Pirate levels are nuts

[Spidey]

I've been doing a fair few campaign starts and I always play 10 by 10 2000 star galaxies (because space ought to feel big, no?), so far only normal pirate amount, normal distance, pre-warp start. And the best I've tried so far was only 3 pirate factions after ~4 years. Normally I get 4. This current game, I'm 4 years after start date and 5 different pirate factions have shown up . That's with normal pirate distance. I shudder to think at many pirates and close proximity.

But it really doesn't feel like the pirates are exploring dynamically. It feels like some event is triggering a "visit player world" script and then some ships are sent from their base on however long a trip to the player world, which would explain why so many are appearing with different delays but within a span of just a year or two. But the overall effect is, in a word, nuts.

My problem with this is two-fold.
1) It gets *really* old rather quickly to be drowning in pirate swarms with very little to do about it.
2) It really does force a rather more militant approach since there's no way to pay off that many pirate factions. Playing it peacefully is not simply a trade-off, it is outright impossible. The initial colony cannot generate enough money. This means there's really not a whole lot of strategy to pirate interactions.

My approach so far is to pay them off if they're destroying something but otherwise letting them raid mining stations. Once they leave, I generally cancel protection agreements to avoid the budget destruction. This will piss them off short term and if they come back too soon then it might be a problem, but what is the alternative?

Shields and a weapon and armor and frigates then become necessary much sooner than I would like. Getting to that tier 1 or tier 2 stage of military is a pain and it really slows down the builder / econ start, but it is the only way to shut the door on incessant pirate grief.

It would be so much more fun if there was more actual diplomacy to be done with pirates, like actually having them do protection, and eventually integrating them into the faction peacefully. Maybe in the future?

[dostillevi]

Just came from my 4th attempt in a row to start a game, stymied by pirates.

I think they really just need some early game balancing. I want to be playing a very hard game with lots of pirates later on, but there's just nothing you can do against them in the early game. Your economy is in shambles and you can't possibly afford the ships necessary to fight them off. Turning down the pirate difficulty or spawning is an option, but then this important part of the game won't really exist - they'll STILL be annoying in the early game, but then become irrelevant.

It's just no fun either having no economy because you paid off all the pirates, no economy because you tried building a fleet that gets destroyed by the pirates, and/or have nothing at all to do because everything is under attack by pirates.

Note I'm playing on extreme with slowest tech speed, but extreme should not mean unfun without ways to be successful. Notably, after the early game even extreme isn't that challenging. It's just those darned merciless pirates.

[CarloTheCurious]

It would be so much more fun if there was more actual diplomacy to be done with pirates, like actually having them do protection, and eventually integrating them into the faction peacefully. Maybe in the future?

I've not noticed them actually doing any protection, but if you keep in their good graces you can get non-aggression and military refueling treaties with them (at least on normal difficulty), and then eventually integrate them via triggered event.

[Spidey]

It would be so much more fun if there was more actual diplomacy to be done with pirates, like actually having them do protection, and eventually integrating them into the faction peacefully. Maybe in the future?

I've not noticed them actually doing any protection, but if you keep in their good graces you can get non-aggression and military refueling treaties with them (at least on normal difficulty), and then eventually integrate them via triggered event.

I haven't seen them straight up protecting either, but if they're non-hostile with the player and hostile with other pirates then nature will occasionally run its course.

That said, it really would be nice if they could be hired to actually do a job. "Protect me" or "raid them!" or "blow that base up!", obviously for more than what it might cost to get a general protection deal.

As far as integrating them, I've done that with pirates that liked me somewhat when I blew up their base, but I have not seen it happen peacefully. Did you do something in particular to trigger it?

[maggiecow]

It would be so much more fun if there was more actual diplomacy to be done with pirates, like actually having them do protection, and eventually integrating them into the faction peacefully. Maybe in the future?

I've not noticed them actually doing any protection, but if you keep in their good graces you can get non-aggression and military refueling treaties with them (at least on normal difficulty), and then eventually integrate them via triggered event.

I haven't seen them straight up protecting either, but if they're non-hostile with the player and hostile with other pirates then nature will occasionally run its course.

That said, it really would be nice if they could be hired to actually do a job. "Protect me" or "raid them!" or "blow that base up!", obviously for more than what it might cost to get a general protection deal.

As far as integrating them, I've done that with pirates that liked me somewhat when I blew up their base, but I have not seen it happen peacefully. Did you do something in particular to trigger it?

There are a couple story events that will trigger it. One human related and one general game related.

[Lunalis]

yea, pirates dont "protect" your stuff... its more that you are paying them monthly to be "protected" and not get attacked by them.

usually i dont really have any problems with pirates in my games.
often i just pay protection to all till i get some research done and i et some fighty ship designs ready.
and when i get to a point, for example where i pay 20000k in protection fees.. i often think to my self... well if i would spend that 20k in ship maintenance i would get a fleet together to fight them instead.
so at some point i cancel protection agreements one by one and build ships to fight back.

also pirates fight eachother... so if two pirate factions decide to raid your station, they will also fighteachother... blow up their ships and are left with less till they run out.

and often enough pirates will run out of ships very quickly and just have their one base somewhere and do nothing anymore, so they no real "threat" atall in my games.
agaisnt planet raids, two troops usually fend off the raiding party.

back in DW1 pirates would also build their own ships, have freighters to smuggle and move resources around, they would build ships and capture ships and have fleets. and they can become really hard to deal with and take over colonies.
and you could give missions to them to defend a planet and the pirates would bid on it and the highest bidder gets the mission. or missions to attack stations.

DW2 just has barebones pirates at this point, they just there to give you something to fight and deal with at the start of the game basically. maybe later DLC will get pirates to DW1 levels of pirates again.

[Mike847284]

It is very random.

I played a game where I spawned in the center of the galaxy, I had 19 Pirate factions within 20 years, 6-7 very early on. I made the mistake of trying to pay them all off. But then I couldn't grow my economy enough to build ships to take them out.

I was playing on extreme and Pirates very hard. Other games like my current one, started more to the edge, expanded a lot and only meet 4-5 pirates. So RNG can get you which is good as it makes each game different.

[CarloTheCurious]

As far as integrating them, I've done that with pirates that liked me somewhat when I blew up their base, but I have not seen it happen peacefully. Did you do something in particular to trigger it?

Couldn't find a "spoiler" function, so just don't squint if you don't want to know

If you destroy a hive carrier (at least as human) you integrate allied pirate factions

[Miravlix]

Accept protection
Gife Gift
Switch from Protection to Non Agg.

Pirates is ridiculous easy to deal with and completely pointless feature at the moment. If they are "bothering" you, maybe you need to stop playing badly?

[dostillevi]

Accept protection
Gife Gift
Switch from Protection to Non Agg.

Pirates is ridiculous easy to deal with and completely pointless feature at the moment. If they are "bothering" you, maybe you need to stop playing badly?

I absolutely love the git gud arguments.

The cost of protection + gift is often around 30-40k. This is the same problem as just paying monthly protection - many races and government types simply don't support an economy that can earn that much money, per pirate, in the same timespan when 4-7 pirates are attacking and demanding protection money. This is especially challenging on slower tech levels. Playing badly has nothing to do with it, unless by playing badly you mean don't use common and desired settings modifiers.

Further, what should be obvious - the AI can't "git gud" and presumably deals with a similar level of pirate menace that the player does. The AI itself needs to be able to handle the pirates in order to become a challenge. Right now if I get past the early game, even on extreme there's little challenge, and part of that is likely due to the AI struggling against early pirates.

[Miravlix]

Further, what should be obvious - the AI can't "git gud" and presumably deals with a similar level of pirate menace that the player does. The AI itself needs to be able to handle the pirates in order to become a challenge. Right now if I get past the early game, even on extreme there's little challenge, and part of that is likely due to the AI struggling against early pirates.

If you want to report the other stuff to the devs fine, I'm not a dev so telling me like I am in control of those things or was advocating for it when it wasn't part of my post is just going to leave me with no other option than making you look bad.

How pirates work for the AI is something neither you nor I know and assuming the dev is too stupid to consider this just seems like a way to start a war, this thread points out that some community members has a focus on pirates, in my case I think they are broken and easily dealt with and in your case they seem to be some kind of boogie man that you can't deal with or think the AI can.

I don't make a military, so zero maintenance cost and I get non agg with pirates so zero cost for me in that way, this allows me to break the pirates easily and remove them as a factor, since I guess the game is balanced around pirates, that can't be a good thing<tm>.

[btd64]

The best place to report issues is the tech forum....GP

[Spidey]

Accept protection
Gife Gift
Switch from Protection to Non Agg.

Pirates is ridiculous easy to deal with and completely pointless feature at the moment. If they are "bothering" you, maybe you need to stop playing badly?

Yeah, I know about the "butter up and treaty" thing but it's rather cheesy, isn't it? And then there's the question of how viable it actually is in a pre-warp start. A single medium gift isn't always enough either. At a guess, I'd say the cost is ballpark 40k per pirate faction. Do you have 200k stored up four years into a pre-warp start? I sure don't.

Medium gifts might be enough after a period of protection agreement but 125 per month will add up. The third protection agreement just about chokes my development to a halt in a pre-warp start. That's without anything other than exploration and construction ships. The revenue just isn't high enough.

So the question is this, if I have maybe 30-40k in reserves, do I want to use that to crash early research and get a leg up on necessary tech or do I want to pacify 1 out of 5 pirate factions? This is year 2058, by the way. Four years into a campaign. Give it another couple of years and there's maybe a pool of 150k to work with but almost certainly also more pirate factions.

By the time the homeworld generates enough money that all this bribery is manageable, I'm also typically at a point in tech where I might as well invest the same money in a fleet that handles not just a single pirate faction but all of them. And all the space monsters.

Obviously, the timing of things will change if you play with high difficulty and slow tech. In that case the age of pirates lasts a whole lot longer. And in that case there might be an argument for doing the non-aggression cheese with the closest pirate factions. But it's hardly an elegant solution to abuse a weakness in the barebones diplomacy system to neuter some of the pirate hordes.

[gravyten]

In all my play throughs I end up just doing the “protection agreement” with the pirates and it works out fine. Try just doing the treaty with them and waiting to get technology. You get bonus income from private sector when they build ships

Edit:unless they changed the game so pirates are demanding higher tribute now?

[dostillevi]

In all my play throughs I end up just doing the “protection agreement” with the pirates and it works out fine. Try just doing the treaty with them and waiting to get technology. You get bonus income from private sector when they build ships

Edit:unless they changed the game so pirates are demanding higher tribute now?

No they haven't changed the tribute amounts, but I wonder if we play at different settings. I can sit for literally hours at 4x speed when starting at pre-warp on slowest tech speed and still not get enough money to pay off the pirates or the tech to fight them off. Once they start attacking, the economic growth slows to a crawl due to planet invasions (I tried focusing on just building defense armies but they eventually break through and trigger the happiness and corruption penalties), and it takes forever to get the necessary tech to fight them off. Often they'll attack with 400+ power frigates or even destroyers right from the beginning, which overwhelms even a 20 ship fleet of Zenox escorts, for example (you can't actually afford a 20 ship fleet of escorts). I tried turning down the pirate difficulty, but it doesn't seem to effect their starting ship power.

[gravyten]

“slowest tech speed”

That’s probably your problem if you are setting a slow tech game. I try to get the 2nd warp technology early so I can get out of system and it’ll encourage private sector to build ships. A lot of my income comes from private ship building

Edit: Luxury resources increase development so get as much luxury as you can around your home world and you’ll get more income that way plus with private sector production

Edit again: Mining stations don’t cost the state money. Try rushing warp technology early and build stations on all resources you lack. You should get a good income that way

[dostillevi]

“slowest tech speed”

Edit again: Mining stations don’t cost the state money. Try rushing warp technology early and build stations on all resources you lack. You should get a good income that way

Is it a good idea to build mining stations everywhere? I've had pretty good success only building them when I am having/going to have a shortage, or when I need a resource extracted for a strategic reason. Also currently they're a bit annoying since every one needs to be set to manual stockpiles and then have their caslon reserve set to zero, to avoid the bug with them constantly being in shortage.

[gravyten]

“slowest tech speed”

Edit again: Mining stations don’t cost the state money. Try rushing warp technology early and build stations on all resources you lack. You should get a good income that way

Is it a good idea to build mining stations everywhere? I've had pretty good success only building them when I am having/going to have a shortage, or when I need a resource extracted for a strategic reason. Also currently they're a bit annoying since every one needs to be set to manual stockpiles and then have their caslon reserve set to zero, to avoid the bug with them constantly being in shortage.

It’s good to build everything that you lack. Early game you just need 1 source of every resource

[Spidey]

In all my play throughs I end up just doing the “protection agreement” with the pirates and it works out fine. Try just doing the treaty with them and waiting to get technology. You get bonus income from private sector when they build ships

Edit:unless they changed the game so pirates are demanding higher tribute now?

Treaties are still affordable, particularly if it's just one or two. But it is still 1500 per year per treaty that goes out of the science and colony development budget.

I'm presently at a taxable revenue of 60k and that works out for a budget of 13k. Let's assume a half dozen pirate factions that eat up a nice 9k of that budget. That's just 4k left for the upkeep for research stations, space ports, exploration ships, construction ships, as well as colony development and research. It forces a choice between some colony development or some research or too little of both. But it is just about doable.

This is at year 7, though. I met most of these in year 4. Back then the third protection agreement was killing my science progress. And if we hit a higher number of pirates than half a dozen then what? Then there's really only the non-aggression semi-cheese or letting the budget run bone dry and waiting a decade or two for any progress. Unless I'm missing something?

That said I am observing that the pirates further away don't come visiting my homeworld all that often. I hesitate to generalize but it might be the case that the more distant pirate factions are essentially just window dressing that can be ignored after that first visit. Thus agree to a PA, pay it for a month or two until they wander off, then cancel it and forget all about them for the next few years.

[dostillevi]

Making pirates spawn far away, and eating the 5k/year negative income has gotten me through the early stages of a game. I still don't have positive income, and I still don't have a fleet capable of fending off the pirates, but my game isn't dead. Beelining warp drives really made a difference too. This is one game out of the last 6 attempts though, we'll see if it holds up next time I restart.