC convoy, why would I need to bother asking?

I agree with this 100% TEST piracy should be more like a bar where scurvy scum can swap stories and tactics. Many deals and alliances can be formed as well with a loose club-type structure where everyone basically agrees on a basic set of guidelines (No Blue on Blue, Adhere to a no-kill list of allied orgs and groups, Everyone must have at least six beers on board for each crew member, ect)

Since I've put some "actual" thought into this, this is along the lines of what I've been thinking. I haven't put anything to paper yet so there is a possibility that things will be forgotten.

My thoughts on it are just about exactly that. Do to the nature of the game and other factors things are due to change down the line. The whole original purpose of piracy is that people were escaping forced (military or whatever else) service. Therefore it's more about freedom to do as one pleases.

I actually think of TEST as just one big pirate org, no forced this or that, anyone can do whatever. Honestly, the pirate division I think would be more of a few heads (council) or plan ops or take information that could be profitable and put it to use....all the stuff that falls outside of the law.....even if need be to run black ops. As soon as I have the time (probably this weekend) I'll put pen to paper and work out further details and get some stuff in motion.

Part of my other thought is to basically start out with a combat/piracy bit and then as the game develops more then we can split the two proper. Again, things are subject to change as always and I may forget a few things along the way. Like my original point behind any of this post.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

. . .we could have a basic democratic Council of group leaders to set very basic rules. . .

You're free to design whatever sort of group you're interested in, but just to note; in general people follow people who provide a vision or goal, and can clearly explain how to reach that goal through a concrete plan. You don't need to follow their plan but if you're in a group that has such a plan, then best you do.

Its just a game and it needs to be fun so things should be casual in many ways, and no one wants to be dictated to. OTOH, if you're in a group and there is a plan to meet at a specific time and organize around some specific ships and actions, best is you make no deviation. Whether you play squeaky clean or some sort of grey, your friends online will judge you based upon your commitment to follow a plan. If you let them down a few times because you have no regard for plans, you will get uninvited. No one wants their time wasted because Jonnie made three sets of plans for Friday night.

Everything you really needed to know for this you should have learned in kindergarden. Be a man of your word and you'll find a great group. We have lots of brilliant folks here.

 

[Soven Taliesyn]

You're free to design whatever sort of group you're interested in, but just to note; in general people follow people who provide a vision or goal, and can clearly explain how to each that goal through a concrete plan. You don't need to follow their plan but if you're in a group that has such a plan, then best you do.

Its just a game and it needs to be fun so things should be casual in many ways, and no one wants to be dictated to. OTOH, if you're in a group and there is a plan to meet at a specific time and organize around some specific ships and actions, best is you make no deviation. Whether you play squeaky clean or some sort of grey, your friends online will judge you based upon your commitment to follow a plan. If you let them down a few times because you have no regard for plans, you will get uninvited. No one wants their time wasted because Jonnie made three sets of plans for Friday night.

Everything you really needed to know for this you should have learned in kindergarden. Be a man of your word and you'll find a great group. We have lots of brilliant folks here.

All hail the great and powerful and brilliant Montoya

 

[AntiSqueaker]

You're free to design whatever sort of group you're interested in, but just to note; in general people follow people who provide a vision or goal, and can clearly explain how to each that goal through a concrete plan. You don't need to follow their plan but if you're in a group that has such a plan, then best you do.

Its just a game and it needs to be fun so things should be casual in many ways, and no one wants to be dictated to. OTOH, if you're in a group and there is a plan to meet at a specific time and organize around some specific ships and actions, best is you make no deviation. Whether you play squeaky clean or some sort of grey, your friends online will judge you based upon your commitment to follow a plan. If you let them down a few times because you have no regard for plans, you will get uninvited. No one wants their time wasted because Jonnie made three sets of plans for Friday night.

Everything you really needed to know for this you should have learned in kindergarden. Be a man of your word and you'll find a great group. We have lots of brilliant folks here.

I think you're reading too much into this. When I say "very basic rules", I mean "stuff that should be common sense and everyone should do automatically."

Like don't shoot a fellow TEST member, or steal from them. Don't shoot or steal from an ally of TEST. If a pirate already has dibs on a convoy before you get there, ask before you join in. It's not complicated stuff, just basic rules of etiquette. I can promise you that these rules will likely be TEST wide too, so it's mainly superfluous.

I don't give a shit what X, Y, or Z pirate squads do aside from that, as long as we aren't shooting or looting each other.

My personal group, whether I'm the leader or just a member, will be pretty well organized and well planned out. What other people do is their own business, go crash into the Bengal with a bunch of Auroras for all I care.

 

[Beerjerker]

Count me in! Don't have much opinion on the official or unofficial angle, but as long as I don't need to be certified, I'm on board. I might feel kind of bad about griefing other players, but I expect rolling in space booty will make it better.

 

[Blind Owl]

I'm all about this @Soven Taliesyn. As @Shadow Reaper said, the response to the privateering thread was quite good. It's probably the aspect of the game I'm most excited about. "Legalish" piracy. Sponsored. Haha. I envision myself being a grey man, so I was on board immediately.

I'm all about the piracy, so I'm on board with your ideas, and would love to discuss more. My only issue is the same as yours, finding time to devote to it. RL is quite busy ATM.

@Shadow Reaper has put some decent amount of thought and research into his vision, plans, ideas etc for privateering. As has @AntiSqueaker for piracy.

I think a good thread featuring all the folks here might start to develop into something beautiful. But again, we need the mechanics and game to start really fleshing this out.

 

[AntiSqueaker]

But again, we need the mechanics and game to start really fleshing this out.

Unless you're into mining or salvaging apparently....

 

[Blind Owl]

Unless you're into mining or salvaging apparently....

Haha, apparently.
I believe that @Montoya wants division leadership to evolve ingame rather than set it up before hand, for the most part.

I would like to see divisions headed by leaders that have emerged naturally through time spent in the game. The reason for this is that I believe the best leaders are not the ones you who seek the position because they want power, rather because the position is thrust upon them by others who demand they step up to the task.

Rock Raiders came to be official because of the exceptional amount of work that @Black Sunder has put into it.

While we have no game yet, I have asked Black Sunder to take the reigns with Rock Raiders because of his unhealthy fixation with everything industry related in this game.

On the outside TEST appears to be a wild frat party, but on the inside it takes a lot of planning , organization and coordination to get all those beer kegs, DJ's and stripper poles installed in the living room.

Having a highly organized division to handle mining and industrial operations is essential in our plans of galactic domination.

As such I would like to see Rock Raiders continue its preparations and team building in an official manner.

Be that as it may, I'm on board with @Shadow Reaper's idea of vision casting. Those of us who are interested in privateering and piracy should start doing just that. Ideas and discussion. How are we going to go about disabling, boarding, and capturing an enemy ship.
I've seen some brilliant ideas on Shadow Reaper's part. Ideas that warrant TESTing. I'm sure the rest of us like-minded individuals have thoughts to share. I propose we do just that. Perhaps a privateering/piracy mega-thread instead of the five or six disjointed ones we have?

 

[Soven Taliesyn]

All of this has given me an excellent idea. Please hold while I put in some actual effort.

 

[DrunkenTeddy]

Be that as it may, I'm on board with @Shadow Reaper's idea of vision casting. Those of us who are interested in privateering and piracy should start doing just that. Ideas and discussion. how are we going to about disabling, boarding, and capturing an enemy ship.

I'd expect that capturing ships is one form of making money by pirating, the other form is "procuring" cargo. Without the mechanics to disable ships currently I don't know how to go about capturing a ship, but for cargo piracy, you can always just ask nicely and when they don't drop it blow them out of the sky. :)

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I'd expect that capturing ships is one form of making money by pirating, the other form is "procuring" cargo.

There may be a middle way too. I was just thinking last night about Owl mentioning he might melt his Avenger, and I was thinking again about that as a personal privateer ship. I think it will mount 4 Jokers. So imagine you take it on the entry level "Desendents of Orion" mission to find and kill one pirate in one Bucky. You've flown that mission before. It's nothing special. The Bucky spawns every hour on the hour.

What you might do with an Avenger is show up just before the respawn time and stun the Bucky, get out of you ship and cut the S4 mount with the pair of Tarantulas right off, and throw it into the back of the Avenger. Then get back in and blast him to tiny bits. Respawn and do the same again. Now in about 10 minutes time you have a little cash from winning 2 missions, but more importantly you have 4 Tarantulas. That must be worth some big cash, I would think. What do they cost to purchase?

I'm wondering the same about the Blades. They've got that magnificent plasma Cannon hanging on the outside. Can we just cut that right off and toss it into the back of an Avenger? I don't care if the Vanduul blow themselves up if they give me their goodies first.

BTW, while I'm thinking of it, I'm reconsidering the utility of the P-52 ad P-72. The latter should be very fast, could mount 4 Jokers and head on they ought to have about the smallest radar cross section of any ship. In void armor who would see it coming? Weird to think of it as a Pirate ship, but the thing is probably WAAAY fast. Could be pretty fun.