(As a pirate) How to gain control over planets?

[johanwanderer]

I hadn't play as a pirate since Shadow was released, so it had been a while. I just started playing one again recently and just couldn't seem to gain control over some planets.

Normally, once I have ships over a planet, I start to gain control. Is there a restriction on what plannets I can and cannot control?

The planet in question is a home world on a moon. I build a spaceport on the gas giant that it orbits, and keep constant present in the system. I started out with 23% control over the planet when I first discovered it. Then it went away at some point, and I could never get it back.

I now surround the planet with 2 spaceports (a large one on the gas giant with 150K firepower, a medium one on its sister moon with 5K firepower), a couple mining stations, and a fleet. I have resort bases and more mining stations and more small spaceports in the system as well. Basically I control the whole system except for this one planet.

I would have some ridiculous protection agreement with them. They build up ships and infrastructures. I helped them out with all sorts of incursions. After a while, they would break the agreement, got all their infrastuctures shot to pieces and raided.

What else do I need to do to gain control of the planet? There is no pirate facilities on it, and they despised me (-2200 or so), for good reasons.

For comparision, when I send my fleets to raid some other planets, I do get control over them.

Maybe someone here can shed some lights on when you can / can not control a planet.

[Kilravock]

I think you can't build a criminal network at capitals. That's it as far as I can tell. You can have 100% control of an enemy capital/homeworld along with any colony. Just raid, trade, and park some some ships over it and it will go up. Build pirate bases to help keep it up. It just large population planets with large garrison forces are much harder to maintain control of.

[johanwanderer]

That's the thing though. I have zero control over it. Zero. I don't even have the green hammer icon to even attempt to build a facility on it. Other colonies I have the icon, but it doesn't let me build until I get to 50% control. Even then, sometimes it just does nothing when I try to build the base. Very weird.
 
Oh, and I played as Pirate Balanced.

[Nanaki]

You can raise control over a planet by either raiding it or simply patrolling around it with your ships, but there is a cap (around 1.6 billion) that you can get 100% control over a planet. Once the population exceeds that cap it is impossible to get 100% control.

[johanwanderer]

I loaded an older save to test this, and as soon as the planet's population exeeded 7 billion, I lose control of it. I guess you're not supposed to be able to influence a highly populated planet.

[Keston]

Makes sense that Pirates prosper in peripheral regions.

So it sounds like control capability slips away over the range from about 1.6b to 7b, and direct military conquest (or maybe inciting revolt?) is the only way to change things.

However I hope my fully owned world doesn't automatically break away due to increased population - though might expect revolts.

[Nanaki]

Note that control will be kept if pirate bases/fortresses are built. An independant world can have 40 billion people and yet, as long as a pirate fortress remains it will remain at 100% control.

Pirates that fully own worlds will keep them for good, they will never break away or rebel, unless they are unhappy or something.

[CaptainBipto1]

Hey I just wanted to chime in: you need to have successful raids to get the most control possible. Blowing up stuff and parking overhead only works initially to get you a foothold on the planet. The others are right, the higher pop will quickly erode your influence. I am still new so I try to use troop transports which come with 4 assault pods. I park them over worlds. But basically you need to have a raiding force large enuff to rofl stomp large pop planets. Rich planets can be raided at least 2 to 3 times while in "recent raid status" before the raid comes out empty.

Also I am going to start bombarding high pop worlds in future games.

[Nanaki]

Parking overhead works perfectly. It takes time but so long as the population is not above 1.7b you will get 100% control very quickly.

[CaptainBipto1]

Big pop planets usually are 2b or more. Even if you do get facilities built they will wipe them faster than you can rebuild. Best bet is to bombard them down to indie levels.

[NephilimNexus]

You can raise control over a planet by either raiding it or simply patrolling around it with your ships, but there is a cap (around 1.6 billion) that you can get 100% control over a planet. Once the population exceeds that cap it is impossible to get 100% control.

Actually the cap is around three billion. If the population is higher than that just nuke them into the stone age and get back down under that number. Then follow up with lots & lots of raids to finish the job.

Best part is that planets that have been blasted like this take forever to recover, which means they won't be making any attempts to fight your bases for a long time. Plenty of time for you to secure the rest of the system and move in invasion ships at your leisure.