Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases

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Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/21/2013 7:43:32 PM

MedievalNerd

Posts: 11
Joined: 7/27/2013
Status: offline

Hey all,

It seems the strategy I had with civilian mining stations isn't viable. I had added fighter bays to all my mining stations. But now I have the problem that the icon for managing fighters isn't there. Also, they do not launch automatically when they get attacked. I have to manually launch each and every single ship. Double checked and the stance I selected for the base is All Weapons, so it should technically do something.

I was trying to go the route of simply adding military bases, but the darn pirates still manage to blow up the civilian station.

What am i doing wrong here? Pesky pirates!

Post #: 1

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/21/2013 8:00:31 PM

Anthropoid

Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline

With the most up to date complete version of the game, Shadows 1.9.06, and playing as a pre-warp "Age of Shadows" Empire, I don't find pirates to be too much trouble. I just pay one of them for protection and then forget about it. Might not even bother putting any weapons or armor on civ bases.

Back when I used to play DW vanilla, I found the pirates to be a serious problem.

The solution I used was to strip down the civ mining bases as much as possible: add shields and/or armor, and a few blasters or similar weapons. I tended to find that, a fairly inexpensive base like that could take out a couple or three pirates escorts or even a couple frigates, even before a fleet response arrived.

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(in reply to MedievalNerd)

Post #: 2

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/21/2013 8:17:55 PM

MedievalNerd

Posts: 11
Joined: 7/27/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

With the most up to date complete version of the game, Shadows 1.9.06, and playing as a pre-warp "Age of Shadows" Empire, I don't find pirates to be too much trouble. I just pay one of them for protection and then forget about it. Might not even bother putting any weapons or armor on civ bases.

Back when I used to play DW vanilla, I found the pirates to be a serious problem.

The solution I used was to strip down the civ mining bases as much as possible: add shields and/or armor, and a few blasters or similar weapons. I tended to find that, a fairly inexpensive base like that could take out a couple or three pirates escorts or even a couple frigates, even before a fleet response arrived.

Interesting. They aren't much of a problem until I make my second colony, then they always betray the protection agreement to go and raid my colony. It's been systematic for the past 2 games. Which is why in this latest game I decided to add those fighter bays. i have to say, for my state bases, this has proven to be extremely cost effective defense as opposed to ships.

Even the most basic ship racks up a really high amount of maintenance, making fighter bay option alluring. But as I mentioned, the civilian starbases don't seem to like dealing with fighter bays by themselves. Manually launching every single ship is a micromanagement hell I rather not contend with.

Perhaps I could do as you say, add shields and more defense things to the mining colonies, then build seperate defense base next to it with said fighters. Not as appealing though, because one thing I loved about my tatic, is that it offloaded the defense costs to civilians. :) I'm having a hard time managing making money while having enough ships to efficiently defend my systems.

And I even have the aggression set to the 2nd lowest setting, so i'm surprised the pirates suddenly become so aggressive when i build my second colony. There is also what I believe is a bug, because when I get the notification that a pirate is attacking me, if we have a protection agreement it's only broken when they finally fire my base/ship. Shouldn't the agreement cancel as soon as we know an attack is coming?

(in reply to Anthropoid)

Post #: 3

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/21/2013 9:05:57 PM

Fenrisfil

Posts: 216
Joined: 6/2/2013
Status: offline

Pirate betrayal always seems to be a problem. Usually ends up with me spending far too long hunting them down, but the trouble there is they then end up militarily weak but whenever they have a spy available he goes off to blow up my bases instead. Perhaps the answer is instead to place additional troops at the colony to fend off their raids and just let them do them. Doesn't help when they get a successful fail but maybe it's worth it long term.

My tactic for mining stations is simply one of controlled allocation. I choose where they go and keep them all as close to my core territory as possible. Then as long as I clear out any nearby pirates they stay relatively safe (those previously mentioned spies are still an issue however, but adding more guns to them won't help that either). When I find a special resource location I station a fleet and then build a defensive base next to it and that seems to do the job (and deals with those pesky sand worms). The fleet moves on after the defensive base is built. I don't over arm the bases and if they do get blown up I just rebuild. My only worry with them is pirate boarding and I've been known to scrap the stations to avoid them stealing them (I do them with ships too once they are boarded).

(in reply to MedievalNerd)

Post #: 4

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/22/2013 6:31:08 AM

Canute0

Posts: 616
Joined: 4/30/2010
From: Germany
Status: offline

Fighters arn't the best defence for Civilian Stations anymore. Yes they don't patrol and they don't launch when a Enemy come to attack, doesn't matter what stance you set.
They just launch when the station get attacked by weapons.
You still can launch the fighter manual, select a single fighter and then you got the launch icon, but this is much micromanagment special when you got 3-5+ bays on the station.

Thats is why i change my defence strategy.
At the beginning i don't try to destroy the pirates with civilian station, they just need to damage them so the pirate ship head back to the base for repair.
So i add 2-5 Gravition beam and/or 5-10 Railguns + 2-4 Tractor beams as weapons, 5-10 Armor and 10 shields.
This isn't enough to withstand a real attack from 5+ cruisers, but pirates mosttimes just harras with a few smaller ships.

Unless you can destoy the pirate bases to secure your area, you should work with the protection arrangments. But don't wait until a pirate betray you, cancel the protection from yourself after a few month you start the arrangment. And start a new arrangment when the next pirate start an attack.

(in reply to Fenrisfil)

Post #: 5

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/22/2013 2:30:31 PM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
Status: offline

MedievalNerd:

Very early game, bases and ships are so pathetic, they are going to struggle against strong raids. If you expand quickly installing and upgrading weapons on bases can create a resources bust which would be more effectively utilised on early fleets. For example, I prefer Torpedoes so early I always keep an eye on Chromium. So the strategy is temporary protection agreements which are cancelled as soon as they leave and no weapons on bases.

Early game, since bases take a while to upgrade and can't defend against the stronger raids, I tend to defend with 2-4 ships supplemented by whatever I have at the base at the time (my preference is 10 Torpedoes and 10 Shields). Again base upgrades take 2nd priority to getting some early fleets up. I prioritise Construction research so those Ships are Size 400 ASAP. The odd raid will still be too big to defend against so there are still some temporary protection agreements signed. On occasion I'm sloppy and forget to ensure that defensive ships are close enough or forget to sign an agreement ... in which case they meet 6 armor on the ground and almost always the raid fails.

Mid game bases become strong enough to defend themselves and the pirate threats become far weaker with many fleets flying around on Extermination duty.

Late game pirates are exterminated but I tend to keep a few around for the reputation benefits.

< Message edited by Icemania -- 8/22/2013 2:48:12 PM >

(in reply to Canute0)

Post #: 6

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/22/2013 2:43:51 PM

Icemania

Posts: 1847
Joined: 6/5/2013
From: Australia
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid
With the most up to date complete version of the game, Shadows 1.9.06, and playing as a pre-warp "Age of Shadows" Empire, I don't find pirates to be too much trouble. I just pay one of them for protection and then forget about it. Might not even bother putting any weapons or armor on civ bases.

Back when I used to play DW vanilla, I found the pirates to be a serious problem.

The solution I used was to strip down the civ mining bases as much as possible: add shields and/or armor, and a few blasters or similar weapons. I tended to find that, a fairly inexpensive base like that could take out a couple or three pirates escorts or even a couple frigates, even before a fleet response arrived.

1.9.0.10 is the current version. Try Very Many Nearby Strong Pirates while expanding quickly. Plenty of complaint treads on the forum about this being too hard!

(in reply to Anthropoid)

Post #: 7

RE: Combating pirate hit & run attacks on Civilian Bases - 8/22/2013 3:19:46 PM

Anthropoid

Posts: 3107
Joined: 2/22/2005
From: Secret Underground Lair
Status: offline

Well crap, you'd think that the version they are selling out of their store last week would be patched up to latest!