As of right now anybody who wishes to be a pirate can start killing people & they become pirate. They are not forced to be KOS with any nations & they can easily pilot whatever nation ships they want.

A proper pirate in my eyes should be KOS with at minimum their own faction.

Now actually becoming kos comes with the main downside of not being able to purchase nation specific ships as those seem to be as best of ships as you can think of. Specifically talking about the valkyrie varients & the UDV. Only upside of being kos comes from the corvus Positrons which is fine but not something you wanna give up the ship purchase ability for.

So the suggestion is - introduce a way to sign up for piracy.

To sign up we have to go to the unknown system & find a pirate constellation which happens to have it's engines dead. It'll be located in an asteroid cluster.

As we enter the sector, the constellation will shoot at us unless we are already at hate standings with our own nation.

We can send any message to the constellation to start the conversation. It'll ask if we want to join the pirates or not. If we respond no it'll start shooting again.

If we respond yes I want to join pirates, then it'll set that pirate constellation as our home station (since it's engines are dead it won't move at all.), make our standings to -601 with our own nation & -500 with other 2 major nations, change the faction from "serco", "UIT" or "Itani" to "privateer" as well as kick the player off from any military contracts.

Most importantly we will be able to buy pirate versions of valkyrie vigilant, raptor UDV & sky command prometheus. These ships will have slightly different Statistics than the nation varients as they have been made from stolen goods from the nation transports & configured according to the piracy needs. Also that these aren't assembled by a nation so imo they should be a bit different.

Privateer skyprom & Valk vigilant get built in cargo scanners & 100kg more mass (because they now pack the scanners)(idea stolen from another suggestion) & UDV gets a built in scanner flash (the one that flashes when we scan asteroids with mineral scanner) as well as 50kg more mass

These will have very little downsides when compared to the nation varients while still being about as good as the nation varients mainly because of tiny bit of extra mass but will all still be just as effective for the piracy needs.

This removes all the things that specifically discourage becoming a proper pirate with proper standings. & will also separate real pirates.
Those who pirate with best possible standings with all 3 nations can be fake pirates or whatever you wanna call them.

Also that this will allow the players to stay with the unrats without getting shot by them as they are a part of their group.

There's alot more to this suggestion which I will add if more people seem to be interested in it & if there is any chances of it being implemented.
Hopefully I typed everything nicely, enough for everyone to be able to understand me well :)

+ 1 as a way to allow players to join a pirate faction. Though, I'm less concerned about the fake nation ships than I am interested in seeing how this would open-up gameplay around NPC pirates- such as station assaults and wormhole blockades.

-1000 for the whole real vs fake pirate argument though :p

+1 But i don't think you sign up for piracy. more like you go down that path. Which means some kind of mission tree. With the added bonus of buying special weapons that can fire in NFZs and what not.

-1 for it being in the unknown. I can't imagine pirates cornering themselves in a system with only one exit.

Take our standings to -601 with our own nation & -500 with other 2 major nations, change the faction from "serco", "UIT" or "Itani" to "privateer" as well as kick the player off from any military contracts.

Negative 601 is too high a standing. -1000 or bust (in fact, remove the floor. make it -10,000). A privateer is NOT a pirate, so a different term needs to be used.

-1 to pirate versions of nation specific ships. Pirates should get their own ships and lose all access to nation specific ships.

There needs be a license level requirement, so new players can't be tricked into doing this.

Only upside of being kos comes from the corvus Positrons which is fine but not something you wanna give up the ship purchase ability for.

You can also launch Axia Furies from any Corvus station. Giving up the ability to buy major nation ships is part of breaking the contract with lawful society.

I'm just curious. Why does your suggestion mention the top tier ships of the Serco,UIT, but not the top tier Itani ship?

People have asked for a pirate /grey space nation for years which has been turned down again and again. Which, I am for, but it seems like that isn't in the devs vision.

Personally, I'd be more interested in brand new ships. And if those were only available to tri-kos, or other specific standing requirements, that would be neat. However, I don't think rehashing ships we've had forever would be worth the time. I feel VO would benefit more from some new, fresh, ships/addons that stand apart from the current armory.

+1 but it should be difficult or almost impossible to go back from this. Farming bots shouldn't be enough to regain standings. Ideally you should also lose standings with UIT sub factions.

+1 to new ships, not modified versions of nation ships although I don't mind those aswell. It should start you off with lower stat versions of nation ships and progress you towards brand new ships that are equivalent to the former.

Inevitable - I 100% agree with you but (to inc & ray - no offense K? I'm an innocent cat expressing my opinion) seeing the speed at which we get anything brand new, I just couldn't get me to request new ship/addon that I'm rather sure would take a ridiculous long time to actually become anything & ridiculous long means.... you know what I mean. I'd personally like new ships & addons over my current suggestion but I don't see that coming anytime soon.

I didn't read any of those other threads about Grey faction but I'm aware it's been suggested before that's all. I was just having a random idea thought I'd post it.

Technically valkyrie vigilant would be the top tier ship no? (according to the lore I've understood anyway) X1 is a secret prototype so like I'd imagine pirates won't be able to get their hands on that thing all to easily since top secret. Again I could be wrong. + vigilant is better for piracy because of its less energy consumption (again if I'm not mistaken)

WAF -
with your idea of NFZ fire & stuff I'm not much into it.
About standings - perhaps -1000 then....
Privateer? - yeah it's a midnight thought. Excuse the mistake of me not thinking it well. It's what crossed my mind & that's what I typed.
Why unknown? - why not!

For those in question about nation ship replicas - the whole point is to not have people pirate in nation Valk or udv but pirate versions of them so they are actually pirates. Not that it's necessary but from my interaction with those high standing pirates, seems to be the reason they don't go kos...that'd change it....

110% all for this idea. I agree that the Unaligned nation should have their own unique ships, even if they're just modified versions of existing ships. The Corvus Vulturius is an example of this, modified to better suit their needs. Same for the Greyhound, though we could argue maybe the Greyhound needs to be one of the Unaligned-specific ships. Obviously we would want 1-2 unique ships that have their own specific advantages.

The concept of going down a mission path to become an Unaligned Pirate is probably the best method of doing this. It should be a pretty bumpy road with some difficult missions. This would not only make it easier for a player to realize, "Oh no, I don't like this. I have changed my mind." and back out. It also pushes this possibility more in the path of a higher skill level, creating a roadblock against newbies being misled into it.

Standings for all 3 major nations should absolutely tank to -1000. As far as subfactions, I'm not sure how to handle that. Perhaps they should tank heavily and require you to create a reputation with them again. Being locked out of -all- subfactions is not ideal, given the Greyspace is only Corvus, XX, Ineubis, Orion, Aeolus and Tunguska. I suppose you could make the argument for all other subfactions tanking to -1000 as well. The 3 major nations standings should not be able to return past KOS marks by standard means. IF there were to be a method of reversing this, it should be an even more difficult path of missions to re-earn your spot.

The location for the Constellation (or whatever Mothership you would want to make it) could be a rotating thing. I'm not sure what the correct method for locating it would be, or maybe there shouldn't be one. Perhaps you should have to seek it out in a few select known locations. You do some missions for Corvus, we already have some of the "So you wanna be a pirate?" missions with them. Extend this tree, the final mission you take in the tree tells you "Okay, you've proven yourself. Our mothership is usually located in empty sectors between Bractus, Odia and Sedina. We don't know where it is, find it for yourself if you want it bad enough."

The question here: If you are marked as "allied" with the Unaligned pirates, that makes you part of the Unaligned faction. How will this affect the Hive? Unrats and Hive do not attack each other.

I'm iffy on weapons that can fire in NFZs. That still encroaches on permitting toxic behaviors towards newbies. Sure, you're KOS and have to dodge SF and turrets but we all know it's doable.

Seeing as all three factions are permitted to employee strike forces via mission temporarily, same should be applied here. A mission that employees a small band of unrats.

I'm not opposed to the off-brand nation ship idea but they shouldn't be the "top" pirate ships. They should be some janky ships that have notable inherent disadvantages compared to their national counterparts.

In my eyes a proper pirate says "yarr" and "shouldapaid".

I have a hard time imagining faction specific ships for an unaligned pirate faction. They would lack the research and manufacturing infrastructure to do create unique vessels. So at minimum, this group should be tied to corvus and in my opinion, the behavior of corvus to non pirates should be adapted to a more predatory nature. Otherwise, I would expect the pirates to have modified versions of the basic ship selection

People have asked for a pirate /grey space nation for years which has been turned down again and again. Which, I am for, but it seems like that isn't in the devs vision.

Just to clarify.. the whole "tortuga" floating-pirate-station-that-moves-around idea was mine [1][2]. Not a player suggestion. I'm pretty obviously not "against" that.

Historically, people have requested the ability to become unaligned, and I deferred on that because of the Q/A process needed to make sure that all worked properly. I didn't say I wouldn't ever do it, I just had problems scheduling it at the time.

Historically, people have also erroneously stated that Corvus was intended to be a "pirate faction", and I've clarified a few times that that was not correct. (Again, I'm always open to feedback on this and all other things, but I'm just stating that my clarification was not the same as negating creation of a pirate-aligned faction, or "unaligned" mechanic).

So to be clear, to say I've been "turning people down again and again" is inaccurate. I may turn down very specific implementations, and I've been pushing more for a generalized "lack of affiliation" rather than a "specific pirate nation", but that isn't the same as saying that I'm against the same functionality appearing in a slightly different way.

Inevitable - I 100% agree with you but (to inc & ray - no offense K? I'm an innocent cat expressing my opinion) seeing the speed at which we get anything brand new, I just couldn't get me to request new ship/addon that I'm rather sure would take a ridiculous long time to actually become anything & ridiculous long means.... you know what I mean. I'd personally like new ships & addons over my current suggestion but I don't see that coming anytime soon.

I'm not taking offense, but it's much more useful to post what best serves the game (ie, what you actually want) than it is to post "what you think will be easier". I've written about this a few times, but maybe it needs to become a Suggestion Rule, as people seem to easily forget it, but I'll recap:

Players have no clue what is "easier". Like, totally no idea. It doesn't matter how long they've been playing, they have no clue.

Even other game developers don't really know, because of big variances in codebase and design. But they at least "know what they don't know".

The fact that I've deferred on a particular issue at one point in time is not an indicator that that will take too long to develop, even if that's what I state at the time. It means it takes too long to develop then (timing is a huge factor, I'm skipping the big discussion of why). That's why I tell people to re-raise issues that are important to them, and even link back to old threads and such, because relative development-convenience and possibility shifts over time.

So, given that you have no idea how long anything will take, then just "cut to the chase" and ask for what best serves the game. Suggest the best concepts that add the most value to the game, and synchronize best with the most other areas of gameplay.

To give a little more illumination, at the risk of being controversial: The biggest issue with the community-perception of delayed progress is not development, but rather player-expectation. If you look at the first four items listed on the current Development Direction Goals, they are: "Server Scalability", "Player Administration", "Abuse and Attack Mitigation" and "Exploit Mitigation". Those are massive subjects, and also include areas in which we receive the most frequent feedback from the community (repeated, and voluminous, and over several years). So, basically, we've actually gone to some lengths to listen to what people have asked of us, but players have no idea how time consuming the development will actually be, and then claim that they have to dumb-down Suggestion concepts because of "the speed at which we get anything brand new".

But.. in reality, the one has nothing to do with the other.

"Adding ships" is not necessarily time consuming. Chaotic, angry game-balance debates on the forums can be pretty time consuming. Switching development tasks mid-stream to work on something totally different is very time consuming. Debugging is very time consuming. Creating systems to better meet common player complaints, in the above-mentioned "Development Direction Goals" areas.. extremely time-consuming.

The point of Suggestions is to give some voice to the community, specifically so players may put up thoughts and feedback that we can come back and look at when we have related upcoming-development, or a window-of-time between other required milestones. We know what will work best with our own codebase and development schedule, so just stick to articulating what it is that you would like to see, that best serves the game, so we can "mix in" consideration of that feedback with what we are already doing, or have to do.

<i> and I've been pushing more for a generalized "lack of affiliation</i>

This I am strongly in favor of.

Way I see it when all three main factions drop to -1000 it should be automatic and the character would then become unaligned, the reparation missions that corvus offer could assign/reassign a nation to the character in question giving an avenue for character changes outside of putting in support tickets.

```I'm not taking offense, but it's much more useful to post what best serves the game (ie, what you actually want) than it is to post "what you think will be easier". I've written about this a few times, but maybe it needs to become a Suggestion Rule, as people seem to easily forget it, but I'll recap:

Players have no clue what is "easier". Like, totally no idea. It doesn't matter how long they've been playing, they have no clue.

Even other game developers don't really know, because of big variances in codebase and design. But they at least "know what they don't know". ```

Inc - I did remember this while writing but then again only change I'd do is not make varients of Valk, prom & udv & give pirates brand new pirate specific ships. I'd still want the unaligned faction in just the way I described.

I'm Not the brightest at explaining exactly what I am thinking. Hopefully you understand.

-1 famy is the pirate faction... Any other pirate needs famy permission to fly in famy space. just make reparations with yt, tjgaming

And INC, if you ever created a pirate faction, it should submit and recognize long standing pirate guilds

And INC, if you ever created a pirate faction, it should submit and recognize long standing pirate guilds

No..

I'm fine with creating content that can be player-influenced, like News items that pop up about player accomplishments, or regions that can legitimately be conquered or retained by players or guilds, or even pirate-style goals that include rewards of newsworthy fame and could be achieved by pirate-aligned guilds.

But, I don't explicitly hard-wire gameplay with specific transient player groups. There is a hard separation between community-created content and what I explicitly wire into the gameplay, and that's for a variety of good reasons.

Game design has to be generalized, and function at any scale of player-base. Not just historic scale, or with historic player groups.

maybe wait until the current pirate faction ceases to exist before challenging it. Everyone knows that they fly in FAMY space. Why you already created the unrats that do not recognize famy, why create an ai faction to challenge why you already have and I think you enjoy our presence.

if anything... consider releasing the nfz restrictions and players will have more fun interactions

that got messed up while editing it before the timer ran out and I was busy in game... but I think you see my point.

Everyone knows that they fly in FAMY space.

Dude.. don't bring up specific guilds on Suggestions, okay? We're here to talk about generalized, long-term game-design.

Not your particular role-play of your specific guild at this moment in time. That isn't relevant to the discussion.

incarnate: "your specific guild at this moment in time"

We are VO at all times. I only brought it up because it seemed relevant to the suggestion, I think. Thanks for all the development you do. I will drop it at this point unless you would like to discuss it further. I'm and regularly in vo general voice chat.

We are VO at all times.

No, "they" weren't, and you aren't. It's nothing personal about your particular guild, but we do not make fundamental game changes to specifically call out the roleplay of transient and ephemeral player constructs, which I already explained.

I will drop it at this point unless you would like to discuss it further.

Next time, drop it the first time I tell you to. Rule #8 says explicitly:

"if the Developer writes "Let's focus on X, stop posting Y", you should immediately adhere to that request."

People who cannot adhere to the rules of the forum will cease to be welcome here.

(Back to the main topic, please..)