Ungodly pirate raids

from Sins Forums

 

I'm sure this has been posted before, but it begs concideration. Pirates are simply too powerful. Ironclad should look into this because its the only thing ruining an otherwise perfect game.

I bought trinity a year after I bought the original game in the stores (lesson learned about waiting untill a publisher releases a shelf pack if you're not interested in micro-transitions.) I love any and every empire building game, sins being no exeption. I don't care for multiplayer... building a huge, thriving society with all the options on, watching all the vessels float by while my fleet pounds anyone who dares cross the borders into oblivion, is amazing gratification for me.

This one map had me facing three other CPU opponents, as I slowly drove them back, using my shiny new starbases for defence and diplomacy to play them against eachother... slowly. The map encompassed more than a 100 planets spread over 8 star systems, each holding a pirate base.

I placed my first star base and chuckled with glee after thirty minutes, as those same pesky pirates from the original ran themselves through against my impresive base. Just like old times it appeared, but with newer toys. And for the first hour, everything was as I remembered it. Pirates are cannon fodder and I couldn't wait to fight my opponent's fleets. I allied with one computer and continued oblivious to the coming storm.

After the first hour, pirates managed to take out my starbase. I scratched my head and continued playing, rebuilding my base and giving it a dedicated defence fleet.

After beating back two of my opponents back towards their home systems, after about three hours of play, I suddenly noticed something awry with my ally: Its empire was falling apart, planets simply missing.

I decided to send my ally reinforcements after the fifth hour of play, to deal with the threat. 20 of its 30 planets had succumbed to a grey menace, slowly sweeping through its empire and devouring all in its way: Pirates.   

So I send a third of my fleet: 2 Main batlleships, one of every other battleship. 7 light frigates, 7 long range. 8 Carriers, 6 repair cruisers, 5 command cruisers and 12 heavy cruisers. (Nearly a third of all my 2000 available supply points)

 

Not that it mattered. I was aghast by what I found there:

43 Pirate Cutthroats, 45 Pirate Reapers, 114 Pirate Corsairs and 68 Pirate pillagers.  

I personally witnessed how such a pirate fleet moved lazenly from one planet to another, not even paying heed to the starbase on the way there. They simply moved by it, straved it without stopping and blew it up before even passing.

An impressive fleet of 250+ ships? Hardly, because there were 3 of those floating about.

So I decided to make a daring dash for their base. Surely the attacks would stop, if only I would blow up their base. So I pinged my ally and together we attacked.

We were evaporated to a fleet of nearly 800 pirate ships garissoned there.

Not even my entire fleet could have won that. Not the combined fleets of the both of us could have done that. And if all those pirates would have united, they could have driven all players and AI's off the map.  

 

Malarky you say? I'll post a screenshot of it if people don't believe me, so help me...

 

Seriously. Pirates shouldn't be able to threaten stellar nations, let alone two of them. If they would, they should have been a acclaimed fraction of their own, not just tools to be used. How do they manage fleets like that, based soley on pitiful asteroids anyway? Yes I know my other two enemies must have  supplied them, but seriously... There's not even that many people in the system we fought on to recruit. And maybe I could have stopped them, if only I wasn't bound by a 2000 supply limit maximum for my ships.

Solution:

- Give each pirate base a supply limit less than half of a fully fledged nation.

 I really don't want to turn them off. If I go empire building, I want to experience everything there is, not turn options off simply because the developers made an oversight.

11,313 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Well since it sounds like you are only playing single player, why don't you download a mod that corrects this problem. Just search pirate mod on this site and I'm sure you'll find something (someone else might have actual recommendations). Almost everyone agrees that the pirates are too strong, but it has taken the Devs a while to get another patch ready that will hopefully correct that problem. Modders can move much faster.

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

GoaFan is right...if you don't like it, look for mods online...

Nevertheless, the best solution is to simply wipe the pirates out before they become a problem...

If you are TEC, use a novalith...

If you are Vasari, use a Kostura until all the gauss platforms are destroyed, then make a mad dash with some caps and siege frigates to take the planet out between pirate raids...

If you are advent, you'll have to do it the hard way...Iconus Guardians with repulsion are the best way to go, simply mass a ton of bombers and wipe out the enemy ships while the Guardians keep them at bay...then, I'd recommend HCs for wiping out the gauss turrets (they have flak burst so bombers don't work out real well)...

Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Finding a mod is probably the best solution.

Are the developers reading this?  Maybe the next patch should include a specific Pirates Difficulty option, allowing players to choose between Standard/Entrenchment pirates, the Diplomacy pirates on steroids, and one or two levels of difficulty in between.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

 

       Something needs to be done with giving pirates missions.   Once you have economic dominance you can just send a killer pirate fleet to do your bidding. Your losing, dont have money to bid, plus someone is kicking your ass by hiring pirates, and your fighting regular factions. I have won most of my single player games by using the pirates as my killer force and me as clean up, that should not be.

That being said, once pirates get nerfed a little, I will have to go up a level in difficulty

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

No offense but

THAT
SOUNDS
KICK
ASS

Maybe it's because I loove a good challenge, but the idea of pirates on this scale is simply tantalizing to me.

Anyway, as to stopping the pirates attacking: not that I have diplo yet, but in theory, a kamikazee starbase (TEC) equipped with Safety Override Protocol *lvl 2* should take out their attacking fleets.

Richter {^}

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Richter_Abend, reply 5
Maybe it's because I loove a good challenge, but the idea of pirates on this scale is simply tantalizing to me.
End of Richter_Abend's quote

If you want a challenge, you could play against 9 teamed up AI opponents on "Unfair" difficulty level, though that's probably beatable if you're good at the game.  At that point the only other challenge left would be to play against human opponents over Ironclad Online.  (I guarantee that some are tougher than any Unfair AI or beefed up Pirates, come check it out.)

Anyway, as to stopping the pirates attacking: not that I have diplo yet, but in theory, a kamikazee starbase (TEC) equippedwith Safety Override Protocol *lvl should take out their attacking fleets.
End of quote

I wonder.  The Diplomacy pirates are supposed to be insanely tough.  It's possible that they might have enough shield/hull/armor to survive the blast.  It's not that the pirates swarm you with a huge amount of ships, but also (I think) that the individual ships are insanely powerful.  I only play with pirates off, so I wouldn't know.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Look at their armor.  Their weakest ships have armor that rivals a starbase.  That is what makes them so powerful.  The gauss guns have an armor value of 34, for example.  That's all that really needs to be changed.  And is it just me or did the experience values get cut in half as well?

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

they did

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

I just got this game. Game of the Year edition for $14. Pirates have been a n issue for me, played a small one on one game my first time, in a 14 planet system. Took out hte pirates fairly early and did a slow crawl from there.

The next game was ina giant multi star system, and only about 3 hours in my forward planets were attacked by overwhelming forces. I had to use the fleet I had in a suicide stand off to hold them back just so I could prepare the other planets for the coming onslaught. By the time it was over I had lost 4 planets and had only a shadow of my former fleet and lost 3 capital ships.

 

Was fun, but left me completely vulnerable to the other empires and way behind economically and defensively.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

yeah most just shut them off

personally I use Distant Stars (being a part of the crew and all) which tones down the pirates a bit more and changes the way they play (being the main guy for the DS pirates, am bit of an expert)