Best pirate starting faction

[Tekksas / John Kree]

I'm playing on hard and I just lost my ship. I followed a guide that proposed starting with Moklumnue or another trading faction as a pirate to make easier money.

But i didn't use trading as much, just when I found a good deal. Wouldn't Steel Song or Clan Alta Mesa be better?

[darion-neclador]

Alta Mesa is the Best Faction. PERIOD. Don't let the others tell you nothing.

But seriously all the factions that have +Starport make for good ship combat starters as Repair Services are more widely available/cheaper.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Honestly starting faction is pretty insignificant longterm.

I mean if you Pirate in your home system and are selling cargo start of game you will be trading into a ban and taking significant rep hit. Unless it doesn't concern you.

I like any of the starting locations near Farfallen Rim. 2 Indy planets to pirate against with no rep hit. A orbital and mining for dumping all of your goods.

Just make sure you also have a couple of merchants because you need to fire off the merchant "get new contact" talent.

If you have unlocked the starting pirate contact you can get all the pirates you need from there. But you won't be able to recruit merchants right away. So you will need to make your officers merchants.Contacts are just so important even more important if you ever want to get into crew combat.

Merchant/Military Officers would be good jobs for your officers. As you still need military officers for ship combat because command/tactic dice. Couple good ship talents. But you can also patrol. Which can be a pirates best friend. Pirate ships then patrol and you'll never have negative rep.

Another factor is starting ship. I wouldn't want to start ship combat on Hard in anything other then Vindex again if unlocked. Scout and Juror are good as the cheapies. The other larger ships will take so much damage if you go right to ship combat.

Once you get the pirate talent where merchants turn over good you actually don't even have to get into combat unless you want their gas or destroy their ship for salvage moneys.

[Dr. Spendlove]

Crew Traits matter a bit. Starting faction matters there. That is another point in Steel Song's favor.

[happybjorn]

On the default map Zenrin is better than any other faction for pretty much everything, including piracy. Their only drawback is that many of their other quadrants are near the galaxy's edges (one of them is still a decent location, but the other pretty much useless. For any faction really, if you pretend anything on the default map more than 1 quadrant north, or is it up?, from the Thulun starting quadrant doesn't exist you will probably be better off).

Zenrin has the fastest start of any faction and I can consistently have a rank 4 trade permit, upgraded barracks (on a C class ship), and over 200k credits in the bank before the first year has passed in game (most of which is then spend on defensive upgrades). This is on Impossible. If you know what you are doing most factions can do something similar, but it takes 10-30 weeks longer.

For piracy you have an excellent starting location, more of less the center of the map, and are one jump away from Farfallen Rim (notable for an Indie Orbital and some quests). Your starting quadrant has 2 Tradeways, 1 Refinery, and 1 High Tech zone with low legality for selling spoils.

Alta Mesa, Mok, and de Valtos are all decent for piracy (again, on the default map. Also, probably in that order).

Steel Song is probably my favorite faction and I'd recommend them for most things, but not piracy. They start stuck in a corner and don't have additional quadrants (finding places to sell your loot will be a challenge outside of your starting system).

[Trese Brothers]

Thanks to everyone for posting great answers! We're working on a set of Faction Traits for your Captain which should roll out pretty soon that will help improve the answer here.

[JimmysTheBestCop]

Here is 1 strategy if you start as Clan Alta Mesa

Take at least 4 contacts. Usually your 4th contact is De Valtos. Even if you only run starter missions. If your able to gather and sell intel as well. You can set it up to where you can get trade permit 2 in both Alta Mesa and De Valtos.

This is important because those 2 have like 3 system right in a line. And Farfallen Rim system is jump away from Alta Mesa start. It has 2 Indy worlds Orbital and Mining plus 2 luxury De Valtos worlds.

All of this is because you will need a place to dump all of your looted cargo at. But you can also make huge trades just between those 2 Indy worlds. Or from Alta Mesa system to FarFallen.

Because remember in beginning you are in a Trade Ban. If you care about rep you can't sell in your home faction but you can buy and sell elsewhere.

Now if your pushing into smuggling as well then you don't have to worry about conflicts. But its pretty hard to start smuggling early game because you won't have that many contacts yet and if your black market contacts are on a planet that doesn't buy what you got then it doesn't help.

The Blackheart contact is unlocked get you rank 2 in edicts, ranks and trade permits. Very awesome. Especially if that is your non local contact. You should be able to get some quick ranks and editcs from Faen even if your just doing early missions. And just make sure one of your other local contacts has Trade Permit 2. That way you might even have enough points to buy Trade Permit 3 from Faen if you don't buy anything else from him.