Smythez

One thing touched upon is building a fleet that has the capability to sustain itself in the battle. Only experimenting with TEC at the mo but: If you can afford it build a Kol and then as your second Cap, a Dunov. The Dunov will sustain your Kol in battle by recharging your shields. Another extremely important support class is the Hoshi's the Robot Repair Cruisers. These fellows special ability is to help rebuild hulls in combat - again another thing to sustain your Caps in co

Finding such a big pirate fleet is a bit of a shocker! On my first map we managed to get the pirates on the AI after the start of the game so I have no idea how well they were defending agasint them and how many pirate ships were being destroyed. Either way the Pirate Base was on the interconnecting asteroid loc that divided our two little space empires up. When I ventured to pass through it to start hostilities there were certainly 100+ pirate ships that massacred my first und

I'd suggest both. Youre very right that Hangars provide a proactive defence that effectively will endevour to hunt him down wherever. Defensive platforms though may force him to undertake a siege. A planet hit by a big force won't last long, but guns may give a smaller fleet something to think about. Certainly, deploy guns together, and overlapping aroudn your rocks and structures because that is what an enemy is goign to want to hit.