Shandrakor

Hmm I'm aware that if the pirate's are not all killed they will return to there base so the base has a larger amount of them. However, at my point in the current game the bounty is around 30,000 credits, while as my teammate and I have about 3/4 of the map so can afford it may cause a problem. Do the pirates get more powerful the more money they make? It there a cap on the amount / type of ships they have? (most I've seen is about 260)

Speaking of retreating I ran into a odd situation awhile back. I was wrapping up a single player game to the point where I had the computer stuck behind a single choke point with 3/4 of the map mine. I saved the game here and after wining I reloaded the game and switched players so I was controlling the planets the computer had. Basically I wanted to fight against my own empire and try to find any weak points that I could then fix. After building up a good fleet that