I play full boat on hard. Personally I like the level of activity of the pirates. They are an issue to contend with now and not some token gesture that basically annoys a player. I do however think that the insurgent units should not be labeled pirates.

Moreover I'll all for full development of the pirates as a special faction with a secret base and full diplomatic interactions (without penalties). I would also like to see BM +/- associated with pirate interactions for players and AI alike.

I would also like to see pirates from the races as well when the full game is released. Imagine a pirate fleet of all three races coming in attacking you purely for profit.

I certainly think normal and marauding pirates should have a base or bases, while normal don't really travel much and there ships are quite weak, they need a bit more fire power, and if you don't take out the pirate base / bases they should respawn to go to the area that last cleared out and did colonise, that would make normal pirates better, but the marauding pirates do need to be scaled down, and they should spawn from the base / bases and not some random location / unless hard, but their fleet size should still be manageable, and not able to take out planets too easy or quickly

Really for me the pirates are only annoying early game, If the pirates were to do a focused attack through my early planetary expansion, I wouldn't be able to stop them, as they have better ships than you do, in larger numbers. Luckily they don't tend to do that.

What I think would be great is if the bounty effected the pirate behaviour more than it does now. IE. If a pirate fleet turns up in your system and you have 0 on your head, then you dump 1000 on another guy, they should just turn around and leave, rather than what they seem to do now and stick around harassing your sectors till you kill all of them.

(By the way what is the accepted term for the gravity well around a planet? Sector, system what? I like sector but that's because I play allegiance /shamelessplug)

On my second run through the game the pirates seem to be much less of a problem than the first time. The first game the AI was on easy, second game they are on medium. First game I had the default of 3 other AI's, second game I added one more.

Maybe it is because this time I am not the sole target of the AI's bounties. In my first game I was rarely below 15,000... usually somewhere in the 20k range... but this game I haven't hit 10,000 yet.

I play on the small maps (20 planets? One star). This second game, while they aren't as big a problem as last game they are still far more dangerous than the AI players. Lost several planets to pirates, and only 1 to an AI (and that's only because the pirates blew it up and the AI came in and poached it and cleaned up my remaining orbitals... not sure if that even counts as the AI taking it).

I think actually the problems may not be with the pirates spawned by bounties, but by insurgents. The insurgents were able to overcome a hard AI in my last game, 100 planets, 4 stars, one AI. the insurgents pretty much defeated the AI after I had it on the ropes. I think insurgency needs to be toned down a LOT, it shouldn't be capable of completely defeating the AI. I think that's what's causing the massive pirate fleets some are seeing. I could be wrong, but I think insurgents should be labaled as something other than pirates. They can use pirate ships, but label them something else so we can tell whats doing the damage. In the game I mentioned, pirates were off, so I knew it was insurgents.

@STD - Just think of them as "hanging out" waiting for some fresh meat to come into the system. After all a lot "bad guy" lie in wait for victims to come to them in choice areas.

4 hard AI's with flagships 40 planet single star system (because thats all my poor machine can handle well). Pirates usually start attacking almost immediately, but i can handle the early game attacks. Its when the i have over 5 systems, and 15k in bounty on my head is when things start getting a little rough, and the planet killer fleets start showing up. By that point in time my systems are almost fully fortified, and i can deal with it. I make a b-line to research crisis recovery, and planetary shields. I will suffer numerous pirate attacks long before the 1st ai scout shows up in my systems, and many times my game has ended before i took half the map.

I will rather fight the relentless waves of pirates than waste money trying to out bounty. Some of the best fights i have had in game have come from this. The fortress worlds are not invulnerable, and i have lost a few. One thing the AI doesnt do yet (pirate or otherwise) is take out a planetary shield before it starts bombarding. Its almost as if you arent out to conquer the universe, but to just to survive long enough the be the last man standing from the pirate attacks.

I am in agreement with the general consensus that the pirates become too irritating in the later game. Yes, their ships are pushovers, but their ability to spawn anywhere and their overabundance of planetary bombardment tactics means that you now have to spend good sums on installing extensive defensive installations at nearly EVERY planet.

It isn't that you really fear them, it just becomes aggravating to put up decent numbers of gauss platforms and hangers, and have them not be able to destroy the pirates in time to save the planet.

Maybe the pirates should hit the planet up for cash and then flee instead of decimating it?

Rape and pillage anyone?

well, I played a 100 planet game with pirates and 10 easy AI. I've got to say, one of the more fun games I've played.

my strategy is to whole up every planet with gauss platforms, a repair platform or two and a planetary shield. the battles are always too easy though. I currently have 4/5 fleets running around, trying to cover a sector of 4/5 planets each (I around 20 planets). the pirates can hardly touch me (far from taking any of my planets, they bombed a couple of poorly-guarded rocks to smitherines, but mostly because without auditory cues I wasnt aware of there presence to send my fleet)

my only issue with them is that there is absolutely NO warning when or where they will attack. they either should start a distance out before hyperspacing in from nowhere, or they should only attack high profile targets (never the dead asteroids)

after playing hard mode, I was surprised to find out that they spawn anywhere (I was shocked at first when they somehow "magically" got around my phase inhibitor) but in general I've used the opportunity to master using the empire window to conduct battles from other gravity wells (or to do so without having to click around annoyingly)

but in the end they are still pushovers, I dont see why everyone is complaining about them... and they most certainly do not come in the massive, "50 ship fleets" that people are complaining about, even with massive ammounts of bounty (upwards of 20k)

one thing I've noticed though: the shield generator on its own stops 70% of shots (quadroopling the lifespan of a planet on its own) but together with crisis recovery it can hold off the fire of 4 siege ships without a net loss, and can survive for almost a half hour with anything more... I like, but its too overpowered if the AI isnt going to attack the generator

finally: I have some pirates that have been camping on a dead asteroid for several hours now, they only react if I try to set up some sort of orbital structure, but otherwise they leave the (unshielded, unprotected) planet alone in every way. its irritating because I dont want to bother sending a fleet to go deal with it, but its also kind of a wierd relief... they look as if they are preparing to hyperspace out the way they came, but nothing happens.

LMAO!!! That is a lot of pirates! Good luck holding that off! (Don't worry, pirates are nerfed for the upcoming patch)

LMAO it looks like all the pirate clans reunited to remove your tyranny as well...FREEDOM!

Well, I just finished my third game (the one I mentioned in this thread) and did not have one Pirate attack on myself or any of the AI opponents.

Cheers.