Pirates Stealing my Prized uber Designs!

[Larsenex]

Ok after years of intense research I have my prized cruiser design ad its rolling off the the orbital assembly lines! Yay for being a colossal space power!

ACK!! No sooner than I have a few of my beautiful cruisers than I see one of my designs laying waste to my smaller fleets of Destroyers! Hell it took me years to get Meridian shields! Now I have to face my own ships? Aarrrggggg.....

Ok do the Pirates steal EVERY design? Do they steal Capital designs? Ill disband my entire fleet and just use them if I have to. Will I end up with Pirates using MY Capitals or are they free from theft?

Help a fledgling empire against nasty Pirates!

[Larsenex]

Also what is the difference between SCRAP and RETIRE? Do I get any money back on Scrapping a ship or Retiring one?

[Data]

I'll go in reverse order [:)]

scraping destroys the ships immediatelly, wherever they are...no money, no nothing
retiring orders them to go to a spaceport for scraping...no money again but you do get back the resources used to build them. Also, you don't get the fuel - that would be quite the exploit.

now for the pirates, they indeed steal your designs and there are more than a few requests to change this
if they don't get too powerfull they will mostly use escort to destroyer class ships so I tend to delete those desgins entirely to leave them without the blueprints

[Bingeling]

Also, when you retire ships with unknown technology, you get a research bonus in some item found on the ship. So when you get pirate ships, or ships for nations/spaceports you conquer, always retire them.

[Larsenex]

Do Pirates steal the 'Capital' ship design?

[Sabin Stargem]

As far as I know, they go for Escort, Frigate, and Destroyer classes.

[feygan]

Pirates really shouldn't pose much of an issue if your designs are balanced. If ou go and design one uber ship and depend on it alone to win your battles then obviously your neglected other ships will lose when facing against it.

At the start most ships are pretty much the same, but once you have missles, fighters, and emp you should be able to start making ships for specific tasks. So even if you do come up against one of your new designs it shouldn't be a problem when tackled with a group of ships.

I quite like pirates stealing designs, if they didn't do this they would be a complete pushover moreso than they already are.

[Data]

they usually go for the escort to destroyer class but rather frequently they will steal cruiser desgins as well
never saw capital ships but one of us (Shark I think) reported this as well and I believe him. I think it's a matter of how long you allow them to survive and prosper.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: Data

they usually go for the escort to destroyer class but rather frequently they will steal cruiser desgins as well
never saw capital ships but one of us (Shark I think) reported this as well and I believe him. I think it's a matter of how long you allow them to survive and prosper.

Right on the money Data! If you have a game with 700 or more stars and say, 15 races or more, if
you dolly about in the early game just colony rushing it can be lethal. I've had games with AI
settings very aggressive where I let the pirate factions have too many successful attacks on
my out-lying mining bases. Later, not only did I have to deal with a large number of separate
pirate factions, I also had to deal with a pirate capital ship design that was NOT my design but
one of the other races! {It was Romulan at that! I was playing Igard's Star Trek TRSE mod.} [X(]

So yes, if you don't attack and destroy those early game pirate bases and factions, they can hang
around long enough to steal any design. Especially if your game settings are set to be aggressive.

[feygan]

What's worse is when you get a lazy ass AI empire that leaves pirate bases near them and out of your range. Then you can't understand why your getting harrassed by lots of good quality destroyer and cruisers from pirates. Suddenly you get an intel message popup saying how X empire has secretly been payin pirates to attack you, so not only did they leave the pirates alone to build up but funded them as private mercs too.[8D]

[ehsumrell1]

Excellent point Feygan!

[Data]

This is a cool feature....even when it's used against you and not by you [:)]
Not really sure but I think you can out pay them even if they were initially set against you....if so, the fact that they are far away from you and closer to the AI planets becomes a bonus for you

[Bingeling]

This explains some experiences i have had in pirate hunting, where I find a pirate then that makes my fleet have to flee. 10 or more ships sitting at the base...

In one game a long time ago, I quite early met a pirate cruiser I could not kill. That was scary [:D]. Much, much later I found it again. And I killed it...

[Data]

not so scary now, aren't you? you dead pirate...thing [:D]

[Bingeling]

When it comes to very nasty ships. I seem to remember from my first games before the expansion that things could be very annoying quite early. Found ships could be crazy powerful. I had one excellent capital ship in the AAR, but it was not that well defended, just good firepower. I also got it killed doing a stupid test if my then 6 ship home fleet could kill a large space port (the answer was yes, but only barely. The sillies made peace before my lone survivor went in for the kill).

I seem to remember the found ships to be way more powerful back in the days. Is this just random, or have they been reduced in power? Or are the empire ships more powerful due to better research priorities? Also I remember finding a pirate base I simply could not kill before getting torpedoes. That is, it ate my shields, and its shield did not budge. Like it absorbed the first points of damage from each shot, which was more than my blasters gave.

Now I can kill them, it just takes a bit more time. Of course, now you can make sure you get torpedoes very early.

[Shark7]

I am still hoping for the ability to set a ship design file in the customization folder and a tool that will allow us make designs for the other races and pirates. I like the pirates as is, its nice to fight something that can stand up to me.

[Data]

like the pirates as is, its nice to fight something that can stand up to me.

You mean you? [:)]