The poisoned gift: When pirates join your empire.

[Foraven]

Today I ran into a big problem. I defeated a large Hive ship and most of the pirate factions I was in contact with decided to join my cause (since I did offer to help them against the Hive). Problem is, I end up with a dozen spaceports and several dozens of ships and zero new income to handle the maintenance for all of those.

May I suggest Pirate bases become some kind of space colonies (with income) so getting the pirate faction bases have some uses for the player?

[Foraven]

So, nobody had this problem before?

[StormingKiwi]

I find them more annoying but not poisoned.

Most of my designs are better than the AIs designs, and the interface for finding ships obtained from a foreign empire is difficult too.

I do think income should be earned from pirate spaceports. I think pirates ought to be living on orbital habitats.

[TCHNG]

Yes, the pirate factions seem to be tied to the hive ship storyline. I would rather them persist as independent factions to do dirty work for me, if such function is to be added.. but well.

The pirate bases can be useful, as they have mining components to sustain their own fuel usage. They also have construction yards to retrofit your ships - not bad.
The rest of the pirate ships are usually junk. You can go to Military tab, filter by "ships not in a fleet", and select them to retire/scuttle.

[Foraven]

I find them more annoying but not poisoned.

Well, it was a poisoned gift because I already had a huge fleet and I was already struggling maintaining it. The gift just doubled my fleet expense and now I had to get rid of the extra ships and stations. So what was the point of getting them in the first place?

[Foraven]

Yes, the pirate factions seem to be tied to the hive ship storyline. I would rather them persist as independent factions to do dirty work for me, if such function is to be added.. but well.

The pirate bases can be useful, as they have mining components to sustain their own fuel usage. They also have construction yards to retrofit your ships - not bad.
The rest of the pirate ships are usually junk. You can go to Military tab, filter by "ships not in a fleet", and select them to retire/scuttle.

I know, but having to get rid of dozens of ships and stations just after "winning them" doesn't feel right.

[Nightskies]

They're practically derelicts with stubborn old captains and crew with questionable morals. You're doing the galaxy a favor by putting the ancient ramshackle buckets out of commission. Scuttle them for money. You might get tech/location/treasure from the debris, too!

[Foraven]

They're practically derelicts with stubborn old captains and crew with questionable morals. You're doing the galaxy a favor by putting the ancient ramshackle buckets out of commission. Scuttle them for money. You might get tech/location/treasure from the debris, too!

As far as I can tell, I cannot scuttle ships unless they are disabled, cannot retire them unless near one of my spaceports, but I can give them order to retrofit anywhere... Will take forever to get rid of all those extra ships that just drain my coffers.

[Scotias]

A small price to (temporarily) pay imo for all the extra research labs on the spaceports, once retrofitted to your designs like.

You can always retire the ships, ctrl + right click > retire or select the ships > ctrl + right click on your spaceport of choice to present the option - unless they're disabled then it's scuttle.

[Beric01]

Just wanted to comment that I really liked the idea of pirate bases being orbital habitats. I agree and think there is a lot that could be done with this.