I want to be able to put bounty on myself

If you put bounty on an enemy that's near you, chances are they will raise the bounty on you.  It's a good way to get around not getting to put it on yourself.

I think that this relfects a larger problem with the pirate system. Namely: at present I find it fades quickly to irrelevancy following the initial phazes of the game. I doubt you would be wishing pirates on yourself in the early stages where it is tough enough fending off the incursions of a competitve AI (that is to say, an unfair AI) -- but from about the 30 minute mark onwards I find myself in the same boat: not only not caring who gets assaulted by the pirates, but hoping that I find them at my door.

This problem can be easily addressed with two fixes that would make 'active' pirates a lot more interesting:

1. I don't know when the change was implemented, but I do know that in one of the patches (or was this an entrenchment change?) the connection between the amount of money spent on pirates and their severity was either toned severely or totally nullified. I do know that I used to very much notice a direct link between cash spent on bounty and pirate severity, while it presently seems not to be connected at all -- and no matter how much money is spent in the early stages it is either low/guarded; in the later stages it is either high or severe.. even if nothing has been spent. Not only does this system not make sense, it makes one of the most interesting (potentially, formally....) features of the game almost totally useless.
2. Beyond the spending problem, the pirates also have become less relevent for other reasons, particularly in Entrenchment. While this does make some sense -- it is called Entrenchment after all, and one would think that would have some affect on the pirates -- for the most part I find myself asking how it could be that while all these factions are adapting and generating new technologies, the pirates seem capable only of stasis. A few fixes come to my mind that I would love to hear feedback on - I recognize that basically only number one can be addressed in entrenchment, all others would be perfect fits for next expansion. 

I. Give the pirates, particularly at later levels, more 'UMPH!' "Severe" should mean "Severe" -- not a pleasant, experience-rewarding, and non-threatening cake-walk. To accomplish this, the afforementioned connection between bounty spent and pirate fleets dispatched should be direct and apparent. Maybe in the pirate window somewhere, there could be shown the fleet that is bound to be dispatched, and that way people can see both what they are (or are not) paying for and also make the pirates seem more threatening, even if only psychologically. This system would make pirates more fun, threatening, and relevant, as people would feel more pressured to bid, and with a more direct to expenditures and force, give them more reason to. (also, a 'final count-down' timer would be nice -- I can't imagine I am the only one that HATES the lucky last-second bidding.. this would also encourage people to bid to higher-margins of seperation from their rival bidders..)

II. Second, and perhaps more important for Entrenchment: give the pirates some torp-cruisers in the higher levels of severity. maybe even just 1 at low and two more for each of the subsequent levels (or 1 for every 500 spent, if the above income-tieing system were implemented). This would seem a logical change, for after all, why are the pirates performing these suicide-runs against SB's without any apparent desire to adapt?

III. This is my final, but I think maybe most exciting idea -- and surely only suited to one of the expansions. A new (or maybe 2-3 new) pirate-exclusive unit(s) that would possess abilities, both passive and active, that would make them both more threatening and more 'pirate-like'. At present, the only unique behavior they demonstrate (outside of the suicide-assaults) that seperates them from normal AI is their pursuit of trade/refinery ships. This is a nice touch, but a little slight. One unit (an engineering/boarding ship?) could dock with tactical structures to take them over (say, after 1 minute of 'boarding raid' or so); if anyone knows the old game (that I thought was excellent and I see a lot of in Sins), Star Trek Armada, this would be similar to the federation's "Iwo Jima" class starship. Another unit could similiarly attempt to land on the planet's surface to spread discord among the populace - slowly lowering cultural alliegance and maybe even killing off population slowly over time -- BETTER FIGHT THEM PIRATES OFF QUICK!; another varient on this unit's theme would be a stationary 'broadcast ship', whose heavily-armoured (but weaponless) presence would slowly degrade planetary alliegance/steal income. FINALLY, a pirate-specific capital ship would be awesome, and perhaps one of the most fascinating steps forward toward rehabilitating the use of the word 'Severe' in the context of pirates. Somehow (telekinetic pirate tech?), the experience gained by the pirate cap ship is returned to its next reincarnation in the next wave, allowing it to get better over time. I can think of all kinds of pirate-specific techs that would be neat to see used against me or my enemies: an embargo-like attribute seems to make sense for it, some kind of pirate-repair cloud would also help the poor suckers out (whose lack of defensive repair techs is a large part of their suckiness in the late game).

I know I have suggested a lot. But this is something I am really interested in having re-vamped, and I think fits perfectly into the diplomacy expansion. Making relevant the pirates as a neutral faction certainly adds a lot of nuance and interesting complexity to the game's structure, and seeing them play a much bigger, more complex, and evolving role would be phenomenal. Make the pirates more complex, and every game will become more difficult (something I know a lot of people are hankering for who find the Unfair slightly less challenging than the name suggests) and enjoyable. Hell, maybe they should even be able to build new, more sophisticated bases on the ashes of successfully assaulted worlds.

Anyways, lots of suggestions -- now I am looking forward to everyone's input! THERE BE TREASURE IN THEM IDEAS, MAITTIES!

Hear hear! I greatly agree with what has been said. Except for the pirate xp rolling over to the next cap ship. That's a bit silly. But a definite yes for scaling them into late game scariness.

And obligatory...

The beatings will continue until morale improves!

I agree, especially about the final countdown timer. It's extremely irritating to be outbid my somebody you know you could outbid just because of luck.

I would be all for a pirate-specific cap ship with unique and nasty abilities.  I'd also like to see a pirate ship with a boarding ability that would effectively mimic the Rapture's Dominance ability, allowing a fleet to regrow itself if not given strong enough resistance.  Ah, well - as it stands the pirates aren't bad, but I wish they were

I agree, your ideas are great. I really like the torpedo cruisers for pirates (I was thinking the EXACT same thing today when I saw an entire SEVERE Pirate assault on my fully upgraded starbase, it wasn't even fun to watch, I actually took pitty for those pirates going to their doom), a pirate capital ship would make them a real threat again. Finally, and I think this is your best idea; new types of pirate ships with special abilities (or maybe just give the Pirate Capital Ship  something similar to embargo to steal credit and stop cargo ships from leaving the system; passive ability???).

Actually, I really like the idea that the Pirate Capital ship XP would be transfered to the next one (the leader escapes in a pod?), they could become very powerfull even at the end of the game). Well, like gotyaoi said, let the beating continu!!!

Thanks all for positive feedback..certainly nice to know that the community is responsive to new ideas and that I am not alone in my present frustration with the underwhelming pirates. One thing that i am uncertain of is my own suggestion of pirates starting a new base at defeated colonies.. this idea could be fleshed out more I think, and if it became slightly more 'developed', it could lead to some really neat scenarios in-game. Any creative ideas?

Perhaps you could tie in such an idea with the late game "rebels are causing trouble near one of your planets" thing. If those were related to the pirates...

And my resistance to the rolling over of cap-ship xp is that it makes them more like a faction and less like a mechanic. I assumed that they have other illicit activities besides spending all their time attacking us. Thus, the game time and credit spent scaling would afect their caps too. It doesn't come from combat. Like their fleets, it just appears from nowhere.

Your suggestion is very refreshing, kudos to you my friend, innovation is key!. Pirates always have TEC ships (has it should be), so keeping that in mind, here is an idea for a Pirate Capital Ship; imagine an AKKAN "pirated" with the following abilities:

1. Colonize/TEC (giving pirates the abiliy to create colonies; they could build gauss cannons to defend their new planets)

2. Embargo/TEC (giving them the ability to steal credits/stop fleeing cargo/trade ships)

3. Assault Specialization/Vasari (passive, giving their capital ship a boost when attacking starbases/planets)

4. Domination/Advent (ultimate, like Star Dragon said, this would give the pirates the ability to continu growing their forces in that gravity well)

I almost forgot, Pirate Fighters & Bombers anyone, maybe a Percheron Carrier Cruiser with that Ogrov Torpedo Cruiser please?

Well, my conception of them has always been of a mechanic, something outside the game. The only way you could affect them were: 1. Bribery to the great pirate in the sky 2. Attacking the pirate base.

This is especially brought home for me if you're able to see them warp in their attack fleets. If you have a planet next to their base, and second order jump detection, you can see the fleet arrive. It just jumps into the pirate system, at the same speed as a star to star jump.

A faction has fleets, planets, goals. The pirate base simply organizes the ambient pirate forces that naturally permeate the galaxy doing various illicit things. With more bounty comes the ability to organize more pirates. Also, as the game(war) goes on, government is less and less able to regulate the pirates, thus more and more powerful ships appear.

I understand the concept of the pirate leader, but it doesn't feel like there should be such a thing.

To clarify the other point: I didn't mean any colony. Just the former pirate base. As it stands now, you upgrade the place and leave it alone. It would be interesting, I think, to have the pirates try to take back their old base. They would do this, not for conquest, but because it was a sweet place, with all they needed. I hope that makes more sense.

Yarr! Power to the pirates!  

I'd love to see them become something more in later games. I'm new to the game and at first I was desperate to pay them to fight the AI. But later on they became easily ignorable. Changing the AI difficulty doesn't seem to make them any better either.  

If no one bids, How about they attack the cheapest player in the game, Making it a real reason to pay for them to attack.

That would solve the problem for people who want to be attacked by them, and a reason to pay if you dont.

On that note, Rebels are a joke, worse then the pirates in late game, They get no torpedo curisers or colonyships, They should be able to expand if they are sucessful in destoryering a place and only takes a few fighters to kill off.

Every 3000 Credits spent on bounty should give the Pirates a Capital ship.  Already got an Idea.  Most of the Pirate vessels are just modded and stripped (Usually of shields, dumbass pirates) TEC frigates and Cruisers.  Considering that aside from the KOL the TEC got most of their military fleet from canibalizing Merchant ships it's reasonable to think the Pirates could have commandeered something other than a Kol or Sova, why not give the Pirates a Capital ship like a modded Dunov or Akkan. already got a name for ya.

[Pirate Man Of War].  Modded Dunov Battlecruiser.  Replaces Shield Restore and Magnetize with moar gunz.  Or maybe even give it different abilities.   Replace shields with crazy high Shield points.  Stick a few autocannons on it and boom, pirates are a threat for 15more minutes.

I agree with much that has been said, in particular normal's post was quite a fine one.

how about every pirate ship gets a severly dumbed down version of the embargo ability? sth like 1-2% income stolen? that would make it scale with the size of pirate fleets, make sense to them (and would strengthen their future attacks) and hurt you even more if it's a rich resource generating planet.

and yes, stronger pirate fleets later on in the game.

yes to pirates with torpedo frigs and maybe carriers.

potentially yes to pirate capship.

i agree up to a point, i think pirates need alot of love and much can be done with them to really inhance the gaming experience however they shouldnt be a super power e.g having worlds and stuff thats not in a pirate nature, however im for buffing things like neutral teams making them stronger later in the game taking worlds etc.

IC has already said that pirates are going to get some love in the second expansion

well, there is two issues I'd say. making the pirates more powerful towards the end and/ or more scaling to bounty amount is more of a balance thing that does not necessarily need an addon and that - at least as I would imagine - would not take that much effort. change a few values in increments, modify files what can appear when. that could be done in vanilla sins too, if the devs were convinced such change was needed.

but deeper functionalities would of course go more in the direction of addon. dunno how much effort modifying torpedo cruisers to look like a pirate ship would be. but there were many other ideas and in any case, I heard talk of a general overhaul, so I trust it will be worth it and deserve a place in a 2nd pack.

Since I think the best pirate fleet would be unique and not simply 'refurbished' Tec units .. maybe the pirates could have a mixed torp cruiser/fighter-carrier unit (with HP somewhere between the two... as we surely don't want them as weak as torp cruisers or as strong as carriers). I definitely agree with this idea (at least, for the later-lvl/higher-bounty) pirates.

Arrrr me maity!! them be sweet digs!!

Well I am certainly glad to see all the positive response.. and the heads-up from Annatar that IC has got this on the development map moving forward.. but, I am left wondering two things after all this collective thought: does IC put much stock in our creative opinions regarding the game, or is it mostly a 'I have this bug, here is my minidump' kinda forum. Also, do they read these kind of posts, or is this just a bunch of blathering between interested players that will go unseen by the developers?

Don't get me wrong now, I have only been really impressed so far with IC's work as of yet, and as they are fellow Canucks I can't really hate too much -- more just curious. I suppose I am ultimately just baiting them for a response to this threat and these ideas .

How closely have you been following the development of Entrenchment during the beta? Pretty much all of the changes from beta 1 and on were in direct response to people's thoughts and posts. So yes, they do. But at the same time, they probably have their own idea already in the works for pirates so while they may pull out a thing or two here and there from early discussion, I'd expect most of the feedback churning to come during the beta for the second expansion.

And yes, they do read these. They just don't always respond

I am admittedly unfamiliar with the modding process for Sins, but can the pirate ships be modded like the regular stock ships?

Yep. The ships can, the behavior can't.

Well, at least they can be made a bit more deadly.  Hmm ... it's been a little while since I worked on modding anything.  Maybe I could have some fun with that.