Add a pirate system

[impaktor]

Introduction

I figured we need a pirate system, so I made this branch....
...ten years ago.

I figured it might be time to actually open a PR on it now. The reason I've stalled was I'd ideally like the station model to be a broken orbital, or a drifting bulkship/large ship, or a crashed large ship, but perhaps we'll get there in another 10 years.

What this does

This adds a custom system, with some "piraty" named bodies, as the buccaneers have named after their role models from the 17th century (and 20th century fiction).

I did some reading, first on Pirates in fiction which naturally lead to TailSpin and fondly remembering Tales of the Black Freighter, or just Air and Space pirates in general, and learned of famous opera Seeräuber-Jenny.

Description

Short:

A system infested by men of moral depravity, and the base of unscrupulous privateers, unconscionable buccaneers and home of infamous pirates

Long:

The orbiting outpost of Tortuga was once known as Windward Forward Outpost, established in 2305 to act as the final stepping stone into new frontiers. However, as exploration started to shift elsewhere, the station became economically unfeasible and was eventually abandoned and faded from memories. These days Tortuga it a place of legends, and tales about space buccaneers and ships vanishing mysteriously.

Wikipedia trivia

Also learned that Pastafarians think (anti)correlation between reduction in Piracy and increase in global temperature is causal:

"Pirates also play a central role in the parody religion of Pastafarianism. Established in 2005,[7] Pastafarians (members of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) claim to believe that global warming is a result of the severe decrease in pirates since the 18th century, explaining the coldness associated with winter months that follow Halloween as a direct effect of the number of pirates that make their presence known in celebration."

Actual features

This adds:

• A Custom pirate fuel club "Gas Guzzler's Gathering"
  

• System has lawlessness=1 meaning:

  • All commodities are legal, Nerve Gas, Battle Weapons and all
    

  • Police in police tab has gone home
    

  • No police ships in the station

  • No BBS black market / GoodsTrader (since nothing is illegal)

  • Ship repair has paintshop (pirates like to re-paint their vehicle)

  • and Since no commodity in the system is illegal (except a clean conscience), there will be no police patrol spawned on entering it

  • since lawlessness is 1, there should be 6 pirate ships awaiting you (from Pirates module)

• Added advice / rumour hinting at the pirate station
  

• Pirate stations are friends with the Pastafarians, who now have an additional paragraph, although I'm not quite happy with it. "Global warming" doesn't make much sense in space, and it's also too "current day political". Needs to be more silly, less political.
  

Added second pirate system: Betelgeuse

I've added a pirate station to "Betelgeuse", which before was just procedurally generated. It now has the correct radius (16-21 R_Sol ) and mass (700-900 M_sol). Some papers say there's a second star orbiting around it, some say it ain't so. I've put a brown dwarf in 27 AU orbit, with some planets and a single small orbital, "John Long Silver's den". The system is 'unexplored' (nice we can do that even if it has a station), so you can't see anything until you actually jump into it.

There's a rumour in the Advice module:

Betelgeuse short description:

Supergiant with abandoned research station

Betelgeuse long description:

In the early days of space travel it was rumoured Betelgeuse might have already gone supernovae. The claim was shared so often around the taverns as a scientific titbit, that it eventually became a common believed truth. As modern hyperdrives put the system within reach of inquisitive minds, daring frontier pilots found out the rumour of the star's demise had been greatly exaggerated. A research station was constructed for the sole purpose of studying the star's expected death throes. However, the crew quickly experienced adverse effects on mental and physical health and abandoned the station. Philosophers and psychologists alike speculate our human mind can not process the sheer size of the star when confronted with it head on. There are rumours the abandoned station has found new inhabitants.

TODO

• Better Pastafarian paragraph in "Donate to Cranks" module
• Adjust Advice / Rumour regarding pirate station being an abandoned ship?
• Double check if I'm actually attacked by pirates (seems not to, bug?)

Future ideas:

• BBS advert for selecting new face and resetting fines?
• BBS Service to bribe officials in faction X to reduce your fines at a 50% discount?
• Hidden cargo hold compartment to dodge police & customs inspection (needs customs inspection mechanism when docking, implemented at later time)
• BBS advert that allows gambling
• Station model is a bulkship?

[sturnclaw]

Oooh, I like this, very flavorful. Initial thought: Tortuga should be nowhere near the center of inhabited space, but should at minimum be 8-10 sectors away from Sol and Epsilon Eridani. Sector (1, 1, 3) is like the Isle of Man being host to an infamous pirate navy - and the British Navy politely ignoring them.

I don't dislike the idea of having pirate starports near the center of the "bubble", but they should at minimum have plausible deniability of being independent / affiliated with a lawful faction of some sort and doing their deals with pirates under the table.

[impaktor]

I actually agree. I don't know why I chose Gliese 339.1 as a pirate system (that commit is from October 28th, 2015).

I'm a bit ambivalent as to where to put it though. Feels like Betelgeuse is too far away, which is why I didn't move the first one there, it but instead made another additional pirate system. Also I thought it would be cool to have a pirate base with a Supergiant looming ominously in the sky (but Supergiants are all very distant from Sol).

Any suggestions as to what could be a good candidate star & position for pirate system?

Also, I have (not included in this PR) a 'Pirate faction', but decided to just make "lawlessness >= 1.0" be the trigger for if a system is 'pirate' or not. (Having a pirate 'police force' & 'military' felt wrong.)

Also (again), I'm not sure the rumor / advice module should mention the sector coordinates? I do like the more vague "Orion constellation" rumor from the second system.

[impaktor]

OK, I've put Gliese 339.1 back, and moved the pirate system to Delta Cassiopeiae, 100 ly "above" sol (2, -6, 10). Data suggests it's a binary system, 3.9 times Sol radius, and 2.45 times the Sol mass

Rumor is now "pirate base in Cassiopeia constellation, thus I could remove the "Orion" rumor, only one should reference constellation. Although the Cassiopeia could be more vague "in one of the five stars of the 'W' that rolls around the North Star".

I do wonder if it is too far away, also why would pirates be in space where there's no inhabited systems nearby?

[mwerle]

Loving the idea! In future systems like this could provide additional services such as resetting the ship's ID to wipe the police record, sell a pirate transponder to avoid pirate attacks in affiliated systems, have unique BBS missions etc.

While a major pirate hub would necessarily have to be reasonably far away from well-policed sectors/systems, smaller pirate hubs could be more hidden and dotted around the galaxy.

Also (again), I'm not sure the rumor / advice module should mention the sector coordinates? I do like the more vague "Orion constellation" rumor from the second system.

Rumor is now "pirate base in Cassiopeia constellation, thus I could remove the "Orion" rumor, only one should reference constellation. Although the Cassiopeia could be more vague "in one of the five stars of the 'W' that rolls around the North Star".

These are very Earth/solar-system centric rumours. Furthermore, constellations only consist of stars appearing to be close together when viewed from Earth. In reality they are often dozens or even hundreds of LY apart from each other.

While I like the idea of the rumours not specifying the system directly, perhaps something like "There are reports of a lawless system somewhere near galactic coordinates x,y,z. Supposedly the system is illuminated by twin suns.." or "Many ships have been reported going missing near system Blah. Rumours indicate that there are pirates operating out of a nearby binary system with 6 planets.." etc.

Maybe even build up a trail of rumours, with vague rumours in some systems further away and more specific/detailed rumours closer to the system in question. Systems very close could even be semi-affiliated, or at least turning a blind eye towards their activities, and benefiting from the pirate trade.

[zonkmachine]

The orbiting outpost of Tortuga was once known as Windward Forward Outpost, established in 2305 to act as the final

I think the idea of pirate systems are really great. Maybe back down a bit on the references to historical pirate hot-spots. Actually naming a planet Tortuga is taking it one step to far in my opinion.

Also, I wouldn't use the "Advice" for "Rumours".

Maybe there should be some more informal pirate bases. Communities that are officially on the map but just low on the law side, high on crime? Like Haiti today or, at least parts of, Somalia. You know you are taking a risk and there will be rumours.

[impaktor]

Maybe back down a bit on the references to historical pirate hot-spots. Actually naming a planet Tortuga is taking it one step to far in my opinion.

Yeah, I got a bit carried away there. I'll fix it when I return to this PR.

Also, I wouldn't use the "Advice" for "Rumours"

It's the best place we have at the moment. Sure one could remove the number of the "traveller's advice", rename it to be more "rumory", but I think it works OK. Once I finish (re-writing the code) for my second news module, I could stick additional News articles about pirate system.

Maybe there should be some more informal pirate bases. Communities that are officially on the map but just low on the law side, high on crime? Like Haiti today or, at least parts of, Somalia. You know you are taking a risk and there will be rumours.

Well, I assume we have systems covering the full spectrum of lawlessness values. Not what you're suggesting those systems should further entail? And if they have some set of the features of a pirate system, that would make the pirate systems less "wow" / "special".

[zonkmachine]

It's the best place we have at the moment. Sure one could remove the number of the "traveller's advice", rename it to be more "rumory", but I think it works OK.

Nothing needs to be renamed to be more "rumory". It even states that it is a rumour, "There are rumours..."

Let me convert my statement to a question instead. There are two rumors:
1 - "There are rumours of pirates operating from an old decommissioned ..."
and
2 - "There are rumours of Pirates operating from a secret base somewhere ..."

One of the rumors is added to Advice.lua as a "Traveller's advice" with an indice, and the other as a "Rumour". Why?

I've now tested both systems and I'm currently in Long John Silver's den. Nice! It looks really promising.

[impaktor]

One of the rumors is added to Advice.lua as a "Traveller's advice" with an indice, and the other as a "Rumour". Why?

Bug. I should fix.

I've now tested both systems and I'm currently in Long John Silver's den. Nice! It looks really promising.

If you feel motivated, feel free to redesign these systems however you want, and reduce the amount of "oh, look I've read wikipedia and stuffed the system full of pirate name reference". Designing systems isn't that interesting to me (at least not at the moment).