Colony pirate hideouts elimination

[Gregorovitch55]

I am starting to get really fed up with these as the game progresses and i really no longer have either the time or the patience to deal with them, it's a pointless game of whack-a-mole.

1. How can you automate removal of these things?
2. What can you do to prevent them re-occuring after you've ?

[Tehlongone]

I don't think it's possible to automate unfortunately.

To prevent them re-occurring destroy nearby pirates, maybe put a scanner on your station to catch smugglers (they get influence on you from a successful trade I think) and prevent all successful raids. Beyond that, I don't know but if they can't raid you it's usually just a question of time before they lose enough influence to prevent them from coming back.

[ByTheNumbers]

Like Tehlongone said, pirates need influence to have even the option to build a pirate base. You can't see it when you play as an empire, but if you play as a pirate, each colony (doesn't matter who owns it) will have an influence rating from 0-100% divided amongst all pirates who have an active interest with any particular colony. Influence is gained by having pirates lingering near a colony. As long as you keep pirates away from lingering, they won't be able to get the influence necessary to build. Kind of why you may not ever see these bases crop up on your most advanced colonies since those tend to be well defended and clear of pirates.

[Gregorovitch55]

OK, at least it's not a simple whack-a-mole in the sense even if you can't see the numbers, as you clear them out of an area (and have local fleets shoot up their ships there if thev return) they should not be able to accumulate sufficient influence to re-infest colonies in that area - if I understand you correctly that is.

So...it occurs to me it should follow that pirate hideout infestation should follow a discernible pattern, i.e. they will only be repeatedly re-infesting in areas where you have yet to establish sufficient control and you ought to be able to tell what those areas are from checking colonies on the F2 list noting locations of hideouts on the F2 minimap.

[DeadlyShoe]

One thing that will help is establishing a network of long range scanners, so you can see pirate bases in your area. Prioritize destroying bases before they finish being constructed. It would be useful to have a fast ship with a hyper-denier, otherwise it's nearly impossible to catch and destroy the construction ships... Construction ships are the true prize, regardless of how much money they have pirate factions have a hard time getting a lot of them.

[Gregorovitch55]

Ah, OK, presumably that's because you need a planet to build a construction ship? And if you see a pirate faction in control of a planet, it would be a very good idea to invade it asap lest the blighters spam construction ships from it?

[Icemania]

Various ideas are in this thread from the Guide to Guides Mk 2: Pirates! Arrrgggg!

[Icemania]

This Shadows AAR may also be useful.

[rcuadro]

So this is a downside to using smuggling missions and pirate defense missions? Good to know.

Once they build their hideout, does influence continue to play a role in their ability to build the second and third tier structures?

In another thread, someone suggested that a planetary shield would help keep pirates out. Is that untrue?

[Tehlongone]

I haven't tried it but they do raid by sending "pods" that might get intercepted by the shield, much like troop boarding, It's probably true.

They should still be able to do all non-raiding activities however, so it's not a full solution by itself, and it's expensive.

[thefinn12345]

Roaming automated ships or Automated fleets or fleets on Stances will prevent this.

Once they start building the base, you need to go to manual.

Making a small escort 300ish big with enough firepower and either speed or shields. Then make 20 of those put them near the place u want them and hit automate then forget.

[Tormodino]

I am possibly the odd one out in allowing this, but when my empires reach a certain stage I set troop recruitment to auto. This quite reliably triggers combat against them. Sometimes they lose, but usually they remove the building.

On auto, after getting gray hairs and losing the will to live trying to do it manually, I have found that this is an area where the AI will do an ok job and can usually be counted on. Just keep a fleet handy to drop armies on troublesome fortresses and those "sudden" criminal networks.