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I just got attacked by a pirate ship with 2k shields and just about every weapon in the book. He just flew around killing every last mining base I had.

And this was when I was about 8/10 done with first hyperdrive tech, so had to make a huge crappy fleet to fight it off and spend first year as a warp civ. just rebuilding.

So now I have a to vendetta to fulfill[:@].

I'm loving this expansion[:D]

This...is pure fun.

Must exact revenge on Pirates.....[:@]

The early game is very much like the roll of a die.

I've had incredibly lucky starts where not a single pirate bothered me until I had a large spaceport and a 6 frigate fleet.

And I've had games where a pirate faction appears, offers protection and then shortly thereafter starts reducing my size anyway (clever move too - I was close to being able to secure my system)

And I've had ones where one faction offers protection, then a 2nd factions appears later, takes out faction 1's gas mining station and then my stuff. [:D]

You can have starts without any pirates bugging you[&:]
Don't think I've ever not had a pirate show up as I'm building my first star base.

How much they want seem to come down to type of pirate, and then everything usually quiets down until someone else shows up or I brake the agreement. But sometimes they are just S.O.B's right out of the gate

ORIGINAL: Resan

You can have starts without any pirates bugging you[&:]
Don't think I've ever not had a pirate show up as I'm building my first star base.

How much they want seem to come down to type of pirate, and then everything usually quiets down until someone else shows up or I brake the agreement. But sometimes they are just S.O.B's right out of the gate

When you 'Start New Game' you can choose how many pirates are in the galaxy and how close they are to you. Selecting few pirates and distant to your empire will mean having much less pirate activity.

I am getting slaughtered by pirates as well, but i cannot figure out why. They are crushing my destroyers with escorts and when i look at the defeated ships they have full shields. My destroyers have vastly more firepower than their ships, and yet they wipe out a fleet of 15 with half as many ships.

I think it has to do with the new weapon type, gravitic weapons i think... It seems they bypass shields and armor, and i have yet to figure out how to defend against them. If shields and armor are no good..then what is?

Tried an early Classic Empire start as my second Shadows game and had 3 different pirate nations alternately fighting each other and burning me back down to the bedrock. I built a SSP and 1 of each Research station at my homeworld, 3x sublight Escorts and 3x sublight Frigates as system defense, had ordered a Defense base. Then the Pirates showed me what Assault Pods were all about... as what they didn't destroy they captured.[:-]

ORIGINAL: Neman
I am getting slaughtered by pirates as well, but i cannot figure out why. They are crushing my destroyers with escorts and when i look at the defeated ships they have full shields. My destroyers have vastly more firepower than their ships, and yet they wipe out a fleet of 15 with half as many ships.

I think it has to do with the new weapon type, gravitic weapons i think... It seems they bypass shields and armor, and i have yet to figure out how to defend against them. If shields and armor are no good..then what is?

Sounds like you ran into a pirate faction with gravitic weapons. Best defense against those is fast ships with long range weapons, stand-off doctrine and countermeasures. Armor and Shields won't help. Gravitics are also stronger against smaller ships, so build the largest ones you can.

Regards,

- Erik

Also keep in mind that pirates now act a lot like empires...they explore...they find the old relic ships and put them in service. Pirates who find an abandoned ancient cruiser are scary. [;)]

I've only been playing pirate mode, but I've noticed some of the other pirate factions will sometimes find a high-tech capital ship thing( unless it's somehow a flagship they start with?) that just kills everything you throw at it. I met two different ones in the same game, belonging to different empires. Both ships had ridiculous AoE gravitic weapons, so despite the ships only having around 300 firepower and 1K shield, they would single-handedly take out 30 of my ships( about 50 firepower each, 300 shield) in about 10 seconds without a scratch.

One of them also took out my SP with 4K shields and 600 firepower. I reloaded and upgraded it to 6K shields and 800 firepower and managed to make it run away ^___^

An ancient capital ship with a gravitic area weapon? Those pirates were very, very lucky. You should try to capture that one when you are strong enough.

Gonna need a couple of fleets and be willing to lose most of them I would think. I'd definitely capture it though. [:D]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

An ancient capital ship with a gravitic area weapon? Those pirates were very, very lucky. You should try to capture that one when you are strong enough.

I hope, I ran into a pirate base and they had a capital ship. You really have to think out of the box to play the first 100 years. I keep losing or put into a bad stop to restart. Its very fun.

You really have to plan ahead and hope for the best.

PS, I can see why you guys added more Army types. We need them so badly now! Raids = evil

I am actually thinking that in "shadow" galaxy is better to tone down the relics...

Even playing as pirate, the game got quickly boring when I found 3 capital ships with around 900 size each, I could just send a single one of them into the middle of a enemy territory (like a empire homeworld after they have colonies) and board and turn the entire system to me... It was kinda silly.

I very quickly balooned in mil power from 500 (before I found the ships) to 3000 (with the ships) and then in 2 years to 15000 (by using the ships to board everything in sight)

ORIGINAL: Speeder
I am actually thinking that in "shadow" galaxy is better to tone down the relics...

I'm in agreement.

Was the random ship generation ("found at planet X" or derelict ships that do not require repair) changed since DW:L? Progression is much slower in Shadows and any such finds can quickly become disagreeably unbalancing... whether you find them or an opponent does, as it can shift the balance too much, making the game far less enjoyable. They were unbalancing in Legends, but far less so, since you had a much greater ability to recover from their influence.

Perhaps debris fields need a tweak as well. I think any faction repairing even one of these monsters will wipe the field. Smaller number of ships per field, and/or longer to repair (more damage might serve this purpose) should be considered.

Given as we're talking about capturing, a note;

You can use boarding parties to seemingly bypass exploration events. Of course you're then left with the problem of repairing them yourself rather than the event bringing them to full. This same 'problem' of build-it-yourself applies with capturing things that are under construction.

The early pirate attention is certainly a bit random, but I think I have always had some escort show up early. I have also had pirate battles in the home system, and in other games never seen a pirate again until I got gerax hypderdrive.

Pirate ships are scary early on, even without an ancient alien cruiser found. They love to equip rail guns, gravitic weapons, and tractor beams.

In my AAR I had the usual pirate battles on my colonies, and tried to keep them away. With modest success. One situation happens.

1: The defending fleet is getting mauled.
2: A destroyer fleet is incoming to help defense.

3: A lone pirate escort is finishing off the last ship of the defense fleet as the reinforcements arrive.
4: Two destroyers land near the pirate escort busy killing the last member of the previous fleet.

What was the result? The pirate escort died. The original pirate target was dead. One of my two attackers were fine. And the other?



That is what happens when two destroyers attacks a pirate escort occupied with something else. Pirates hurt early on.

Repair bots are very high on my priority list in Shadows

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Speeder
I am actually thinking that in "shadow" galaxy is better to tone down the relics...

I'm in agreement.

Was the random ship generation ("found at planet X" or derelict ships that do not require repair) changed since DW:L? Progression is much slower in Shadows and any such finds can quickly become disagreeably unbalancing... whether you find them or an opponent does, as it can shift the balance too much, making the game far less enjoyable. They were unbalancing in Legends, but far less so, since you had a much greater ability to recover from their influence.

Perhaps debris fields need a tweak as well. I think any faction repairing even one of these monsters will wipe the field. Smaller number of ships per field, and/or longer to repair (more damage might serve this purpose) should be considered.

Honestly I would love to be able to turn of all relic ships. They usually make the game worse imo. I once got one with hyperdrives as one of the starting system abandon ships. Killed any joy of finally getting hyperdrives myself. So I ended up restarting.

I just pay all the pirates off - not lost anything and still turning a profit. I think its also worth it because with no losses it doesn't slow down your mining for resources which can be quite crucial early on.

Mind you, when i have a decent fleet and have found all the nearby bases there will be some payback

Paying the pirates? Disgusting. Pay them off long enough to get the spaceport up. And maybe shielded...