How should one go about being a pirate?

[towerbooks3192]

I just started my pirate game and so far I built a base on an independent colony and a space port in progress (I accidentally double clicked spaceport but it would not let me cancel it, how do I cancel it when there is no option in the menu when you use right click?).

I also managed to hold off one empire's progress but there is an Ikkuro empire that is a bit close to me that already set up their defense batteries (with shields and probably hyperdrives). I have no money problems but I do have resource problems.

So any advice on how to around being a pirate?

[Shark7]

Personally I go for the balanced or raider approach. You will definitely want to take on smuggling contracts, as its fairly easy money. And steal ships...military and civilian. And you really, really need to try to gain control over a colony, preferably an independent. Planetary raiding is also a good idea, as it is a way to get money and resources.

[towerbooks3192]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Personally I go for the balanced or raider approach. You will definitely want to take on smuggling contracts, as its fairly easy money. And steal ships...military and civilian. And you really, really need to try to gain control over a colony, preferably an independent. Planetary raiding is also a good idea, as it is a way to get money and resources.

Victory conditions aside, what could be a pirate empire's long term goal? The research takes forever and I want to have a really permanent base. I want to play pirates for shadows because I am not yet used to the plastic ships of normal empires in pre-warp

[Shark7]

For the long term, I'd be sure to build up a sizable fleet of military ships, and find somewhere out of the way to build up a star base, with a other defensive type bases to surround it. Really the key to being a pirate is to keep your base from being discovered as long as possible. Also, you need to build mining stations.

Also, very important...you need to board and capture construction ships. It gives you so much more flexibility when you have numerous constructors.

Now this is just the way I do things, experiences will vary.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
And you really, really need to try to gain control over a colony, preferably an independent.

Yeah I made some early mistakes in my first game by sailing all over the place raiding anything I saw and not worrying about building up hidden bases so much. If you start near an independent colony, you should stay focused on trying to get all three bases built on the planet before any of the regular empires get out into space. Otherwise you'll see your late game hidden bases get assaulted by huge empire armies and may find it impossible to capture a planet by then. So take your first three ships off auto control and park them at the planet. Leave them there once control goes to 100 to keep solid control over the planet and keep the cash flow coming in. And spend every dime on hidden bases before you think of building anything else.

Also do not build a star port on a planet you are trying to control. Once you get the third base built and it becomes your planet, the star port goes poof... So use fleets for control and hold off investing in the star port until you get the planet into your empire.

If you have at least one planet when the empires head out into space, you'll be able to put troops on the ground for control purposes and can compete with them. Without ground troops of your own you see all your planetary control go away as soon as the empires start building up garrisons. In my game I lost control over about 7 planets before I could stabilize things. Luckily I was able to grab one lonely planet that had no empire influence around it and got the third base built before any empires landed. I did have to fight some nasty space battles though, so it was a close thing. Without that planet I doubt I could have survived much past the empire expansion phase.

Jim

[michaelm75au]

I'm having trouble controlling a colony as a pirate. Even when I have 50%+ control, I can't seem to be build the Hidden Pirate Base, etc.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I'm having trouble controlling a colony as a pirate. Even when I have 50%+ control, I can't seem to be build the Hidden Pirate Base, etc.

I think it's a timer issue. You have to have the control, but it only checks it once month or once every few months I think. I generally wait for the pop-ups sent by advisors to build them as it seems like a watched pot of water on the stove... it just doesn't seem to boil while you watch for it.

Jim

[michaelm75au]

ORIGINAL: michaelm

I'm having trouble controlling a colony as a pirate. Even when I have 50%+ control, I can't seem to be build the Hidden Pirate Base, etc.

It's a money thing. Didn't realize that it cost 30K to build the Pirate Base.

[Zangi]

Pirate Bases while under construction are also made of cardboard. Most annoying is when my individual 'auto' ships are on the way to invade the planet when I'm trying to build it. They end up destroying it. 30k out of the window.

Also, not viable to have a pirate base in a +500m pop colony under control of a hostile empire. They can attack and roll over the base. (Plus, I wasn't paying attention and maybe I could have dropped some raiders to reinforce it? Do auto ships even try?[Like troop transports with normal invasion defenses.] I'll have to look into it more.)
Not sure about fortresses though, thems expensive stuff, given how hard it is to make creds early on. (Well, I guess there is selling information to the empires...)

And... finally, other pirates, you end up fighting them a heck of a lot early on, due to ending up within the same area of influence and even cause of exploration ships triggering control.

[Admiral Moe Lester]

All it takes is one escort to shoot out its one boarding pod and a few seconds and then the base is gone. It seems like the raiders have no problem finding these hidden bases after all. I've lost many bases on worlds guarded by numerous fleets only because of just one fast little escort that unloads its pod before it can even be shot at.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Zangi

Pirate Bases while under construction are also made of cardboard.

Yeah you have to identify early on any planets enemy pirates are contesting and stop trying to build bases there or you will waste tons of cash. A single escort or frigate can race in and drop 1 troop which destroys your base. I had one around 94% complete that was killed like that even though I had 10 ships on defense. The bastard raced straight in and dropped before I killed him and that was all she wrote, say goodbye to all that time and effort...

Of course it did prompt me to launch a punishment campaign to kill 3 of that factions star ports. But by the time it was over I had ground troops and simply captured the colony instead of trying to build it up with bases again.

I'd say use bases to establish your ground presence in game early on, then revert to large ground armies and forgo any more attempts at hidden bases. There are simply too many enemies roaming around by then to give you enough time to build up the three bases without risking single ship kamikaze troop drops. One or two planets early game is all you can probably hope to achieve before there are simply too many ships on the map to make base building feasible.

Jim

[Shark7]

Which is exatly what pirates do...sneak in through cracks in the defense (or in this case race in before the defenders can respond).

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Which is exatly what pirates do...sneak in through cracks in the defense

I wouldn't mind it so much if there was a fight to see if the sneaking pirate won/lost. But all they have to do is land and boom the base and 30k is dead.

I love the new changes, but the whole concept of hidden pirate bases on another empires planet quietly siphoning off cash each cycle isn't working out too well. As soon as they get ground troops on the planet your base is dead and you will have no chance to return. Sure it may survive a few months, but nowhere near long enough to justify the cost of 130k you spend building up to a fortress.

I think a better solution for the hidden bases would be to make them invulnerable to attack from normal combat troops and then create a small police force troop (1 per planet, strength based on pop size)that can actively hunt and engage the pirates on occasion. But rather than destroying the bases right away, it should transfer control back to the planet owner if they win or the pirate if they lose and only after several fights bring the control down to 10-20% or so should the base risk destruction.

Jim

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Which is exatly what pirates do...sneak in through cracks in the defense

I wouldn't mind it so much if there was a fight to see if the sneaking pirate won/lost. But all they have to do is land and boom the base and 30k is dead.

I love the new changes, but the whole concept of hidden pirate bases on another empires planet quietly siphoning off cash each cycle isn't working out too well. As soon as they get ground troops on the planet your base is dead and you will have no chance to return. Sure it may survive a few months, but nowhere near long enough to justify the cost of 130k you spend building up to a fortress.

I think a better solution for the hidden bases would be to make them invulnerable to attack from normal combat troops and then create a small police force troop (1 per planet, strength based on pop size)that can actively hunt and engage the pirates on occasion. But rather than destroying the bases right away, it should transfer control back to the planet owner if they win or the pirate if they lose and only after several fights bring the control down to 10-20% or so should the base risk destruction.

Jim

Hmm, or if it warned you in time to act perhaps? I can't sit and watch one colony all the time, other stuff to do.

You might add this to the wish list or as a list of minor improvements.

On the base falling to ground troops...well you are taking a rag-tag band of pirates and trying to fight off a well trained standing army. Sure you are going to win the occasional battle, but over-all the planetary army is going to win the war. I do think it should be a bit harder to find the base in the first place though.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
you should stay focused on trying to get all three bases built on the planet before any of the regular empires get out into space.

Hidden base, hidden fortress... and then...?

*edit*
Found it.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Hmm, or if it warned you in time to act perhaps? I can't sit and watch one colony all the time, other stuff to do.

That's my problem at the moment. You get no warning that someone is attacking the planet, since it isn't in your owned assets list. The only way to guard it is to watch it constantly, to the exclusion of all else when not paused.

[morbug]

I've built (or tried to build) several fortresses and not one of them have lived for more than 10 minutes or so. The second the planet is unguarded (retrofit, refueling etc) a ship comes from nowhere and kills it. It's incredibly annoying since the bases take forever to build (forever!) and cost a lot. They need to either be immune to attack while building (it's supposed to be hidden after all) or better defended throughout the building process (and when complete). Perhaps it should be a 1 in 10 chance of an enemy unit finding it on a given invasion or something.

I don't think I can play as pirate at the moment because of this, since it's an important core pirate mechanic and it annoys me way too much not being able to use it.

Oh well..

[Erik Rutins]

We'll see if we can make the hidden bases a bit tougher. They were originally but we made them a bit easier to destroy in the last couple of months. The mechanic itself is quite usable though, but it sounds like making them more resilient again would be well received. Give yourselves a bit more time to master Pirate gameplay though, in my experience it does work well with the current balance too.

Regards,

- Erik

[Jim D Burns]

I guess I had a different impression of what these bases were intended for then. I thought of them as secret hideouts that would rarely be discovered even when in the midst of a vast powerful empire that would help pirate factions survive and earn cash. But by the sounds of it you intentionally made them fragile and easy to kill. So what is the design intent for the bases? Are all pirates mid and late game intended to be played as empires with land armies and planets of their own? Are the bases intended for the early game only?

Once empires spread out into space, it will be impossible to gain enough control to build new bases due to land armies being present on most worlds, so will all pirate bases eventually be found and destroyed? Is that the designed intent? If so I guess focusing on getting just one planet up and running and then switching to land armies for further conquests should be the focus of pirate factions. Man I wasted soooo much money on failed base building lol.

Jim

[Wolfe1759]

In response to the original question.

Buy a parrot and an eye-patch, optionally add in a peg-leg and/or hook, if your budget stretches to it a ship and some rum might be useful. Also remember to say Aaaarr at the beginning of every sentence.

Sorry, couldn't resist [:)]