Thanks Ryat. The 'pirate' class of armour just seems eliminate the entire counter system, for no apparent reason...? Carriers have become ineffective against pirates?! Have the pirates got a common attack as well? LRF do the most base damage per ship, so I suppose you can just get the pirates to attack your capitals, if you have no heavies. So the pirates begin to encourage LRF spam as well, the fail continues... All that was required was the pirates as they were, with a few limited and appropriate upgrades and better AI, and the developers have made a mess of it with some crude stat boosts and an even cruder new armour type.
As history, the idea that the New World privateers were a government funded group with big ships and the most guns is extremely inaccurate. Notoriously, the Spanish galleons were the large well-armed ships- the privateers used faster ships, and fought boarding actions when they had to fight, to capture treasure rather than sink it. The ancient Mediteranean pirates were more organised, and the later North African pirates had their own government, but neither were good at technological upgrades, piracy faded considerably when cannon began to be used and almost disappeared with steam. Also, and also notoriously, in the New World the pirates attacked the faction with the largest empire and most money......
However, all pirates attacked trade. None deliberately razed ports, though they might loot them under the exceptional circumstances of a large joint raid. No pirate would ever make a deliberate attack on a military force if it could be avoided, unless it was an isolated vessel. Most New World pirates sailed independently, or with a few much smaller ships.
The pirates never have made any kind of sense in Sins, and it is just due to uninspired game development (the militia are nearly as bad). They cannot move from star to star or through wormholes, yet their ships appear from nowhere? The latest version allows them limitless ships...?? Tech upgrades like advanced alien civilisations? Attacks on starbases?
There is much scope for piracy in Sins, any extended empire starts to depend on trade and with the right approach it would be easy to use the pirates as an anti-trade weapon that could starve empires, though Sins has always been extremely crude in terms of the underlying financial mechanics. How they failed to implement ship capture as a replacement for the 'magic pirate ships' that spawn at the base is beyond me, it could hardly have been worse than this version- just as the consulate system could hardly have been worse than the current points win system, which is as poor as the pirates, but has attracted less notice.
How about the pirates get more ships for a raid dependent on the number of trade ships they destroy, plus any that returned? And upgrades dependent on the number of military labs they takedown? Even better, how about if they also get upgrades if the factions decide to donate them techs! Simple, rational and elegant solutions. If the pirates hadn't got enough ships, you couldn't hire any more. But effective trade raiding takes a lot of micro, so pirates would be a superior solution to your own efforts. I'd expect the pirates to expand drastically in the late game, unless the trading empires could take them out... a situation very unlike this version of the game, where the trade empires have the most money for pirates, so that pirates add to a lopsided strategic situation, rather than counter it.
One man's mercenary thug is another's knight in shining armour, except that the other man probably has much more money....
