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I was in a protractedly long war with other empires and the pirates got out of hand during that time. Is there a way to automate the destruction of the planetside pirate bases? After the war I have over 100 colonies and 70 ish have pirate bases on them now. Dealing with them a few at a time does not seem to be working as for every few I get rid of more pop up.

Apart from maybe automating some stuff, there is no way but the manual way. You seem to lack a bit in pirate protection

Start building planetary shields at those colonies. When the shield is finished, Take em out.[:)] GP

Does the shield do anything against pirates? 2 infantry and a PD unit for garrison seem to stop new bases from popping up.
Clearing bases 5 infantry wins pretty reliably. Armor is better of course. Combined arms better still.
Easiest way I know is to hit F2, click facilitys, go down the line selecting and clicking attack button.

What the shield will do is prevent them from landing troops on the surface and starting to build pirate bases again. So after the pirates are destroyed, if the shield is finished the problem is fixed.[8D]

I'll try this and see if it works. Thank you for the tip.

ORIGINAL: General Patton

What the shield will do is prevent them from landing troops on the surface and starting to build pirate bases again. So after the pirates are destroyed, if the shield is finished the problem is fixed.[8D]

ORIGINAL: warzer

I was in a protractedly long war with other empires and the pirates got out of hand during that time. Is there a way to automate the destruction of the planetside pirate bases? After the war I have over 100 colonies and 70 ish have pirate bases on them now. Dealing with them a few at a time does not seem to be working as for every few I get rid of more pop up.

Don't forget to be mindful of how much maintenance costs on all those Planetary Shields will be also. Might want to do some Pirate elimination too. [;)]

ORIGINAL: General Patton

What the shield will do is prevent them from landing troops on the surface and starting to build pirate bases again. So after the pirates are destroyed, if the shield is finished the problem is fixed.[8D]

How does a planetary shield stop pirates from landing troops?

ORIGINAL: Kantay

ORIGINAL: General Patton

What the shield will do is prevent them from landing troops on the surface and starting to build pirate bases again. So after the pirates are destroyed, if the shield is finished the problem is fixed.[8D]

How does a planetary shield stop pirates from landing troops?

Good question! All I can find in documentation says that Planetary Shields protect planet from bombardment. Although Facilities add a defensive bonus to ground battles...

In my playing, pirates stop being an issue way before planetary shields are available. This is in part because slow research gives late arrival of planetary shields, but mostly because chasing pirate is a top priority of mine. If I somehow had planetary shields at the start of the game, I fail to see why they should help.

To build hidden facilities, pirates need influence on the colony. They gain this by raiding (only successful raids?) and by "hanging about" at the colony with their ships. If they don't get there in the first place, they won't hang about or raid, so bust their nearby bases. Nearby as in 2-3 sectors away. If they are annoying and you don't know where they are based, use any mix of spies (steal territory maps) and long range scanners to figure out where they are. If they are not allowed to "hang about", and don't frequently raid, their influence of the colony should drop enough that they can't build any hidden facilities.

It can be very hard to keep them away from all colonies if they are nearby. Try avoid colonizing more than you can keep control of, you don't want a bunch of tiny colonies when pirates roam the skies.

If you suspect that you may have hidden facilities being built, visit the colony list regularly. It should give a quick overview that shows if there is any hidden base present. Pirate bases ought to only be at colonies without other facilities.. The one at Dila 3 should be easy to see in the image below, and they always look like this (with no custom images, of course):

In my playing, pirates stop being an issue way before planetary shields are available.

My experience as well. I used to not like Pirates in my games; now I really enjoy hunting them and taking them out. And as the game says, they DO have their uses. [;)]

Pirates don't need to land troops to create a pirate base.

I suggested this in the other thread, and it seems the be the less popular option, but auto-recruitment of troops lets the AI handle most pirate bases reliably. It's probably wasteful, but it is an alternative to constantly microing troops to take them out. This is not foolproof, and some intervention is still necessary to remove entrenched pirate factions.

Buffing pirate hideout troop numbers, and possibly making them slightly more rare, could be a good way to make the job of removing them slightly more interesting. Just a thought.

ORIGINAL: Tormodino
Buffing pirate hideout troop numbers, and possibly making them slightly more rare, could be a good way to make the job of removing them slightly more interesting. Just a thought.

Mercenaries are supposed to have a +30% bonus to defending facilities and Smugglers are supposed to have +70%, but these bonuses are currently not working.

Yeah. They do seem a bit squishy. Still. I would really like them to be a bigger danger, with fewer bases overall. Right now it's a bit of a headache to try to whack them.

ORIGINAL: Tormodino

Yeah. They do seem a bit squishy. Still. I would really like them to be a bigger danger, with fewer bases overall. Right now it's a bit of a headache to try to whack them.

It's a fun headache...combats boredom. [:)]

Each to our own, I suppose I'd rather my descisions in DW were fewer and more significant.

Which decisions in DW are NOT significant?

Ah, yes... More signficant. I would rather whack 10 pirate bases in large planetary battle where there is a real chance I could lose control of said planet than 100 bases in minor skirmishes requiring tons of clicks, but with no loss of anything other than micromanagement time. Just a personal preference.

I see. [8D]