Pirate faction

[The Fist Of Justice]

Pretty much what the title says, a faction with classes such as the Aggressor and other pirate ships from Legends. Not necessarily a syndicate such as the Black Sun or the Zann Consortium but a rogue faction quite like the warlords.

[Pali]

The problem as I see it is that pirate factions in Legends lore aren't interested in capturing and controlling territory the way the warlords and other factions are - they are pirates, not would-be governments.  I wasn't a fan of the Zann Consortium for the same reason; at most, criminal groups control a planet or two that they use as a home base (like the Invids), but these are never important planets with significant industry or populations. 

Pirate groups are also never that powerful in terms of available fleets, certainly not enough to compete with proper navies - the Invids were one of the strongest we've seen and they had a grand total of one ISD2 and assorted smaller ships, while the Cavrilhu pirates later are stated to be a large band but to attack the Chimaera they couldn't muster more than a Kaloth "battlecruiser" a fifth the ISD's size and a handful of Corellian gunships and heavy fighters.

The only game I've felt really got pirate factions right was Distant Worlds - you fight, infiltrate, extort and hire your ships as mercenaries to make money.  You build up criminal rings on planets owned by other proper empires, stealing much of their income, but your shipyards and bases are out in deep space and vulnerable if located.  You CAN decide to start taking over planets you have built up operations on to a sufficient level, but once you do, you stop being treated like a pirate faction and now count among the empires.  FoC's corruption mechanic was a step in this direction, but it was too simplistic and the ZC remained too focused on direct conquest and large-scale engagements.

[WarlordOfWildSpace]

The best thing along these lines would be the hutts.  I would love to see the hutts in there, but only if it didn't draw too many resources from the team's other plans.

[The Fist Of Justice]

Makes sense.

The problem as I see it is that pirate factions in Legends lore aren't interested in capturing and controlling territory the way the warlords and other factions are - they are pirates, not would-be governments.  I wasn't a fan of the Zann Consortium for the same reason; at most, criminal groups control a planet or two that they use as a home base (like the Invids), but these are never important planets with significant industry or populations. 

Pirate groups are also never that powerful in terms of available fleets, certainly not enough to compete with proper navies - the Invids were one of the strongest we've seen and they had a grand total of one ISD2 and assorted smaller ships, while the Cavrilhu pirates later are stated to be a large band but to attack the Chimaera they couldn't muster more than a Kaloth "battlecruiser" a fifth the ISD's size and a handful of Corellian gunships and heavy fighters.

The only game I've felt really got pirate factions right was Distant Worlds - you fight, infiltrate, extort and hire your ships as mercenaries to make money.  You build up criminal rings on planets owned by other proper empires, stealing much of their income, but your shipyards and bases are out in deep space and vulnerable if located.  You CAN decide to start taking over planets you have built up operations on to a sufficient level, but once you do, you stop being treated like a pirate faction and now count among the empires.  FoC's corruption mechanic was a step in this direction, but it was too simplistic and the ZC remained too focused on direct conquest and large-scale engagements.

[Grand Admiral Teshik]

The best thing along these lines would be the hutts.  I would love to see the hutts in there, but only if it didn't draw too many resources from the team's other plans.

Except that until the Yuuzhan Vong War, the Hutts adhered to Kajidi. They don't fight wars.

[Corey]

While that's mostly true, it's not entirely true. While the Kajidic system was predominantly in place over tens of thousands of years since the war with Xim the Despot, the Hutts had the capacity to militarize very quickly, and did to some extent a few times when things got tense in the galaxy. During the Cold War in the TOR period, they had at least some dedicated military ships like the Ajuur and Azalus. During the Galactic Civil War, they had some stuff introduced by FFG in 2015 (since those games tend to rely so heavily on Legends, we usually treat their stuff within that realm as part of Legends) like the Dor'bulla and Kossak, or the Dunelizard from Galaxies. Then, when they fully re-militarized after the Vong War, they were using ships which were identical to those used by the Hutts against Xim, like Batils and Tarrada Cruisers, so they clearly kept at least the option open of re-militarizing should they deem it necessary.

We did discuss an idea internally which I feel would allow us to stay true to the Kajidic as their main philosophy while still letting us represent that latent power which controls such a large portion of the galaxy in some GCs, but that'd have to wait for after 2.2. If we all feel comfortable with it, we'll discuss it more (I really only just brought it up with the team today).

[DarthRevansRevenge]

i like the ideas going around, and i kinda want to see the other minor factions(Hutts, Hapes, and others) get more representation, BUT that needs to wait till after 2.2, as then the team will be in a position to make new plans and decide which resources should go where(aside from a EoTH complete ground redesign)