Pirates...hahahaha!

I had this two, I did it with 5 cap ships and fired 5 cannons into the system before I iniated a jump on 3 sides.

That was an awesome fight.

Something I forgot to ask... why havent I won the map anyway? I was surprised I even have to take out the pirates?

huh, that seems odd...

well the thing is that taking the pirate planet is extremely difficult, but awesomely rewarding. I dont know if its been increased or decreased, but in the old beta it would give you 3 or 4 creds/sec! thats only outmatched by your HOMEWORLD!

so if you're in a competative game and you can take it, go ahead and try because its damn well worth it.

Ah that's nothing, I got invaded by a rival faction fleet consisting of six capital ships and some 60-80 supports. Countered it with a fortress planet and a fleet of seven capitals and around 80 support. But the battle was short. They phased in. They saw. And then they ran. Too bad you can't build interdiction structures...

Funnily enough, pirates leave me alone... though with two other factions outbidding each other's bounties all the time its no wonder.

Anyway, in case I did understand you correctly, don't use capital ships without adequate and appropriate support fleet. On their own the big guys aren't that great. I usually send in a scout ship to "map out" enemy defences... how many and what type of ships they have... where their static defences are (if any)... how many fighters and how many bombers are present... then tailor the attack fleet to counter that.

Some one plays eve online

Guilty as charged.

Once you learn tactics at EVE, you tend to stick to it... its a testament of how good Sins is when it rewards forward thinking instead of the classic "spam xxx of yyy and go blow up something" strategy. Aside from the siege frigate spam thing, but I hear they are addressing that.

These theives and malcontents who thrive off the fattened teat of the glorious TEC have many a time caused me to pull the shatner KHAN! The Deviants and the Xenos seem to know moments before an impending raid is launched and moments later I am informed that the bounty upon my magnificant nation has been increased and low and behold a great white shark has just been droped into my fish tank.

I learned the very hard and rapidly painful way to always send a scout ship into unexplored planets before commiting my fleet anywhere. A few fleets have been lost to these pirates thinking that its just some system with militant rabble that my Kol can clean and not a haven of blood thristy pudding pirates who would like nothing more than to get intimate with laser batteries.

But there is something to say when said pudding pirates can muster the largest fleet in the star system and only continue to grow as the money and time increases. I foolishly thought that a small fleet could handle them only outnumbered seven to one. And when I built a fleet well into the hundred mark and returned they had over 137 of one class ship waiting for me and about fifty of the other class ships as well. Despite overwhelming odds at that point it was a free xp for my fleet.

I often though wait until I have only one A.I. left before attacking the pirates, sometimes I use their planet as a buffer to make sure that I know a massive enemy fleet doesnt come through that phase lane.

Just something I would like to share resulting from an hour of play time last night…

I constructed two large fleets last night at my primary shipyards, only a couple of hops away from my homeworld. I attacked a neighbouring planet with both fleets, destroyed a number of structures and bombarded the planet from orbit with my capital ships. The enemy fleet showed up and my god, it was massive. I told both fleets to retreat back to the shipyards immediately, as I didn’t stand a chance.

During the excitement I failed to notice that my enemy had increased the bounty on my head. Pirates were on the way. A few minutes later, the enemy fleet showed up! They followed me back to teach me a lesson and even with the many turrets and hangers at my disposal, my two fleets were heavily outnumbered. I couldn’t risk leading the enemy back to my homeworld so I decided to fight it out, perhaps hoping for some divine intervention.

The enemy fleet started moving towards my base with alarming speed. Literally seconds before they were in range, guess who showed up?! The frakkin’ PIRATES! Despite the bounty on my head, the pirate fleet opened fire on my enemy. Although the pirate fleet was eventually destroyed, they managed to take out a sizable chunk of my enemy’s fleet as well. I committed all of my forces to attacking what remained of the enemy fleet and forced them to withdraw.

Epic stuff. The battles were frantic, beautiful and exciting to watch. The pirates saved me from certain destruction, deliberately or not. And for that, I find my perspective of them changed somewhat. My own ignorance forced them down upon me, a blessing in disguise it would seem!

What unit fire cannons to other gravity wells?

Novalith cannon.

I noticed something last night when i finally took the Pirate Homeworld. The population stayed at 0. It never increased no matter how built the world was. Is this a known bug?

It's not a bug at all, it just doesn't support any population

I changed mine to a population of 10. I figured it was a base, so it could use some janitors.

Space janitors!

I don't believe it's a bug. The Pirate planet only has health, not population.

Arrrr, PIRATE space janitors. Now swab that deck ye scurvy dogs!

How did you do that?

Why wouldnt a BASE support people? Makes no sense... I was thinking that it was something that the developers thought that we would never do. I saved them till last anyway because they are a great way to get experience for new capital ships w/o having to go hunting. I just waited for my enemies to waste their money and send them to me. By the end game i had 5 lvl 10 capital ships mainly due to the pirate attacks.

"Population" in-game references the tax-paying civilian population. You can colonize Dead Asteroids, but those don't support a civilian population either

Just wait until you play against allied computers that attack you at the same time. Ive been in engagments involving around 30 cap ships and more support ships than I bothered to count. Brought my comp to its knees. When the fleet indicator ring on a planet is completely full for both you and the enemy, and then another monster fleet jumps in....thats when EPIC comes to fruition. Another indicator that your in for it is when youve killed 10+ cap ships in one battle and they still havent decided to retreat. Fun stuff