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Sweet, thanks!

Yes, I like the black/red combo you have made, the Red Wall and Red Wall Inverted I think it's called? This would probably look good and more bad ass for the pirates.

A survey ship would be good but they need beefing up in general anyway, the pirates at the moment are pretty crap and once you have enough firepower to destroy their bases it doesn't take long to eradicate them from the map. Maybe some beefier blueprints are needed for just the pirates? Give their ships some more firepower so that they can still cause damage late into the game instead of being wiped out early on...

I like the idea of a Red/Black combination.

For the ships, I'd be happy with just a random weapon/defense combination.

If it is possible, I would like the see the pirates build and use constructors.

I have seen the pirates build ships that use prototype weapons that require resources under the following conditions:
1. A race is eliminated and all its remaining starbases turn pirate.
2. At least one of the starbases is mining at least one resource.
3. The pirates then build a ship with a prototype weapon that uses the resource.

If the pirates do build constructors and use them to build starbases to mine resources, they could become really dangerous.

They instead are more like this:

Yes I did put them the right way round! 

Hey there!

Last night I got a customized pirate system up and running properly. 

1) Technically, it replaces the current pirate style. As opposed to adding a style and changing what the pirates use. I'm still trying to figure out if that is possible, but it looks like NO. GC is very finicky about when it will let you use designs outside of the installation or inside the installation folders.

2) I've made the pirates a unique color scheme, its based on GRM Cutlass, but replaces the orange colors for Green, and swaps which color is purple. The materials also make a difference, and they stand out pretty well and are less dark.

3) The shipset for them is less diverse than other races, but includes designs from the Turians, Veygar, and Orions. Some new designs are present, but very few. I'm pretty busy right now, I am considering doing a whole more unique set, but I just needed to pump something out for testing.

Turians: Because they are essentially the biggest organized pirates, their designs differed over time, and now that they are a full empire, they sell many of their ships and components to other pirate groups.

Veygar: The Veygar are notoriously aggressive nomads. Long before the human population explosion, they plied space for anyone or anything to pillage. Wisely, their greatest clan leader found them a homeworld as the galaxy began to become "smaller" and more globalized with the advent of improved FTL drives and imperial expansions. Some however, refused to abandon their nomadic ways, and so Veygar pirates/mercenaries are readily seen.

Orions: The Orion shipset represents ships from the Terran Republic days that proliferated 30+ years ago. Many republic ships were wrecked and salvaged by pirates during the Monroe wars. Some military vessels went rogue, and generally, the Orion Republic will still sell ships to outsiders, albeit, only unarmed vessels. Unlike the Turrans who would sell you a death star if you have the cash.

Testing reveals the pirates will use a Survey ship or constructor ship properly. But I'm not going to mess with AI, and they don't seem to ever build constructors. Generally my mods are aesthetic, but I could seriously embolden the pirates in a number of ways.

A) Make a new static blueprint set. These are ships like the starting ships with very specific components. I would likely give them a single special survey ship that is a large hull and uses T1 equipment, lasers/railguns/etc. Should make a nasty enemy, but not insurmountable. Yes Pirate survey ships would fight pirates they find in surveys I believe. I think that is fine, since they are not organized forces. Furthermore, bear in mind, that the AI survey mechanic generally avoids the guarded surveys, so these guys are just going to snag the good stuff!

GSM in my current iteration, doubles the weapons and HP of shipyards including the Pirates. I could make this more extreme and make Pirate Shipyards powerful bastions that require a real fleet to take out.

Part of the problem with this, is its requiring the modification of more and more files and its starting to overlap with other GRM products, which can cause conflicts. Eventually, I'm going to have to provide a "All in One" mod package of all or most GRM items, as opposed to so many separate packages.

We will see. Expect a new ship set, and the new mining bases first

Anyone out there NOT have the Snathi DLC I wonder? I've been avoiding using their parts, but I'm starting to wonder if I should just say screw it, and make GRM require all DLC (in theory).

I think the easiest way is to tell people what files to avoid in a readme if they don't want a specific feature, which can be updated with each version if people are reporting issues. Save a whole lot of time and space. If some core files would then need to be changed, maybe include a slightly modded version of that file in an optional folder or give instructions to what to change in code.

If the pirate style cannot be changed, I would say you should make the modded pirates an optional file, as I really wouldn't like missing a ship style I have designed numerous factions around.

As for me, I like to have mods that add additional content without removing or greatly change any of the original, for the record. Not that I mind the existence of the alternatives, but that is how I roll.

I know you don't like using dlc much but the Scavenge ability when added to pirates allows them to capture/use constructors/colony ships even if its a low chance and I thought I might mention it since your planning on reworking the pirates a bit ^.^

Hay G

My ship problem “seems” to have fixed it’s self with the latest opt in (fingers crossed)

“are you sure your comparing with V3.0 of GSM”

Yes, just double checked

“As for AI changes, I've never attempted it.”

Not really much of an AI change,  AiStarbaseGoveners just lists the modules the AI can/will add to its trarbases.  So in the interest of fair play I let the AI use several of your modules

BYW with your GSM_WarpFieldGeneratorModule, was your intent to speed up player/friend/ & foe alike?

Not that you need it but here is a link to my modified AiStarbaseGoveners (still tweeking)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9fwejbzbdr77fic/AIStarbaseGovernorDefs.xml?dl=0

#lifegoals

Hi Gauntlet just want to say your new Mercs.  additions are very cool. I like the portrait look rather then the ship icon, makes the merc seem more realistic. Thanks for your hard work.

I get massive lags on my laptop but it's pretty old (i5 dual core 1.7GHz, 8GB RAM, 1GB VRAM GPU) but my desktop runs much better (i7 quad core 4GHz, 32GB RAM, 4GB VRAM GPU). However even my desktop has lags, especially since I installed the new mining stations, but it's a shame as they're really good!