How do you deal with the pirates now?

Have you updated to 1.01?

I had a test 1v1 game against an unfair AI where I didn't bid in the auctions.

Raid one 'Guarded'... (why not 'low', will it ever be 'low' then'?)  the enemy put in a late bid of 229..

2 Corsairs, 3 Pillagers, 7 Reapers, 9 Rogues, 4 Cutthroats

Raid two 'Elevated' no further bid from my enemy

5 Corsairs, 9 Pillagers, 6 Reapers, 2 Rogues, 4 Cutthroats

Raid three 'High' again no further bid

12 Corsairs, 13 Pillagers, 7 Reapers, no Rogues or Cutthroats

Raid four 'High' no further bid

13 Corsairs, 12 Pillagers, 8 Reapers, no Rogues, no Cutthroats

Raid five 'High' the enemy add another 250

13 Corsairs, 13 Pillagers, 7 Reapers, no Rogues, 2 Cutthroats

Raid six 'Severe' no further bid

19 Corsairs, 8 Pillagers, 3 Reapers, no Rogues, 11 Cutthroats 

Thats quite a number of ships for 479 credits all told!!!  This wasn't a six hour game either.  I'm not sure whether the silly stats would start to show up again, the ships themselves seemed okay for the first six raids, though they did vary.

The Pirates were certainly much more dangerous than an unfair AI.  With so little money put into the pirates why do the raid levels increase so much?  Why so few Rogues and Cutthroats?  It shouldn't be about wrecking the game just so that experienced players won't get a few free experience points- if there isn't much of a raid, there won't be many experience points...?  At 1v1 I could cope with the pirate raids and still win the game... but I'm not sure at all how this would work for a game against several AI, especially if I had to fight for territory right from the start, and if the raids were bidded up more earlier.

I just wonder about the direction of the expansion.  I would have had the ordinary pirate raids as a threat to extended trade routes, using mainly Cutthroats.  With some sneaky AI and the ability to pass Phase Inhibitors they would be a nuisance throughout the game.  Slow trade ships down so that they can be destroyed- trade is still a defence against pirates, even though most of their ships are heavier and don't attack trade- it's a nonsense really, that the anti-trade ships have been reduced in favour of siege...!!  Then the pirates wouldn't pose a threat to the existence of factions, just their economies.  If you had no trade or refineries there would be little to worry about.  If players wanted to send destructive terror raids on enemy planets they could tech up and buy them.

Yeah I did update Diplomacy and notice they were toned down a bit, but were still a pain in the ass. Not to mention I hate how the other factions place bounty on me the SECOND the pirates head out, making it harder for me to tell if they're after me or not.

Demo Bots. Demo Bots. Demo Bots.

Erm....what? o_0

Note: Just mod them down...

I modded my pirates into crappy shingles so they still send in sizeable fleet that gets destroyed like fleas by a starbase. But an unguarded planet is a huge mistake.

The little sword icon that shows up to the right of the player name on the bounty list is a clear indicator of who the Pirates are currently targeting.

On topic, I found the Pirates to be a bit better in my last game, after the patch. It's still rather nonsensical the numbers they send and the improvements they get when nobody is really spending anything on them. But they started weak and it was at least somewhat interesting to check on them raid after raid, and watch their ships steadily gain in power, but not too fast.

Nothing quite pisses me off like people who respond to discussion on game features with "just mod them". I want to play a game, not redesign it myself to make it playable.

This was the kind of ally 5-5 battle, after 7 hours we had THIS

Pirates (attacking)

Cutthroat 109

Corsair 292!!!

Pillager 109

Reaper 244

Rogue 401

Just a small bunh yeah?

Our defense

Total:

20 Battleships

20 Carriers

3 Colonizers

17 Support

4 Dreadnoghts

109 HC

290 SC  Both

209 CC

409 LRM

233 LF

200 SC

We lost of course...

Yeah I don't really want to mod either...lol.

Well sometimes there's like 3 or 4 sword icons so, can they go after multiple targets when raiding? I thought it was just a one target thing.

Well, sometimes the bounty on a player is high enough or the player is far enough away that they will continue to fight until after the next wave of them is sent out.  I was playing a game the other day that was like that.  The pirates were on one end of the gravity well and I was on the other.  By the time they finally got to me, I had already built up defenses against them.

UeCa might mean that you could slow the Pillagers down before they could attack, especially with no Rogues...?  The Pillagers still fall for the 'fake turret build' trick though, so they don't achieve anything, even with a dozen of them.  Less of them and better AI might be an improvement?  A dozen siege ships could just ignore a single turret, or even a pair of them.  The point is that the pirates are just too much of a threat compared to the AI, though.  Support cruisers are good against the AI too.

I ended up just taking out the pirate planet to avoid spending 75% of the game fighting the next pirate raid or preparing for it, and this in a game where my opponent spent almost no credits on pirates and never had to fight them itself.  There were hardly any more pirates around the planet than on a raid, but the gauss turrets upgraded before I made a large enough gap to attack the planet, and developed extremely efficient flak(!)- though there seemed to be no visible graphic upgrade to indicate this?  Starbases don't get flak... The turrets seemed very tough, perhaps they'd used all their upgrades on turrets.  Normally I'd colonise the pirate base, but it had been very much a chore and the remaining turrets were welcome to it. 

So they were the 'enhanced' pirates, and a dull, miserable pain they were too.  I can see why new players might be put off very quickly.  Unless you can defeat an unfair AI already, my advice would be just don't have them on.  It's like a poorly-balanced mod, where if the pirates are ever weak the development team feel 'defeated', so the pirates have to be hard all the time, even without being financed.   If the OMG I LIKE HARD PIRATES U LOSERS crowd get their way they'll just remain stupidly disproportionate.  With even the non-financed raids not much weaker than the entire pirate defence system its almost as easy to kill their planet as to stop a raid.  The upgrade system was backward in 1.00 and half of it is still as backward, the upgrades should be limited to what a 'hard' AI might achieve.     

The game needs a good auto-counter to trade and the pirates could be that, but aren't.  The bidding system remains as poor as it was.  There was a post in another thread that recommended 'protection' money for the bidding rounds instead, so that the pirates attack only the lowest payers.  I can see that being a lot more fun, especially if they made no attack at all on turns where all players had paid the same amounts- that could lead to some wars of nerves...  However, the pirates might be much more enjoyable if they didn't make direct attacks at all, without a player buying them to do so.  Then they could hamper good players and not be as deadly to poor ones, if you had no trade system you wouldn't be much of a target.

Holy crap, that would make an epic battle. I don't know what faction you were playing...but 7 hours into the game with 5 allies...unless they were all AI...means up to 5 Starbases in that Grav Well .

Even with one Starbase, each faction has its own way of dealing with large fleets. TEC has self-destruct, Advent has Meteors/Mass Disorient, and Vasari have Frontal Shields/Debris Vortex. Where are your repair bays? If you had Shield Projection and Shield Restore, you should be fine. Hohos and Missile Barrage on TEC does well. Vasari have lockdown capabilities and a handy minelayer.Well, I've never faced those numbers before...but sounds to me you should have been fine.

As to the original topic, building a 2 repair bays and a few turrets with a cap and a small fleet can still handle the pirates just fine early on. Jump any frigates that are being targeted by pirate ships or kite them. Or, you could just let the pirates raid the planet, leave, and recolonize it with a colony frig. If there is nothing valuable on your frontier/choke point worlds...then you really don't have too much to worry about there.

how about simply make an option for strong pirates like it is now , middle and weak forces?

would it be hard to implent?

Or something like they start out weak and as your fleet and defenses grow so does the pirate's fleet and raids. And have it where they would pay no attention to you at all if you have no defenses or fleets...

You could upload the mod for some of the people who are having trouble with the pirates. While I think it's worthwhile to learn how to mod these kind of things, other people may not think so or have the time. Besides, it's kind of pointless to have a bunch of people essentially make the same mod several times right?

well its true pirates got tougher but their BEHAVIOR DOES NOT CHANGE

every single pirate ship type always have their fav meals

Corsairs :  aim for towers

Cutthroat : aims for trade ports

Rogues : aims for trade/ref ships

Pillager : aims for planets

Reapers : aims fighters first before bombers

so stacking trade ports / refineries behind a HUGE STATIC LINE OF DEFENSE solves much problem