we are talking about a group called pirates, thats not entirely their garuntee.

speaking of which, I do have an issue with the name...

thats not what I'm saying. I'm saying they should still be a significant threat, although diminished in comparison to the ai.

they would be no threat in that scenario. the last time the pirates took down anything more than a couple gauss cannons of mine (and they were in significant numbers) was when I gave them absolutely no fleet support. two repair platforms and a few gauss tore them to shreads. that makes this a highly non-viable solution.

In the last couple of games that I played (usually 20-25 planets, with 3-5 AI, all set to hard), the AI has been largely unable to defend itself against the marauder attacks. The result is that the game becomes, me trying to swat all the marauder fleets while slowly conquering AI planets, which are virtually undefended.
While I do like the fact that the marauders are dangerous enough to worry about, there are currently too many of them.

Errr... I have to say, I really don't understand the argument that the pirates don't have an incentive to bomb planets and the like. Isn't a 125k bounty quite enough incentive? They aren't going after the trade ships because they aren't getting their money from the ships themselves, they are getting it through funding from other nations.

That does not explain all the pirates attacking me when I have no bounty at all. Speaking of bounty I hope they fix how the AI handles bounty, I was down to one AI opponent and instead of building up defenses and his fleet he just kept putting bounty's on me over 300K in a few minutes. Did nothing to stop me. HeHe!

Cheers.

They are annoying at times, since they rush through defenses sometimes. But other then that they keep quite most of the game.

In my opinion, the pirates should multiply and increase as the game you play gets longer, and their attacks should not be only controlled by bounty, but by the general wealth of the galaxy(or whatever you want to call it).

In my opinion pirates should have:
1) Some kind of pillaging system in which they can earn credits to build new ships if their fleet espaces
2) Own some of the asteriods in the game
3) Occur much more frequently
4) Attack planets that have the most trader ships which they would be able to pirate

They are pirates, not suicide attackers.

I think that now that culture is working, maybe the pirates should go back to the way they were before the patch. They are not doing much now.

The problem that seems to occur is that the pirates (and insurgents), instead of the AI's are the true opponents. I've had 3 planets taken from me in my game, all from pirates. Of the attacks that have managed to damage my economy, only pirates have sent attacks of that scale.

What if, instead of destroying the colonies, the pirates bombed the planets until they were nearly obliterated (say, 10% or 100hp). Then, the ships would "land" (or move adjacent to the planet), steal some resources and credits, "take off", then exit your system. That way, they damage your economy without destroying you.

But in no way should pirates be more of a threat to your planets than the AI.

Unless of course the AI has one star system and you hold 20. The imbalance of forces means that pirates should definitely be a bigger threat then.

OK, so I'm nitpicking. Sue me.

Ok   

Personally, I fortify all my planets from any kind of assault. I havent had 1 planet fall to the pirates, let alone 3.

Yeah, that or I have a garrison there. I usually build lots of defenses when I know I won't be advancing for awhile and I also build phase jump inhibitors (luckily in my latest game, one planet is blocking all my others from the AI, the picture below)


Obviously the game has progressed since the time I took the screen.

Cool thing is, the volcanic planet had rings! and the gauss cannons were built under them!


I fixed you spelling error TGE.

Now thats starategy, just cant wait the "OMG Choke points shouldnt exist in space" arguement again, it was quite entertaining the first 3 times, then it got dull.

What spelling error?

The missing ' in haven't. I never put in apostrophes in any conjoined word, waste of time.

Cool turrets though. Personally I cant wait till building are placed in 3D making your own rings out of turrets would be sooo much more fun.

One strategy that I use that is working is fortifying choke planets/asteroids. Any asteriod or planet that has 3 or more warp lines going to it I make into a fortress zone. 1 or 2 gauss cannons and 6-8 hangers and a warp inhibitor. 10-12 bombers micromanaged on one at a time pirate targets destroys them in record time.

Seems to work...  

I've stopped using phase inhibitors as in my current game most of the pirates are after the AI players and just passing through.

Yeah, it was the ' in haven't. I like choke points!

Would there be enough slots to build a "ring" of turrets around a planet?

i like the pirates, and I dont mind them being a threat, it fits the TEC background I think, but I've never had them be a threat in the mid to late game, I play on hard with 5-7 opponents.

What I do dislike is that they don't act like pirates, they act like a battle fleet,

Pirates should never engage turrets unless they come in very large force... they should always focus on avoiding fire, while blowing up small fry ships, they shouldn't bomb planets, instead when your trade centers are destroyed 1000-500 credits should appear as a recoverable item, and the pirates should swoop in and take it... the ship that does so could even be marked and you can attempt to blow it up and steal your money back! this assumes that the credits are actually a resource or a commodity not literal money of course.

At any rate, they shouldn't have an interest in destroying millions of people for no profit.

Actually pirates are very violent. And it's not unheard of for them to slaughter people just to take their belongings. And even raiders fall into this category in ancient times there were many cases of roaming bands of thieves/thugs/outlaws who would raid towns and in some cases slaughter everyone in it. Besides warfare defense against raiders was one of the main reasons most cities were built with walls. Raiders are basically land pirates and as such I would assume a lot of the hostile behavior to be similar in space pirates. Besides hitting trade routes, they would attack and pillage poorly defended colonies, and in some cases a powerful leader would arise and amass a truely mass army and go on a major war path.

Pyro, your necromizing habits are really starting to be annoying.

As far as pirates go, I did lose a colony ship to them (fortunately, it managed to launch its colony pods before it was destroyed). Otherwise, I haven't had too much of a problem with them, especially later in the game where my colonization fleet usually consists of an Akkan and either a Kol or a group of smaller ships (big fan of the light carrier, by the way). Of course, since insurgents are currently labled as pirates, I am never quite sure which is attacking. On that note, a friend of mine who also preordered and played the beta claims that a pirate fleet (I believe that it has to be insurgents since I imagine that they are the only ones to have so many ships) managed to take down one of his capital ships, something that I used to laugh at    until I saw WedgeHG's screenshot above!   My opinion is that they may in fact be insurgents. However, until pirates and insurgents are labled seperately, we may not know who they are.

Ooookay, let's review.

Problem: the pirates all act like Osama bin Laden is their Chief Pirate. (Someone 'shop a tricorn hat into that picture, please).


Soloution: Divide "Pirates" into three or four sub-factions.

Pirates: Attack at random, only using beefy Arcovas (late-game, give them Phase Jump Inhibitor Immunity). They go after the person with the least defended trade empire, that is, trade ships and orbital refinery ships - and basically behave as pirates ought to. They prey on the resource lines, but they turn tail and flat-out run when they see real military resistance, as pirates should. They will only fight to the death if they blunder into a system with a phase inhibitor.

Bounty Hunters: They attack solely for the bounty on your head, and come in a good mix of Cobalts, Javelis, and Kodiaks. Will pick off military vessels if they think they can, but again, prey primarily on defenseless trade ships. Will fight to the death if they calculate a chance of victory, but will run from overwhelming odds. (Unless again, if caught in a phase jump inhibitor.)

Insurgents: Their goal is to free worlds from your tyranny, whether or not you're especially tyrannical. As idealists, they're prepared to fight to the death in the hope of inspiring others to take up arms for the cause, and they aim to bombard planets - and then colonize them. Come to the show in Cobalts, Javelis, Kodiak and Perichan, and the bombardment frigate whose name escapes me at the moment, as well as colonizers.

Terrorists: Death and destruction is their only (tangible) goal. Enormous fleets of cobalts and bombardment frigates, with the only goal being to scour as much of your civilization from the map as possible before they die.


Now, I should note that I believe these should not spawn from the ether, certainly not in numbers that make me say "I have to capture their infrastructure, it's better than mine!" Pirates need a place to spend their plunder, bounty hunters need something to do with thier winnings, terrorists and insurgents need somewhere to train.

So, somewhere out there, should be a "Pirate Cove", "Rogue Headhunter's Headquarters", "Insurency Breeding Grounds" and "Terrorist Training Camp". All attacks of the stated type should originate from these locations, and destroying the location should remove their threat - at least until a new one is built. At no point should these ever be built in a system that can be seen by a player, so as the empires expand and conquer, the threats posed by pirates, bounty hunters, revoloutionaries and terrorists should be lessened. But of course, where would we be without them?


That's where the other empires come in. They can build their own versions:

Privateer's Cove, Bounty Hunter's Guild, Revoloutionary Support Center, and... Well, maybe we don't want players enabling terrorists, so I'll let someone else come up with what to call these things.


The neat thing about spawning these is that they're basically fire-and-forget weapons against the other players. You've spent a lot (and I do mean a lot; talking numbers like 10K credits, 4K metals and 2K Crystals) of resources to set these places up, and from there it's pure profit. Pirates and Bounty Hunters will (grudingly) return a portion of the booty they earn to you as taxes, and if the Revoloutionaries succeed, the planet becomes yours!

Of course, it's not all good: they will present a huge drain on the system holding them, maybe even reducing it's output by up to 85%. (And of course, they can't be built around dead asteroids.) And scuttling the base? Oh ho, you know what the differene between a privateer and a pirate is, don't you?

That's right. A letter of marque, which you have just revoked. Get ready for the pain, bubba.

if your going to revoke then you better have a fleet there to back it up

That... sounds like a very nice system. Thing is, the insurgents are already controlled by the insurgency tech, and they get their ships from the enemy empire's trade lanes (their trade ships "transform" into warships...).

each faction should have their own flag and or color.

ie pirates and privateers may fly the skull and cross bones. but you would want to know which privateers are yours.

Only the "owner" of the privateers should know that they're hers, otherwise it kind of, and by kind of I mean "completely", defeats the purpose of building the privateer's cove in the first place.

I don't think pirates should pose a big problem to a big empire unless there is a huge reward on its head. And even than it would be nice if the pirate threath isn't constantly superhigh. It must be tiresome.

The real threath should be other AIs with their empires!