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I have an issue with pirate facilities: pirates build them nearly always when they raid a planet. As long as the Hidden Pirate Base is not completed it's relatively easy to destroy it with some ground troops. But: not a minute (real time with 4x game speed) later the pirates raid again and try to erect the base again. So with a couple of colonies of which most are constantly raided (defense fleets don't help since they either don't fire at raiding pirates at all (when set to defend because then they only fire when themselves attacked) or too late (when set to attack)) every two or three minutes real time I have to manually open colonies screen, klick on every planet with a building pirate base and order the ground troops to attack. That is very repetitive and boring and even annoying when I forget to look and some pirate bases were completed in the meantime and then it becomes significantly harder to destroy them. Advisors don't help because they very often only pop up when the base is ready and the fortress is already building.

Some suggestions to address this problem:

- Fleets on defense should fire at pirates that try to raid a colony. Come to think of it, every ship should fire on raiding pirates if not following specific orders.

- Change the game mechanics so that it's not possible any more to jump right on top of a planet (because that's what raiding pirates do most of the time) but introduce a minimum distance from planets that ships leaving hyper space must respect (because hyper physics dictate it so [;)]; perhaps it could be changed so that hyper jumps always end in the vicinity of a sun or something like this if that is easier). That way defending ships have time to react to a raiding attack.

- If the above is not possible there are two other possibilities:

- - Introduce a planetary facility that emits a field that makes it impossible to leave hyper space within its radius so that pirates (but also all other ships) are forced to leave hyper space farther away.

- - Introduce the concept of space mines so that you could mine your colonies and all ships not sending the right code (like own ships) or not announcing themselves to be led through a save corridor (like foreign trading ships) will bring those mines to explosion when coming too close to them. For that there also could be a new ship type "mine layer" to set up the mine field and replace exploded mines.

- I haven't played as pirate yet and so don't know what resources are needed to set up a pirate base, but you would think those are significant enough so that it is not possible for pirates to constantly set up a new base the moment the old one was destroyed. If they are not, increase the resource requirements accordingly.
To balance this it would be good if pirate facilities are not always discovered automatically but would require some intelligence effort; agents set to preventing enemy missions could do that perhaps. Or you introduce a new mission type "search for pirate bases", but this should then be an ongoing mission (agent is constantly scannign all colonies; more agents with this type of mission increase the chance to be successful) that has to be manually cancelled, otherwise it would again turn into a repetitive and boring thing if you would have to reassign the agent after every such mission.

- Let star bases and defense bases react much faster on enemy intrusions (but I must admit I haven't checked how fast they react right now when a raid is on)

Thats the same issues with regular Ground troops and Troop transporters. Why do you need an Attack fleet, when you just need a good shielded/armored Troop transport to take over a colony.

- - Introduce a planetary facility that emits a field that makes it impossible to leave hyper space within its radius so that pirates (but also all other ships) are forced to leave hyper space farther away.

Allready exist but as module for stations.

- I haven't played as pirate yet and so don't know what resources are needed to set up a pirate base

You need to have an influence of 50% to start build a Hidden base, and it cost 30.000. Fortress need 100% and cost 100k.
But ofter you own base get destroyed when you or another pirate raid these planet. And even it is completed, it get damaged after each raid.
As Pirate you have the same problems, you need to protect your investments !

ORIGINAL: Canute

Thats the same issues with regular Ground troops and Troop transporters. Why do you need an Attack fleet, when you just need a good shielded/armored Troop transport to take over a colony.

? - This sentence I don't understand in respect to my original statement.

ORIGINAL: Canute

- - Introduce a planetary facility that emits a field that makes it impossible to leave hyper space within its radius so that pirates (but also all other ships) are forced to leave hyper space farther away.

Allready exist but as module for stations.

Ups, ok, I looked it up. I always play on slow tech and most of the time I don't come this far in the tech tree before I stop playing out of this reason or another ...

ORIGINAL: Canute

- I haven't played as pirate yet and so don't know what resources are needed to set up a pirate base

You need to have an influence of 50% to start build a Hidden base, and it cost 30.000. Fortress need 100% and cost 100k.
But ofter you own base get destroyed when you or another pirate raid these planet. And even it is completed, it get damaged after each raid.
As Pirate you have the same problems, you need to protect your investments !

Ok, but when it's that expensive the AI pirates shouldn't be able to erect a base all the time ...

Yarasala some suggestions to help significantly minimise this. Note that I do everything manually and play normal speed, so we clearly play the game very differently.

My colonies are defended by a well armed Medium Spaceport (initially a Small Spaceport to get some defences quickly then immediately upgraded). Early game all colonies are defended by 1-3 ships, later on hot spots only, and later again the Spaceport only. As soon as there is a warning of a pirate attack I'll get the defensive ships to attack the pirates. The Spaceport will fire as soon as they are in range. I normally design the ships to be reasonably fast and with fast jump drives so they can get to the pirates quickly. I also prefer long range weapons like Torpedoes so the Pirates take some hits from a distance.

I set my defensive fleets with an Attack posture (rather than Defend so they go after the Pirates) with range set to System (so they stay where I want them). In Empire Settings I apply default engagement stances to engage system targets.

As mentioned by Canute Gravity Well Projectors can be researched but I don't use them as the strategy above is effective, except for the most vicious of raids, or very early game when your Empire is weak.

Far more important is that the best defence is a good offence. A focus on wiping out Pirates bases will obviously reduce the raids. By mid-game I don't have to deal with Hidden Pirates Bases at all. That is, unless I expand too quickly and accidentally leave new Colonies undefended.

A note of warning - the pirates gain the benefit from any fortified bunker, and your own facilities will be destroyed if you use special forces when attacking pirate facilities. So it is worth waiting to get special forces off the planet before attacking...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Yarasala some suggestions to help significantly minimise this. Note that I do everything manually and play normal speed, so we clearly play the game very differently.

I do most of the things manually and play 4x speed but look constantly at the message area at the top of the screen so that I can pause the game when something happens that needs my attention.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
My colonies are defended by a well armed Medium Spaceport (initially a Small Spaceport to get some defences quickly then immediately upgraded). Early game all colonies are defended by 1-3 ships, later on hot spots only, and later again the Spaceport only.

Because of constant resource shortages (especially at new colonies) I am not able to set up a spaceport everywhere. That's not a problem of having not enough mining stations, but a problem of resource distribution by the private freighters. I can see that colonies producing resources have ridiculous amounts of them in store but they just don't get shipped everywhere in a reasonable time.
I tried to assign a defense fleet to every colony and tried not to expand before I was able to do so, but it didn't help much, all pirate raids seem to succeed (at least in the respect to set up hidden bases). Initially I made the mistake to set them to defense until I realized that then raiding ships aren't attacked at all, but even after switching all fleets to attack the pirate facility problem didn't get better.
Also fleets tend to hang around somewhere in the system instead of staying at their assigned home colony so that they are always late in case of an attack on the planet. Setting them to patrol the planet is no good because this order disappears quite soon, presumably after there was an attack on the planet or so, and they revert to "no mission".
And the next issue: one half of my fleets seems to be constantly out of fuel. They are not automated, and when their fuel becomes low they don't automatically refuel. With that alone I could live (but it would be better if I got a message about that fact (entire fleet low on fuel), the current messages about single ships having not enough fuel don't help much). But when I order them to refuel manually it quite often happens that none or only some ships refuel and after that they lose the refuel order and go back to "no mission" although half of the fleet still is low on fuel.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
As soon as there is a warning of a pirate attack I'll get the defensive ships to attack the pirates. The Spaceport will fire as soon as they are in range. I normally design the ships to be reasonably fast and with fast jump drives so they can get to the pirates quickly. I also prefer long range weapons like Torpedoes so the Pirates take some hits from a distance.

As of now I rely on the AI to let defending fleets attack pirates in the system, but that really seems not to be good enough.
If spaceports and defense bases fire when enemies are in range that's good, I didn't check it explicitly yet. But it seems colonies with spaceports are raided significantly more seldom than colonies without. That's the reason why I want to set up a spaceport everywhere, but - see above.
I also prefer long range weapons but have to admit I didn't consider drive and jump speed very much.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
I set my defensive fleets with an Attack posture (rather than Defend so they go after the Pirates) with range set to System (so they stay where I want them). In Empire Settings I apply default engagement stances to engage system targets.

I do the same (at least since I discovered that fleets on defense don't attacj raiders).

ORIGINAL: Icemania
As mentioned by Canute Gravity Well Projectors can be researched but I don't use them as the strategy above is effective, except for the most vicious of raids, or very early game when your Empire is weak.

As I said I don't reach this point in the tech tree very often (and not yet in Shdows) ...
But I will try those Gravity Well Projectors if I do.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
Far more important is that the best defence is a good offence. A focus on wiping out Pirates bases will obviously reduce the raids. By mid-game I don't have to deal with Hidden Pirates Bases at all. That is, unless I expand too quickly and accidentally leave new Colonies undefended.

In my games so far pirate bases seem to pop up faster than I can destroy them and all pirate fractions seem to gain strenght much faster than me, so that I'm not able to wipe out all pirate bases near my colonies. At the beginning (when I still had the money) I gave out a lot of contracts to other pirates to destroy pirate bases, but from 50 contracts there seemed to be only one successful, so that doesn't seem to be a viable means to get rid of pirate bases.
But when your money falls below zero you can't give out further contracts anyway. And that is the case in my current game for a long time now, mainly because I maintain a force of four infantry and two defense units at every colony to repel raids and destroy hidden pirate bases. At the beginning I tried to set up some resort bases for income, but at least in this game they didn't bring very much money and were soon destroyed.

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

A note of warning - the pirates gain the benefit from any fortified bunker, and your own facilities will be destroyed if you use special forces when attacking pirate facilities. So it is worth waiting to get special forces off the planet before attacking...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Huh? That rather sounds like a bug ...
Anyway, thanks for the warning.

Because of constant resource shortages (especially at new colonies)

You should keep the hidden pirate base at new colonies.
You set the Tax-rate to 0% anyway, or at last you should do that, so they can't earn much income from that planet anyway.
And when they got a hidden base, they stop raiding that colony (i think).

Concentrate the Space port on good populated colonies and take your fleets to eleminate know pirate spaceports.

Good defence weapons for bases are shield piercing weapons. They don't need to kill the ship, they just need to damage the attacking ship. At this way the ship cancel it attack and go for repairs. And you should avoid tracto beams, you just tow the ship faster to the planet so they can drop the assault pods fast. Except you use bases around the planet and not centered.

ORIGINAL: Canute

Because of constant resource shortages (especially at new colonies)

You should keep the hidden pirate base at new colonies.
You set the Tax-rate to 0% anyway, or at last you should do that, so they can't earn much income from that planet anyway.
And when they got a hidden base, they stop raiding that colony (i think).

But when I do this they immediately begin building the fortress (or so it seems). Is that a good idea?

ORIGINAL: Canute
Concentrate the Space port on good populated colonies and take your fleets to eleminate know pirate spaceports.

Since resources tend to be more available at more populated colonies it happens by itself that only those colonies have spaceports.
About eliminating pirate spaceports I wrote elsewhere in this thread.

ORIGINAL: Canute
Good defence weapons for bases are shield piercing weapons. They don't need to kill the ship, they just need to damage the attacking ship. At this way the ship cancel it attack and go for repairs. And you should avoid tracto beams, you just tow the ship faster to the planet so they can drop the assault pods fast. Except you use bases around the planet and not centered.

Good point.

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
Because of constant resource shortages (especially at new colonies) I am not able to set up a spaceport everywhere. That's not a problem of having not enough mining stations, but a problem of resource distribution by the private freighters. I can see that colonies producing resources have ridiculous amounts of them in store but they just don't get shipped everywhere in a reasonable time.

I'm sure private freighter distribution could be improved, setting up Spaceports or Bases does take some time on new colonies, but they will develop in time if you have the resources available. In every game I play I have Medium Spaceports at every Colony.

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
I tried to assign a defense fleet to every colony and tried not to expand before I was able to do so, but it didn't help much, all pirate raids seem to succeed (at least in the respect to set up hidden bases). Initially I made the mistake to set them to defense until I realized that then raiding ships aren't attacked at all, but even after switching all fleets to attack the pirate facility problem didn't get better.

Early on yes, defending raids can be difficult, some will succeed. But if follow my advice, as your technology develops, you will be able to defend more and more, and eventually all of them. As you destroy Pirate ports and bases around your territory, and then more broadly across the map, they will steadily drop away to nothing.

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
Also fleets tend to hang around somewhere in the system instead of staying at their assigned home colony so that they are always late in case of an attack on the planet. Setting them to patrol the planet is no good because this order disappears quite soon, presumably after there was an attack on the planet or so, and they revert to "no mission".

Patrolling also wastes fuel so I don't use it. With fast jump drives, fast ships, and manual commands you will often get there in time wherever they are in the system if you attack manually. When you don't get there fast enough consider agreeing to a protection agreement and keep upgrading those spaceports (my typical is 10 Torpedoes with 10 Shields).

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
And the next issue: one half of my fleets seems to be constantly out of fuel. They are not automated, and when their fuel becomes low they don't automatically refuel. With that alone I could live (but it would be better if I got a message about that fact (entire fleet low on fuel), the current messages about single ships having not enough fuel don't help much). But when I order them to refuel manually it quite often happens that none or only some ships refuel and after that they lose the refuel order and go back to "no mission" although half of the fleet still is low on fuel.

I use a custom Gas Mining Station with an extra extractor or two, enough docking bays for my typical fleet size, and lots of extra storage. Even with ships designed with many extra fuel cells these Stations will often fill up the entire fleet. Make sure you have a reasonable number of these located strategically around your territory and ensure you share the refuelling load amongst them for your fleets. Otherwise I'll primarily refuel at homeworlds when I have Large Space Ports. Another tip is to mix fuel use once you have the technology. I tend to find Hydrogen for the military and Caslon for private to be the best option.

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
In my games so far pirate bases seem to pop up faster than I can destroy them and all pirate fractions seem to gain strenght much faster than me, so that I'm not able to wipe out all pirate bases near my colonies. At the beginning (when I still had the money) I gave out a lot of contracts to other pirates to destroy pirate bases, but from 50 contracts there seemed to be only one successful, so that doesn't seem to be a viable means to get rid of pirate bases.
But when your money falls below zero you can't give out further contracts anyway. And that is the case in my current game for a long time now, mainly because I maintain a force of four infantry and two defense units at every colony to repel raids and destroy hidden pirate bases. At the beginning I tried to set up some resort bases for income, but at least in this game they didn't bring very much money and were soon destroyed.

There is no need to keep lots of long-term Protection Agreements. I normally cancel as soon as they leave (only after an attack I can't defend early game) and sometimes keep an Agreement or two just for the closest Pirates only. Agreements provide them with money ... which they use to build more ships.

Eliminating them all requires some patience. My first "Pirate Extermination Fleet" is normally timed for when Shockwave Torpedoes and Deucalious Shields are ready and I keep building them as quickly as I can reasonably afford.

You may want to have a look at my After Action Report for other tips.

Some raids will always succeed. You cannot possibly defend them all, unless you decide to expand at snails pace, or happen to have a large economy set up beforehand.

I think space mines would be a great idea, that would dramaticlly change gameplay even if its a little harder to impliment in a game like this. Also I haven't noticed the issues you are having with your defensive fleets, mine always seemed to respond when set to defend, I may be mistaken though.

ORIGINAL: lando005

Also I haven't noticed the issues you are having with your defensive fleets, mine always seemed to respond when set to defend, I may be mistaken though.

Mine definitely didn't respond, I observed that on several occasions. Are there more people that set their fleet posture to "defend"? What is your experience?

I'm still kind of new at this game myself so I don't know. But from my understanding of it setting your fleet to defence should make your fleet defend its home base and anything within the range you set, while attack fleets go looking for trouble as soon as they detect it ( this is per the manual). What was the range of your fleets you had set to defend?

ORIGINAL: lando005

I'm still kind of new at this game myself so I don't know. But from my understanding of it setting your fleet to defence should make your fleet defend its home base and anything within the range you set, while attack fleets go looking for trouble as soon as they detect it ( this is per the manual). What was the range of your fleets you had set to defend?

"Engage system targets"

I have that setting too, and I usually have my fleets set to defend the system or near by systems or even later on defend the sector

ORIGINAL: Plant
Some raids will always succeed. You cannot possibly defend them all, unless you decide to expand at snails pace, or happen to have a large economy set up beforehand.

Plant, since this is in response to my post, please note the quote below.

I'd also add the expansion speed can be progressively increased as you use more and more fleets to take the pirate ports out.

ORIGINAL: Icemania
Early on yes, defending raids can be difficult, some will succeed.

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
I do most of the things manually and play 4x speed but look constantly at the message area at the top of the screen so that I can pause the game when something happens that needs my attention.

The message bar has a big delay. At 4x speed that's a killer. To get prompt messages, set attack messages to display at the side of the screen. Still, the right solution is for the game to improve response of defending forces - why wait days before firing a shot?

ORIGINAL: Canute
You should keep the hidden pirate base at new colonies.
You set the Tax-rate to 0% anyway, or at last you should do that, so they can't earn much income from that planet anyway.

Pirates get their cut of the GDP regardless of the tax rate.