As scary as it is when fleets of pirates are brought into your system it makes for a more adventurous game. It gets boring when you have little to no fleets in your home constellation. The Elite Hunters are not as bad as the regular spawn pirates (I always have it on Insane) which took out two, going on three, Craver empires. The Pirates left unchecked can be just as dangerous. But that is for us who like the extra random challenge and benefit that pirates of all shapes and sizes bring.

I have done it as both, so whats your point?

It was always fascinating for me how pirates get better fleets that I have.

Of course, later I wipe them out, but, come on. I am a space empire with population on several solar systems working to design and build mighty Empire fleet, and then I get holy pirate fleet with no planets, resources, etc.

In my games i played during the free weekend i never once bumped into the problem of pirate raiders at the start of the game, never seem to spawn very often when i was playing. They did however manage to beat an AI into submission and became an Empire for a few turns, befoe they were promptly crushed by my human and AI alliance. And that was before i found out you have to build scouts to keep and eye on dark areas to stop them from spawning.



EDIT: However i do think they at least need a cap before they start spawning bad-ass pirates and for the pirates to be a little more buff late game.

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
In my games i played during the free weekend i never once bumped into the problem of pirate raiders at the start of the game, never seem to spawn very often when i was playing. They did however manage to beat an AI into submission and became an Empire for a few turns, befoe they were promptly crushed by my human and AI alliance. And that was before i found out you have to build scouts to keep and eye on dark areas to stop them from spawning.



EDIT: However i do think they at least need a cap before they start spawning bad-ass pirates and for the pirates to be a little more buff late game.

Hmm. You got lucky. Of all the negative "exploration effects" one can trip, none are as game-ending as calling in a high-power Pirate fleet in the infancy of your empire.

Digitalhawk96 wrote:
In my games i played during the free weekend i never once bumped into the problem of pirate raiders at the start of the game, never seem to spawn very often when i was playing. They did however manage to beat an AI into submission and became an Empire for a few turns, befoe they were promptly crushed by my human and AI alliance. And that was before i found out you have to build scouts to keep and eye on dark areas to stop them from spawning.



EDIT: However i do think they at least need a cap before they start spawning bad-ass pirates and for the pirates to be a little more buff late game.

I must have gotten all your missing pirates during the free weekend then.



One game between turn 7-12 I had 2 pirate events spawn from scout ship exploration and a random faction event. scout ship pirate spawns weren't too bad and died easily. The event... dialogue was something like this (paraphrasing) * HELPFUL* (that's what the event came up as) flavoured text: "your government thought having pirates around to cover up shady dealings and blaming it on the pirates was a good idea, so 3 spawned on your home system, enjoy" So, they spawned on my home system and moved off without attacking (I had no ships in orbit there). around turn 15 they arrived at another system and started to invade, I'd built up a few ships ready with about 500ish mp on my that fleet. I then seen all 3 pirate ships had 1200mp... at turn 15. It was pretty much game ending. It's never happened since, so maybe it's just a pirate balancing bug that shows up from time to time.



As others have, I'd love to see a difficulty limit on early game pirates, and a buff to them later in the game (more pirate events maybe once all systems have been colonised).





Actually I've not seen any pirates at all for the past 2 games... settings are default too.

What difficulty are you playing on Troodon? Normal speed I assume? I've been playing with both at normal and have not encountered this event in the first 10 turns. Only regular weak pirates through exploration events. Although, I have run into a strange bug a little later in the game where a system produces one full pirate fleet a turn and spams them at my one of my systems at a constant rate. It is the strangest thing. It looks like a little train of pirate ships heading to my system, with the tail of the the first one connected to the head of the next and so on. It was overwhelming and frankly not fun but I finally was able to stop it by settling the system they were spawning in. The only way I lasted long enough to get a colony ship there was through abusing emergency shelter on my defending hero.



I think I will play with pirates turned off though. Last game they wiped out the Cravers by themselves an would have killed the UE if I had not intervened. Again spamming one or more full fleets a turn. It doesn't seem right that they are not bound by any kind of production limit.

Looking back, I just got a bit unlucky.



I still think they should put a limit on when they spawn.

Troodon wrote:
Looking back, I just got a bit unlucky.



I still think they should put a limit on when they spawn.

Aye, agreed. Early on it's just way too punishing. Even if you survive, you're too far behind in economy to be competitive.

Igncom1 wrote:
Well.....I did it with kinetics.....and as Horatio.....

I wish you would make up your mind, first you did it as Cravers then as Horatio.





Like anything else in this game, its far too random how easily a game is ended early on. Nothing like those old days of having two systems, it not one, on the other side of the wormhole.



It is even more fun when you encounter your first pirate fleet bee lining the first system your headed too. If anything I think pirate fleets should be not start for a set number of turns into the game

ben_caleb wrote:
As scary as it is when fleets of pirates are brought into your system it makes for a more adventurous game. It gets boring when you have little to no fleets in your home constellation. The Elite Hunters are not as bad as the regular spawn pirates (I always have it on Insane) which took out two, going on three, Craver empires. The Pirates left unchecked can be just as dangerous. But that is for us who like the extra random challenge and benefit that pirates of all shapes and sizes bring.

Well, as said, many of us aren't "Insane" level players, and having a fleet that's about ten times more powerful than your own barrelling down on you right at the beginning sucks.

It does, but you don't need to have an equal amount in order to compete.



Just enough guns to get a 1-1 kill ratio or better.



That's what I do, and I am by far not an 'insane' level player.

Well, the situation is that pirates are dangerous for newbies, and the random events increased the role of them during early game.



On the other side, experienced players miss strong pirates in the endgame. Maybe the point is to turn left fleets from destroyed empires into powerful pirates?

there is an option to turn off all of the above so pffft. Seriously the nerve of people whining a random event that was left on randomly screwed me over so game broken nerf plox.

If people don't like random events, then they should play Sword of the stars, where the random events can win the game for themselves. lol

ThatMG wrote:
there is an option to turn off all of the above so pffft. Seriously the nerve of people whining a random event that was left on randomly screwed me over so game broken nerf plox.

Take a look at when he started the thread, champ. That option wasn't up at that point.



Seriously, the nerve of some people...

Igncom1 wrote:
If people don't like random events, then they should play Sword of the stars, where the random events can win the game for themselves. lol

Bwa ha ha. Not exactly a high-watermark to aim for, is it?

the only problem i have had with pirates was the one time I miss clicked on a event and 5 large pirate fleets spawned on my homeworld around turn 10.

Igncom1 wrote:
Its not hard to build them when the event does pop up, and if you actually tired, 3 'Elite Hunter' killing corvettes by turn 10 is easy.

That is not exactly possible if you start on a crappy system and have no traits benefiting production. At 3-6 turns a corvette, you'd lose your home system before you could reach 3. The only real way to counter pirates that early is to gimp yourself on early system rushing. I'd rather have 3 or 4 systems than a couple of dust-draining corvettes. Then again, random pirate events ruin that.

CAN WE NOT!



The elite hunters eaisly go down to 3 corvettes each.



Frankly I wish the pirates were harder, and could carve out better pirate empires!

Troodon wrote:
Okay. On turn 10, my tiny, 2-system nation is attacked by two "elite hunters." They have higher weapons tech than my ships, and blow up every defense I have.



Really now? Turn 10? Can we please nerf the pirates?



EDIT: Perhaps I should rephrase the question: Can't we make that type of Pirate not appear at the very beginning of the game? Say, only start spawning at turn 10?

I've noticed that a lot of the negative events are game-enders if they happen early on, especially with regards to Pirates.

Igncom1 wrote:
CAN WE NOT!



The elite hunters eaisly go down to 3 corvettes each.



Frankly I wish the pirates were harder, and could carve out better pirate empires!

Maybe a difficulty for Pirates, but not unanimously harder. Pirates suck if you're a peaceful race, they rip you to pieces then.