The whole point of the pirates is to act as a nuisance. They are supposed to harass you. Not destroy you.

The pirates were pretty evil in beta 1, because your bounty determined the size of the pirate fleet. They got nerfed because of that.

I build 1-2 trade posts per planet. They aren't even a bother, planet defenses can easily deal with them. Even late game they don't effect gameplay at all. They are simply there, and not a harassment at all, at best they can harass one their first two attacks to unprotected systems. Otherwise they usually all die before they even get to where they are going.

Course I guess given that by late game my culture has usually taken the pirates over maybe I just don't notice. In that case, maybe place their system farther away from the sun, like instead of 1 jump, make it like 3 or something. With astroid belts before hand.

Nothing wrong with pirates early game, size wise anyway. They really are free experience, but that's only so with the correct circumstances.

They do however amount to nothing later on. If I defend against them after I've got stuff set up, it's because I have a capship to level. A 200 point fleet two hours into the game might be a little much, but I'd aim for there.

That said, pirates aren't entirely free experience. If you have a spy in the star gravity well, you can track them, find out which planet they are hitting, and tag one on the opposite side shortly after to catch them away, or follow them in a little behind and catch the enemy fleet between them and you. I wiped out some of a heavily fortified planets infrastructure and caused significant damage by sending a lone sova in behind a pirate fleet once. The pirates took all the hits and I got all the credit for wiping out the enemy bombers and killing the reinforcements. The pirates themselves could have been ignored or used for xp, but with a high level sova playing havoc on your defenders you have a more pressing concern.

I had a funny thing happening. our more or less defeated enemy put massive bounty on me and sure enough soon they came. but then their fleet went straight for the trade ports and largely ignored my three capships and missile platforms taking them apart in the meantime. maybe its an error (sry, I don't think I have a replay, but I may a savegame, wherewhith a replay can be created) but while it is good they go for trade station, that should not get such a high priority to get them killed while they could have won the battle.

Yes, say if Ron Lugge pisses me off i post a bounty on him. Then piggy back behind the pirates

I would not want them to be stronger. At this stage I feel they are just right.

However I know some people like more pirates. May be we can have an option of how man pirates we can have? Like in Civ games you can regulate the amount of barbarians in game setup.

An option is biggest thing I am asking. They are also the closest thing to a random event. A large factor in 4X games. There was no better way to shake the game up than have some crazy event happen. Rebels taking up arms, a sun exploding, ancient alien warship found, etc, etc... I don't expect a whole slew of random events, but it'd be nice to be able to use the pirates to that kinda degree.

The pirates used to raid until everything was destroyed and then leave didnt they? It was viable to just take your licks and then rebuild.

I think they just sit there forever now if they win. Not too big a deal, but its something to watch for.

except in my last game which was a single star and opponent. the pirates were a bigger threat than the other empire was. specially after that empire lost his flag.

Just start a political discussion if you want a raging angry psycho.