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Planned Feature Large Ships for Rival Pirates

How would you like to see larger ships for pirates handled?

  • NOT AT ALL! Pirates shouldn't use large ships

    Votes: 2 10.0%

  • Random pirates should not have large ships, but there can be special Rival Pirates that do

    Votes: 17 85.0%

  • All pirates should be able to use large ships

    Votes: 1 5.0%

  • Other, please specify below

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    20
KillPhil

KillPhil

Corsair
Storm Modder
I noticed that pirates don't have any big ships.. they get quite easy in the later game, which is kinda boring.. so I thought about making some 'pirate-lord' ships^^ Should be enough just to retexture some battle ships to give them a sinister look, like the corsair frigate.
We could then add more pirate convoys which can actually hurt you even in the later game, and if we get those european locations to work, we could also use them as a high risk factor when importing/exporting goods to europe^^
 
I think pirates used to sail around in quite large ships (at one point, due to a bug, I think they always appeared in frigates), but it was changed for realism I believe. Personally I'd cringe at seeing even pirate three-masters too often.

Maybe there should be another customisable option, whether you want realistic pirate vessels or you'd like to see bigger pirate ships in encounters?
 
There is this in InternalSettings.h:
Code: 
#define MAXPIRATECLASS         4        // INT - this is the maximum class ship pirates will be given. Defaults to 4.
Also relevant is PROGRAM\Encounters\Encounters_init.c .

Since pirates never did have quite that huge ships, I wouldn't really want to mess up the balancing here though.
Exception might be separately generated quest type pirate "bosses" that can be rivals of the player.
 
I think balance is exactly the problem here. It's possible for you to capture a battleship - in fact, at the end of "Tales of a Sea Hawk", you are pretty much required to do so. Why can't other pirates have done the same?

In reality, there was a British frigate named Concord. It was captured by the French, renamed La Concorde de Nantes, modified to hold more cargo, and used as a slave ship. Subsequently it was captured by pirates and fitted with more guns. You've probably heard of it under its final name, Queen Anne's Revenge. So that's at least one frigate which sailed under pirate colours in reality. The game does not permit you to change a ship's cargo capacity or total number of guns, as far as I know, but you can certainly take a frigate off the French and use it for pirating. In fact, that's exactly what I do any time I play "Tales of a Sea Hawk". Again, why can't other pirates have done likewise?
 
Indeed I do understand that by the time you outgrow the regular pirates, any pirate enemies are more of a nuisance than a threat.
If I recall, we disabled large pirate ships because of historical accuracy. Regular unknown pirates would not have done any of those special things, would they?

That is why I would propose joining this suggestion with that of @Bartolomeu o Portugues to have several famous and named pirates active in the Caribbean as well.
Those could have larger ships and they would therefore also have a historically accurate reason for having those.
So we get AND the large ships AND the historical accuracy together with a more involved game world since you'll have some rival pirates to deal with.

How does that sound?
 
Sounds great! But hard to code, isnt it? We would have to tell that e.g. Blackbeards fleet always only has 1 worldmap encounter at the same time
 
Not sure if we can manage to put them on the worldmap, but probably @Levis can look into that when he goes and update that again.
If not, these encountes can always be placed around islands coded in similar fashion to the Black Pearl at Martinique encounter in the Standard Storyline.
 
In Sid Meier's Pirates! such "rival pirates" can always be found at a specific spot on the worldmap that is pre-determined at game start.
In other words, their appearance throughout the game is not random. Tavern rumours can give you information on where to find them.

How would we imagine this for PotC? Them not moving around at all seems a bit boring to me.
But having rumours about their location sounds fun. So they might have to stick around a certain area for a substantial time before they relocate.

Do we want the player to have to search for THEM or do we want THEM to search for the player?
Or should their appearance be just about random?
 
In the "Assassin" storyline, you are required to hunt down a pirate, Roche Brasiliano. There's some quest stuff leading you to his village where you rescue his hostage. Then Brasiliano's ship is placed at a random island and you have to search for him.

Which means the ability to search for a famous pirate is already there. Perhaps it can be copied so you can look for a random famous pirate. He doesn't move around but there are no clues as to his whereabouts. You could perhaps place one or two pirates at random islands and have a tavern rumour at those islands to tell you that a VIP (Very Important Pirate) is in the area.

Having someone search for you would probably be harder to code, and you're not going to know about it unless he finds you. So if there are to be rivals hunting you then they may as well be random. Same as the random thugs who occasionally try to collect the bounty on your head on land.
 
It was Bartolomeu who did the Assassin storyline and also that particular aspect of it; that might actually be where he got the idea from. ;)

Anyway, something like that should certainly be possible. You are right that random encounters or pirates chasing you would be harder to accomplish.
Plus you would hardly notice, except by the size of the ship. I reckon that indeed placing these pirates at certain islands somewhere would be the easiest.
 
Pillat said:
Uhm what exactly is 'fake multiplayer'? Sounds exciting :)
Click to expand...
Having a bunch of other named, famous pirates active in the Caribbean as your rivals.
These could then have larger ships and sort-of act as "pirate bosses".
 
I renamed this thread and added a poll to the opening post to keep track of what everyone thinks on this one.
 
Bartolomeu o Portugues said:
Manowar or battleship for pirates :no
Click to expand...
That is indeed going a bit far too far. Well... MUCH too far, actually.
Advantage of doing it in a pre-defined way is that we can give these Rival Pirates specific appropriate ships.
Perhaps even with the correct type and name from their historic counterparts.
 
There are tavern rumours about pirates raiding towns, usually towns with forts. I'd like to know how they did it using just the sort of ships pirates can get in the game.

Besides, in a game in which you can buy a submarine, it is indeed unrealistic for any pirate to own a battleship. You're the only pirate allowed to own those. xD
 
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