As part of the new pirate faction/station, please create a variant of the following ships for use solely by pirates, purchasable at the new pirate station:

Valkyrie P
Same stats as the IDF Vigilant but with integrated cargo scanner

Prometheus P
Same stats as the Mk2 but with integrated cargo scanner

Vulture P
Same stats as the SVG but with integrated cargo scanner

Greyhound P
Same stats as the greyhound but with both integrated cargo and add-on scanner.

Rationalization:
The above ships will give "outlaw" players a variety of tools for their job, without giving them the best-in-class ship in each category.

Price and requirement:
100,000cr each
Hated or worse standing with Itani, Serco, and UIT
Respected or better standing with new pirate faction

No, way too much. We need some seriously upgraded Hound variants (which yours is not), and maybe an interesting maud or taur for loot recovery. Not a way to avoid faction exclusivity for Itani/Serco.

Savet, this sounds like the ultimate pvp faction. We'll all be pirates.

I'd +1 the above if the Valk and Prom have 2 ports instead of 3 and no svg. Make a version of the corvult available.

We already have a corvult with no exclusivity. We don't need another.

We already have Tunguska for a maud and taur. Tung is a grey faction already. We could leave off the prom variant as well, since it kind of fills the same role as the tungtaur.

I made this suggestion knowing there would be push-back. Make suggestionssuggestions and tweaks. Reducing ports isn't a great idea since it would dramatically change the balance of the ships. A better change would be reduced armor to make them more fragile, or added weight.

I realize that this would be very popular for pvp, but these are not best in class ship variants. Min/Max players will still choose the skyprom, x-1, or corvult.

I wanted to throw some suggestions out that would give a pirate faction a choice of tools. The best chance of implementation will be variants on tools we already have, and the best return on investment will be tools not already available through grey factions.

By that logic, we "already have" the SCP and X1 so there's no need for any of this. Piracy is not really about heads-up PvP, and there's no reason to offer as pirate faction exclusives the chance to have watered-down versions of both top combat ships rather than having to pick the best of one while entirely foregoing the other.

The Tung Taur is fine, but the most important things for loot haulers are unusually large cargo and infinturbo; addon scanner integration would be handy, so you can see the right call is dropping mines and running with the loot, or turning to blast your pursuit. Something like that is much more useful for "pirate" gameplay.

Same thing with the Hound: what we really need are the pre-nerf thrusts, an armor boost, and a version with dual inline L-ports for inflicting serious DPE pain with megaposis. An L-port widowmaker option would be nice, too. Not some silly Prom/Valk options.

I'm not a fan of the OP suggestions. I would counter with either a centaur or marauder variant that runs along the Greyhound theme of very fast acceleration with poor maneuverability and weakened armor. Great for running up rapidly on a behemoth and scooping up a significant amount of the cargo.

On another note, I do not personally have any objection to scanners and blockers / spoofers being non port items and either purchased for an additional cost while not taking up a port. This could be done either as specific variants of each or as something selected like the ships color.

-1. I'd rather have ship smuggling than pirate versions of nation ships.

-1. I'd rather have ship smuggling than pirate versions of nation ships.

That too.

Savet, then why not something more unique... this faction could modify axia wraiths to have a fast infinite turbo and better pvp stats that could challenge a valk or prom.

edited to add: give it a built in version of a more powerful pcb along with a cargo and add on scanner to make it more unique

better pvp stats that could challenge a valk or prom.

The UIT can't even field a combat ship that would do that - why would a bunch of profit-hungry criminals bother?

Dr. Lecter, my suggestion is for IF this pirate faction ever exists. How would a bunch of profit-hungry criminals come to agreement on what ship to manufacture? I think the whole idea of a pirate faction/government goes against everything a pirate is meant to be. Look at how many pirate guilds there are along with the existence of the idea that extortion is piracy in VO. There is disagreement among VO pirates on what piracy is and whether or not pirates hail.

There isn't, however, disagreement on the overall concept of piracy involving profiting off presenting a danger to traders. That doesn't mean winning military engagements against national forces, or even primarily taking anti-pirates on in heads-up combat. It means either killing and looting traders while evading escorts and anti-pirates, or getting paid by the traders not to do that same thing. Any combat against non-cargo-bearing opponents is purely incidental (or for fun).

"Pay us or we will repeatedly defeat you in duels of equally-matched opponents!" just isn't a piracy thing (though again, it's fun, which is why nationalist RP will always have its own fans).

"It means either killing and looting traders while evading escorts and anti-pirates, or getting paid by the traders not to do that same thing."... then the hound is all you need! We don't need a pirate faction. We just need real pirates that are NOT looking for pvp while waiting for a target.

I know from experience that the hound can take ships that are shooting at you without taking any damage *if* flown right (valks, udv's, ibgs, corvults, scps and other unlisted pvp ships excluded).

Technically the Hog Mk II would be all one "needs", and the valks and proms are also unnecessary for nationalists...except for giving them a sense of identity created by alignment exclusivity.

The fact is that Inc. has made the Hound into a nerfy, generally-available ship, and the LTS thing seems to make a 180 on that point unlikely. If we're going to have a "pirate" station/alignment, it deserves its own pirate-y ship for the same reasons Itani have Valks and Sercos have Proms.

We already have a Union of Independent Territories for pirates to align themselves with. Personally, I'd rather let players align themselves with sub-factions after reaching a certain level, which would allow you access to special sub-faction ships, but you'd give up your ability to be UIT admire limited to 600 (covus being one of those subfactions). Axia could offer a buffed up wraith, valent a buffed up maud, tpg a buffed up moth, corvus a buffed up hound. But, that's been suggested elsewhere and was never implemented even though I think it was liked.

We already have a Union of Independent Territories for pirates to align themselves with.


Wrap it up, we're done here.