1.Dont use autodesigns
...
10.Dont use autodesigns.

You cant lose in DW ever if you dont use autodesigns or run Shakturi events.

Paying pirates? You pay to cease the supply of free hi-tech ships?

I aim for a speed around 10 for close range ships. Less and it takes them too long to refuel etc.

When something hostile is present at build location with no vision, builder flies there, escapes, loses vision, assumes it is safe, flies there again etc until it runs out of fuel.

I tried reloading and it allowed me to build energy research at the star (but still not at gas giants) and now i cannot build high tech.

http://turbobit.net/ugs3q3cxkc6x.html

Technology trading is an exploit. Same as trading planet info and scrapping freighters.
And the very point of distant worlds is a constant manual redesign so by taking it out you dilute the game.

Early game income comes from capping nearby indies and homeworlds.

Hmm i use aoe sometimes and never had my ships slaughtering themselves. You just have to have enough shields, point blank on aoe and standoff on rest. AoE is very good at slaughtering late game junk hordes.

The best improvement on aoe weapons was addition of tractors.

The strategy for dealing with bloated empires on the other end of galaxy is to move a few planetary destroyers or big bombardment fleets onto their homeworld and largest colonies. What to do next figure yourself.

<t> The Distant Worlds is hugely overpriced and does not appeal to hardcore space 4x fans by being easy, casual and most importantly having no multiplayer. <br/>
I got my arse handed to me in GalCiv before i learned it and SotS does it to me sometimes even now when i dont play hivers. In DW i was ...

Yes i design everything with luxury extractors and never ran into your problem.

When i capture a pirate ship in over-planet skirmish, first thing it does is to go refuel on that planet. While not responding to orders. Then it gets blown up by pirates orbiting that planet. Very annoying.

<t> They dont. As my observations show, if your ship is equipped with tractor, it can only be kited by missile ships and such. Then it gets low shield, warps out and then warps in and tractors stuff. If its missiles itself it cannot be kited. So for melee ships you need not more thrusters but a ...

<t> Its simple. With advent of pirates they had become even more spammy. So you design an escort with decent shields, lazors, 4 pods and a tractor, produce a few of them and set your policies to cap everything and retrofit. Voila you have a steady influx of discounted ships, most of which are ...

<t> Well you simply fell prey to a common prejudice mining bases must be unarmed. My recent base design consists of at least 16 shields, 12 armor and as much rockets as it fits into a 3 reactor cap. AND at least 8 boarding pods plus tractor. I observed 4 pirate ships attempting to raid my base, it ...

Well make a sufficient fleet with aoe weapons and solve it.

Neutron stars gas giants

The classes i use are skirmisher, boarder, transport, fleet support, bomber, carrier.

While indy freighters can occasionally be of use bringing resources when i play a pirate i cap or blow them up. And doing it manually is somewhat tedious so i would like a policy for that.

When playing a pirate, escorts make the bulk of your forces, fitted with pods and tractors and left on auto they do raids and capture occasional ship here and then.