Not to be rash... but I bought Trinity which is basically the whole "package" and if you haven't actually played it you probably shouldn't be commenting. Personally I like pirates because as I said before... it throws a wildcard into the mix that adds to the complexity and fun of the game. Even in an all player game (Which I haven't had the joy of trying yet due to being in australia with really bad ping times) I would say pirates would be great fun... yes I played the game prior to diplomacy at a friend's place and found the pirates to be nothing more than an annoyance... just something to wreck a planet you haven't had a chance to properly fortify. That being said though, the pirates in diplomacy are a whole different thing entirely. I can't repeat enough that I like having them in my games. I don't want to disable them but essentially in diplomacy their ships power simply outperforms any other ship in terms of stats AND they hit you with forces that are easily comparable to anything you can build up and sometimes far greater. I've heard of people having pirate fleets of 500+ ships. Throw the fact that these are ships with more "hp" than a capital ship... firepower that will destroy or near destroy any frigate in one shot... with a 1 second refire rate... you cannot beat them basically if they attack a planet... you lose the planet. To me that isn't fun.

Diplomacy also adds interactions with pirates that goes beyond the simple "bidding" war system in that you can actually employ the pirates to attack specific players even to the point of specific planets. It's a very fun system except for the entirely overpowered ships. I'm okay with pirates becoming powerful... heck I'm even okay with pirates becoming near as powerful as the player factions if enough money is thrown at them. But at the higher "levels" of their power... 1 of their ships is probably equal to 10-20 of your ships. Take that in stride and then say they're throwing a 500 ship fleet at you. Do you really think you're going to survive that? Heck no. The only saving grace about it is that they tend to attack a single planet... level it then just linger. Basically right now you have to stay on top of the bids in late game because you REALLY don't want them coming after you cause it will hurt. Especially if others take advantage of their impending raid.

Hmmm I think the game would be kinda boring without the pirates in a player game. Though I guess pirates are really a fairly unique feature in a RTS. If the scaling was capped and/or they tied the the pirate power directly to the money they have going in then it would be quite balanced and a lot more fun. But I guess it's really just a matter of waiting for a patch to hopefully get released.

Yeah but when pirates are pushing out 100 ships that are all equal to what would be a level 20 capital ship... that's too far and really almost everyone knows it I think pirates should scale up to your empire but not to the point that if they attack a planet no matter how defended it is... you're going to lose it. That's not fun. The only way that should happen is if people have sunk a considerable amount of money into them and not beaten their previous fleets. Or they were sent on a mission with a very high amount of money. But still its not the amount of pirates that's the problem... its the power of their ships.

Hmmm Distant Stars mod? I don't play with any mods and haven't really particularly had much interest in playing with any. The game is very solid as it is... except for the pirates really. And its not like its even unplayable... but I like to play on huge random maps and I find that a few things seem to ALWAYS occur in these games. I have an AI player in my local system so essentially it becomes a planet "tug o war" very quickly which essentially puts a cap on how high I can build up due to lack of income/infastructure... then throw growing pirates into the mix and if I get hit with both pirates and one of the AI's in another star systems that have had time to build up... I tend to end up losing several planets all in rapid succession.

I also play the base level to do research, though it is a lot harder so I have to drop the AI level a bit

@bgilliford - so what you are saying is that the caps for the pirates are still set too high (which I do agree with and have the DS pirates turned down a notch in key areas in that regard) and that you would like to remove the scaling power levels of each individual ship and increase the size of the fleets based on credits thrown their direction

I say no, due to the game mechanics (phase lanes, choke points) and starbases, pirates just get eaten, throw in a cap or two and you can home grow your very own lvl 10 cap (can be a little slow and time consuming)

flipside I do agree that just upping the power of the individual pirates ships is not the answer, personally I would prefer something along the lines of the TEC tier 8 research Insurgency where the pirates randomly attack one or two planets of the player that loses the bid much in the same manner as the Insurgency effect only with a bit more stronger force and also change up the attack and destroy planet idea to more of a pillage idea, some damaged to the planet is caused but you lose income at high rates to show looting. This would stop or make useless the idea of pirate fed caps and would force players to be a bit more mindful of their rear areas.