Pirate Behavior

I don't know what causes the pirates to pick their "default" target in the case of no bounty being placed.  It's not 100% consistant, but I also find they tend to repeat their attacks against a specific target, so in the same breath it doesn't seem random.  Honestly I don't know what to make of their default behavior.

There is no monetary reward for killing pirate ships.  If you capture the pirate base and colonize it you will receive 3.5 credits per second for doing so (tax income, so it's affected by loyalty).

I am pretty sure it isn't the first person, but the last person with bounty. If all the bounty is gone, they continue to go for the same mark over and over. I have had pirates attack the AI non stop for the game because no one was doing bounty. I may be wrong though (I dont think I am).

why is it that everything seems troublesome to this guy. this is what the third post hes made to complain about something in game? All of which has been mentioned before in other threads he could have just commented in instead of creating a new one.

Admittedly the pirate behavior is regarded as a problem.  There's a reason why everyone plays with pirates off in multiplayer.

Oh well Allegiance, at least it gives me something to do while I am counting down to quitting time.

Forgive me if I seem like I'm complaining allegiance, I don't mean for it to come out that way.  I'm just new and trying to discover and understand the game.  I actually love the game if I didn't like it I wouldn't waste my time figuring it out.  I'll try to sound less "negative" from now on.

Im not trying to put you down, admittedly the game has alot of quirks, but the forums have alot to offer as far as answers to alot of your questions people like Darvin, Amish, and others have accumilated dozens of guides and fact threads that are chocked full of information. That actually explain alot of the things your asking about. Even answer questions youll have before you ask them. not all of them are on the front page sometimes you have to scan two or three pages to get to them. but their there.

i think the defualt targets are random but it will always start with the first player in list. pirates once attacked me twice with no bounty.

Yeah, the pirates can switch targets without anyone placing bounty, they can also attack the same player multiple times in a row. But hey, if you lose a game because you can't handle an extra pirate raid or two, you either need to get entrenchment or practice a lot more at this game.

I'm not saying that the pirates are impossible to handle, only that there's really no benefit to being attacked by them, other than possibly having a capital ship in the area that could get a level or two from it.  I usually always have my forces on the frontline though, and I don't have the time or resources to devote to defending against a frustrating pirate raid (which nobody even paid for) which isn't going to benefit me at all.

It isn't a question of whether I can handle it or not, it's a game mechanic which should obviously be random if no bets are made, but which confusingly picks the same target again and again for reasons that nobody can really explain.

In my opinion, killing Pirate ships should give you a small cash bonus for killing them (not much but something) making the player think twice about sending them if the player they are facing has a good defense set up, or to give an unlucky player some kind of consulation for getting shafted all game.

theres two reasons for the pirates, lvl up Caps and harrass the enemy or atleast try to harrass. Sometimes the pirates harrass who they want to harrass. As for money, you should be getting plenty of money through other ways in the game, be it tax, trade, selling resources, embargo and theres a few other ways aswell.

Pirate attacks are either a benefit to you, or an annoyance. Thats their purpose.

It is random, but its random enough that it might attack you ten times, and then out of left field attack your enemy. Thats just how it works, after the 3rd attack the Pirates are nothing more then a mosquito bite. I wouldnt even stop to pay attention where they are if I know that they are in the area.

Typically, when all players have the same amount of bounty against them (usually its 0, like at the start), the pirates just choose a random target (I'm fairly sure if you kept a tally of how many times you were targeted first, you would find its near the expected probability of you being selected first - so if you started 100 games with 10 players, odds are that you would be the first target around 10 of those times). Sins isn't exempt from the sacred laws of statistics (unless someone proves the system is not random).

However, if two players have the same amount of bounty against them, the Pirates go after the person who was first to reach that bounty level, i.e. if player A got 1k bounty put against them (and made them the highest), then player B soon got 1k bounty put against them, the Pirates would target A when they launch their raid. If both players still have the same bounty against them when deciding the next target (which is immediately after the countdown timer resets), its random.

Hmm okay, I'll start keeping track of who it targets.  I highly suspect that it may be like 52500 said, that the last person with the bounty gets targetted again and again until someone else is finally given the bounty, after which that person will become the new target, until something is done.  Hopefully we can reach some sort of meaningful conclusion.

if pirates give u headache just thank them by visiting their base wit ur main fleet

Oh, the pirate base is wonderful for levelling your caps.

yeah not to mention whacking a pirate base adds up to minimum 300k hull dmg in post game statistics