In the two games I have started since the new update I have not seen a single AI fleet except for pirates. I even set pirate difficulty to low on the second game.  I am going to try a game with pirates off and see what happens but right now it seems they are overwhelming the AIs ability to deal with them.

Not surprising, Amplitude refuses to make the ai more challenging for some reason leaving the AI to be incredibly lack luster.

KingValkyrik wrote:

Not surprising, Amplitude refuses to make the ai more challenging for some reason leaving the AI to be incredibly lack luster.

I doubt that they refuse, it's just that having good AI is quite difficult. 

KingValkyrik wrote:

Not surprising, Amplitude refuses to make the ai more challenging for some reason leaving the AI to be incredibly lack luster.

I think it's a lot better but does not undestand you need to clear our lairs.

Ashbery76 wrote:

KingValkyrik wrote:

Not surprising, Amplitude refuses to make the ai more challenging for some reason leaving the AI to be incredibly lack luster.

I think it's a lot better but does not undestand you need to clear our lairs.

That is what I've found as well. With serious/impossible difficulty, the AI major factions don't have that much trouble with pirates, it's just they don't seem to prioritize dealing with pirate lairs or intercepting pirate fleets, and are more prone to ignore them until much later on.

I'm glad I'm not the only one having trouble with the pirates. I claimed 4 systems. Started to expand outwards and was stopped cold by pirate fleets. I bought similar ships to what the pirates had and I still couldn't push past them.

I bought the game this weekend and love the mechanics of the game except for the pirates. Instead of trying to conquer the other empires or do diplomacy I spend all my resources and tech research just beat pirates. Possibly it's a newbie mistake, but all the tutorials are from a year ago and it seems like the game has changed a lot.  I'm playing on normal and pirates are my biggest roadblock. Might start on really easy just to see if it makes a difference.  Would like to hear from any high XP player that can give tips on how to take out the pirates in the early game in the new update.

To deal with pirates you just need to research the military tree. Get decent lasers and beams and maybe a single medium hull. I cleared the pirate lair near me with just small hulls and standard weapons (no strategics). Remember to use both support and attacker hulls. Support ships attract damamge that would otherwise go to your main attack ships so equip them with decent defenses. Research techs that increase fleet limits. More ships in a fleet means more power and manpower for invasions.

I might add to Slashman's advice, to always build your own ships, don't use auto, except, perhaps in the first few turns.  You can build much stronger ships yourself, than the auto will build.  The longer the game goes on, the more important this is.

Hello,

We have read many feedback similar to this one on the pirates, and we're going to tone them down in the next patch. Their difficulty setting will also be displayed directly on the new game screen (instead of the minor faction one).

Thanks for getting into the game :)

I do hope you're going to let us turn them back up again, if we wish to?