Pirate Question.

[stormbringer3]

I'm playing a game as a Pirate Faction (Balanced) for the 1st time. I find that I'm unable to build Construction Ships. The build line is greyed out. I have all the necessary prerequisites. Are Pirates unable to build them or am I missing something?
Thanks for any help.

[feelotraveller]

Do you have a colony to build them at? Unlike other ship types construction ships (plus resupply ships and colony ships) must be built at a colony. Usually it takes a long time for pirates to enable these.

[stormbringer3]

Thanks, that's the answer that I needed.

[Tanaka]

I thought pirates were not allowed to build them but had to capture them?

[johanwanderer]

You can certainly build them once you own (own, not just control) a planet. You own a planet by either build a Criminal Network there, or colonizing it, or invading it with troops.

[CaptainBipto1]

Pirate Construction ships are hard capture targets. If you smash an rival gang's star base to kill them, take out that construction ship. The base ain't going anywhere.
Is there a way to gain troops before owning a colony? Also in one game I took over a capital planet with a criminal network. Should I submit a bug report? Pirates are kinda vague.

[Nanaki]

There is no way to gain troops before owning a colony, but you can gain colonization ships if your explorer ships manage to find one buried on some planet. Pirates acquiring empire capitals through criminal networks is also working as intended.

As for pirates building construction ships, pirates can do almost everything a regular empire does, it just starts with no planets and has to go through the Pirate Base>Pirate Fortress>Criminal Network building chain in order to acquire a planet, which is extremely expensive (~$350,000)... Note that criminal networks are considered the pirate 'end game' so to speak.

The main way that pirates are limited is diplomacy, Empire AIs are far more aggressive against pirates and pirates do not have the myriad of diplomatic options of peacefully dealing with its neighbors. Infact, most of my pirate games usually devolve into a war of attrition with empires constantly sending suicide fleets against my defense.

Other pirate limitations include being unable to build research stations, being unable to investigate or benefit from ruins, unable to benefit from research wonders, unable to get Ambassadors or Colonial Governors, and they gain little benefit from their initial race pick. Given a few of these restrictions are probably bugs, but they are still there.

[CaptainBipto1]

Best game I had with mercs I controlled most of the northern half of a map. Got bored and started invading my controlled colonies, mostly at the same time which tanked my economy. Raiders bug me. It is mentioned they are "nomadic" but I haven't won with them yet. I'm toying with running a resupply ship as my actual hidden base. But I think maybe Id lose my ability to hoard resources w/o a starport.