Any (anti) pirate advice?

[RegisterMe]

They're doing my head in. My last seven save games, literally minutes apart, have been called:-

******* pirates
******* PIRATES
aND AGAIN
And again 2
Killed pirates
******* pirates
ggrrrrhhhh

I have three defense bases set up in SCII, two in Hatikvah's Choice, two in Profit Centre Alpha. I have twenty Odysseus E's with docked Jians in "core" sectors (for me). I have Nemesis Vanguards docked in more peripheral sectors that I can teleport to.

And every couple of minutes another of my damn traders screaches about being attacked by these annoying SCA (etc) pirates who just spawn arbitrarily. It's infuriating.

Any advice welcome .

[Halpog]

i feel u .. in some games of mine , iam nerved till the ground from pirates ....
buckaneers.. always killing my damn adv satelites ... PGS always annoing my stations...
fallen families .. jesus ...
more over the damn plunderers from faktions i need to get reputation with....u kill them and u loose instant 1 or 2 points of reputation ...

but so far PGS ( scaleplate ) and bucks are the worst...
i also tryed to place tons of MK2 lasertowers on the flight path of pirates ...uff not working .. they get attacked 1 or 2 times, than they change the flight path
i also tryed to create some kind of "korridor" build with ships in defense position command where my traders and miners fligh trough.....no chance lol

my anti pirate solution is.. stay away from pirate sectors

what u can do is u can put some S ships with hugh firepower to defend miners and traders .. but it cost u billions rebuying miners is always cheaper.. traders. is the same .. unless its an L trader fully equippt ... they get 1 nemesis or drake and 5 S fighters as defense.. always.. same for L miners .. but M ships .....preload light equipptment so the ships stay under 500k.. and just rebuy them . its way cheaper

[BitByte]

To reduce SCA activity start their terraforming job. Only thing what you need to do is complete 1 task from their terraforming and that will unlock reputation. From that point forward you can do jobs for them (and trade) which will improve your reputation and when you reach +10 they cooldown.
With VIG work your reputation up also.
FAF - Park 2 L-size ships to FRF shipyard's construction bays and that will halt whole FAF ships production after short time.
BUC depends how you choose in the plot - either they become your permanent enemy or you can be allies.

[RegisterMe]

To reduce SCA activity start their terraforming job. Only thing what you need to do is complete 1 task from their terraforming and that will unlock reputation. From that point forward you can do jobs for them (and trade) which will improve your reputation and when you reach +10 they cooldown.
With VIG work your reputation up also.
FAF - Park 2 L-size ships to FRF shipyard's construction bays and that will halt whole FAF ships production after short time.
BUC depends how you choose in the plot - either they become your permanent enemy or you can be allies.

That's really useful, thank you. I've not done any plot work yet, just been concentrating on building up my industrial / military empire. I haven't even got to the state where I can teleport the PHQ around the place yet.

So some stuff to work towards (after I protect Split space, pacify The Void, and get me an Asgard...).

[GCU Grey Area]

I use L freighters to handle sales. Pirates flying S or M ships don't bother hunting them (too big a target I guess) & there aren't all that many pirates who fly destroyers (on the order of a dozen or so, based on map searches for 'Plunderer' etc with a very extensive satellite network). Consequently I get comparatively few piracy notifications. Whether I do anything about the few I do get depends on precisely where they occur.

If the pirate's operating in a remote sector which my ships visit infrequently I pretty much ignore them - if one of my freighters does go there & get hassled I'll look at the situation on the map & reroute the freighter if necessary. I will however do absolutely nothing to the pirate as long as they remain there - if I kill it the replacement may go somewhere more inconvenient to me. If they're in a core sector, which a lot of my ships need to fly through, I deal with them personally - shoot or board, depending on how much time I want to spend on the matter.

[grapedog]

Also, speed.

The minotaur raider, which is probably one of the most common M pirate ships to harass your traders... it caps out at under 300kms with typical argon engines.

If your traders have around the same or better speed, they'll usually be able to survive most pirate encounters and just get away.

[RegisterMe]

Also, speed.

The minotaur raider, which is probably one of the most common M pirate ships to harass your traders... it caps out at under 300kms with typical argon engines.

If your traders have around the same or better speed, they'll usually be able to survive most pirate encounters and just get away.

I'm using Demeter Sentinels at the moment. They get away sometimes. Sometimes not...

EDIT: Looking at them the Demeter Sentinel maxes at 212. Or even 216 with Argon Mk IIIs. I might have to investigate an alternative...

[Imperial Good]

If pirates are too much to handle... Make friends with them?

Below contains storyline outcome spoilers.

Spoiler

Show

All pirate factions can be made friendly. BUC can be made friendly by the Paranid escalation storyline. SCA can be made friendly by terraforming Scale Plate Green. The DLC FRF can be made friendly like a normal faction and FAF can be made friendly though secret communication missions (bugged in 5.10, working for 6.00). Yaki can be made friendly or permanently removed via the appropriate storyline choices. Lastly VIG can be made friendly like a normal faction as well.

Factions do no pirate their friends. Even FAF will stop pirating you when at +10 reputation, verified in 6.00 beta.

[jlehtone]

Also, speed.

The minotaur raider, which is probably one of the most common M pirate ships to harass your traders... it caps out at under 300kms with typical argon engines.

If your traders have around the same or better speed, they'll usually be able to survive most pirate encounters and just get away.

I'm using Demeter Sentinels at the moment. They get away sometimes. Sometimes not...

EDIT: Looking at them the Demeter Sentinel maxes at 212. Or even 216 with Argon Mk IIIs. I might have to investigate an alternative...

When CoH was new someone made a video of a race. Osakas with different engines. Some results were more surprising than others.

Just recently I had similar race. From PCA to Guiding Star, i.e across Two Grand. Four otherwise identical Boas. Arg, Par, Spl, and Tel Combat Mk III's.
The Split lost clearly. The Tel may or may not accelerate faster than Arg, but on longer run the Arg takes over (a bit). The Par was worse than the two, but still clearly better than the Split.

These were low attention and obviously did use travel mode. If the freighters do not Flee, then they go for travel and the cruise speed does not matter.

[blackphoenixx]

If your empire is big enough that pirate notifications become a hassle just set the default response to comply, then disable the notifications. It may not be very satisfying but it's by far the easiest solution.
Your ships don't drop all their cargo when they comply, just a small part, so the cost is negligible compared to losing a high skill pilot and having to replace the ship or outfitting every trader with an escort capable of taking on a destroyer.

The most important part is the peace of mind though, the cost is worth it just for that.
You can still give your patrols fire override orders to shoot SCA & BUC on sight, but not only will your traders be out of the line of fire, you'll also finally be able to enjoy the game instead of having to respond to a piracy notification every few minutes.

Alternatively Barbarossas don't seem to get harassed by pirates (probably because they're classed as combat ships?) so if you use those as L traders you can at least cut down on it. Same for the Erlking.

[Halpog]

what iam missing in case about terraforming ?
i mean i never tryed it yet and did not even bother to use it so far ...
does terraforming realy have any kind of impact on sectors and factions ?
or is it just some side kick stuff ?

[Alan Phipps]

@ Halpog: As said above, it's one route you can use to reduce piracy of your ships and maybe stations.

[RegisterMe]

If your empire is big enough that pirate notifications become a hassle just set the default response to comply, then disable the notifications. It may not be very satisfying but it's by far the easiest solution.
Your ships don't drop all their cargo when they comply, just a small part, so the cost is negligible compared to losing a high skill pilot and having to replace the ship or outfitting every trader with an escort capable of taking on a destroyer.

The most important part is the peace of mind though, the cost is worth it just for that.
You can still give your patrols fire override orders to shoot SCA & BUC on sight, but not only will your traders be out of the line of fire, you'll also finally be able to enjoy the game instead of having to respond to a piracy notification every few minutes.

That approach sticks in my throat, but may well be the best approach, so thank you for the suggestion.

[BitByte]

The minotaur raider, which is probably one of the most common M pirate ships to harass your traders... it caps out at under 300kms with typical argon engines.

I also want get M-size ship with ARG engine that goes 300kms You wouldn't need gates when travel with that.
So far 14+kms have been the fastest I've seen with highly tuned M-travel engine.

----

When I started X4 without any DLCs SCA plunderers (Phoenix & Behemoth) became my targets. I captured huge quantities of them and also Minotaur Raiders.
From these cpatured ships I created trading route protection ships around the galaxy (starting from core sectors where I operated).
So all trading paths where my ships were flying are protected by Phoenixes & Behemoths and some places also have Minotaur Raider fleets as addition targetting S/M-size pirate ships.
When I activated Split DLC then Minotaur fleets got additional members from Dragon Raiders and trading route protectors got addition from Rattlesnakes.
CoH DLC only added that I have Asgards around the galaxy less active patroling and them are for attack against KHK & BUC stations or protect ARG & ANT.
ToA DLC didn't affect my protection fleets config.

So when pirate harrasment comes the nearest ship is usually less than 30km from target and multiple ships can approach from nearby to help.

Of course this takes lots of time & requires working with building borading teams, perform boardings and then fixing the ships after capturing. But like usual every player have their own area where concentrate.

[Treycore]

Try and get faster hauling ships or use the L Freighters, (My L Freighters have only died getting caught by Xenon usually)

Otherwise just let the simulation run, I’ve made peace with losing ships, it doesn’t bother me anymore, it’s just the cost of business and part of the economy

The only system that seems to mass wipe my traders is Hatikvah’s choice bc a xenon destroyer can start camping the system and it can be a while before the argon respond to take care of it

[RegisterMe]

The only system that seems to mass wipe my traders is Hatikvah’s choice bc a xenon destroyer can start camping the system and it can be a while before the argon respond to take care of it

My defense bases have 24 Argon M Beam Turrets, 24 Argon M Flak Turrets, 80 Paranid L Plasma Turrets, 24 Teladi M Shield Generator 2s, and 20 Teladi L Shield Generator 2s. They're pretty good at stopping the Xenons (ie in Hatikvah's Choice). Ks get shredded. Is can be more of a problem, mainly because they sometimes enter the system outside of the range of the defense base(s). But I don't, yet, have a fleet that can mix it up with an I so when one of the appears I just have to wait for the Commonwealth to sort it out.

I'm off to Saturn 1 to buy me some Terran blueprints. I'm not sure if you can use "traditional" wares to make that stuff though. If I can't getting it all up and running will have to wait until I have locked down The Void.

[KextV8]

Switch all your ships out for combat vessels. There is nothing stopping you from using corvettes, frigates, destroyers, carriers, and aux ships as your trading vessels if you want to.

[Tamina]

Honeypot strategy: Get yourself a tradership with full cargo, add some escorts and let it patrol a pirate infested sector. Set it to "engage" on pirate approach.

1. Pirates in the sector will try to rob your ship and reveal themself
2. Your trader ship will attack automatically and not bother you
3. Your escorts will get rid of the pirates
4. Repeat

Ultimately it would be nice if ships could decide for themselves to engage or not depending on the current threat factor or how the battle turns out. I think it is kind of stupid that pilots decide to rather die for MY goods, than to give in to pirates demands

[subidax]

That approach sticks in my throat, but may well be the best approach, so thank you for the suggestion.

Seems pretty realistic though. Loss is calculated in many industries as a cost of doing business.

[jlehtone]

does terraforming realy have any kind of impact on sectors and factions ?

Yes it does. At least the wiki shows how the colour of the planet changes ...
(and something about prices, NPC Fleets, crew on stations, reputation, pilot&marine training, and profitsss)