Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The FRED Workshop => Topic started by: NGTM-1R on June 30, 2009, 03:10:24 pm
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May also be found on the wiki.
I feel that this would be a useful contribution to campaign-designer knowledge, so here you go. The (much-delayed) result of sitting down for a couple of hours of analysis. It's actually been done for months. :P
So You Want To Be A Pirate
Fine then. Let's get a few things straight first.
The GTVA fleet has more and bigger guns then anyone else, because that's their job. Even if you by some miracle manage to outgun your local Fleet or Battlegroup, the GTVA has about 20 of those, and there is no way you can hope to match what they could decide to throw at you. If their superior equipment, superior training, and superior numbers don't scare you, then their superior logistics should. Though it would likely be considered unconciousable to do so, the GTVA can afford to trade an Aten or a Fenris for a pirate fighter wing. Why? They control the sources of production. The academies and the factories and the shipyards all belong to the GTVA, and so they can replace or create trained personnel, fightercraft, and ships far more easily than a pirate group can. They can afford to wear you down slowly, they can afford to take a few hits along the way. Don't fight them unless you have absolutely no other options, and frankly, since all ships are capable of intrasystem subspace jumps and we know of no way to prevent them jumping, there is always another option.
Space, as the saying goes, is big. This constitutes your primary advantage. Even securing low planetary orbit in any conventional sense would require a massive investment of resources. Big as the GTVA's forces are, they cannot cover everywhere and everything. You will be able to find something you can hit, usually, and not immediately end up tangling with GTVA ships.
To counteract this, the GTVA has two important technologies, and they make a hell of an equalizer: FTL communications and FTL travel. Instantanous communication with any spot in the system is possible from any spacecraft so far as we know. This means anyone you attack can get out a distress call as quickly as it takes to form the thought. FTL travel means he can also escape anytime he likes, but worse yet, it means that help is never more than a minute or two away. From the word go, you have at best two minutes before an angry wing of Taurets or a Leviathan shows up and it all goes down the drain.
This is actually worse then it sounds. Recall from earlier that the GTVA has vastly superior resources to you. Fighters are expensive as all hell, nevermind larger craft. Fuel and ordinance bought in any quanity is traceable, so it's difficult to obtain more. So here's the problem: Anything the GTVA has in the system is only a couple of minutes away. You could be looking at multiple cruisers and fighter wings, or a destroyer and escorts. The GTVA knows that each of your ships is precious to you, and they know that even forcing you to expend a lot of ordinance and fuel is going to be more of a problem for you then them. With each loss very difficult to replace for you in relative terms, expect them to show no compunction against the use of massive force to ensure that you take that loss. If you give them the chance to drop the whole world on your head, they’re going to do it.
So where does that leave you and your hearties? Up a creek without a paddle? Not at all. The moral of the story here is that if you scream in the presence of a bear, it's probably going to maul you. So be quiet. Be sneaky.
Tactical Doctrine
Put simply, if everything goes right for you, and everything goes right for the other guy, you're still going to lose. That's how the game works when you bring inferior forces to the table. So you need to find a weak link in his chain and break it, thereby making something go wrong.
FTL travel is right out. Short of disabling a ship or possibly wrecking its nav systems, we don't know of a means to do so. This will be necessary at one end at least to prevent any victims escaping (perhaps), but using it at both ends is impractical, not to mention it will bring you up against the 800-pound gorilla you were trying to avoid.
FTL communications, however, is not. We know it is possible to jam or disrupt these communications. Jamming gear should be high on the list of the things any good pirate needs. In an ideal world, it would be better yet to ensure that the gear isn’t operable before the ship ever leaves port. FS spacecraft are fantasically large, heavy, and powerful craft, and probably require equally fantastically large, heavy, and powerful amounts of computer gear. Disabling said gear via a virus or hacking, disrupting navigation functions so that a ship can’t jump or jumps where you want it to rather than where the crew does, would also be a convenient solution (and if you can manage that you can probably vent the crew into space while you’re at it).
At the point of fire you will need fighters and cargo ships or transports to suppress any escorts and seize what you came for, but a lot of your work is going to end up being cladestine, getting routing and shipping schedules and tampering with things that you need to divert ships to where they can be easily attacked; if you do well enough you can expect a “checkpoint” system where ships jump between secured areas to be implemented eventually, assuming it isn’t already in place and then you have to get mafia style.
Assuming your precautions against running headlong into the 800-pound gorilla fail, what then?
The first thing to remember is that you can’t be assured of any superiority over GTVA craft. They will probably have newer ships and weapons and better pilots. A numerical edge can evaporate fast due to reinforcements. There will be circumstances where you may not be able to avoid having to off a few GTVA pilots probably, and there may even be circumstances where it would be advantageous to do so (though these are hard to imagine). Nevertheless the option of choice should always be to retreat into subspace.
However it’s not quite that simple. The GTVA has the ability to track ships into subspace (Apparently; best guess is that they can tell where ships intend to go if they see them jump and can pursue them, but cannot see them coming beforehand if they weren’t observed to jump. If they can track all subspace transit regardless of location, forget the possiblity of piracy.) and predict their destination. Multiple jumps to lose any pursuers will be required.
A secure hiding place may be difficult to come by, as while space is large, it’s also mostly empty, making it relatively difficult to hide behind something. Asteroid belts are good, being large and difficult (impossible, really) to keep tabs on all it once. Uninhabited planets are sort of good, as a planet is a really big place, but by the time period being discussed orbital surveillance satellites are probably pretty cheap and so a planet should not be well-regarded as base, unless ground surveillance from orbit is somehow impossible. (Which, really, it shouldn’t be, as the Magellan probe proved with Venus.)
Finally, as it is reasonable to assume the GTVA keeps close tabs on jump nodes, it would be wise to avoid traversing them.
Conclusion
Piracy in FreeSpace is akin to standing on the edge of a cliff with your toes hanging off the edge: caution is necessary. Aggresiveness, which is normally useful and even desired in a combat pilot, gets you dead. Any group that does anything to increase their visiblity increases the likelyhood of their destruction. The main objectives of a true pirate should be to minimize their profile; do the job with the minimum possible time, resources, and damage to anybody.
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Excellent stuff. I'm going to use the idea of 'everything in the system being 2 minutes away' in an exploration of the psychological pressures on alert-ready combat pilots in Freespace. Talk about tension.
As usual, I'll be cribbing liberally from your work for some time to come.
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Jump drives in FS work purely as plot tools, drive recharge times depend very much on the story of the mission making it rather difficult to figure out true limits for any of the systems used in the FS universe. Something that kinda hinders (or helps - as plot demands :P ) the pirates / and or the FREDders of such campaings.
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I sorta came to the same conclusions. You can't fight the GTVA on even ground, you need to get a lone sheep through hacked navigation or a plant in the ship's crew. Then you take it to a temp location, strip any and all identification off it and you can use it. The GTVA might impound it, but they can't prove a thing anyway.
But I think the real fights aren't really going to be civvie or GTVA vs pirate, but pirate vs pirate. These guys aren't going to be one cohesive force, but just out for their own gain. And if Sammy McBill has a pimped out Ma'at, Eric MacHill and his gang of Hairspray rejects see a new toy they want. The GTVA probably won't mind pirates fighting amongst themselves as long as it doesn't bring civvies or themselves into danger.
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Most of the past campaigns that featured a pirate faction did an awful job on this matters you are talking about, good thing you added it on the wiki it will certainly make a lot of help to all fredders.
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Very nice writing. I like this analytical stuff. I totally agree on all your points too. :yes:
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Thank you for this article. It will certainly be a great help for my campaign. Now I see that the plot will need some minor changes.
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I feel like writing a mini-campaign about pirates now :lol:
:yes: Goodjob this was a good guideline :pimp: Very helpful
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Very well written. :nod:
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An excellent analysis, and totally agreed on the points made.
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I like the idea that actual fighters are rare; pirates prefering up-gunned, armored transports. Be a bit hard to make a campaign around that though.
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I like the idea that actual fighters are rare; pirates prefering up-gunned, armored transports. Be a bit hard to make a campaign around that though.
Yet it'd be a fun challenge ;)
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It really sounds as if... you don't want to be a pirate in the FS universe :D
Although there may be quite some possibilities in the outer systems; I think the GTVA has fewer fleets than systems. Say, if there is one fleet for Dubhe, Alphard and Barnard's Star (fringe systems where nothing ever happens), you could probably outmaneuver it. The downside of that would be that there's not much to loot in those systems.
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Good job mate. Always hated the way most campaigns handled pirates... "OY! We gotta many fighters, as many as GTVA, let's attack one transport and die all!"
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The downside of that would be that there's not much to loot in those systems.
Not much ? What about mining companies, colonists, science and exploration vessels ?
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Good job mate. Always hated the way most campaigns handled pirates... "OY! We gotta many fighters, as many as GTVA, let's attack one transport and die all!"
*Looks pointedly at Derelict.
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Good job mate. Always hated the way most campaigns handled pirates... "OY! We gotta many fighters, as many as GTVA, let's attack one transport and die all!"
*Looks pointedly at Derelict.
Derelict did have the benefit of being set in a very remote corner of the GTVA, where few to none of the logistical issues deterring piracy that NGTM-1R mentioned could be brought to bear. When you're dealing with a largely-unexplored mining system whose official military presence consists of a few wings of duct-taped fighters and a Great War relic of a cruiser, I could easily see how piracy could jump from a dangerous and unprofitable game to a very lucrative one. Also keep in mind that many of the "pirates" featured in the campaign weren't exactly what they seemed and had outside backing to provide them with the equipment they utilized. The numbers involved might have swung a bit toward the unrealistic for gameplay's sake, but I don't think the concept was right out.
Plus, Derelict was made way before anyone started thinking of concepts like these, so cut it some slack. :p
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Yeah, piracy may have been profitable, but a mass kamikaze attack sure isn't.
They seemed more like...rebels. Terrorist organizations...whatever.
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They seemed more like...rebels. Terrorist organizations...whatever.
If you're a GTVA commander, you may call all of them pirates, if they were rebels, somebody could have thought they may be right and are "brave fighters for freedom", and maybe even join them because of that. Pirates are just "bad guys", they are robbing, murdering, breaking the law, so there's no reason to have understanding or mercy for them.
Though term "Terrorist" would be even better for that purpose (there are no romantic novels or movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean"about them).
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In my interpretation of the terms, "rebels" have political motivation for doing what they do. "Pirates" just need to make a living by looting.
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The guys in Derelict were probably more akin to an independent military organization without a real cause, simply out there to cause trouble.
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As an inspiration for campaigns with more realistic use of the term "pirate":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Francis_Drake
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Don't defame our national heroes! :P
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wonderful essay.
The different FTL is the reason why piracy works for TBP and not for FS2 :lol:
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Yeah, piracy may have been profitable, but a mass kamikaze attack sure isn't.
They seemed more like...rebels. Terrorist organizations...whatever.
That's precisely why I said that many of the "pirates" in Derelict weren't what they seemed to be. Remember the plot? :p
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The different FTL is the reason why piracy works for TBP and not for FS2 :lol:
Honestly, that doesn't help at all. :P If anything, TBP has it worse, since TBP's universe has a history of gates civilian traffic using being under close surveillance by military installations.
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One thing is that pirates having access to some starfighters really can make sense in some ways actually. Obviously they shouldn't have access to the newest military fighter-craft but lots of science fiction universes which have starfighters either have older models being sold off to civilians after leaving military service, fighter models created for specifically for civilian use or in some cases both.