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Pirate Raider archetype

Pirates operate on different rules from admirals. There’s no faction territory to defend, no home_sector to patrol, no strategic faction command. Instead, each pirate has a home_station (a specific hideout, not a sector) and a decision cascade tuned for freelance criminality: attack when strong, flee when weak, replenish at hideout, lurk when idle.

Post iter 21 (build_018), Raiders are also the mod’s first archetype to actively use the Scout-Saboteur dispatch as a side-effect. Piracy is asymmetric warfare; saboteurs fit the aesthetic.

Coverage

Section titled “Coverage”
  • 4 templates across the pirate faction set: Scale Plate Pact, Duke’s Buccaneers, Riptide Rakers, Yaki Clans (Xenon Mil Units templates share raider mechanics for now — narrative model TBD)
  • Typically 1-2 living raiders per faction in a fully-developed save
  • Small fleets — solo or in pairs, mobile, deniable

Playstyle — freelance criminality

Section titled “Playstyle — freelance criminality”
  • No home_sector — has a home_station instead (a specific pirate hideout, e.g. Silver Fang’s base in Riptide Sanctuary)
  • XP economy inverted — kills give ×0.5 admiral rate (pirates aren’t professional soldiers), but plunder gives ×1.0 full rate. Grinding kills is inefficient; robbing civilians is efficient.
  • Higher mortality profile — smaller fleets = higher KIA % on flagship loss unless perks (Lucky) mitigate. Compensated by flee decision, not by dragged-out fights.
  • Target civilians preferentially — Phase A iter 20 introduced purpose.fight filter; iter 21 inverted it. Raiders now target purpose.trade / .mine / .build first, avoid .fight military.

Canonical archetype example: Vryss Korrock (template sca_raider_001, Boron-born former Argon Federation tactician, defected after the “Ferral Affair 821 NT” — a fictional Scale Plate Pact incident).

Decision cascade (C-006 v0.2 — first-match wins)

Section titled “Decision cascade (C-006 v0.2 — first-match wins)”
flowchart TD
  Start[for each active raider] --> Q1{state ==<br/>lost_flagship?}
  Q1 -- yes --> R1["🩹 flee<br/>no order<br/>wait for RpAccrualWorker<br/>Path A flagship rebuild"]
  Q1 -- no --> Q2{at_home AND<br/>(not fleet_full OR<br/>hull ≤80%)?}
  Q2 -- yes --> R2["🔧 replenish<br/>Patrol home_station<br/>RP ×2 buff"]
  Q2 -- no --> Q3{(fleet_damaged OR<br/>hull ≤80%)<br/>AND NOT at_home?}
  Q3 -- yes --> R3["🩹 flee<br/>MoveGeneric home_station<br/>noattackresponse=true"]
  Q3 -- no --> Q4{fleet_full?}
  Q4 -- yes --> R4["⚔️ raid<br/>closest non-pirate sector<br/>range 5, exclude Xenon/Kha'ak"]
  Q4 -- no --> R5["🕶️ lurk<br/>Patrol home_station<br/>opportunistic side-jobs"]

The five decisions

Section titled “The five decisions”
IDIconTriggerWhat it does
flee (lost_flagship)🩹state == lost_flagshipSame as admiral retreat — wait for RP rebuild.
replenish🔧at_home AND (not fleet_full OR hull ≤80%)Patrol home_station. Triggers RP ×2 buff + drone restock + hull repair via 100 RP + drain rebuild loop.
flee (damaged, away)🩹(fleet_damaged OR hull ≤80%) AND NOT at_homeMoveGeneric to home_station with noattackresponse=true. Clean pass-through — no engagement during retreat.
raid⚔️fleet_full (all escorts present + flagship healthy)Closest non-pirate sector within 5 cluster hops. Excludes Xenon/Kha’ak — pirates raid soft civilian factions.
lurk🕶️Fallback when fleet not full and not damagedPatrol home_station in a loose orbit. Opportunistic — evaluates saboteur dispatch, joint raid trigger, base ship spawn as side-effects.

Force-decision lock: debug builds include $decision_force_until — a 60-min lock so a player-forced raid mode survives HMW re-evals on low-★ pirates whose fleet_full check would otherwise revert them to lurk after taking losses.

Ship scaling per star rank

Section titled “Ship scaling per star rank”

Raiders are lighter than admirals — they fly light and mobile, punch above their weight in engagements:

RankFlagshipEscort
★L Barbarossa-class destroyer (updated to L in build_012 phase B — was M Cerberus at first, but ★1 raiders were too weak to trigger natural raids)1× S fighter → 2× S at ★★
★★Improved L destroyer2× S
★★★Fleet destroyer or L Erlking-class3× S / 1× M
★★★★XL Erlking or top-tier destroyer2× M / 4× S

Barbarossa @ ★ satisfies fleet_full immediately after spawn, so raids trigger via natural HMW eval without needing a force button. This was the key balance fix in iter 14 phase B.

Order Board — the pirate task board

Section titled “Order Board — the pirate task board”

The Order Board is faction-level, not archetype-specific — every faction has a board. But the raider order types are unique to pirates:

Task typeRequirementReward
$trader_ambushIntercept a specific NPC trader on their route. Small or Medium raider.Cash + XP + faction rep + trader’s cargo if scavenged
$satellite_deployEstablish long-range observation posts in border sectors. Higher pay, more risky sectors than admiral $satellite.Cash + rep + info hook

Raiders claim the cheapest task they qualify for from their faction’s board on HMW tick. They then execute it as their raid target. On success — task removed from board, reward paid. On failure — task may re-enter the board or expire; raider’s rep with the faction (rr₀) drops.

Note that pirate factions also have very few tasks in absolute numbers (Yaki: 3 total tasks in the “Order Board” screenshot). Pirate faction task pools are small and precious — an active raider consumes their board’s capacity quickly.

Yaki Order Board detail — no admiral tasks, no coordinator tasks; Pirate / Raider order types: $trader_ambush 1 task, $satellite_deploy 1 task. Active heroes: Shateigashira Yuna Ishikawa, raider archetype, ★, decision = flee. The Yaki are a small pirate faction; a single raider is enough to work their board

Own economic outputs (C-006 v0.2 pattern)

Section titled “Own economic outputs (C-006 v0.2 pattern)”

Beyond raid ↔ replenish, raiders have three economic outputs unique to the archetype. All drain ALL free RP via greedy big-first algorithm at archetype-specific multipliers.

Joint Raid (★3+)

Section titled “Joint Raid (★3+)”
  • Cost: drain ALL free RP at 4× base ship_class_cost
  • Effect: spawn a wave of freelance pirate escorts loaded on top of the raider’s own fleet for one raid engagement
  • Cooldown: 60 min
  • Result @ 100 RP: 2M + 1S (with fleet mix)
  • Result @ 200 RP: 1L + 1M
  • Result @ 300 RP: 1L + 3M + 1S (heavy joint force)
  • Fleet returns to freelance status post-raid; the spawned ships are transient

Design intent: ★3 raider unlocks the “joint raid” identity — pirates coordinate for a big score, then disperse.

Pirate Base (★4+)

Section titled “Pirate Base (★4+)”
  • Cost: 200 RP
  • Effect: creates a pirate_base station in raider’s current sector
  • Persistence: stored on $active_heroes.{h}.$pirate_base (cap 1 per raider)
  • Lifecycle:
    • Hull → 0 in spawn worker check → auto-cleanup on next tick
    • On full KIA → base destroyed via <destroy_object> in FlagshipLostWorker
    • On wounded / unscathed → base survives (they can rebuild fleet from it)

Only ★★★★ raiders build bases. This is endgame — the raider has become infrastructure, not just a rogue captain.

Base Ship Spawn (★4+, cron 60 min)

Section titled “Base Ship Spawn (★4+, cron 60 min)”
  • Gates: pirate_base.exists AND RP ≥ 150
  • Cost: drain ALL free RP at 2× base ship_class_cost
  • Effect: spawn defenders (25%) + patrollers (75%) from the pirate base
  • Composition: vanilla AssignCommander pattern — each spawned ship gets a random behaviour (defender=static, patroller=roaming)

★★★★ raider with a pirate base becomes a local threat generator — every 60 min, more pirate ships appear from the base, raiding traffic in nearby sectors.

Behaviour example — a Yaki raider ambush

Section titled “Behaviour example — a Yaki raider ambush”

Shateigashira Yuna Ishikawa, Yaki Clans, ★ (starting), 6 XP, decision = flee (per the screenshot she’s in retreat state — probably just took losses).

  • Two HMW ticks later (10 min), Yuna is back at home_station, RP tick has restored escort, fleet is now full.
  • replenish cycle completes.
  • Next tick: fleet_full, at_home. raid decision fires. Picker finds the closest non-pirate non-Xenon non-Kha’ak sector within 5 hops — Hatikvah’s Choice II (Hatikvah Free League controls it, but Yaki are hostile to Hatikvah).
  • Yuna’s frigate + 2× S escort move to Hatikvah’s Choice II.
  • Enter sector. Vryss’s trader_ambush task from her Order Board matches a Teladi trader passing through. She engages.
  • Trader dies, cargo scavenged. XP +5 (M-class = 5 base × 0.5 raider = 2.5 XP for kills, plus plunder XP).
  • Task removed from board. Faction rep bump.
  • Retreats via flee if damaged in the fight, else stays for another opportunity.

Recovery cycle

Section titled “Recovery cycle”

Same d100 death roll on flagship destruction. Pirate templates typically have higher $crit_fail_chance than admirals by design — piracy is dangerous work. Perks like Lucky (-10% KIA) help.

On wounded / unscathed, RP rebuild via Recovery Points. XP / ★ / kill count preserved. Pirate Base (if any) survives.

On KIA, standard lineage vacancy → clone spawns with inherited perks. If the KIA’d raider had a Pirate Base, the base is destroyed in the flagship loss event.

Design intent

Section titled “Design intent”
  • Asymmetric warfare, not attrition. Pirates don’t win by out-shipping the enemy; they win by picking soft targets and bailing when it goes wrong.
  • The Order Board is a small, precious pool. Pirate factions have few tasks. This means pirate progression is bottlenecked by faction reputation influx, not by ship inventory.
  • Endgame = infrastructure. ★4 pirate isn’t just a great captain — they’re a local pirate presence that grows over game time via their base.

What’s next

Section titled “What’s next”
  • Cross-faction contract sharing — pirate factions occasionally advertising on each other’s boards. Not implemented; would need shared task pool.
  • Player-hostile contracts against the player — if the player has burned relations with a pirate faction, that faction’s raiders can pick a “hunt the player” task. Not implemented.
  • Player-hostile contracts targeting a specific NPC — the player pays a pirate faction to strike a target. Not implemented.
  • ★★★★★ tier signature ship — currently reserved for future per-faction identity (see C-029).
Section titled “Related pages”