Just Say No to Pirates!

[Omnius]

The more I'm playing this game again the more worthless pirates are to me. Now that I have the Shakturi DLC I found that saying yes to the initial pirate contact which offers to join our side for 20-25K is actually a good bet as it gives us some early ships as well as the artifact that unlocks in the future which begins the Shakturi Incursion. I also say yes to protection agreements as it's cheaper to mollify them early on than to try to prevent pirate attacks on your facilities. Once you're sufficiently built up and find the pirate bases then it's time to eradicate them.

After that I've found that it's best to just say no to all pirate offers except protection or some kind of nonaggression treaty. While it's nice to get some system maps cheaply it's probably better to just say no, especially if you're allowing the Artificial Ignorance to run your construction or warships. Definitely not worth wasting money on expensive independent colony locations either since they'll always be way out of the way. For me pirates are merely a meaningless distraction.

A shame the devs are wasting time on this meaningless pirate distraction instead of fixing the poorly programmed automation. So many problems, many of which come from the original DW and have never been improved.

[Parrius]

The Pirate faction is one of my most requested DLC. I've been looking forward to it since DW2 was first released. Having dynamic pirates and enhanced espionage mechanics will be an excellent addition to the game.