Pirates attack despite Protection Arrangement

[Testmann]

Hi fellow Imperators!

Shadows is awesome, but I'm not sure if my current situation is working as intended.

I'm paying a protection fee to pirate factions, yet these pirates come back after a while and re-start attacking my planets again.

When I manually break the treaty, and then in the same second re-start the protection arrangement, they stop attacking and change course.

But they increasingly dislike me more, whenever I break such a treaty.

Whats going on? [&:]

I just want to pay them off, and get their faces out of my systems.

Best regards!

[FerretStyle]

From what I have seen, pirates still drop raiding parties on colonies even if you have a protection agreement. They just won't attack your ships and bases.

[Testmann]

no they are clearly attacking my spaceport aswell.

And the annoying thing is, these two pirate factions that are constantly attacking me are the only ones I'm paying protecttion money to.

so, what am I paying them protection money for??

also, aren't they supposed to protect me against other pirate factions?
thats how paying off the mob works...

[TrooperCooper]

The game mechanic is kinda stupid in that regard. The pirates will still raid your colonies and bases despite having a protection agreement. However, as soon as their assault pods land on their target, the treaty is automaticly cancelled. And thus your space stations, starports and ships will become legitimate target for them again (and vice versa of course). But... as soon as their assault pods land, they will also be willing to sign a new protection agreement again, without them becoming mad at all (the landed troops will continue their raid though).

So what you can do in order to minimize losses is to have sufficient troops on the ground to beat back any incoming raiding forces. As soon as you get the alert message "colony XYZ under attack by ship XYZ", go to that colony, find the incoming ship. Watch it closely as it launches its pods. As soon as the pod dissappears hit pause again and contact the pirate faction to sign a new treaty on good terms. If you are fast enough, no shots will be fired (and your other civilian ships in the area wont be scared off and do emergency jumps all over the place due to hostiles nearby).

It requires a lot of micromanagement, especially with many pirate factions and depending on how many colonies you have. IMO the game mechanic needs to be changed. A protection agreement should be a protection agreement. Not signing in to be constantly raided. Or, at least the raiding shouldnt cause hostility in general again. Its just tiring the way it works at the moment...

[elanaagain]

Ferrit is correct....

[MarQan]

Pirates will still raid unprotected colonies(low military presence), even with Protection Agreement.

But base attacks... not likely.
That only happens if the pirates have no interest in keeping the treaty going. Only they don't declare it until the first attack. You need more Military Strength to avoid this.

Either you trim their fleet, or improve yours, so it will be in their best interest to be in good terms with you.

[oldones]

I suppose that's more realistic
because pirates can break promises more easily than empires.

If you research long range scanner, you will find a pirate base nearby.
Send 20 missile or torpedo ships with moderate armor and shield to pirate base and destroy it.

And pirates mostly send escorts to raid, so they cannot barely scratch a spaceport of defensive base's shield.