Pirates

[Wade1000]

Pirates.

-Do pirates build colony ships and expand from their original home base? If not, then that is understandable since pirates might usually only be interested in looting, pillaging, and individual power amongst the ship captains and faction leaders as they live a nomadic space life.

-What and how do pirates gain from attacking/destroying other civilizations' assets?
(what examples: resources, money/credits, technology?; how example: use their own transports to take resources?)

[elliotg]

Pirates don't colonize planets - they a base that they operate from, usually at a gas giant planet or gas cloud (for fuel).

As they attack the ships and bases of other empires they are able to grow their fleet and upgrade their ships and base.

[Wade1000]

Elliotg, thanks. Could you elaborate.
From what you say, I assume that the pirate gains of power upgrades from them destroying assets is abstracted. This would be okay because we might assume that the pirates have special skills that allow them to gather leftovers from a battle and make use of them on their ships and at their bases.

-Do the pirates, after or during combat, somehow captured resources and materials that they have to then use their ships to take back to their bases for processing and power upgrades?

[Wade1000]

Interesting:

[*]Diplomacy: interact with other empires, discussing treaties, making trade offers or just giving them a piece of your mind. Talk to pirate factions, tapping into their underground information, or paying them to do your dirty work for you...

 
http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_Main.Entry17C?SID=45905&SP=10023&CID=119338&PID=992978&PN=1&V1=992978&CUR=840&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=119338