Disagree from a SP perspective. I play with the pirates on (even modded them to be real nasty) and enjoy the XP. But from an MP perspective I can see where you are coming from.

You know those "Fair" random maps you/SD/others are making? The no pirate base would be a great tie-in for those maps.

disagree, i like pirates how they are.

This would be absolutely horrifying. It would make the game far more shifted towards whomever has the most cash, Plus, speaking as a modder, this would really destroy Titans as a ship entity, as it would just make them mobile star bases versus super capital ships.

While I agree titans would have been a lot better off without leveling up like capitalships do, a purely economic system like starbases could be worse for the reasons Zombie and Lavo mentioned. The only half way decent thing I can think of is to give titans much more prominent bombardment ability and let them get XP from planets (2 planets destroyed for level 2, 3 for 3 etc.), though that is hardly ideal.

Yeah economical LVL up would mean titans wont even get into the fights until they are LVL 3 for eradica and LVL 6 or above for most of others. That would also mean that players/team with better map or eco would win by default as titans LVL 6 or above are really death dealing machines.

Disagree.  Pirate XP was already lowered, and you can only go from lvl 1 to lvl 3 with titan on pirate base, not a big deal.  Your idea also impacts TEC loyalist, as they are defensive for a very long time and would rely on pirate/militia XP to level their caps.

With the pirates not being particularly strong at the moment, perhaps a joint solution is to code a pirate base at a set distance from each player. More pirates and everyone can level the titan this way if they should so choose.

Having level 2 (instead of lvl 1) of an AoE ability like Chastic burst or scattershot is a huge deal...it can make the difference between 60 LFs raping the titan and the titan raping 60 LFs...

That extra level in the AoE abilities dramatically changes what frontliners can do with the fleet they already have, and may force them to completely redo their fleet composition.....

A quick look at your posts reveal that you have made absolutely no worthwhile contributions to these forums and a level of maturity that I'm sure is doing you very well in life.   

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is hiring the pirates... which I like to do on occasion for something like a diversionary attack. 

It's a good tactic, but at the same time it gives your opponent a chance to gain levels faster, so you have to use it wisely.... otherwise you might build your opponants titan's lvl's faster than your own... it's very much a double edged sword tactic. 

Personally I like the pirates the way they are... in fact I'd love to see a couple Pirate Cap ships down the road, and perhaps their own starbase.

that could be fun....