How to deal with pirates?

[Mordy]

So i started a game, set pirates to weak, then fast forward couple of decades and now i have this issue that the pirate faction is unstoppable, despite them supposedly being weaker than coalition.

They have roughly 25+ ships per system, that immediately warp out if i set dominators on them, coalition can't do anything about them thanks to the ludicrous missile spam (thanks for Lirecron btw, brilliant weapon in that it's absolute, imbalanced nonsense since it's practically the only weapon pirates use), i can't do anything to them with or without hirelings and coalition cos even though i take very little damage from the missiles, there are so many of them anything and everything implodes few turns after the fighting starts.

So how do i deal with this crap, other than by starting a new game and then somehow eliminating the pirates before they become an unstoppable force?

[FDru]

It's a well known problem but supposedly you can suppress them by completing the coalition quest line against the pirates. I haven't had the patience to do it, so I don't know how well it works.

[Mordy]

Originally posted by FDru:

It's a well known problem but supposedly you can suppress them by completing the coalition quest line against the pirates. I haven't had the patience to do it, so I don't know how well it works.

Supposedly.

Ah well, guess i can give that a try when i come across it and in the meantime, pray for some more Vertix drops, as if my recollections are correct, those things blow up missiles.

...well maybe not, would be too good if they did.

[Abaduaber]

Vertixes most certaibly able to destroy missiles. There is 50% probability that missile whould be destroyed, no matter, what weapon you use. And we know that vertix is able to attack all targets in it's range. In theory, 3-4 vertixes is enough to destroy most of the missiles in it's range, howewer, because of the multiple vertixes rate of fire, there is always a window for a fast missile to catch you. It's even much more problematic when you are moving towards missiles instead of running away from them.

There is certainly some balance problem with a pirates. They just keep spamming ships with a 3-5 weapons slot, kinda zerg rash, but zergs are slow and fat :)
You just need a fast ship with a plenty of HP (not exactly necessary, but more HP is always a plus) plus strong shield generator and hull armor to absorb missile damage at least for a few turns, before debuff effects will start to work. Effective tactic is to split pirates by several groups, so you would not get full damage from all of them. You can easily do it with a help of hired rangers team or military vehicles.
It's not that hard on easiest pirates setting to defeat them, just a few tricks and that's would be ok :)

[Abaduaber]

There is a way to ensure you wouldn't get the same problem in next games. Works for me just well.
Before I start, you need to know, that dominators difficulty is just your final common difficulty value. So with easy preset with 50% difficulty you'll get weak dominators, but with 150 you'll get pretty strong ones. So, it's nice to have pirates difficulty to be set less than you overall difficulty percantage are, so dominators would have chances againgst them. Pirates are afraid of dominators, btw, so they prefer to flee, even when dominator forces are weak and can be eliminated by pirates with ease.
So:
1. Start a new game with any difficulty settings you want.
2. Make a save.
3. Hold shift + ctrl combo and type ShowMap (message box will appear if done correctly), then go to galaxy map window
4. Make sure that there is no pirate white system close with coalition ones. 30-40 parsecs distance would be ok.
5. If it's the case - load the saved game to clear a cheat effects (blocked achievements and game record) and you'll be good.
6. If not, repeat the process.

You may even land on a uninhabited planet and put a book or something heavy on a spacebar for a 10 minutes or so and then check the map to ensure is everything okay.
The only problem you may encounter is total absense of pirate systems if dominators are very strong. This will not prevent you from finishing the pirate quest line, though.
The other one - this way works well (almost every time) when your overall difficulty setting is in range of 125-150 and higher. If you're playing on 50-100%, it's likely would be hard to generate a situations with pirates systems surrounded by dominators, not the coalition.

[Mordy]

Biggest issue for me, aside from the ludicrous Lirecron spam, is that when dominators show up, even if it's a small bunch of them, a system of 20+ pirate ships just skedaddles the hell out of dodge, meaning the will fall with no contest.

Best part is, i clear the now dominator inhabited system, warp out and some turns later the pirates are there again, with their 20+ ship armada since all they need to do is show up and everything dies.

So in the end, i am literally making no progress in my game at this point, i clear one system, well great, it just gets retaken month later meaning all i do is just waste of time.

Just started the pirate questline, maybe that leads to somewhere.. maybe.. we'll see..

[Abaduaber]

Yeah, pirates can be a pain in the ass. No spoilers, but questline will fix this ♥♥♥♥ for you, man. Just don't throw this ranger's ship model into some pirates when there will be a chance to :)
Next time try to use my suggestion with free-from-pirates world generation :)

[WWDragon]

First, there is an artifact that shoots down missiles automatically; I think it can shoot 5 per turn.

Second I've seen the same thing in my game; however to kill pirates you don't try to fight them like dominators.
Instead focus on killing ONE strong Pirate each time anyone invades one of their systems, then get out if it's dominators attacking.
This will eventually make it so that even coalition attack fleets can beat them.

Third remember that each pirate is like a Space Ranger, they all look out for themselves... except that they are even more cowardly.
This is why they never have a unified front, but will always come out ahead in the end.... they just don't care about the systems.

Btw the pirates should be taking dominator systems and genrally fighting dominators, just that they will only do so with overwhelming force.