Pirate Defenses

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CyclopsSlayer
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Pirate Defenses

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

Just for the record. Have a game where multiple Pirate factions are fighting over a single world I own. Was very humorous to watch a fresh Attack Pods wave land and join with my Defenders to crush the attempted construction of a Hidden Base.

Ion Cannon - Tried these. The attackers still launch their Pods. Slowed or not they get away.
Planetary Shields - No effect on the Pirates, one way or the other.
Overwhelming Defender Odds - Defenders had ~450K vs. 30K of Pirates, and the Pirates still run away with Loot regularly.
Defensive Fleets - These work fine, except when the AS (Artificial Stupid) decides to ignore operational range limits. The Fleets AI is definitely susceptible to the "Oh! SHINY!" condition as they hare off after some bit of glitter on the scanners and completely forget what ever it was they were supposed to be doing.
Bases/Ports - Pure Gun bases have little effect stopping attackers landing, but often prevent the attackers ship from getting away. Fighter Bases, with the Fighters launched stop them quite handily. BUT, a Base by itself didn't last long enough to matter as continuous waves from the attackers wore it down until eventually they killed them every time.
Canute0
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Canute0 »

Ion Cannon, disable ship modules, you must be very lucky that the shoot disable all the Assault pods.

Planetary Shields, Stop bombardment, and now we can discuss if are Pods are a kind of bombardment or not.

Overwhelming Def. Odds, Raids arn't an invasion, they don't need to fight your troops. They are robbers. They scan where are less defenders, land there, grab the nearest valueable stuff/tech, head back to their Pods or use local shuttle to head back to their ships. So long a pirate ship at the orbit around are alive the raid can be succesful.

Def. Fleet, you just made the wrong stances to the fleet.
1. SHIP stances to nearby targets
2. FLEET stance to target
3. Set homeplanet/base to the planet you want to protect
4. Let the fleet patrol the planet.

Base/port, You notice you need big defence/firepower for a base or a smaller base with a smaller defence fleet.
My expierence are the best for defence are Graviton beams. Small bases with 3 Graviton beams + 5 Torpedos/Missiles or 2 Fighter bays. Together with 15+ Armor and 10+ shields.

The Graviton beams damage incoming ships straight without to destroy them. Damaged ships stop their mission and head back for repais.

Alternativ way to stop an incoming raid. You get a warning that pirates start an attack. Then just pay the protection fee, and cancel the protection when the pirates left the system.
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Darkspire
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Darkspire »

Defensive Fleets - These work fine, except when the AS (Artificial Stupid) decides to ignore operational range limits. The Fleets AI is definitely susceptible to the "Oh! SHINY!" condition as they hare off after some bit of glitter on the scanners and completely forget what ever it was they were supposed to be doing.

Having been a GalCiv player for many years when I first found DW the first thing I did was put a defensive fleet on every system, with ROTS and Legends it was a bit of an empty gesture as the AI would very rarely attack my worlds, still the case with Shadows but it has got a little better in that regard but with the introduction of the faction pirates in Shadows I am glad I never gave up on the idea, even more so since the introduction of the pirate strength slider.
I did extensive tests on the subject as I was also getting clobbered and I found that to really scupper the pirates and still have a good functioning economy the only way was four destroyers in a defense fleet with a homebase and the stance set to nearby systems or just the system (if you play prewarp then set the fleet to planet only with no warpdrive, then set it to system with the warp bubble and as soon as the Gerax is researched switch to nearby systems, as the stance set to system only does not really show up on the main map I now use the nearby systems one (do wish Elliot would add a filter in the Galaxy Map to show defense stances like it does with influence), I tried a number of games on a 700/10x10 with the independents on there top setting so there was a good stock for the pirates to grow on, pirates to many and set to nearby then when the slider was introduced I set that to strong and the checkbox for pirates to respawn on. If you have the stance set to sector the ships just do not get there in time (I even created a race that used the Velocity Drive so I could see if the speed was an issue), even more so mid to late game, I played quite a few games where I just let the pirates grow so I could see where the problems were and the sector stance is next to useless for them, I still get raided but nowhere near as much as I used to, in fact I would say it has cut it down to a pretty tolerable limit. I have had over a 100+ defense fleets in some of the test games and the old sector stance setting was just not working, try it yourself and see the difference, just remember to keep the destroyers with fleet counter measures and targeting, warp inhibitors, good engine speed (+28 is a good level), EMP defenses etc, weapons I found that really work fast and get the job done are Phasers and Plasma Torpedoes, the over beam weapons are not as good and I have found them lacking when it comes to trying to take out shielding on space ports, also have one or two large 10 ship fleets of capitals, I have one 10+ fleet positioned at the N,S,E,W edges of my empire and use those to clear any bases that pop up to close to any of my systems.

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Fenrisfil
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Fenrisfil »

I can normally deal with pirates with defensive fleets. The problem I get is in the early/early-mid game where they repair abandoned capital ships and then drop them in your lap. I've noticed pirates are very single minded and focus on one particular colony relentlessly often ignoring nearby, less defended ones. So in the past I've had to send my own repaired derelicts to a specific system to fight off the influx. In the later game, with more powerful pirates they have been known to appear in incredible swarms of ships that can tear apart anything but my primary battle fleets. These days I tend to set the pirates as weak unless I am playing one myself, so haven't seen a swarm of death for a while.

The gravity beam is especially useful against pirates, at least if you merely want them to run away. They always come back however, so it depends how long term you are planning.

As for the ground forces, I have had a good amount of success with planetary defence troops. Providing you have enough of a good level they can stop the pirates landing. This was helpful against small pirate assaults, but the chances of taking out every single pod from a moderate to large assault would probably be quite slim. I suppose if you had enough of them it may work. Ultimately I found the fleets were cheaper and more efficient anyway, usually taking care of incoming pirates before they can launch anything.
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Jeeves
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Jeeves »

I let them land, training my troops for eventual usage in invasions...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
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CyclopsSlayer
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

I let them land, training my troops for eventual usage in invasions...

Lonnie Courtney Clay
The training is good, yes. But the near constant stream of attacks do prevent my attacking a Pirate Facility on the planet while an invasion is going on. And the Pirate Bases can destroy your economy.
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Locarnus
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Locarnus »

Well, I know how the AI can stop me (pirate) from raiding a moon colony.
It just builds a space station large enough to cover the whole moon, so there is no part of the moon not covered by the station, thus I cant click on the moon, thus I cant give the order to raid that moon...


I m not sure if this works against the AI...

Oh and about the Spaceports not protecting the colony:
If you pay protection fee, the pirate ships are considered non hostile (fine with that).
The pirate AI still regularly considers your planets raid targets (not ok with that).
When the pirate ship then comes in for the raid, it wont get attacked by your spaceport (you pay protection), thus looting it without problem.

Also often the Spaceports dont consider the pirate hostile until after they landed their troops. This long after release, working as intended, I guess...

Based on those observations you are not supposed to be able to protect your colonies without micromanagement, no weapon will help you if the pirate is not considered hostile...

edit: If those are bugs, the push/pull tractorbeam would be helpfull (enough and you push the raiding ships out of raiding distance). Funnily, my tractorbeam Spaceport seems to pull the raiders in, so they can land their troops faster...
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Darkspire
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RE: Pirate Defenses

Post by Darkspire »

Well, I know how the AI can stop me (pirate) from raiding a moon colony.
It just builds a space station large enough to cover the whole moon, so there is no part of the moon not covered by the station, thus I cant click on the moon, thus I cant give the order to raid that moon...

Try right clicking on the system from the delete key view and select attack planet from there.

Darkspire
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