Piracy Piracy Division/Squadron Organization Brainstorm

Shadow Reaper

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Throughout history, "pirates" have had various forms of government support & legitimacy, as well as general organization. Probably the most prolific pirate of all time was Sir Francis Drake, who by the way, is an huge hero. During the war of 1812, many private US ships were privateers, and did quite a good business.
This distinction, between "pirates" and "privateers" is the one the Privateering thread in the professions folder is all about. Many of us love the romantic and fiscal gains of squawking "aarrrr, arrrrr" and drooling out the corner of our mouths, but also enjoy the legal status as those carrying "letters of marque" or otherwise engaging in essentially legal activity. Yeah, we want to kill things and take their treasure, but we don't want to be hunted for it, nor cast out by the UEE. That's why discerning piratical scum will focus our efforts on raiding Vanduul, and Banu, and slavers inside the UEE, real outlaw pirates and of course The Outsiders, who are flying UEE ships but consider us humans as uncouth and unworthy of their society. F&ck 'em and take their ships, I say!
 

Talonsbane

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I recommend leaving the attacks against the Banu out of that equation. They are a race & civilization who are entirely focused on trade. Who better to use as fences to sell your plunder to if not them? Yes, some of them dabble in slavery / indentured servitude, but that just means that if you take prisoners from your conquests, you can sell them to them as well for additional gains. Also, the better the rep you have with them, then better the deals you might make. Just a bit of food for thought.
 

Stevetank

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Talonsbane

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That's not an endeavor.... those are Aegis ships.


Napalm only works in oxygen rich environments. I say we switch to something a little more toxic. It even comes in our colors:



Interesting. I suppose that would depend on the type of napalm substance used. Speaking from personal experience as a youth that was heavily interested in pyrotechnics as & all things flammable, I've observed the creation of certain gel like substances that were made which contained its own fuel & air supply. So it would burn until there was effectively nothing left other that scorch marks. When rolled into balls, a waterproof wick added that is ignited & then the whole thing is dropped into a swimming pool, it does a great light show. Just don't get too close to it.
 

Stevetank

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Interesting. I suppose that would depend on the type of napalm substance used. Speaking from personal experience as a youth that was heavily interested in pyrotechnics as & all things flammable, I've observed the creation of certain gel like substances that were made which contained its own fuel & air supply. So it would burn until there was effectively nothing left other that scorch marks. When rolled into balls, a waterproof wick added that is ignited & then the whole thing is dropped into a swimming pool, it does a great light show. Just don't get too close to it.
Well... fine... I'll just load these barrels back on to the truck then :(
 

Talonsbane

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I'm allergic to alcohol :(

I pay @Blind Owl to drink my beers for me. He's my designated drinker. Luckily I can pay him with beer.
Sounds like you have a very effective system worked out between the 2 of you. I don't drink either, but it isn't due to an allergy. So we can both be designated drivers while others enjoy our shares for us.
 

Bambooza

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I'm allergic to alcohol :(

I pay @Blind Owl to drink my beers for me. He's my designated drinker. Luckily I can pay him with beer.

Ah ha I see your crafty and well thought out plan and I must say its genius. Now I understand all of those test members being launched out of the torpedo tubes only wearing a helmet and sometimes a flight suit. They are owl and owl is mighty.
 

VFV

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So fellows, I made this an offshoot of the "main" pirate thread so we could debate/brainstorm about the organization and layout of the (still to be officially named) Pirate Division.

Some prefaces:

1) We don't have a leader right now as far as I know.
2) This isn't an official "LETS DECIDE THIS RIGHT NOW!" thread, just theorycrafting.
3) I'm not in charge of anything in any official capacity beyond shitposting a lot.
4) Piracy does not mean griefing players, additionally any and ALL TEST members are completely off limits.


With that said I want to propose a break from a traditional organization structure into something more....anarchist. Very little emphasis on a centralized command structure, much more power in the hands of semi-independent squadron captains.

Example: my hypothetical squadron is pretty laid back and we specialize in relatively bloodless snatch n' grabs where we give people the option of ransom or surrender. Someone else's squad might be much more serious and decide to take no prisoners. You, as an "independent contractor" decide which squadron is more to your liking and go hang with them. If you wanna change your mind and jump ship then that's always an option as long as you follow your new squadrons rules.

I think this would be a much simpler layout, especially since we will probably have tons of pirate squads spread out all over the place. I shouldn't need to ask permission from Momma WhoeverTheHellsInCharge to go attack some poor Hull-A drifting through my space. If it's not TEST or TEST-aligned, then it's fair game IMO.

This also lets some squadrons feel free to specialize if they so wish. A squad could focus on disabling and boarding ships for the prospect of reselling them on the black market, while another specializes in large scale convoy hits. Both are free, and encouraged, to team up and take advantage of the others strengths and to cover each's weaknesses.

We would need some people in charge naturally, like a Diplomatic representative to TEST leadership who could speak for all of us at important meetings, and be someone for outsiders to reach out to if need be. Also might need some people like neutral arbitrators in case we have disputes over who got to X convoy first, etc etc.

But then again I could be completely wrong, IDK. As always your thoughts and feedback are appreciated.



On a side note: once the game is more feature complete we might need to get with the Escort people and talk about independent escorts on non-TEST cargo vessels. I'm not going to call off a whole raid because some random Hull C hired 1 TEST Escort. But I don't want to either have to disable or destroy a TEST pilot, or make him just give up and possibly tarnish the rep of the Escort/Combat division as a whole. IDK, its a tricky question.
I like this. I would like to do a bit of everything in the game but piracy is something I am excited for. Just don't be afraid to kill if you need to. After reading this, it seems like a very taboo thing, but, in certain situations, if you hold off too long, it could get your raid damaged up pretty quick. Especially if they call for help. Not saying randomly kill people, but, don't be on the wrong side of time when it becomes necessary.

No raiding Testies is of course an awesome idea.

Privcy is exciting. A lot of intimidation to try to get them to surrender/show of force, disabling their ship/boarding it, very excited for that.

If you need some help/more nodies/more firepower/more people for more intimidation, I have a hammer head. Will fly/cover/boarding party with ya any time and follow your rules. Would be way fun.

Also, raiding ground bases for cargo could be fun too:)
 

VFV

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anyways my idea was they we're pirates right ? we dont have time for fancy designs and fancy paintjobs so this is the idea the symbol we fly under is a torn down sign that's painted ontop, i even got it painted and everything take a look its something i found on the internet, i first tried to make em with printet text like the text that's already on the sign but that looked stupid and not realistic, so i figured i'd just put it as a paint from a push or a spray can :P. we could alter the danger bit too to dangerous or such, or even spray that over and write something els too :P

i figured the black and yello cross bone sign would be a given for a test pirate to want to use such a sign and paint test ontop of it XD, we could even spray out the danger and put something els in :P
I like these a lot. I'm always down to pirate
 

VFV

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I've got some ships for us, Admiral AntiSqueaker. I've got some ways I think that we'll be able to use them too.

View attachment 5106

So, for #4, the stealing the whole ship bit, I recommend that we use a Crucible. It's big enough to house a boarding party and has a large garage in the back for housing lots of Dragonflies or other things we might need. If we capture a ship and we damage anything on that ship, the Crucible can repair it. If we have an extra engine aboard, then we can repair that too, which will make our escape faster, rather than just limping away. If it's not worth repairing, then we can use the Crucible to strip the weapons off of the ship easily so we can loot those too. The Crucible can hold a Hornet in its garage, so when there's no ship back there it can hold a Hornet's worth of stolen cargo. If any of the fighters get hurt or need to be rearmed, then the Crucible can do that too. Since Cutlasses have tractor beams, then they can help move cargo to the Crucible. Since it opens up like a giant bucket, then it's easy to just throw stuff in quickly, like the Caterpillar, and scram. Just my thought.

I've got us a Reclaimer for #2 as well.

I think that we can also use the Polaris to carry loot in the hangar, but it's going to be much more costly than a Crucible. Though... the Polaris does have those nice guns and torpedoes and it's basically the big bad Aurora... so maybe it's more fitting for TEST to use. If we need a bigger flagship, then I've got an IDRIS-P. Lots of people are thinking about how they can use an IDRIS for battle and I'm just thinking about how much loot I can stuff in the thing with an empty hangar. The IDRIS-P is supposed to be faster than the M because it doesn't have the railgun but it also has increased storage space because of that. The STS weapons are missing, though I plan on getting some of those put back on at some point. ASA weapons are good enough for escorts anyways.

Large capital ships and the Crucible would probably make a good ship to hide in some asteroids in a system. Instead of trying to make it back all the way to the jump point (which people might think that you are going after you make a grab), it might be best to go to another place and get some repairs, off load the cargo to regain your nimbleness, and then just make a break for the jump point after things have cooled down a bit. We'll have to see if it's better to bust through with a larger fleet that is ready to break through a blockade or if it's better to just filter out one by one.

The benefit of the IDRIS is that it's a mobile base of operations, even without the railgun. Since the Sabre fits in there, I'm guessing that the Cutlass might too, even after the rework. It's going to be tight on the sides but the roof is tall enough. I think that the IDRIS can make repairs to fighters while inside. If it can't, then I'll have that little repair Argo and we can just fly it out to the Cutlass. The cutlass can throw it's cargo into the IDRIS with its tractor beams and go. With an IDRIS just sitting somewhere hidden in a system, it's not using fuel. So the only major cost will be NPCs, though if we have a skeleton crew running it and we have a good flow of Testie pirates running in and out as needed, then maybe having less of a crew on board may not be a bad thing since we'll have more people that we can add to it nearby. NPCs probably won't bother it but nosy players might. We just need to make sure that no one gets followed back.

Let me know if you can think of anything else. I might turn that Herald into a Starfarer Gemini, but I might have to wait till the summer. I have an Aquila to Gemini CCU, I just don't have the money for a Herald to Aquila CCU, ha.


Let us know what resources you need and maybe we can pirate those supplies as well. Turning stolen cargo into new product is a good way to filter and clean items.
I like your ideas. Not gonna lie, very excited for this
 
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