Implement Anastar League

[DaloLorn]

A pirate organization centered around subterfuge and corruption. Should probably take cues from Zann Consortium gameplay, using a parasitic "corruption" mechanic to obtain the bulk of their resources and influence. Other good sources of inspiration might be the Pirate and Yaki factions of X3, and the shameless plugs for unwritten contentDragonblood Syndicate and Gannic Brotherhood of Star Clusters.

Heavily reliant on stealth and subterfuge. Other empires must be vigilant in order to prevent the Anastar League from growing too powerful, lest they decide to step out of the shadows and claim the galaxy for themselves.

• Do not start with a planet. Instead, starts with a Shadowport - a large starship or converted space station serving as a hub of Anastar activity. Shadowports serve as semi-mobile Shipyards for the League, providing a limited amount of Labor and money even when Anastar influence is otherwise non-existent.
  • Shadowports have two modes: Packed and unpacked.
    • Packed Shadowports have limited sublight mobility and can use any FTL type they are equipped with. They lose all Labor (unless equipped with a Construction Bay for extra Labor) and money generation while packed.
    • Unpacked Shadowports cannot move or be moved in any way (much like Gates), but are able to construct orbitals and asteroid mines. (The usual zone of influence rules still apply: There must be a line of owned - or corrupted systems - between them and their destination, and Shadowports in interstellar space have no zone of influence.)
  • Shadowports can be sacrificed to colonize a planet.
• Anastar planets have significantly reduced loyalty. The bulk of the civilian population doesn't care for their criminal overlords, and are liable to quickly overthrow them should the opportunity arise.
• Anastar planets have limited population growth rates. This should discourage them from attempting to colonize planets on their own unless it is absolutely necessary.
• Receives a large portion of their resources by corrupting planets.
  • A special "Defiler" ship is used to corrupt the planet. Once corrupted, the planet can be assigned to an unpacked Shadowport.
  • A percentage of all civilian production (and gross income) is transferred to the Shadowport instead of the planet's owner. Only one Crime Syndicate can corrupt a planet at a time. (This provides a motive for Crime Syndicates to wage war against each other.)
  • A percentage of any Materials gained by the planet will be transferred to the League, too.
• Anastar Stealth Coating is much cheaper (virtually free) and harder to destroy. All Anastar League default designs are covered with Stealth Coating.
• The Anastar League is allied to the Dread Pirate, and can lend him their ships, losing control of those ships for a while in exchange for a cut of the loot they obtain and a hefty maintenance discount.
• Gains additional Special Funds whenever they get any. (For instance... you know, when they're out pirating.)
• Uses Special Funds to pay off any budget deficits. They can't be in debt until they've run out of Special Funds.
• Starts with the Boarding Party, Construction Bay, Stealth Coating, and Cloaking Device subsystems unlocked at the beginning of the game.
• All ship stats are reduced by 20% (similarly to the Khalerii). They do not receive discounts like the Khalerii, though.

[DaloLorn]

Defined the first revision of the pirate concept.

[DaloLorn]

Some simplifications/refinements to the Corruption mechanic:

• I'd originally intended to have a third territory type (core/corrupted/border, versus core/border). Corrupted systems were basically a sort of "hidden" core system, only recognizable as such to their owner (and maybe other Crime Syndicates to show where their competition is). However, this isn't particularly practical to implement, and on second thought, it doesn't actually have much gameplay or lore value.
  • Gameplay:
    • Shadowports can move, can (and should) be outfitted with Stealth Coating, and don't need to be in the same system as their corrupted planets in the first place, so they still get a decent measure of security by obscurity.
    • Other empires should know their system's been corrupted so they can take steps to remove corruption. (I'm currently leaning towards a construction that costs a bit of Influence. You can try to do it at any time, but it only has an effect if the planet is corrupted... and you don't know which planet in the system has been corrupted.)
  • Lore: A crime syndicate having this sort of influence over a star system would, at minimum, be an open secret.

[DaloLorn]

Zeroing in on some implementation details...

• Shadowports count as planets for victory conditions, and get a station-like buff set with some Mothership/Harvester buffs mixed in.
• Packed Shadowports have their fleet effectiveness, shield capacity, and health halved.
• Unpacked Shadowports gain construction and labor exactly as Motherships (including getting more Labor when researching Metallurgy). They also generate §400k income.
• Akin to Motherships, no Shadowport can be designed with a maintenance cost less than §500k. (Backend change may be needed - logistical efficiency probably shouldn't allow Motherships/Shadowports to generate a net profit.)
• Defilers are defined as any regular flagship equipped a special "Hacker Array" subsystem which allows them to corrupt planets, establishing underground communication networks and compromising secure networks to give Anastar agents an edge over local authorities and help subvert planetary operations.
  • Like Broadcast Antennae, Hacker Arrays require Influence to construct.
  • Hacker Arrays grant an ability which gradually corrupts an inhabited planet, similar in many ways to the planet-preparation ability of Bluuhbi Harvesters. This ability can be used from a distance of 2000 units. (Stealth Coating requires you to approach to 1500 units or closer.)
  • Larger Hacker Arrays require more Influence, but corrupt planets faster.
  • Planets with more Loyalty take longer to corrupt.
  • Shadowports can be equipped with Hacker Arrays, but bringing them that close to enemy planets is a risky maneuver.
• A new planetary project, "Purge Corruption", can be built on any planet. If the planet is corrupted, corruption is removed. If not, nothing happens.
  • Purge Corruption costs 1 Influence and §10k per billion inhabitants.
  • Corruption is not visible to any empire except the Crime Syndicate that corrupted the planet. If a Crime Syndicate's territory expands into another empire's star system via corruption, the empire must do one of three things:
    • Guess which planet is corrupted to cheaply undo the Syndicate's progress. There are different methods of guessing this, each with their own pros and cons: Watching Defiler movements, estimating which planets are most valuable to corrupt, inspecting the resource production of potentially-corrupted planets to detect whether they're being stolen by a Shadowport...
    • Purge corruption from all planets in the system, wasting resources.
    • Ignore the problem for now.

[DaloLorn]

In the final stretch, now!

Final updates to the specification in the OP, and remaining TODOs:

• The League starts with a homeworld again. The early game experience could get extremely painful if they couldn't find planets to corrupt, and the halved population growth should still impede their expansion a fair bit. Besides which, Corruption hasn't worked out quite how I'd initially hoped; there's plenty of utilities the League couldn't obtain access to without holding planets of their own. I think it's fine.
• Scrapped the notion of allowing Shadowports to turn into a fleet of colony ships. It's no longer needed in the early game, and as long as they still have a Shadowport to operate from, the League can conquer or annex replacement planets if their territory is conquered later on.
• Still need to work on the Dread Pirate alliance.
• Finish localizing Hacker Arrays, Corrupt Planet, and Shadowport Hulls.
• Update art for Hacker Arrays, Corrupt Planet, and Shadowport Hulls.
• Finalize stats for Hacker Arrays and Shadowport Hulls. I threw something together based on Broadcast Antennae and Mothership/Harvester/Station Hulls, respectively; we'll see how it holds up in beta. (Holy crap, I might finally be nearing a new major release!)
• IMPORTANT: Add default Defiler/Shadowport designs. Can't start beta testing without that.

All in all, enough of the lifestyle is done that it can go into a multiplayer test (just as soon as they have ships to start with).