Deadly Phantoms

[Andriko]

The Deadly Phantom pirates just turned up in my game, and they are merrily destroying everything I have with their 30+ cruiser, which pretty much has ruined the nice game i had going.

How the hell do I get rid of them? And can I turn them off next time I start a game?

[turtlefang]

You don't have many choices:

1) Kill the cruisers off with your fleet, hunt down their space port, and destroy it.

2) Hope they go somewhere else but keep a fleet around to try and discourage them.

3) I don't know of anyway to turn them off. They just appear and then you deal with them.

[Andriko]

I thought I had destroyed their base, it was right in a system I believe, unless it was someone else with a similar name.

To make things worse, they have a capital ship running around which is invincible :/

[Erik Rutins]

They are part of the possible "Disasters" added with Legends.

[Starke]

The legendary pirates are a "disaster" event? D: That's kinda interesting. In that case, you might be able to disable them by turning off disasters in the final game setup screen.

I've also noticed that legendary pirates bases do not show up as a flag on the zoomed-out map like normal pirates. I'm unsure if this is a bug or not.

And yes, the legendary pirates can throw a real wrench in your game, provided they appear before you have the tech/infrastructure to handle them (in my current game, they showed up rather late and I slaughtered them more easily and any of the normal pirate factions in the game). You'll have to change your plans to handle them - bunker up, lose some of your outlying mining stations, and fortify the systems you intend to protect. Persevere and overcome![8D]

[Chris21wen]

They just turned up in mine, fortunately very late. I had few ships in the area when they first appeared and only one fleet and they did some considerable damage but made the mistake of hanging around and are now mainly toast, if you can get toast in space. Haven't found there base yet.

[Canute0]

If you don't want these big pirate fleet wander around, you should just build a small cheap spaceport at this planet they just left.
They have an good inteligence and they know about these base and set this base as next target.
At this way you can force these fleet to stay around this planet, when you just rebuild the base.

[Fenrisfil]

I actually had them offer me a protection agreement, which I think must be a bug as you can't actually ask them for one yourself.

Anyway, their HQ is usually really near where they spawn and your best shot is usually to take that out. The fleet used to join another pirate faction at that point, don't know if they still do as the only times I've come across them since Shadows I took out the fleet before destroying the base, but if they do it should at least make them a bit less aggressive and you can always get a protection agreement from normal pirates (It may not last, but you can always get it).

Hoping they head elsewhere isn't a great option seeing as they always seem to spawn specifically right near you. In one game I had them spawn three times in the same corner of the map right by my "safe" inner systems. If your on the edge of the map with some harmless gas clouds out at the edges it may be wise to drop some monitoring stations down there as that is almost certainly where they'll spawn. If your in the centre of the map it may be harder to locate there base, but at the same time you may be lucky and see them head off elsewhere.

Oh yeah, extra hint for hitting that base. If you jump to the main base your ships tend to spawn all around it and get hit by the base and the defensive bases at the same time. So set your jump point a little way out and focus on the nearest defensive base first. I find a bit of ship herding is often in order to make sure none of them stray too close to the ranges of the other bases. Using this tactic I've actually taken them out with a fleet far to weak for a head on fight and too weak to stand up to the fleet itself (sitting at range and hitting them with missiles over a long period).

[Andriko]

Thanks for the help guys, the base eventualloy did turn up, right next to two of my outlying systems, so I went over kill and send in everything I had while their capital ship monster fleet was busy somewhere, and managed to take care of them.

[Starke]

ORIGINAL: Fenrisfil

I actually had them offer me a protection agreement, which I think must be a bug as you can't actually ask them for one yourself.

Yeah, they offered me one as well. It was extremely reasonably priced and I was busy elsewhere, so I actually took it. But come to think of it, it's probably a bug.

[elanaagain]

is a bug...lucky you....