I play on slow speed all the time, so I'd like to get more warning on pirates.

Would I increase or decrease the warning time values to get more warning?

Increase them both.

The smaller raids aren't so bad, any cap can take them on and come out better in the end. I did get a bit overzealous and put a bunch of bounty on my main competitor in a 5v5 locked game. They pretty much wiped out my enemy, but then wouldn't go home so I could come in and claim territory. The economic path is indeed a harsh one...

I love the pirates, they are like a whole different player without all the Diplomacy.

I personally really do like the pirates, but to that end, I think they could be better. First off with regards to the timer, I think though the fleet size scales with the bounty the timer affects the pace of the game and when playing slow vs. fast one is looking for a different experience. That is to say when I play a slow game I want a laidback thoroughly strategic pondering experience where is negativly affected by the seemingly constant nuisance raids. Comparatively during a fast game, I am looking for a more seat of the pants experience of acting and reacting during which the pirate raids seem out of pacedly slow (so much more is happening between each raid). Additionally I would appriciate the countdown clock on the main HUD (perhaps just above/beneath the black market button).
Taking a more long term perspective, I would like to seem the pirates actually fleshed out more to add to the realism so that the dynamic could resemble that of the spanish main. Some examples include getting ride of the countdown so that the pirates respond to bounty both proportionately and oportunisticly. That is to say, they only attack when and where they can hurt and get away. If they dont get bounties, they should still prey on trade lanes and mining colonies or poorly defended areas where profit is possible. They should spawn based on thier success at getting profit and getting away, (I cant imagine a pirate would be down for a suicide mission). If a big fleet shows up to squash them they should hightail it. Too that end, this adds a new layer of strategy that if the map players let the pirates get too out of hand, they could become a serious late game concern that requires direct action.
Also there should be some minor diplomacy with the pirates some possiblities include paying them "protection" money to keep them off your back (which would obviously scale based on how well you were doing) during their raids against a system they could end up taking the govenor hostage forcing you to choose between either paying a randsom or taking a temporary hit to loyalty or economy or something.
Now I know the last few ideas are rather complx to implement, but I think it is worth considering for a patch way down the line or perhaps the expansion
again, good job! it is an excellent game (even if it has one of the highest learning curves of any rts I've ever played)

I edited the title of the thread to reflect the change in direction. It seems to be becoming a global location for people to express their love and hate for the pirates.

My thoughts as well. They add a little spice to the game and keep you on your toes, and they're giving my capital ships lots of experience, which isn't a bad thing. They don't seem too difficult to fight off if you have decent defenses at your planets.

I like the reasoning behind the Pirates and the extra dimension they add to gameplay. I have had no real trouble using/dealing with them.

However, in the few games I've had they are often my main enemy rather than the opposition AI. I realise this may be because the enemy AI is actually using the Pirates as his proxy military might.

For me, this doesn't feel quite right - the Pirate termininology and the large massed fleets are grabbing the limelight from the opposing faction/s.

I think this previous suggestion is excellent:

Enable Pirates Yes/No (If no the other options could would be disabled)
Pirate Strength (so it scales by the resources AND this option)
Pirate Frequency (so you can choose how frequent pirate attacks should be)

I understand the balance issues with the AI - that if you reduce/remove Pirates then certain AI strategies (e.g. Economic) become less effective.

So it may be worth introducing them in another form. Perhaps keep the Bounty/Bid system, but have the actual symptom be a reduction in Metal/Crystal/Trade Income as your infrastrucutre and trade network is hit by raiders. You don't actually have a massive Pirate fleet to contend with, but your economy is affected and the AI can still rely on this strategy to hamper your economy.

The dislike I, and possibly others, have is with the seemingly prominent position the Pirates take.

Cheers!

you would increase them both, the values are in seconds so every 300 secs = 5 minutes.

Yeah, the Pirates aren't that bad. If you end up on the wrong side of the bidding war, then you might not be able to spend resources the way you want for awhile, but the XP from haiving your Cap ships fighting them more than makes up for it in the long run. They're aggressive, but dumb. You just have to adjust and use it to your advantage.

I like the pirates so far. I have couple of small UI~ish issues with the them.

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Someone above noted that we should listen for the "bounty on your head has increased" messages. I've found that these do not always play, probably because some other sound effect like a different event or unit sound is already playing. When I and the enemy are both raising the bounties multiple times near the time limit, I often miss the second or third bounty increase message if I'm also directing my fleet. So I have to look for it specifically or open the pirate screen just to check. When I really can't afford to get the pirates on me, I end up just waiting in the bidding screen for the latter half of the "impending raid" time even though the highest bid is currently mine.

I'd like to give priority to that pirate message notification. It may not be too easy with the current sound system to make it play over other events, but I think even unit selection ("What you want me to do?" and so on) seems to have covered it once or twice. I'm going to try turning those off, although I wouldn't mind having them on otherwise.

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Another person above said that he paid the pirates and they attacked his system because it was on the way to the enemy system. I had a similar situation for the latter half of my last game and here's what happened reliably:

1) Soon after bidding has ended and pirates are on the way, sensors warn of enemies approaching my planet.
2) I see that it's the pirates on the move, and I doublecheck that I won the last bidding war so I don't actually need to pull back my fleet to defend the planet.
3) The pirates arrive to my planet's gravity well and they (the planet) say "Yikes, we're under attack!"
4) Pirate whispers me "Let's get it on." or "Say goodbye to X system!"
5) Pirate fleet immediately turns around and heads to another phase lane on their way to the enemy planet.

Number 4 shouldn't happen if they're just on their way to someplace else. The rest of the stuff can be justified, but this should be different when they're just passing my planet briefly.

I do wonder though if they'd do some harm if they needed to cross the whole gravity well on their way instead of turning back on the same edge they entered at.

The pirates are vital to break stalemates and since Sins can be played turtle like (which is awesome) i'd say they're critical to prevent the game from going on for hours and hours even in the smallest maps 1 vs 1.

Though i'd say options (or making it easy to see which maps don't have pirates) never hurt anybody (except the developers :P)

Yup, if they're just crossing a system on the way to somewhere else afte you've paid them you should get a different message methinks. Maybe just a regular insult instead of a threat...

For the record,No, Pirates dont attack your planets\units\structures, if they are merely crossing through your space on their way to attack someone elses systems (I have had Pirate fleets fly literally through the middle of my systems). As this is true, i would really like it so that you didnt attack them either, it annoyed me greatly that my planetary defenses kept destroying the pirates that i had just bribed to destroy my enemy

Turn off auto attack while they pass through by right clicking the attack buttons. Just don't forget to turn it back on

12 minutes seems a bit too fast, I'm going to edit it and try 15 minutes, maybe step it down to 18. I like the mechanic (and yes, I recognized it from Settler's of Catan, I do volunteer work for Mayfair Games so thank you!) and I think it's important and useful but later game it seems like my attacks are interrupted by pirates a bit too often.

I think it would be cool if there was a tangible bonus for defeating the pirates. Maybe in larger games you could receive a cut from the bounties or you could use them as privateers.

There is a substantial bonus if you take over the pirate base

Substantial bonus to what?



Anything from "You'll be spared this time, but pox on your sons and daughters!" to "Just passing through to collect that bounty you put on X's ships guv, feel free to throw more credits my way anytime." would do great.

I'd like to see the timer and bounty info moved to the main interface since it can be such a major part of the game. Being able to glance at a small countdown in the corner of the screen is preferable to having to open up a full screen interface.

I think the pirates are a great idea. In civilizations (1,2,3,4,whichever), there were barbarians who would attack and pillage your cities. Its the same idea in SoaSE. They are useful for upgrading your capitol ships as well as keeping other people at bay. I actually played my first game with a friend in multiplayer vs 1 computer. Up until the last 30minutes of the game I didn't even realize I could bribe the pirates, lol. So they were constantly attacking me, but I didn't care. I had fun fighting them off. Now that I realize I can bid against other players, it just gives me another option in gameplay, and I LOVE options.

I mean, you are constantly managing other planets and tech trees and fleets, so how hard is it to manage the pirates. Ignore them if you want and just decimate them when they attack you. Or you could just build a lot of defense, that works too. I do think they need to attack a little less frequent, or at least scale depending on the map size.

Thanks. I was hoping to have my opinion distorted and the tone of the thread changed to be pro-Pirate.

I'm finished posting here (I'm sure no one cares), but I'm frustrated with the direction of the thread and the developer's responses.

The Pirates seem to be an integral part of the game. Every game I've played involves dealing with them heavily. I will now try to play with the delays set to absurd levels (10x what is listed) and see if they go away. I have no suggestions for improving, I just don't want them in my games. Some people seem to enjoy the "gamey" feel to the universe with a massive pirate faction that is a vital part of the early game and can be a vital part of the late game. Others seem to enjoy the fact that the pirates can be mined for cheap XP late in the game for capital ships. Somehow, I think that's missing the point both of my concerns and of the intention for pirates. And still others say once you learn to play the game, dealing with the pirates is no big deal. I disagree. You are still dealing with the most powerful "Pirates" faction to ever be featured in a RTS or serious strategy game. It seems to me either you can handle the fact that Jack Sparrow is wandering space with an armada that regenerates collecting bounties and attacking bases or you want to play something with a bit more serious tone.

The fact that turning them off isn't an option is bizarre and the fact that the developers think that just having an option to turn them off on random maps requires in-depth study is even more bizarre.

On a slightly more downbeat note, this is not the game that Brad Wardell has been touting on IGN in his blog for weeks. This is not the tone of the game that I expected from any of the previews or from casually following this forum off and on for a few months. If people had said that essentially every game consists of you, the AI, and a faction of Space Pirates that will force you to deal with them every 12 minutes, I'm not sure if I ever would have even read about this game, much less purchased it.

This is exactly my major problem with the Pirates. You've expressed it better than I have and I thank you.

With that, good luck all.

The first two games I played were 1v1 vs. a computer, and I really hated the pirates. The computer would always snipe the bounty auction, so it was pirates pirates pirates, and it got tiresome pretty fast. I've started a 4-player game now, me and 3 AIs in a free-for-all, and it's much more enjoyable. With up to 4 people bidding, it's rare for me to see back to back pirate attacks. So basically, if you're playing against the computer and getting sick of pirates, try a game with more AI opponents. Let them play Ebay sniper against each other for a while. In my case, I went from seeing pirates 100% of the time to seeing pirates 25% of the time.

I've also noticed that the pirates usually attack the same planet/asteroid, unless you build something closer to the pirate base. Once you know where they're going to come from, it's easy to beef up the defenses there to the point where pirate attacks really are trivial. In my current 4-player game, I've got something like 8 turrets, 3 or 4 hangar bases packed with bombers, plus a capital ship and a bunch of LRM frigates set to Hold Position in the middle of the turrets. The pirates raid that place (or try to) every time they come my way, and they just don't last long.

tl;dr: 1v1 vs. the computer, pirates really do suck. With more players, you don't have to deal with every wave, it's much nicer.

hi all

Blair
don’t take it to hard

the more I monitor these forums the more I realise the game has gone public and its got to people who find new things bad because they don’t understand or counter them attitudes need adjustment patience needs to be implemented

I myself have been at the business end of pirates because I could not outbid my team mates and it pissed me off but then again I was on the giving end with them and I enjoyed it.

Its all about attitude if you can’t stand them just make a map without them not the hardest thing in the world
If i can understand how to do it so can everyone else
I think a pirates on off switch will solve this problem heaven knows how you going to implement that though
as usual just my two cents