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Ω Merchant Raiders Experimental - Expansion for SirCampalots Extended Tech Tree Mod.

This is an experimental version of Merchant Raiders + its addon + bonus beta stuff specifically made to be compatible with 3rd party factions.

Rest of the original text below:



Merchant raiders use captured civilian ships (which they usually slap extra weapons onto) to raid nearby trade routes to loot money, resources and more ships for them to convert. They will often use older ships and equipment (deemed obsolete by the main factions) which they upgraded or modified with whatever weapons they happen to have on hand as they lack dedicated ship yards and technological knowhow to build military grade ships. They will usually avoid direct conflict with any of the established factions as they know they are not strong enough to defeat them head on. So they stay on the sideline, praying on (barely armed) unsuspecting civilian ships.

Usually pirated ships are repainted to resemble the main faction military units so they look more intimidating to the civilian ships they attack, but also to impress their fellow pirates and stray cosmoteers. More than once, their paint scheme may not yet be quite like the real thing (they are pirates after all and not professional ship painting artists).



They operate from a base located somewhere outside the main asteroid belt. Once its location has been discovered, it will be marked by a pirate icon (a skull with 2 bones) until you get a visual on it. Once you close in on it, you will probably be attacked by merchant raiders on guard duty, as well as a whole range of possible assortments from small fighters to outright entire secondary bases protecting a huge armed pirate citadel.

In the starter system the main merchant raider base is usually a large disabled transport ship (level 1), guarded by a couple of the merchant raiders and some fighters (and maybe a recently captured ship that hasn't gone through merchant raider conversion yet). As you move up in difficulty, the base + its guards will also get more and more difficult to defeat. Soon after the starter system the main base will be a modified trade station which will grow larger and more powerful the higher the difficulty level of the local star system is. The station guards will also become stronger and more numerous. Eventually the main base will be guarded by defense points and even by smaller defense stations, so watch out what you're about to run into.

In the higher tier star systems you may encounter pirate flagships. These largest of pirate ships are their attempt at 'building' the largest ships in their merchant raider fleets by welding multiple ships together and equipping them with weapons more powerful than what they would usually mount. These ships are build to serve as mobile HQ and as objects of prestige to impress fellow merchant raiders to show them they are the boss. Flagships are quite uncommon (not every high tier base will have one) and will typically be located near their main base. They will tend to store a good amount of precious on their flagships because none of the pirates will dare to take on a pirate flagship.



The regular trade stations will provide you with the missions to locate and destroy these merchant raiders. The reward for killing the main station will also be significant because of all the extra targets you'll have to kill.

Keep in mind that these are usually former transport vessels and killing one will usually also reward you with more building materials than what a military ship would usually carry. Keep in mind that they may be civilian ships with some extra weapons slapped onto their hull (which is the case more than once), but some may still pack quite the punch.



I made this mod with the main purpose to add some extra flavor and diversity to the base game and to make all star systems less empty outside of the main asteroid belt. I've always wanted to battle the existing civilian ships and stations, but without loosing out on my reputaion and recruiting and trade options. With this mod, I can attack them to my hearts content and be rewarded for it. And many of the civilian ships look really good and I just wanted a way to fight them in a more uhm...legal way :).

Many of the ships (and some of the stations) used in this mod are based on older designs of existing ships that are no longer available in the game. Some of the ships in this mod I designed myself.



This mod features ships and stations using weapons from Extended Tech Tree Mod. This mod will not work properly without it. You can get Extended Tech Tree Mod here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946411143. I considered creating a version that uses only defaul ship parts, but this would mean some designs wouldn't work as well as they do now and some ships would simply not be possible (like for instance all the fighters).

This mod is primarily meant to make career mode more diverse and to give a little bit more to do, it won't necessarily make career mode harder, except that there will be more ships to kill (and more ships that want to kill you). The ships added by this mod are generally speaking larger and somewhat weaker than their military grade counterparts and will feature all kinds of weapons. Some will even try to attack you with mining lasers! If you want stronger enemy ships, there are other mod for this. I wanted the outside to still be relatively safe (except for the pirate station but that's just a single base), but not completely empty.

However, I decided to not fill in a much larger area of the star systems, as that would requir further modding and may negatively affect performance (and I can always expand the area later if the demand is there, so please just let me know in the comments :) ).



This mod is compatible with all mods listed in the Extended Tech Tree Mod collection https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2946607362 and my other mods.





Legal stuff: I do not give permission to anyone to reupload or modify my mods without asking for permission from me first.