Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE OOC Summit => Topic started by: Avio Yaken on 09 Mar 2015, 09:44
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As always im not sure if this is the correct place to put this thread...
But im curious as to how big the pirate factions are (Guristas, Serpentis, Angels, etc etc)
Level 4s majority of the time pit you against a small fleet of battleships and battle cruisers with frigate support, which could make up a body count in the 3000s depending on the mission (estimating off the minimum crew for theses ships from https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines))
And we got plenty of people who do nothing but run missions all day tearing up theses faction's operations, yet they can still flied all theses battleships and men to defend theses deadspace pockets with the same exact doctrine as before
So how massive are theses pirate factions really? And how much money do they have to replace all theses ships...
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I imagine they're about as large as other factions that occupy an entire region of space, such as the Khanid Kingdom or Ammatar Mandate. They hold sovereignty over similar extents of territory and are able to project military power throughout the cluster.
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I imagine they're about as large as other factions that occupy an entire region of space, such as the Khanid Kingdom or Ammatar Mandate. They hold sovereignty over similar extents of territory and are able to project military power throughout the cluster.
This, pretty much, though I'd say they're substantially stronger than the two examples given. They're major interstellar powers in their own right, if not quite empires.
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Don't bother with crude numbers Foley, they don't make much sense imo... Better to remain vague with a lot of handwavium on that specific point...
I imagine they're about as large as other factions that occupy an entire region of space, such as the Khanid Kingdom or Ammatar Mandate. They hold sovereignty over similar extents of territory and are able to project military power throughout the cluster.
I would tend to disagree with that. While pirate factions are indeed described as huge and small empires into themselves, what makes me say that they do not play on the same scale than empire faction is that they mostly inhabit nullsec regions where development is probably piss poor, similar to colonies, bare for a few main planets like Utopia...
To me, in terms of economy, it's insignificant compared to the empires power, even the mandate or the kingdom. They remain pirates, and their strenght may lie elsewhere, or else they would already be involved in huge space battles with the empires.
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The Pirate factions are way, way underneath the 'big four' in terms of territory, forces, and ability to fight the empires in any meaningful sense. They are nuisances at most, not existential threats. The Blood Raiders are never going to attack Kador and take a high sec system; they would be summarily pimp-slapped back into null, even if they did some all-out ultimate gamble attack and managed to flip the system temporarily.
As stated above their 'sovereignty' is way out in the middle of nowhere (development, resource, and population wise), so owning 15 systems of Angel or Serpentis space in null is probably the same as a single system in lowsec or a 1/4 of a system in high sec for the good it will do you 'empire' wise.
You can reference any number of the news articles involving the empires going after the pirate factions militarily, generally kicking their butts pretty handily with only the commitment of a relatively minor assault fleet. For example the Amarr 7th Fleet by themselves completely wiping the Raiders out of the Bleak Lands in a series of articles a few years back.
TLDR none of the pirate factions can directly challenge the 'big four' in any meaningful sense, aside from constant raiding and stretching of their resources. The pirate factions are likely capable of a direct assault with limited gains, only to have their asses kicked immediately afterwords if they stuck around.
Minor quibble:
Khanid Kingdom eats pirate factions for lunch, or at least at a similar rate as the big four. Don't forget they fought a huge civil war with the Empire proper and managed to keep them at the borders. They say that might be more due to the new Emperor after Khanid took off needing to consolidate forces, but the Empire did try and invade the Kingdom on several subsequent occasions and they were beaten back, along with about 400 years of a not so cold 'cold war' along the border between the two factions until the recent thaw (after Jamyl). A lot of the old Khanid info dumps had to do with them needing to trade with the Caldari for high tech military gear (mostly missiles and shielding) to try and one-up the Amarr on their border since they didn't have nearly the Amarr Navy numbers, hence the need for all the 'high tech' T2 ships to combat the Imperial Navy lolblobs.
EDIT: As most of Kingdom is in lowsec I would ammend that they likely have a much higher level of pirate 'harassment' than high sec Empire. At least that's the way I've spun a lot of my lore being a Kingdom RPer. IE if you join the Royal Khanid Navy as a baseliner you are probably definitely going to see action, and probably against Blood Raiders. If you join the Imperial Navy you could end up in a million different postings against a huge number of foes.
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Level 4s majority of the time pit you against a small fleet of battleships and battle cruisers with frigate support, which could make up a body count in the 3000s depending on the mission (estimating off the minimum crew for theses ships from https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines (https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/New_Eden_crew_guidelines))
Hi. (http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=6319.msg106214#msg106214) You're probably off by one or two orders of magnitude. Never use the "minimum" crew numbers for a combat situation - ever.
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Just seemed to be the safest number to work off of
Sorry :/
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It's not, and the wiki page says so pretty clearly:
Minimum Crew is the bare minimum number of personnel required to operate the vessel with only basic functions (i.e., assuming no modules fitted).
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It's not, and the wiki page says so pretty clearly:
Minimum Crew is the bare minimum number of personnel required to operate the vessel with only basic functions (i.e., assuming no modules fitted).
Well ok im sorry il try to be more accurate in the future, just overlooked something, my bad
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You can't use the mission numbers as anything accurate in the game world either, it just doesn't work. That's why a lot of RPers keep it 'vague' when talking about their mission work. "I had a tense mission with x faction" instead of "lol i killed 45 battleships and 50 battle-cruisers farming missions today"
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the Imperial Navy lolblobs.
In before republicans "Imperial Navy lolblobs OP, please nerf".
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the Imperial Navy lolblobs.
In before republicans "Imperial Navy lolblobs OP, please nerf".
haha
Well the Imperial Navy sometimes does the 40k Imperial Guard strategy: Throw bodies at them until they run out of ammo
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the Imperial Navy lolblobs.
In before republicans "Imperial Navy lolblobs OP, please nerf".
It'd probably be considered fair play after what happened to the Hurricane. :lol:
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The various pirate factions are not all created equal, either. The Cartel, for instance, has large fixed holdings that they absolutely must protect. The Guristas and Blood Raiders, by contrast, are more decentralized forces that seem to rely more on hit-and-run style tactics and are more protected by their home territory's distance from 'core' empire space and contacts in their 'parent' nations than direct firepower. At the absolute far end of the spectrum is the Serpentis, who almost entirely rely on the Cartel for protection.
With that said, I think it's also important to note that defensive holdout capability does not equal long-range striking capability; the Cartel is apparently capable of "keeping the DED at bay" from its home regions, but this does not translate to the power to project the same force into hostile territory. They merely need to make any large-scale incursion into Curse too costly and resource-intensive for anyone to consider doing alone.
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I imagine it would depend a lot on the faction.
Serpentis and the Angel Cartel are closely linked, and I would imagine could be assumed to be the largest of the pirate factions. The occupy Curse and NPC Fountain, the former being an immensely massive interstellar criminal conglomerate and the latter being a cutting edge research giant. As far as the lore is concerned they both have access to cutting edge technologies that give their ships a large competitive edge over the more restrained designs of the empire. They both have their own 'navies' and 'armies' although how much control those at the top of the Angel Cartel have over those at the bottom is dubious; while the military arm of Serpentis wouldn't have access to the colossal manpower required to fight any empire directly. The biggest asset they both probably have to draw upon is their combined reach in New Eden. I doubt empire intelligence gathering efforts come close to building a network to the scale of what a top-level archangel warlord would have at his or her disposal. If the Angel Cartel needed somebody gone, a facility raided, or anything stolen it's likely they could accomplish it without having to mount any kind of big military operation.
The Sansha's by contrast are a lot more capable of actually fighting a 'traditional' war; with a command hierarchy that isn't full off opportunistic bastards. It's well within the capability of the Sansha's Nation to disrupt and drive an empire into chaos on its homeborders, and the nature of how its managed makes it a ruthless entity to actually fight conventionally. However it suffers for that in soft power; I doubt the nation has the access that the Cartel has, and it pays for it by only really being able to operate as a military power.
I don't know much about the lore of the Guristas; I would assume that they're smaller than the Cartel and have more of a surgical focus. While the Angel Cartel is a conglomerate of a load of different interests the Guristas are more like a pirate band that grew immensely above its station. So while smaller in number it's probably more capable as a traditional 'pirate' entity than the Angel Cartel and benefits a lot from the mobility that would come from not having to defend the massive amount of real estate the Angel Cartel is probably stuck with.
*Edit
The Cartel ships for example that you see; aren't necessarily funded by the same Angel Cartel that you see in Curse. They might pay lip service to it; and benefit from the association that being affiliated to the Cartel brings, but they operate as elements to a franchise and not subordinates within a hierarchy. It's likely they have their own local organisation that they report to; which is still leagues apart from being anywhere near being under the strict control of the Angel Cartel. Sort of like how an old feudal kingdom would work. If the Angel Cartel could ever come close to summoning most of the people that operate under its label the combined threat would probably be terrifying. But the likelihood of that happening is slim.
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The Guristas, at least according to TBL, are staggeringly wealthy. They're not just pirates who got above their stations, they're pirates who won and set up their own nullsec Tortuga. The Rabbit is literally terraforming his own personal planet. They have ISK on an unbelievable scale for a mostly non-capsuleer outfit.
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Yea there's no blanket 'pirate faction' to use, some are huge and interlinked to increase their wealth and power, some are just scrubs with ships. Guristas are probably at the top of the list though, as Kal said they're basically a rogue interstellar empire that happens to do pirate shit.
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Just off the cuff in my mind:
My opinions only, can't find PF to back this up off top of my head:
Rankings total outright military pew pew strength:
Sansha's Nation
Guristas
Angels
Blood Raiders
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
EoM
Economic Strength:
Guristas
Angels
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
Blood Raiders
EoM
Sansha's Nation (they don't participate/trade with the cluster proper per se so they aren't really included)
"Terrorist" effect on target populace
Sansha's Nation
Blood Raiders
EoM
Serpentis
Angels
Guristas
Mordu's Legion
Integration with the big 4 as far as economy/trade/buying-selling stuff
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
Guristas
Angels
Blood Raiders
EoM
Sansha
Interesting topic!
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I'd place the major pirate factions mostly in between the big 4 and the subfactions within the big 4 in terms of power. Like, the Guristas are probably more powerful (on average, across the sorts of metrics that might indicate power) than Ishukone, but certainly less powerful than the State.
Also, the Blood Raiders were at one time kicked out of Empire space. They used to have stations/sov in the Bleak Lands, and they got kicked out about 10 years ago. (It was obviously a balance situation, but it was awesome that CCP decided to make an event out of it).
This is all very relative, of course. Even the smaller factions like Mordu's Legion likely have 'populations' many times that of earth and control multiple solar systems. So even as a relatively weak faction they wield a tremendous amount of power in absolute terms.
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I'd agree with Silas; on a lot of those points.
The Angel Cartel while probably being the largest pirate entity in New Eden is, according to the lore also probably the most 'above board' of them. They've been caught in the past making large investments into the Caldari State and the Caldari were quite vocal in voicing their displeasure when CONCORD put a halt to it. (Or atleast the extent of which they were aware of.)
In YC110 they made a pretty obvious show of force when they 'annexed' the border system of Skarkon; gathering ten million signatures and winning popular recognition as the planets prefered governing authority, sparking a political takeover in the Minmatar Republic; political machinations like that paint the picture of a pretty cunning political power. They seem to operate via carrot and stick, they'll plunder your colony blind if given the opportunity, and then afterwards sell you the tools you need to rebuild it. They gain a large portion of their income in the grey area of criminality. Be it selling restricted products on Caldari worlds; or stepping in to correct failures in the market to supply goods or services. The Guristas are also heavily involved in those markets and could easily be catching up to the Angel Cartel in terms of influence in empire space.
""The Cartel's got guards patrolling the streets," noted one resident, 23-year old Jakis Tarell, speaking of the armed soldiers the Angel Cartel landed on the planet as part of the takeover. "They're keeping the peace. And they're already offering people chances to work for them. I never thought I'd get off the planet. Maybe now I can."
The Burning Life went into a lot of awesome detail about the pirate factions. It painted a picture of the Angel Cartel as an empire without borders. An organisation so large and ambiguous that everybody from your local drug dealer to your accountant could be involved in it. There's no barrier to joining; nor do they look for anything in particular in affiliates. By joining you become a cog in a very large, very ambiguous machine, and nobody inside of it really has any idea where it begins or ends.
There's a lot of depth to the pirate factions in New Eden that make them out to be above simply being just the looting pillaging kind. It seems like both the Angels and Guristas have taken their looting and plundering away from the spacelanes and more towards corporate boardrooms and political assemblies. CCP has done a pretty spectacular job in creating that backstory.
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Good points about the angels, but I'll add my standard caviat about TBL mostly being a steaming pile with faction portrayal IMO ;p. At least I thought they gave sansha and raiders specifically a terrible rendition. Wasn't a fan of angel asteroid land either now that I think about it....
Silver I'm not sure about where they rank in relation to the empire sub factions. I'd want to say ishukone has way way way more resources than the Guristas even just by sheer volume of billions of employees in the heart of the state and what that entails.
I think owning a system in the forge vs out in the middle of null is like the GDP of Nebraska vs NYC.
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Hey now, I'm Ishukone 4 life. But my thinking tends to be that the pirate factions (while they certainly have populations in the many billions) have power in a different form, mostly, than megacorps or other 'subfactions'. It is money, cornered (mostly illegal) markets, and webs of influence. It's a piece of every sports bet made off the corporate books and every little baggie an up-and-coming junior executive buys to get him through his next product launch, every special something that isn't available through normal channels or with corporate scrip. Maybe you are right, or maybe it's more that they might rank in the midst of the Megacorps, or the other analogous sub-factions. I think if they do, though, it's near the top and I honestly think if there was a way to make a head-to-head comparison they would come out ahead. I think someone once described the Guristas as the ninth Megacorp, which is probably close to accurate.
And I think if they were less powerful than those fractions of the empires then they wouldn't still be around. It might vary a bit by pirate faction, too. I'd say probably the Serps are the weakest, or maybe just the closest to being basically a traditional Corp. Blood Raiders, it's kinda hard to tell, but I'd put them and the Sansha up there. Angels are probably the most powerful, though quite possibly the most diffuse. But rather than weakening them I think that jsut makes them that much more pervasive - they've even tried to move in on Gurista turf before (that thing with, who was it, NOH?)
EOH and Mordu's I would definitely class well below megacorp level.
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Hey now, I'm Ishukone 4 life. But my thinking tends to be that the pirate factions (while they certainly have populations in the many billions) have power in a different form, mostly, than megacorps or other 'subfactions'. It is money, cornered (mostly illegal) markets, and webs of influence. It's a piece of every sports bet made off the corporate books and every little baggie an up-and-coming junior executive buys to get him through his next product launch, every special something that isn't available through normal channels or with corporate scrip. Maybe you are right, or maybe it's more that they might rank in the midst of the Megacorps, or the other analogous sub-factions. I think if they do, though, it's near the top and I honestly think if there was a way to make a head-to-head comparison they would come out ahead. I think someone once described the Guristas as the ninth Megacorp, which is probably close to accurate.
And I think if they were less powerful than those fractions of the empires then they wouldn't still be around. It might vary a bit by pirate faction, too. I'd say probably the Serps are the weakest, or maybe just the closest to being basically a traditional Corp. Blood Raiders, it's kinda hard to tell, but I'd put them and the Sansha up there. Angels are probably the most powerful, though quite possibly the most diffuse. But rather than weakening them I think that jsut makes them that much more pervasive - they've even tried to move in on Gurista turf before (that thing with, who was it, NOH?)
EOH and Mordu's I would definitely class well below megacorp level.
"The 9th Megacorp" I like that a lot, agree!
I don't hold the Blood Raiders up at Sansha levels at all, at least as far as force projection or actually going toe-to-toe with any of the big 4 navies.
I definitely put the Sansha at the top of the pew pew list, they really are more 'borg' like for lack of a better reference; showing up out of nowhere with ridiculous firepower and exotic high-tech technology, forcing an immediate mobilization of major defensive firepower before sucking up millions of people in some nightmare hellscape of floating bodies. They actively engage tons of locations in normally 'secure' space and at least according to the PF seriously freak everyone out all over the cluster.
The Raiders might have more numbers in absolute terms but I liken them more to the Dark Eldar from 40k if you are familiar; basically hit and run pirates swooping in to nab people and then swooping out before any serious defensive fleets show up. I always get the impression that most of the pirate factions are on the run from the big four, not the other way around, except for the Sansha, which are pro-actively offensive and the big 4 are playing defense.
In other words if you are on any random high sec planet in the Empire you aren't likely to see Blood Raider ships swooping down and pillaging, but there is a much higher chance of a random wormhole opening up spewing out Sansha Battleships and your day being summarily ruined.
Now if you are in say, low-sec Khanid or Empire, your local Holder / Militia is probably constantly fighting Raiders
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I would tend to agree on the Blooders vs the Sansha. Also there are Rogue Drones which is sort of an interesting case since other than combat and claiming territory they don't project power in any other traditional way really and maybe don't count in this discussion - or maybe do?
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I would tend to agree on the Blooders vs the Sansha. Also there are Rogue Drones which is sort of an interesting case since other than combat and claiming territory they don't project power in any other traditional way really and maybe don't count in this discussion - or maybe do?
The rogue drones seem to be more like an entity that everybody in the universe has to deal with. You cannot negotiate with them, nor do they have any kind of motivations or stopping point. I think lore-wise rogue drones look at human ships, colonies, and stations the same way they look at asteroids; as potential sources of resources to grow and expand, and not as any kind of threat which would call for conflict. Although that's for now. Given that small clusters of them can shut down systems, a large enough gathering of them could present a serious threat to any empire.
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Just off the cuff in my mind:
My opinions only, can't find PF to back this up off top of my head:
Rankings total outright military pew pew strength:
Sansha's Nation
Guristas
Angels
Blood Raiders
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
EoM
Economic Strength:
Guristas
Angels
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
Blood Raiders
EoM
Sansha's Nation (they don't participate/trade with the cluster proper per se so they aren't really included)
"Terrorist" effect on target populace
Sansha's Nation
Blood Raiders
EoM
Serpentis
Angels
Guristas
Mordu's Legion
Integration with the big 4 as far as economy/trade/buying-selling stuff
Serpentis
Mordu's Legion
Guristas
Angels
Blood Raiders
EoM
Sansha
Interesting topic!
I'd generally agree with this except swapping Guristas and Angels in 'total military strength'. Both of them are fairly traditional, but while the Guristas probably have the most money, the Angels have the most 'mass by volume'. It's a very quality vs quantity scale of affairs, so they're pretty close.
The Nation probably trumps due to the incredibly scary technology potential they have, but are restrained in application. Frankly, Incursions threw their power curve all over the place and it still isn't clear the extent of its power. Wormhole technology alone, being able to indiscriminately create them, is a strategic ace in the hole. Properly utilized they win, just out right, in defeating everything. But we don't know how it works, if it has limits, or what not ... so it's a moot point to consider.
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I kinda think of the pirate factions of EVE being analogous to ISIS in the real world.
A weird mixture of crime, terrorism, and statehood.
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Perhaps as a counterbalance they are more like CONCORD in that they seem much more massive due to instantly being anywhere, so maybe it's more sleight of hand?
I'm still a fan of rotating the incursion mechanics in new ways for all the pirate factions and having themed expansions with plot content around each....
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Don't forget either that Cartel, probably their elite forces, have access to all those fancy old jove tech they based most of their ships on.
Also, Sansha apparently are in an all out war with sleepers in Thera and maybe also around, considering the amount of wreckage that is found here...
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I don't really see Sansha as a pirate faction tbh. They strike me more as an independent empire, and they were regarded as such by the other empires when they first started.
As far as the other pirate factions? I'd put Angel Cartel as the most powerful in economic might and military projection by sheer domination of the market and a lucky break in terms of having access to some jove tech. But Guristas are the most technologically-minded and probably supply a good deal of tech to the other groups. Guristas have always struck me as the illegal arms dealers type, especially with their recent lore.
Blooders are just cultists, and probably the most proper 'raidery' of the bunch, though they do have some level of biology and genetic research going on (in comparison to Guristas's military research and Serpentis's drug development).
How massive are the factions? They're big enough to control and govern colonies on rim worlds, so they're not "just" pirates, they're probably closer to criminal-controlled "third world" states in New Eden. None is a challenge for any of the empires in a straight fight, but they do have plenty of political power.
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Hmm
So i am capable of making a decent discussion thread Rather than furious shit posts.....Well this is different..but nice >_>
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The fact that they basically dropped the rogue drone plotline after writing them up as a very viable and very scary existential threat to the cluster is something that bugs me. They were the closest thing EVE had to aliens and they played the part well.
Frankly, I think I'd have liked a drone invasion plotline more than this current sleepers/drifters/jove business.
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I'd rather have real aliens. Something innovative. Not bugs, not cat people, something truly alien.
And walking in stations.
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I'd prefer not. The whole "aliens invading" concept is something I'd rather not have in EVE, as not having it is something that has made EVE feel more unique to me. It also seems like a cliche concept. It is my strong dislike for this idea that I have no interest in the Drifter story arc CCP has put out. Just seems so cheesy to me. Although the Drifters aren't really "aliens" per se...
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I'd rather have real aliens. Something innovative. Not bugs, not cat people, something truly alien.
And walking in stations.
As the rogue drones continue to add to their programming and develop and evolve, we might end up with something that was once visibly human-made but now completely alien.
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Drifters look a bit cheesy yeah. The old jove we like are much more subtle in their posthumanist form.
Also, CCP used to say in the past that the game was not made for any green little alien period.
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i kinda want to see Tibus Heth come back and form a Provist faction in NULL sec....
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The Jove were fine because they were powerful, scary, and extremely rare. I think I can count the events with actual Jove ships involved on-grid on one hand. And then gone.
The Jove and any similarly powered things shouldn't be common sights. They should show up once in a blue moon, WTFBBQ everything within 5 jumps of a place, and then ninja vanish.
If I were mandated by CCP to come up with game content for these scary new npc assets, I'd play it more like a lore treasure hunt. Say the Drifters are back in a weakened (but still OP) state, and need 'x' of their ancient mcguffins lost to history in order to re-assemble their technology or build their death-star or whatever before they kill everyone in New Eden.
You could have a series of events, say one a month or so, where the Drifters are learning where their old tech ended up on various planets or deadspace locations or whatever. Clues are disseminated ahead of time for capsuleers to figure out where the next location is, giving them a time to form up defenses and prevent them from their goals. Think of it like 'the crucible' from Mass Effect 3 except it's the bad guys trying to build the thing.
So you have a bunch of events with people fighting to stop them (or trying to sabotage efforts), adjusting difficulty as they go. Maybe they get to build their superweapon and the last pieces they need are on like Amarr Prime or Matar or something, and they blow up the planet if the capsuleers fail. DYNAMIC CONTENT.
Anyway this sort of stuff would be great for any of the pirate factions. Give them a goal, give them places in space to try and achieve their goals, give capsuleers avenues to stop them (or help them). Sort of like the Sansha events, but with tangible game results for success or failure (this system invasion was not stopped, all the stations in this system are now exploded).
There just has to be an effort to make the game world dynamic and the npc-focused playerbase goals and objectives that have tangible results. Flipping occupancy on a bunch of lowsec systems for no permanent results is not it.
I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
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I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
If the Drifters are the proof of concept for new enemy AI, we might even see something like this.
Not exactly like this, of course, but....
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The Jove were fine because they were powerful, scary, and extremely rare. I think I can count the events with actual Jove ships involved on-grid on one hand. And then gone.
The Jove and any similarly powered things shouldn't be common sights. They should show up once in a blue moon, WTFBBQ everything within 5 jumps of a place, and then ninja vanish.
If I were mandated by CCP to come up with game content for these scary new npc assets, I'd play it more like a lore treasure hunt. Say the Drifters are back in a weakened (but still OP) state, and need 'x' of their ancient mcguffins lost to history in order to re-assemble their technology or build their death-star or whatever before they kill everyone in New Eden.
You could have a series of events, say one a month or so, where the Drifters are learning where their old tech ended up on various planets or deadspace locations or whatever. Clues are disseminated ahead of time for capsuleers to figure out where the next location is, giving them a time to form up defenses and prevent them from their goals. Think of it like 'the crucible' from Mass Effect 3 except it's the bad guys trying to build the thing.
So you have a bunch of events with people fighting to stop them (or trying to sabotage efforts), adjusting difficulty as they go. Maybe they get to build their superweapon and the last pieces they need are on like Amarr Prime or Matar or something, and they blow up the planet if the capsuleers fail. DYNAMIC CONTENT.
Anyway this sort of stuff would be great for any of the pirate factions. Give them a goal, give them places in space to try and achieve their goals, give capsuleers avenues to stop them (or help them). Sort of like the Sansha events, but with tangible game results for success or failure (this system invasion was not stopped, all the stations in this system are now exploded).
There just has to be an effort to make the game world dynamic and the npc-focused playerbase goals and objectives that have tangible results. Flipping occupancy on a bunch of lowsec systems for no permanent results is not it.
I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
The Jove were not so rare actually... Reading a lot of old chronicles, there is always a jovian ambassador or a small jovian group at some point, doing jovian things...
Ofc, much rarer than any other faction.
Also, 1000% yes for dynamic content like that. But no for deus ex machinas, you can do drama perfectly fine without involving ancient reapers and threats that will call the doom of all civilization known...
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The Jove were not so rare actually... Reading a lot of old chronicles, there is always a jovian ambassador or a small jovian group at some point, doing jovian things...
Ofc, much rarer than any other faction.
I meant they were very rare in game. There was a time when you would occasionally see actual jove ships in space and shoot them, or if I recall correctly more likely they would explode you.
They were basically 8/8/8 Dev Pownmobiles that would occasionally be out and about.
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Yeah, I always wanted a 8/8/8 Eidolon back in that era. :P
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I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
If the Drifters are the proof of concept for new enemy AI, we might even see something like this.
Not exactly like this, of course, but....
I haven't been following this stuff too close so I'm not so savvy on things. However, when the WHs were first introduced I popped into a few and read all the items etc. After a few hours of probing I came to the conclusion that some ancient unkown race had zainou'd themselves into the matrix because some plague was killing their organic bodies. It seemed pretty obvious to me, especially considering the VR flavor of the other material CCP was putting out, but the RP community did seem to think the idea had merit.
Didn't we later learn that it was one of the Jovian Empires that had become the sleepers by uploading their minds to VR because of the Jovian disease?
If the that's so, then are the Drifters an AI or are they Jovians un-zainouing themselves back into new bodies?
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=967.msg11334#msg11334
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I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
If the Drifters are the proof of concept for new enemy AI, we might even see something like this.
Not exactly like this, of course, but....
I haven't been following this stuff too close so I'm not so savvy on things. However, when the WHs were first introduced I popped into a few and read all the items etc. After a few hours of probing I came to the conclusion that some ancient unkown race had zainou'd themselves into the matrix because some plague was killing their organic bodies. It seemed pretty obvious to me, especially considering the VR flavor of the other material CCP was putting out, but the RP community did seem to think the idea had merit.
Didn't we later learn that it was one of the Jovian Empires that had become the sleepers by uploading their minds to VR because of the Jovian disease?
If the that's so, then are the Drifters an AI or are they Jovians un-zainouing themselves back into new bodies?
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=967.msg11334#msg11334
Unfortunately, Templar One gives answers to all these questions, and the explanation is way dumber.
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I want pirates, rogue drones, scary drifters, whatever, constantly pushing on the borders of the big 4 empires and the 90% of eve players who just shoot NPCs tasked with helping out to maintain the safety of 1.0 space, or lose it.
If the Drifters are the proof of concept for new enemy AI, we might even see something like this.
Not exactly like this, of course, but....
I haven't been following this stuff too close so I'm not so savvy on things. However, when the WHs were first introduced I popped into a few and read all the items etc. After a few hours of probing I came to the conclusion that some ancient unkown race had zainou'd themselves into the matrix because some plague was killing their organic bodies. It seemed pretty obvious to me, especially considering the VR flavor of the other material CCP was putting out, but the RP community did seem to think the idea had merit.
Didn't we later learn that it was one of the Jovian Empires that had become the sleepers by uploading their minds to VR because of the Jovian disease?
If the that's so, then are the Drifters an AI or are they Jovians un-zainouing themselves back into new bodies?
http://backstage.eve-inspiracy.com/index.php?topic=967.msg11334#msg11334
Unfortunately, Templar One gives answers to all these questions, and the explanation is way dumber.
As in VR-world born AI stealing bodies from capsuleers to invade meatspace.
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See... Isn't growing bodies SO trivial that they give 'em away free to Capsuleers now? Why wouldn't the Drifters just make shiny new Drifter bodies?
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If I recall, they mass produced low quality 'clone' templates from biomass - which is collected from plants, animals and human corpses. The higher the quality the more bits of real human. Then they sculpted it to look like you. I don't think your brain was even a real brain but instead something like a Gel-Matrix Biopaste with Synthetic Synapses.
Which was why it was important to keep genetic material on hand for when you were finally rich enough to pay for the highest quality clones which was an actual clone of yourself. It was also why Hamish gave expecting young capsuleers a raised eyebrow.
(http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/thumbs/2014/05/30/032750/84127896/not_the_father.jpg)
If the drifters don't have real bodies to start with...they'd need corpses, or at least somebodies DNA to grow from. Someone said they don't collect low-sp characters, which I doubt is true, but if it was that would be an interesting twist.
Either way, for the safety of the human race we need to lock up that Kruul freak before they get a hold of him and his endless supply of 'DNA.'
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This (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d51HyGCVLJk) could explain why it was cheaper and easier than growing a whole new body from an embryo. Collect the parts, throw them into the blender and print it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbBo5rojUn0
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Q: How many people are actually in the Angel Cartel?
A: Enough...
:yar: