How-to attack pirates?

[henk]

I've just finnished my first game of Endless Space. How-ever when the pirates started spawning I couldn't attack them when they were ambushing my trade-routes.

They're hovering around my planets, but I cannot attack them with my ships(I saw a button pop-up before, but it doesn't anymore).

Is it possible to attack the Pirates on command, or do I have to wait till the raiding is over and they'll attack my planet?

[Dorok]

The pirates move so first you need reach a pirate fleet in a system and then it should trigger the fight. If it doesn't, try select your ship, and in buttons in bottom left the most-left button allows start a battle if there's a fleet you can attack in the system (pirate, faction in cold war, faction in war).

[¦ö¦ ƒ ì г e ¦ö¦]

Move your fleet(s) to a SS where the pirates will be heading towards, and enable the feature that defends the SS and automatically attacks all fleets leaving it.

Also make sure it's not already opened up on the bottom right, since sometimes you might have minimized the fight.

[Wyile E. Coyote]

As previously mentioned and herein expanded upon, system defense from Pirates and their ilk comes in two way. First, space fleets orbiting a system intercept all enemy spacecraft heading towards said system and force a battle before the pirates can blockade or try to seize the system directly.

However, they will not do this automatically.

Click upon the fleet orbitting the system you wish to protectct. One of the options will look something like a shield in front of a planet. This is the "Defend System" order button. When active, it will set the fleet, (or fleets depending on what you selected) to activly defend the star sytem from al invaders, including Pirates.

Please note, ships set to defend space around star systems are engaged in a full time pursuit. I am fairly sure they will either take much longer to rebuild damage or won't repair damage at all.

Further, I am fairly sure you can't upgrade a fleet that is set to defend the space around a star system, so be aware of these limitations.

The second way a star system defends itself is by having a well armed population. Basically, if the ailens meet an armed person at every door, it's going to take a lot longer to pacify a star system. There are real advantages to making sure your hero is involved in "Civil Defense" and that your people are armed with the latest and greatest hand weapons available, so don't ignore those sections of the tech tree. Many times I have seen a planet hold off an invader long enough for me to either move a fleet to defend the system or even build one.

Sorry for "Home Defense 101" there, but I am trying to give you a full understanding of how defense in space and defense on the ground both work together.

Fell free to ask anything by the way, I have only been playing three weeks myself and still don't know as much as some.

Wyile E. Coyote

[Dorok]

I checked to be sure so a fleet guarding a system can be upgraded.

When you guard a system you don't automatically attack an enemy fleet that arrive in the system. But it will if that fleet try leave this system. So if you want force attack once the enemy fleet arrived in the system you need select your fleet in this system and then click the fight button.

Guarding is still useful to make a blocking point and be sure the enemy fleet don't just past through the system to reach another.

Pirate can invade a system? I didn't knew that. An enemy ship in a system will (or can I don't remember) make a block of your system this will disable the special resources of the system during the block (white and purple stuff). Also it involves penalties to this system. But also I'm not sure if pirates can block, I don't remember that.

EDIT: And the ground defense of a system will depend a lot of the population size, and most builds increasing ground defense won't use much for a small system. And even without much defense build a system with a significant population size can resist some time. I don't mean it's not a good choice to build ground defense, just that there's no need to panic if a system is starting to be attacked even without ground defenses.

[¦ö¦ ƒ ì г e ¦ö¦]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Dorok:

Pirate can invade a system? I didn't knew that. An enemy ship in a system will (or can I don't remember) make a block of your system this will disable the special resources of the system during the block (white and purple stuff). Also it involves penalties to this system. But also I'm not sure if pirates can block, I don't remember that.

Yep, pirates can certainly choose to invade SSes and take them over. When they successfully do, the colour of the SS turns black.

[henk]

Thanks guys :-) A lot clearer now.

[Wyile E. Coyote]

Thanks for the clairifications on that. Indeed I am wrong about some sort of automatic prevention of a Pirate fleet if you set your fleet up in a defensive posture. I think I sort of got that idea from the fact that every time I set a fleet to prevent enemies from leaving the star system, the Pirates ended up attacking. Apparently they see the fleet, figure they are no match and try to high tail it out of there- resulting in a conflict.

As to the upgrade fleet option involving a fleet that is activly preventing ships from leaving the star system, thanks for clarifying that. I should mention though that once you upgrade a fleet, it does loose all movement points, so make sure and upgrade with that in mind. If the fleet absolutely-positivly has to get there overnight, don't upgrade it until after it moves.

And one other thing, you can only upgrade fleets at full colonies,not at outposts. Someone needs to confirm that but I am almost 100% sure that is true.

As to population and ground defense, size does matter. In some games, there seems to be quite a bit of invading going on while in others, there is quite little. So invasions and thier prevention don't really matter all that much. Other games, it seems like star systems are constantly in contention, both in the skies and on the ground.

If you find you need a couple of more turns to scrape a fleet together and save a star system, I highly recomend buying or building the defensive structer of your choice. I have litterally been down to 2 turns until take over, built a defensive system, and gained another 5 turns- long enough for a fleet to assemble and challenge the invader. Lastly, I have done things like channel reserach into the hand held Gaus Rifles, making my "Ground Hogs" fight better. That too has bought me a sizeable amount of time as well.

Even if you know you will loose the system, it is worth the resources to prolong the battle as long as possible. First, if the enemy is engaged in fighting on these planets, they can't be out isolating your systems from trade. That's a very good thing. Pinning your enemy down and causing him to loose his mobiliy is the beginning of the end for his fleet. And too, the longer it takes him to pacify a system, the longer the next colony in his sights remains in your hands. Further any damage you do to his fleet with successive attacks by yours, takes him longer and longer to repair. You have friendly colonies and ship yards to make repairs in- he does not. His supply lines are longer then, in that sense at least. Until he retains one of your colonies as a base of operations, fleet engagements will have this negative effect upon him.

One must remember that you are in overall command here. You don't plan out the battles and lead them, nor should you. This is best left to generals who spend entire lifetimes reseraching how to fight. As Emperor\President\Leader, your choices make a huge diffrence though. This was something most recently proved in the Vietnam war. In that war, you had President Johnson sending "signals" to the enemy by picking all the targets himself. He was litterally playing general, instead of saying to the generals, "Here is what I want to do. What will it take to do it?" The North Vietnamese sat back and pretty much laughed at Johnson and kept right on doing what they do.

Then came Richard Nixon and his promise to get America out of there- honorably.

That meant some sort of cease fire, which the enemy did not want becuase America was in turmoil over the length of what should have been a simple war. In order to bring the North to the negotiang table, Nixon authorized the generals to do whatever it takes to make life so unberable for the enemy that peace looks like a good idea.

Thus was born Operation Linebacker.

In a nutshell, if it was of use to the enemy or if it moved, it was a legitimate target. The generals figured on using America's overwhelming air superiority to prevent even the most basic form of commuincation and resupply. So even ox drawn carts bringing hay in from the fields were legitimate targets. Of course trains bringing in food from the North's allies were targets as well. It did not take too long for things to become so unberable that the North accepted Nixon's"Peace with Honor" proposals.

My point to this drawn out historical moment is to show that the design team is indeed on the ball and realizes that as the leader of an empire, you simply can't tell spaceships how many lasers to fire at a specifc opponent. That's for Generals and Fleet Officers to decide. I do like this and I like the fact that I can at least influence battles with my cards. I find that when things are evenly matched, the cards realy do make the diffrence! Kudos to the desgin team for making the game true to life, as most recently represented by America's struggle in Vietnam.

Lastly, if Pirates do take over a decent sized outpost or colony, things can get hairy fast. They can start making some pretty good size ships and use them to cause you no end of trouble. Pirates dont seem to care that if they continue to hassale you and force your fleets to chase them, the Cravers will win and eat everyone out of house and home- then eat you and them. Pirates, in real life and in game, are usually very short sighted. They don't expect to have very long lives and are out for whatever they can get today. Truly they live by the addage, "Eat, drink and be merry- for tomoorow we die."

Wyile E. Coyote

[Ekimmak]

Actually, when you set your fleet to block a star system, any hostile fleets are incapable of leaving that star system. The only way past it is to either destroy the blockade, or to use the retreat/offensive retreat during combat.