Why are pirates so strong?

[Furry Eskimo]

I haven't played in a While, but I started up a game, gained control of Multiple locations, grew my army, but pirates attack in swarms of unusual size.

I just don't understand how or why every ~8 minutes they send a legit Army to attack me!

How can I defend against them? They can take down 5 defense structures, two capital ships, and a small army almost immediatly.

And I'm playing on normal.

Do I just need to build even Bigger armies, or upgrade them? Cause it seems like my army's size is limited by the upkeep cost.

[kknd]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

I haven't played in a While, but I started up a game, gained control of Multiple locations, grew my army, but pirates attack in swarms of unusual size.

I just don't understand how or why every ~8 minutes they send a legit Army to attack me!

How can I defend against them? They can take down 5 defense structures, two capital ships, and a small army almost immediatly.

And I'm playing on normal.

Do I just need to build even Bigger armies, or upgrade them? Cause it seems like my army's size is limited by the upkeep cost.

Pirate attacks are based on the total bounty posted on all empires over the course of the game, primarily on how much is 'in play' at the moment. But early on, pirate fleets can be pretty overwhelming. Throw money at them so they hit someone else if you can. How well you can stand them off is going to very by group and your spending priorities. Sometimes it's actually worth it to pay the danegelt so that later on you can crush the dane. (historical allusion that.)

[I Am Atomic!]

personally i love getting attacked early by pirates, free exp for my fleet, which when i play is mostly captial ships untill later on xD so long as your fleet is close enough to defend

but if its nessessary to send fleet far enough away that it cant defend then you should block choke points with starbase, expensive yes, but will stop alot of greif.

also if you get enough fighter bays you can keep your star bases alive vs other empires by using fighters to target down torpedo cruisers and the weird advent 1 w/e its called xD

short of mass anti building units like torp crusiders starbases hold out pretty damn well, do hp upgrades 1st and back them up with a few repair bays and fighter bays.


also late game if pirates are still alive its possible to put quite massive bounties for pirate attacks, + with the right tech you can assign them missions on top of that, each wave of those attacks may be stoppable but if you keep telling the pirates to go for 1 world they can stack there and have so many numbers there that they can kill pretty much anything that goes there instantly xD

[Furry Eskimo]

Huh. I'm not familiar with how to bribe them.
It's just not something I've looked into.

And I've dabbled in hangers and repair bays, but I can't tell how effective they are vs just, turrets.

[Something Familiar]

Playing without pirates is what i do.

Every time i play with them on i end up paying them off, which is lame because they can just win the game outright for you.
When i leave them on i also find its hard to do what i need to, like:
Have a solid standing army
Defend myself from the real enemy
Research
Expand
Upgrade planets and etc.

Pirates are dumb imo. They eat so much economy its ridiculous.
You either:

A: Pay them off (Say goodbye to at least 100k credits total by the end of the game, the AI will try to outbid you. I've had to sell off ALL my resources to evade their largest attack sizes on multiple occasions)

B: Fight through it and pray RNG is with you. The early attacks can be squashed easily, but limits your expansion strategy and requires you to build ample defenses (you might as well pay them off) if you plan to have your army any distance away. Once you get to T3-T4 pirates its awful and almost requires you to pay them off, especially on the higher difficulties.

[Furry Eskimo]

Yikes!
It wouldn't be so bad if their armies were smaller! I'd be happy if the same size armies was spread between multiple systems! Multiple small battles is easier than one impossibly large one

[chaosbringer42]

The thing to know about pirates is : They always attack from the same direction. So there are really 3 options
1. Pay them off (worst idea ever, waste of resources and a loss of xp)

2. Expand in the attacks direction if you can (if you are expanding, why not expand towards the enemy, keeping some of your fleet in the path of the attackers at all times, once you hit the pirate base, back off and build a few defenses at the planet next to them)

3. Build a couple defenses (A couple turrets next to each other and in front of your planet, or a hangar, can easily stop early pirate attacks. Midgame you might want a capship or a starbase as well as more turrets/hangars. Lategame the pirates should be dead, and you should have a shiny planet).

The thing to remember is, even if the pirates slow your expansion a tiny bit, they are worth a buttload of xp, so one capship used for protection duty isnt a bad thing. By the time you notice it will be 3-4 levels higher than anything else you have (or anyone else has, unless you are playing multi pirate bases and real players) due to pirate attacks.

[roguefrog]

Git Good?

Pirates should never be more than a minor sometimes more annoying nuance. (usually when they attack while you are being attacked on a different front)

Build defenses on your border worlds. Pirates love trade posts so build defenses near them if you have them built. A noob fleet (1 capital ship and a few frigates) should be able to squash any early game pirate raid.

If you truly want to see god tier pirates download the maelstrom mod. Now those pirates are extremely deadly. They have strong capital ships and they can actually capture planets spreading throughout the map like a cancer. They can beat Hard AI in the early game all by themselves. Late game (pirate threat MASSIVE) they can pretty much beat any AI.

[Arakus]

If you want really hard "pirates" the play the star wars interregnum mod with the bescar minimod!
These mandalorians can kill you!

[Furry Eskimo]

Yeah, I'm not looking for harder pirates, I'm looking for ness obnoxious raids.

They'd swarm in with like, 20-40 ships, and they'd just do minor damage over a Long time.

I played a new game and invested a little money in bounties and they kinda just left me alone.

I colonized primarily, then invested in attack class capital ships; I had the colonizing one before.

I also invested more in upgrades and that seemed to help a lot. Attack and health upgrades.

Upgrading takes a Long time though!
Why do upgrades unlock one at a time (I think) when there are Tonsssss of nessesaary upgrades?

[chaosbringer42]

Each tech tree has its own upgrade timer, so you can have multiple things researching at the same time, just on different trees.

[Lack of Stuff]

Conquer and fortify a system right next to the pirate base. Turrets should vary depending on your faction (i.e. Advent are better in closer proximity and in numbers). Build repair plats within range of each other and hangars with both fighters and bombers. If you get the money stick a starbase down. The Pirates will never ever get through and you can just put Capital ships down to soak XP.

[Furry Eskimo]

Are bombers really useful? I can't tell. They all take so long to kill enemies!
Also mines? like from hangers. Are they any good? I've just been using the regular fighters and it seems to work! My larger ships deal with larger enemies, the small fighters deal with small enemies.

And I havent used many starbases. I have some but they haven't seen combat. So I'm unfamiliar with how they upgrade, and how they're useful in different situations.

[chaosbringer42]

Originally posted by Furry Eskimo:

Are bombers really useful? I can't tell. They all take so long to kill enemies!
Also mines? like from hangers. Are they any good? I've just been using the regular fighters and it seems to work! My larger ships deal with larger enemies, the small fighters deal with small enemies.

And I havent used many starbases. I have some but they haven't seen combat. So I'm unfamiliar with how they upgrade, and how they're useful in different situations.

Fighters do high damage against bombers and fighters, ok damage against frigates, and minimal damage against corvettes or larger ships. Bombers do high damage against corvettes or larger (including buildings), ok damage against frigates, and cant attack bombers or fighters.

A good "basic" build for a starbase (not a specific race build, just an in general against an AI or other new player) would be 2 weapon upgrades, 3 armor upgrades, and 3 fighter bay upgrades. This gives you good weapons, the best armor and hp/shield regen, and 14 fighter/bombers you can use (in general a 7/7 split is useful if you dont want to micro).