Dealing with pirate annoyance vs. hazard

[jacozilla]

First - have searched and googled how to deal with pirate threads, posts, and guides. So this is not a 'how do I handle pirates' question I'm sure has been raised zillion times.

Am a new player but due to the guides, I've learned how to protect myself from pirates mostly (at least on the difficulty levels I am able to handle so far - noobie 'Normal' settings so far). I use good base defenses to hold initial attacks long enough for positioned fleet posture/stance defenders to arrive and kill the pirates, with plenty of free roaming individual destroyers on auto through my empire to help out.

So my question here is not how do I effectively deal with protecting myself from pirates - on all Normal settings so far, I'm handling that ok.

My question is - how do I deal with the plain old annoyance? I mean the constant, non-stop barrage of pirate snipes on my private shipping, my explorers, constructors, etc. For state and private fixed bases including mining stations, I've learned to custom design them with decent enough shields and defenses to hold out long enough for roaming defenders to arrive or me to move a fleet to swat the pirates.

But I have so far not been able to root out and destroy 100% any single pirate faction. So I end up with like half dozen or more pirates near me constantly spamming me with light attacks all game.

I suppose the answer would be to destroy 100% each pirate faction, and I do use the setting for no respawn on destroy, but so far like I said - haven't managed to kill a faction off. I mostly play on pre-warp so not sure if that gives the pirates such a strong head start that killing them off is harder?

I managed in one game to stumble across a pirate constructor so at least I killed that one faction's only constructor but other than that mini-success, it seems what i'm stuck with so far is games where i am beating the tar out of the AI empires around me, but the pirates thrive like a swarm of weakened locusts that can't ever quite take out any of my bases, but simply exist to annoy the heck out of me via their non-stop snipe attacks on my shipping, explorers, etc.

How do experienced players deal with completely eliminating pirates? My ideal fantasy would be pre-warp just pay them off as suggested, grow to hold them off, then before mid-game destroy each and every pirate faction so they simply don't exist as I start to get into the late mid-game of taking out the AI empires.

edit - note, I do take out pirate ports, bases, etc whenever I see them. And have used my spies to try and steal their maps so I can find more of their bases. So I've weakened some factions, but like I said, just don't seem to be able to 100% destroy any faction and more time I spend on one,means more time the others grow stronger. When I switch to the stronger ones to weaken them, the weaker ones start to recover.

[Aeson]

I would suggest ignoring occasional losses of civilian ships. The occasional lost freighter or mining ship isn't going to hurt the empire's economy much, if at all, and might even help it by keeping resource demands up. Paying attention to where the civilian ships are being lost can help you locate where the pirates are active, allowing you to deploy defense forces or hunter-killer groups to the region. If you notice that pirates are fairly active in a specific region, you may also want to stop building mines in that area and perhaps even allow the stations you have in the region that aren't over colonies to fall (or decommission them if you prefer); this will force the pirates to either travel further afield in search of targets, or to hit your colonies in the region (which will be more than happy to welcome the pirates with open gunports if there's a defensive base, spaceport, or defending fleet present). Whatever you decide to do, stationing warships in quick response range of a potential raid target, and especially using ships designed to trap and kill or capture raiders, will rapidly reduce the number of operational pirate ships in the region; remember that the Kaldos Hyperdrive is actually quite useful for rapid response forces over short distances (Equinox Jumpdrives only surpass equally-upgraded Kaldos Hyperdrives in response time out beyond about 0.2 sectors due to the difference in jump initiation time; when compared to the first and second upgrades of the Gerax hyperdrive, the unupgraded Kaldos hyperdrive is only surpassed in response time beyond 0.5 and ~0.4 sectors respectively), and that if you really want to do so you can combine the high hyperspeed of an Equinox Jumpdrive or Calista-Dal Warp Drive with the fast jump initiation of the Kaldos Hyperdrive by adding both drive components to a design, though the design will have a hyper power requirement equal to the power requirement of the most power-hungry hyperdrive carried.

I managed in one game to stumble across a pirate constructor so at least I killed that one faction's only constructor but other than that mini-success, it seems what i'm stuck with so far is games where i am beating the tar out of the AI empires around me, but the pirates thrive like a swarm of weakened locusts that can't ever quite take out any of my bases, but simply exist to annoy the heck out of me via their non-stop snipe attacks on my shipping, explorers, etc.

Get long-range scanners on at least some of your station designs and monitor the area, have a hunter-killer group on hand, and send it after any pirate construction ships you detect. It'll help a lot. If the region isn't secure enough for permanent long-range scanners, deploy a hunter-killer group and a scanner-equipped ship to the region to do the same. This also helps for hunting down annoying pirate raiders, as you'll be able to see where they're headed and send your hunter-killer group to meet them rather than having to wait for an attack notification. If you're facing only small raiding groups, it can also help to station a small defense fleet at each colony, equipped in such a manner that lone raiders or small raiding groups are likely to be destroyed. This will help finish off weak pirate forces; defensive bases can do the same thing but will not protect other stations in the system or in nearby systems whereas a defending fleet can. Ideally speaking, hunter-killer groups and anti-raider defense forces will be equipped with jump inhibitors and some way of preventing the pirate raiders from escaping the area of effect of the inhibitor (tractor and graviton beams are reasonably reliable, ion cannons can work, making fast ships can work; remember that a ship whose flee condition is triggered will shut down its jump inhibitor, so don't sacrifice too much staying power for speed), and enough firepower to deal with the raiders in a timely fashion (boarding pods can help, especially if you don't have jump inhibitors or are unable to keep the raider within the range of the jump inhibitors you have long enough to kill the raider). Five size-300 warships armed with Maxos Blasters tends to work reasonably well against light raiding.

Another thing which will help put down pirate groups is to equip your colony bases (and perhaps defense ships) with trace scanners, as these will enable your bases (and ships, if so equipped) to identify smuggling vessels, which will promptly be destroyed by whatever ships and bases you have in the area, denying pirates their smuggling income. You can also try to bait smugglers into coming to stations (or fleets) so equipped by issuing a smuggling mission; if identified, any smuggling vessels responding to the mission will be destroyed.

I will also note that it is possible to turn your construction ships into some of the more powerful warships your empire can field; while 35% of the ship is required to be cargo bays, manufacturing plants, and a construction yard, this still leaves you will 1.95 times as much space to play with as you have for a standard warship (in practice, a construction battleship or construction carrier will not be quite as powerful as this suggests, as you still need to provide the support components for the full ship, you may need an extra reactor to cover the power requirements added by the role's requirements, and you'll have to choose between a ship which is slower than you might normally want a warship to be or spending more of that 1.95 times your normal construction size on drive components than you might had that 1.95 times your standard construction limit been the entire ship). Even if you don't go all out turning your construction ships into battleships or carriers, providing a reasonable armament and decent defenses in the available space is not a bad idea and can remove the need for your construction ships to run from most pirate attacks.

[jacozilla]

Thanks a ton for the advice.

I can condense it to three words that seemed to help me a lot in my current game - "long range scanners'

Hadn't really noticed this tech as it's kinda on the upper green layer I've ignored till now, going through colony techs and economy in the middle and lower sections.

But wow - LR scanners are really, really useful. I can see the pirate bases, their ships, and incoming attacks. Feel kinda stupid I didn't know or build these things before. I've now stuck em on all my base stations and even make the private economy pay to put them on mining stations.

Really helps to see pirates from far off and start killing them off. Hopefully this will be the first game I successfully kill off 100% a faction.

[NephilimNexus]

Send in an agent to do Deep Cover.

All pirate bases & ships now permanently revealed. Destroy at leisure. [8D]

Note, however, that's it's not just the bases that you want to attack. Ultimately, you need to destroy their economy. Meaning that hitting their mining bases can actually work against you (mines drain money) unless they're gas mines that they need to refuel. However, that is a minor consideration. Your top priority is destroying their Construction Ships. Without those they can't replace anything and until they manage to Criminal Network a planet they only have one of them.

Your second priority is taking away all their planets, meaning Independent worlds that have pirate facilities on them. That is the main source of income for all AI pirates. Eliminate these via invasion or orbital bombardment whenever you spot them. They need credits to build their ships same as everyone else. Likewise, if you ever see a "neutral" resort base, that's a pirate base. Blow it up. If you ever see a "neutral" large freighter, that's a pirate freighter - blow it up (Actual neutrals never build large freighters. Rather obvious bug/exploit). Neutral mining ship = pirate; destroy. Hit them in the wallet.

Someone pointed out to me recently that although you can't see the bubble on the map, LRS work just fine on ships. So for the flagship of any fleet be sure to include one of these, along with your fleet aim & dodge modules.

Also make sure you checked "defeated pirates don't respawn" at the start or you're just wasting your time with all this.

Pirates start off strong but due to AI fails they have real no term viability. AI pirates don't use colony ships and never expand past their first planet. Any empire controlled world can build enough troops to destroy any pirate facilities that pop up, given time, and since AI pirates never follow up with actual invasions this means that all of their facilities they put on empire worlds are ultimately doomed. Likewise, given enough time, every independent planet gets colonized and turns into an empire world. Once that happens they have no form of income left except for contracts, and I assure you that no pirate can even maintain, let alone grow, off just contract income. It simply does not work.

Instead of trying to destroy everything at once you need to back them into a corner. Take away their planets, then their construction ships, and their bases last. Keep in mind that anything left over from a "defeated" pirate will end up being inherited by another pirate faction. If it's the last pirate faction then their ships go dormant and just sit there sucking up RAM & CPU cycles forever (or until you spot the static "neutrals" and blow them up).

I have seen pirates working on a World Destroyer but I've never seen them finish one, and I'm unsure if their AI would even know what to do with one. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only purpose for the World Destroyer is launching a sneak attack on the Mechanoids, blowing up their one and only planet in the opening shot - which is pretty much the only way to beat them without sending literally several hundred ships in.

[Aeson]

I have seen pirates working on a World Destroyer but I've never seen them finish one, and I'm unsure if their AI would even know what to do with one. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only purpose for the World Destroyer is launching a sneak attack on the Mechanoids, blowing up their one and only planet in the opening shot - which is pretty much the only way to beat them without sending literally several hundred ships in.

I've heard people say that they've seen completed pirate-controlled World Destroyers turn up on their doorsteps, and I know that the regular empires that acquire one will use it to blow up planets during wartime (and sometimes peacetime), so I wouldn't be terribly surprised if pirate factions were capable of using a world destroyer to destroy colonies. Whether or not they'd do it smartly, I don't know, and it's also possible that they might just treat it as a really big battleship.

There's more use to the world destroyer than just killing the Mechanoids quickly and easily. It's an easy way to beat the Shakturi if you're not inclined to let them get set up, or to get rid of their worlds without a tough ground battle. Also useful for ending wars where the only things left to conquer are things that are very difficult to take, if you're willing to pass up the benefits of actually taking the target.

Send in an agent to do Deep Cover.

Remember that not everyone has a decent enough intelligence agent to make this a viable option, that non-espionage factions rarely have more than two or maybe three intelligence agents, and that it's entirely possible for a faction to go a long time without getting a replacement intelligence agent if they lose one. Also, Deep Cover only works against as many pirate factions as you have agents who can successfully insert themselves at any given time; long-range scanners work against as many pirates as come within range of the scanner coverage.

It's great for cleaning up one pirate faction at a time when it works, but I wouldn't really rely on it too heavily.

Your top priority is destroying their Construction Ships. Without those they can't replace anything and until they manage to Criminal Network a planet they only have one of them.

On very rare occasions I've seen pirates capture a functional hyperdrive-equiped construction ship. It's not terribly likely, but occasionally pirate factions can have multiple construction ships before they have a Criminal Network.

If you ever see a "neutral" large freighter, that's a pirate freighter - blow it up

Or you could just stick trace scanners on your stations and let their weapons blow up any smugglers that drop by. If it hasn't been changed, smuggling contracts at a colony with heavy orbital defenses work great for killing off smuggling ships in combination with a trace scanner, too. However, trace scanners aren't exactly a high-priority item in the High Tech tree.

Once that happens they have no form of income left except for contracts, and I assure you that no pirate can even maintain, let alone grow, off just contract income

Especially the ones that multiple factions are bidding on; there's nothing quite as annoying when playing a pirate faction as seeing a defense contract turn up for ~50,000 credits and drop to something like ~2,000 credits by the time the bidding is over, if you were actually looking for more out of the contract than simply denying funds to competitors.

Also make sure you checked "defeated pirates don't respawn" at the start or you're just wasting your time with all this.

Kind of yes and kind of no. Yes, you cannot permanently rid the galaxy of pirates if you allowed pirates to respawn, but you can force them to respawn in locations where they can't really do anything (gas clouds out in the middle of nowhere, maybe an isolated system, places like that), at which point they're basically a nonissue due to lack of money to pose a real threat. Deny the pirates most of their income and it really doesn't matter that maybe there's a base or two off in the middle of some gas clouds with only a bit of caslon (or, better yet, hydrogen, since computer-controlled pirates tend to have poor research and so usually only have fission reactors for quite some time), or maybe a bit of caslon (or hydrogen) and another gas. They might still be able to make occasional raids and annoy your private sector a bit, but if reduced to this point they're no more than a nuisance and not terribly likely to recover.

[jacozilla]

For the most part, the biggest remaining issue to my learning curve for this awesome game in the area of pirates is - how to avoid the nuisance of constantly respawning pirate forts on my border planets.

Again, not a game breaker - the pirates never have time to build up a network because I always spot it in my facilities screen and use a few purpose built reaction force transports to go over to whatever world is needed for troop reinforcement to then attack the fort.

But:
a) I am 100% positive there are no pirate ships in or near those border systems, so there should be no pirate 'influence' building up from pirate proximity. Maybe I have this wrong but read a post somewhere that said if you let pirate ships in your system, they exert some kind of influence points and if it gets to be enough, they get a foothold on your planet to build a fort.

So for sure, I've stopped all pirate military ships lingering in my system, and the only ones I see are the raiders that get insta-annihilated by my fleet defense in each system.

b) I am also reasonably sure, now that I use long range scanners, that there are no pirate ships in ~1-2 sectors distance of any of my border worlds that keep getting re-infested with pirate forts

c) I read using pirate smuggling contracts helps them get influence, so I've also stopped using those entirely, yet still have worlds get re-infested.

d) Using fleets with LR scanners, I have gone out many sectors distance, in fact the entire galaxy map is now explored for me, and all pirate bases I can see, I've destroyed. Reasonably sure as I can be, all pirate bases within 1-6 sectors are no longer around. Basically, on my current 15x15 map, I've killed everything up to half a galaxy map away when I spot the pirate base icon, so most or all of those are dead too.

Yet the cockroach forts keep respawning on my border worlds. Clearly, some kind of distance thing is at play here because fortunately, once I stamp out the pirate forts on my core worlds, they never reappear there. Just my border ones. But since I've grown my empire, and keep growing as game progresses, I have more and more border worlds and border circumference - with more worlds then infected.

So what am I doing wrong? I've yet to kill off a faction entirely - but scanners have helped a ton and I've basically cut down factions to impotence in terms of military strikes, and no real effect other than a few private freighters lost here and there.

But I have this remaining issue of constant pirate fort respawning. Do I need to eliminate the factions entirely? So far, despite scanners, I've yet to 100% erase a single pirate faction (with setting to ensure no respawn). I've killed constructor ships, all bases, yet they clearly lurk around somewhere to stay a nuisance

[Bingeling]

As far as I know, they require influence to build those structure. "Hanging around" is a way for them to obtain influence.

Influence is harder to gain for larger colonies, so them growing should help. The influence should decay, but it takes some time to wear off. It is also possible that building the base helps them gain some influence, to help the base building going.

The range to build up influence should be no larger than the system at most, probably just the colony vicinity. It is possible that the raider that your fleet destroys had time to build a tiny fraction of influence. If he managed to drop a raider, possibly more.

Keep in mind that having things explored does not mean you see what is there. A previously cleared area could have a new, operational pirate base.

To avoid the "eternal pirate hassle", turn off "pirates do respawn" on the first galaxy setup screen. Otherwise a destroyed faction is replaced with a new one. This is also supposed to help late game performance quite a bit.

[jacozilla]

Well, as I keep playing, I have this nagging suspicion but don't know for sure - is it only pirate Military ships that count for influence?

Or dose 'independent' neutral freighters also count? Even when I haven't ordered any pirate smuggling contracts?

Because not 100% sure, but I now seem to think when I take over a world for example, and there's a ton of these independent freighters - a lot of them just sit there and my own ships don't auto shoot them like with pirate military ships.

But I'm wondering if those are pirate freighters, whether they add to influence just by sitting there.

[Bingeling]

I would not be surprised if they do count. I would guess all independent freighters are pirate freighters, but I may be wrong in that.

Also, a pirate freighter sitting outside your colony could also explain why the pirates instantly know that the protection fleet left for retrofit. As far as I know, the AI does not cheat in this game, it only see what it actually sees. And civilian ships got eyes which are quite handy when I wonder about troop levels on the colonies of foreign powers.

Somewhere in the sensor area of the tech tree, you can research the Trace Scanner. It should reveal any pirate smuggler for what it really is.

[Aeson]

Smuggling freighters do count, yes, but they cause very little increase in pirate influence even relative to just a small escort being in orbit. Successful raids always provide an immediate boost to a pirate faction's influence at the raided colony while the size and composition of the pirate fleet orbiting the planet determines how much pirate influence is added to the planet per timestep (military ships count for more than smuggling ships, and I think that larger and more powerful ships count for more than smaller and less powerful ships).

It either is impossible or is nearly impossible for a pirate faction to passively gain influence over a colony with a population of more than about 3 billion; gaining influence at large colonies requires raiding (and at this level of population, the raiding influence degrades quite rapidly) or bombardment (to reduce the population to more easily intimidated levels); remember that existing pirate facilities will prevent pirate influence from degrading below the level required to build the structure as long as the structure exists (so 50% influence for Hidden Pirate Bases and 100% influence for Hidden Pirate Fortresses). Five infantry units are usually capable of taking out a Hidden Pirate Base (particularly if attacked before completion; exact numbers required may vary depending on the species providing the infantry, as e.g. Atuuk infantry is far worse than Ackdarian infantry which is far worse than Naxxilian infantry, at least insofar as baseline strength goes) and also make a decent garrison for fending off light raiding, if you don't want to go the trouble of shipping armies around to kill bases. Completed planetary shield generators will also completely prevent pirates from raiding a planet and are cheaper in the long run than a few infantry units (2000 credits per year as opposed to the baseline 1200 credits per year per infantry unit) but cost more in the short term (20000 credits up front to construct whereas recruitment costs nothing up front), thereby preventing the pirates from actively gaining influence over the planet.

[ldog]

Also of note with the smugglers. If you haven't identified them with the trace scanner, blowing them up does hurt your reputation.
Yes, all those civilian ships hanging around that pirate base you just blew up are most assuredly ships of that faction but I guess galactic law presumes them innocent until proven guilty.

[jacozilla]

There must be some other factor at play.

I just invaded a planet, it was AI empire owned but had a pirate criminal network plus a fortress on it. I landed with massive troop strength, took the planet, then immediately did an attack mission on the pirates. They were instal-wiped.

Just to be safe, I used my fleet to blow up every independent freighter hanging around. Now here's where it gets weird - after I killed everything in system including the independent freighters - I ignited a load troops command and while it was doing that, went to move another fleet, barely 10-15 seconds gone.

In that 10-15 seconds I had just picked up my troops and looked away, the planet was reinvested with pirates building a fortress again, 5-6% completed believe it said. So I landed my troops, obliterated the fortress - again - and then loaded my troops up once more.

Again, while troops were loading I went to move some other fleets. Elapsed time no more than 60 seconds - I come back, and yet again - pirate fortress is being built again. There are zero pirate or any other military ships except mine in the system. There are zero independent freighters left hanging around except the few that come in on whatever last move order they had when the planet was still owned by the AI empire.

How can this be? I've never played pirate faction but I read somewhat about it, and I thought you had to build up some sort of minimum influence score before you could even begin building a fortress?

There are zero pirate bases in a 3 sector direction from this system, no military or even freighters in or near the system, and since this is late game, I have super long range scanners and there is nothing other than AI empire planets or my planets/ ships anywhere I look in the galaxy. There are clearly some constructor ships left with about 15 pirate factions listed left in game, but none have a spaceport I can see.

More relevant, there's none anywhere close to this system I just took.

Maybe pirates keep residual influence on a planet even after their network is destroyed?

[jacozilla]

More update - I am starting to detest this part of pirates. I like the pirates being in game, but this weird instant fortress behavior is massively annoying.

As I just typed the post above, I did another 2x clears of the fortress - and this time it wasn't 5% completed, it was totally 100% done in a span of less than a minute.

So, conquer world -> blow up criminal faction -> very short time new fortress -> kill fortress -> very short time, again new fortress -? rinse and repeat 3 more times, including fortresses being insta-completd, not just in stage of being built

This seems pretty broken if playing as a pirate allows the same thing and this isn't just an AI pirate bug.

[Aeson]

It takes time for pirate influence to degrade. If the planet was host to a Criminal Network at the time of invasion, then pirate influence was at 100%; Hidden Pirate Bases can be built as long as the pirate faction has influence greater than or equal to 50% at the time that construction begins. I believe that construction time for the pirate facilities is dependent upon planetary population in the same way as the construction time of standard facilities, so if it's a high-population world where the pirates somehow have enough influence to build a Hidden Pirate Base, it's well within reason for the build time to be quite short. Be aware that you're probably at least slowly bankrupting the pirate faction that is doing this; each time a new Hidden Pirate Base pops up, the faction spent about 50,000 credits, while each Hidden Pirate Fortress costs the faction about 100,000 credits to construct (there are some modifications to these costs based upon the type of pirate), and a pirate faction does not get any refunds when its facilities are destroyed, whether or not they're destroyed before or after completion.

Playing as a pirate does allow the player to do the same thing, if they're paying enough attention and have enough money, but I would not call it advisable. The computer is far less likely to overlook, fail to notice, or forget about the presence of an (incomplete) Hidden Pirate Base than a human is, and the computer is far better equipped to check through all its colonies for such continually than a human is. Furthermore, the computer will never tire of destroying pirate facilities, whereas a human player might give up on destroying such facilities at some of their worlds through frustration at the way the bases continually pop up. If there is a computer-controlled world that has a sufficient garrison to blow up a Hidden Pirate Base, it is not worth a human player's time attempting to build a Hidden Pirate Base there unless the player first takes steps to neutralize the garrison (bombardment, extremely heavy raiding, or invasion are the only ways to do so; an invasion sufficiently strong to neutralize the garrison is an invasion which is almost certainly strong enough to take the planet, so as you cannot build hidden pirate bases and fortresses on worlds that you overtly control this is a highly impractical way of reducing the garrison to the point that the base can be completed); you're basically throwing away 50,000 credits every time you order the construction of a Hidden Pirate Base on a planet with a sufficiently strong garrison to kill said Hidden Pirate Base. Good way to go bankrupt, not a good way to do much of anything else.

[jacozilla]

doh..now i feel dumb. i thought when i blew up the criminal network / fortress that pirate influence went to zero but sounds like instead of binary 0/1 it's a sliding degradation scale?

Ok that makes more sense from what I see in game then. From a practical standpoint, it seems like 2-5x of additional killing of forts is needed after I take over a world that was infected heavily by pirates, so I've taken to just carrying extra large troop fleets and leave a bunch of troops to handle the upcoming 2-5 cleanings that will necessary.

[Aeson]

sounds like instead of binary 0/1 it's a sliding degradation scale?

Yep. Pirate influence has at least 101 possible values; it's displayed to the player as being any number from 0% through 100% at 1% increments. It's possible that the game stores pirate influence at a finer resolution, but such would only be apparent to the player if a situation came up where rounding produced an apparent error (e.g. the display indicating 50% influence at the colony but the player cannot build a Hidden Pirate Base there). Sadly, there is no way for the player to see pirate influence at a colony unless they themselves are playing a pirate faction, except the very coarse "there is a Hidden Pirate Base being constructed or already present here so one pirate faction's influence >= 50%" or "there is a Hidden Pirate Fortress or Criminal Network being constructed or already present here so pirate influence = 100%" or possibly by means of the game editor.

Ok that makes more sense from what I see in game then. From a practical standpoint, it seems like 2-5x of additional killing of forts is needed after I take over a world that was infected heavily by pirates, so I've taken to just carrying extra large troop fleets and leave a bunch of troops to handle the upcoming 2-5 cleanings that will necessary.

Look on the bright side. It's more or less free training for your army against a target that no standard empire will think less of you for attacking, and if you ensure that you use the same core group of units as much as possible you can greatly empower your main army (plus any clone infantry units you make).