feat(content): Pirate Expansion - CMC's Corner

[Saugia]

Content (Artwork / Missions / Jobs)

Summary

With the introduction of #9597, we continue the parade of expanded upon Pirate content. Introduced in this PR is Lake, otherwise known as @Galaucus's "Core Mining Concern", or "CMC", a small Pirate "Mining Guild" (does not use a separate government as we do not wish to add more, same with CCOR) that operates near Gienah. The new system "Nashira" has been added (known as Gamma Capricorni), with an appropriate star and a nice big mining field. I chose the former name as many stars in ES use their namesake names rather than proper, and it fits the map better this way. It does not have any landable planets.

The staple of this faction is a stolen and very old Mining Barge from earlier in humanity's history found in Nashira. The Sunder references mining ships present in the Sol system in the past, so this can be thought of one of them or a relative of one, as another "older human lore ship" as was the case with the CCOR additions. The ship has no hyperdrive, meaning it cannot be stolen or leave the system. However, what it does have is a small fleet defending it at all times along with its four Mining Drones.

Although present at the start of the game, there are planned future missions for the Edderkopp and crew, which means if at any point the ship is destroyed, those missions will not be doable anymore (or you might find yourself at the wrath of the CMC). They won't be core Pirate Campaign missions, but more of a side mission line.

Thanks to @Quantumshark for help with balance. Expect more Pirate content incoming from Lake as well. :)

To-Do

• A description of some sort.
• Names for the drones and escort fleet.

Save File

Shouldn't need one. Just fly to the new system. Remember to land first to trigger the mission. Recommend using a test save, not your actual one. (I sure hope you do that for testing PRs anyways.)

Artwork Checklist

• I updated the copyright attributions, or decline to claim copyright of any assets produced or modified
• I created a PR to the endless-sky-assets repo with the necessary image, blend, and texture assets: Mining Barge Assets endless-sky-assets#161
• I created a PR to the endless-sky-high-dpi repo with the @2x versions of these art assets: Mining Barge High DPI endless-sky-high-dpi#396

[Azure3141]

Might want to move the position of the new system to line up with the topography on the galaxy sprite a bit better.

[Saugia]

So warp core is interested in what exactly the CMC are, their purpose, relations, and what they bring to expanded Pirate content. Frankly, I should have included it earlier in the process as I was a bit jumpy with this PR so, @Galaucus, could you give a description of the CMC and the above?

[Galaucus]

So warp core is interested in what exactly the CMC are, their purpose, relations, and what they bring to expanded Pirate content. Frankly, I should have included it earlier in the process as I was a bit jumpy with this PR so, @Galaucus, could you give a description of the CMC and the above?

Sure thing, big writeup (very open to change) is here.

General ideas in short:

• The CMC works as a general antagonist group for any given route through the campaign. You'll have a few scenes where you're working alongside them, but it's a temporary alliance/infiltration.
• The CMC is a minor, but fairly established player in the galactic economy, being slightly more monolithic than other pirate-owned planets by virtue of being under a central corporate administration. They are, in effect, a black market corporation which uses slave labor bought from other pirates in order to conduct mining at the cheapest possible price. The mined goods then are sold to intermediary merchants who, in turn, sell them on to legitimate economies in the nearby Syndicate, making their profit on the savings they made buying slave-sourced commodities.
• Generally speaking we can just treat them as another pirate faction. Ideally I would like them to be labeled Pirate as government, but not be hostile to merchants jumping into their main system. They would, however, be territorial about people mining in the Nashira system, which they consider their territory. If technically feasible, a short story where you can purchase limiting mining rights within their territory is something I'd be interested in writing.
• The Edderkopp will, if you follow its mission chain and forge an alliance with the crew, come to reinforce you during the climactic battle of the Pirate campaign, sporting some combat-minded upgrades relative to when you meet it earlier in the story. In the epilogue, the ship and its crew may decide to join your fleet.

[Saugia]

In line with that then, I feel it beneficial to incorporate the CMC like this at the present of the game, rather than wait until the whole story is done, as with the above intentions, it would require a majority, if not, the entire Pirate story be in the game. This doesn't mean that there is no value in having them before that though - if anything, there's more as it's more interactive content.

Having a setting set in a constantly developing game seems fine to me. However, if there's a large enough concern that players who engage in the content prior to it existing can't change their choices, that's a good reason not to include this quite yet. Though, at that point, new saves, snapshots, or save-file editing is an easy work-around. Either way, I don't see harm in including the content now, and I feel like inclusion of new interactable content is better than not.

The only confusing bit for me then would be how to label them. Having friendly Pirates doesn't make sense. We also aren't really going to add specific factions. So the options that remain are:

• Have them show up as "Merchants" and be friendly
  -- If we want the system to have other miners appear, this would be the option.
• Have them show up as "Pirates" and keep them hostile
  -- The system itself doesn't have any merchant fleets, so this shouldn't be problem.

[Quantumshark]

We discussed the stats on stream already, so this is mostly a formality.
But yes, the Mining Barge has suitable stats for an old, very large, human mining ship. Compared to the Bactrian, it's less mobile and less customiseable in exchange for a deeper cargo hold, and has probably a less ideal bay setup in general, but a better one for mining - overall, the Bactrian is definitely the better ship, so the Mining Barge shouldn't cause any balance trouble.

[Quantumshark]

Suggested change

	"mass" 1760
	"drag" 19.1
	"heat dissipation" .36
	"mass" 3670
	"drag" 35.3
	"heat dissipation" .2

Mass rebalance changes