Tanaka
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Joined: 4/8/2003
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I had to repost this here from the steam forum because it is just so good! All credit goes to the original poster nephilimnexus: http://steamcommunity.com/app/261470/discussions/0/35220315653423363/
#1: STEAL EVERYTHING! Put boarding pods on everything you build, even civilian ships and mining bases. This not only makes your ships resistant to enemy boarding attempts, it lets you capture the buggers who are trying to attack you automatically. Free ships are the best ships! Also, did you know that you can capture unaligned (neutral) NPC freighters by right clicking on them? Even a single 300 size frigate with just 4 boarding pods and a tractor beam can grab one of those easy - you'll never have to spend your hard earned cash on freighters at all if you play like a real pirate. Oh, and don't forget the med bays - they speed up the regeneration rate for your boarding troops. It's a must have, and luckily you start with the tech.
#2: Defense Matters! Never, ever build a station that does not have weapons of some kind, preferably fighters, as they have the longest effective range of any weapon in the game, hands down. And don't forget the boarding pods on your mining stations to give would be raiders a nasty surprise when they go to run.
#3: Maxium Range for Exploration Ships. Forget weapons, explorers are supposed to run, not fight, so if you have to put any kind of weapon on them make it an ion weapon - that can halt an attacker in their tracks and give you time to jump away (and maybe even disable the hyperdeny gear that advanced enemies use... sometimes). All an explorer needs is decent shields, a lot of fuel and good sublight speed. That's it.
#4: Layer Your Station Designs. When starting off money will be a serious concern, so you'll want to build the cheapest mining bases possible. Use the "make from copy" to upgrade instead of overwriting old designs outright. This let's you make tiers of mining bases, each one larger & more powerful (although more expensive) than the one before it. That way later in the game when you just need to get a base up now you don't have to spend the time or money to construct one of your mega-bunker mines every dang time... at least not right away. Oh, and right-clicking instead of the "upgrade" button gives you many more options - and it's how you make this system work.
#5: Roaming Miners are Key! Right off the bat you'll want to get at least six mining ships out there, preferably two gas one four rock miners. They will prove far more useful in the beggining than just trying to put mines up everywhere (hint: because you can't) and those mobile mining ships are far harder targets for the enemy to try to destroy (hint: they move). If you're low on something and can't afford or defend a mining base to get it, that's when the mobile mining ships come to the rescue again... and again... and again. Yeah, that happens a lot so be prepared - stock up on mining ships today!
#6: Denial of Service Attack!. Taking a lesson from the US 8th Airforce in WW2, the first thing you want to do is monopolize the Caslon (and later on, Hydrogen) market. An enemy who can get fuel isn't going anywhere. Therefore, whenever targeting a system for invasion, the first thing to do is check to see if there is a gas giant there with Caslon and build a fortified gas mining station there first thing. If one isn't availble in system then at least grab the closest one to that system.
Likewise, if you wish to secure a region better it never hurts to target all the fuel planets as your main priority for reinforced gas mining stations. It won't keep them out completely, but it certainly slow them down... sometimes literally.
#7: Automate Defense!. Now here's the disclaimer: I keep all the automations off by default, but I've developed a system that I really can't live without in this one realm. Let's say that you've found a nice little planet that you want to spread your vile influence upon. Now you can micro-manage a fleet to hover over the planet all day, but I've found a better way to do it that pays off in droves.
First, design a decent frigate sized ship with an emphasis on defense over offense and don't forget the boarding pods (you'll need those, trust me). Don't worry if they're not impressive - even a 300 size ship can hold it's own at this at the game's start. Just make sure it's got long range weapons (a single fighter bay, a couple missiles, and set to Stand-Off against strong, All-Weapons against weak).
Next you'll want to move your main hand-controlled fleet into the target system and raid/hover until you get your first 1% - that's all you need to get the ball rolling. Once that happens you'll notice that the planet now shows up in your colonies tab on the right, and when you go to the fleet menu that planet now shows up as an option for a fleet's homeworld even though you don't own the planet... yet. Keep this in mind.
Next you go to your shipyard and tell it to cracnk out 4+ of your little "system defense ships." Now pause the game, because when you go into the ships tab (at the top) you'll notice that even your ships under construction are available here - which is good, because you can set everything up now while they're still cooking. Sort by "fleet" and "military ships" and pick out your orange highlighted ships-to-be and assign them all to a new fleet (naming is optional, but in the late game naming ships after the system that they're assigned to really keep the brain from overloading. After about ship number two thousand I start to feel like the Borg. Anyway...) Now head back over to the fleet menu and rename your newly christianed fleet to the name of the system to wish to assign them to (example: "Sol Defense"). Make sure that you chose the fleet's home planet - make it the planet that you are targeting for influence takeover.
Finally, go back to main screen and check the fleet tab on the right. Click the blue spiral arrow for "automate" and... you're done! Well, almost. One final thing to do: Click the buttons on the fleet standings until it is set to "attack" and "system only." Ok now you're done. You can unpause the game now. But wait, what exactly did you do?
I'll explain what you have created: As these ships roll of the assembly line they will each head straight over to their home planet and defend it by attacking any enemy that trespasses within that star system. The way the AI is set up, whenever this fleet is not directly engaged in combat it will move to it's home planet (i.e. your target) and hover/follow it forever... or at least until they need fuel, which they'll take care of automatically too.
Naturally all that time they spend hovering over their home world (i.e. your target) will slowly but surely increase your influence, reduce enemy influence, and when the enemy shows up they'll automatically blast the crap out of them.
Oh and remeber what I said about boarding pods on everything? If you want to actually check up on them once in a while and hurry things along you can tell your defense fleet to raid the planet and give your influence a nice little push (as well as extra profits, natch). This is also keeps them from building up a garrison to push your Hidden Base out before you can afford your Pirate Fortress.
#8: We Do Not Sow! Research bombard weapons early on for taking down the actual enemy empires a notch. Clear their home system of targets and then move in bombers and rain nukes on them until their "planet quality" drops to around 30. Be careful not to wipe them out entirely! Once their planet quality drops low enough you'll notice that their income turns negative. That's not a type - they're now having to spend the entire sum of their GDP cleaning up the radioactive fallout that you're still pouring down on them, and as you know recovering planet quality takes a long time. So instead of having to send your reaver fleets back every five minutes to take down yet another wave of building attempts, you can nip all that in the bud and just nuke them once, long and hard, and forget about them for a long time. Also, inluence growth rate is based on population - larger populations take longer to control, smaller ones go quicker. Wouldn't it be nice if you only had to absord half the population, then?
Hey, don't look at me like that. You're the one who wanted to play a bloody pirate!
#9: We are Microsoft. Resistance is Futile. Now this may seem obvious, but personally I don't design my freighters by ship size. In fact, they're all the same size. What I tweak is the speed/cargo ratio. For small freighters I have them designed to carry small cargo very quickly. Large freighters carry x3 the cargo but obviously much more slowly.
The main thing is that cargo capacity is vital when taking Smuggling Contracts, as you get paid by the unit delievered. Deliver 100,000 units of something and you're rich! And how to get the choicest smuggling contracts? See #6, above. Monopolize a commodity under your corporate banner and soon the whole galaxy will come to you begging for that exact same commodity.
#10: Riposte! Now once you get Long Range Scanners (you'll want to learn that tech early as possible) find a way to cram one onto your scout ship designs and watch as enemy facilities reveal themselves all over the map. Blow the crap out of them... but those home bases might prove to be a tricker target, especially with all those ships defending it. What to do?
We wait... for the opportune moment!
Watch your galaxy map and when you see a high swarm of enemy ships come zeroing in to one of your hapless mining bases don't go rushing your main battle fleet over to defend it. Instead, rush your main battle fleet over to their home base while it's still undefended! You lose a mining base, they lose their home. A pawn for a queen is always a good trade.
#11: Bring forth the Holy Hand Grenade! So combining two of the above concepts it's easy to get past one of the main weaknesses of pirates, that being puny raiding troops that suck at ground combat against enemy infantry.
The solution is, of course, to never actually fight any enemy infantry.
So let's take a tiny ship, even a 300 size, and put on 2 boarding pods and 2 nukes. That's only one tech more than you started the game with. Instead of trying to drown the enemy planet in raiders, just nuke the stupid thing until all their ground troops are dead (this does not take as long as you think, either). Once the last heroic defender is a radioactive pile of ash, you can waltz your raiders in with impunity and completely loot a planet with as little as four guys.
Orbital bombardment can also destroy enemy Hidden Bases and sometimes even Pirate Fortresses, which is a bloody lot easier than waiting until you build a Criminal Network, train soldiers, build troop transports, invade your own planet and only then get the option to attack the enemy base on foot.
But wait, you say, even basic raids have a chance to destroy a base! This is true. Pile up dozens of units together and raid six or seven times and you'll likely eventually take out that base, depending on luck. Or you can just nuke the planet while drinking a Slurpee. Both are totally luck dependent, but my way is a lot less work.
#12: Zaibatsu Inc. If you're not careful you'll blow far too much on "buying goods." What is that? When you go to build something and you don't have the right gas/minerals in stock, the game places a little invisible buy order for that item and a neutral NPC freighter is dispatched to bring it to you. When those goods finally arrive you pay for them. Think of it as a minature, hidden smuggling contract to the background characters.
This is important because if you check your "expansion planner" you'll notice that in a 250 star galaxy there will be, on average, maybe half a dozen planets total that produce things like Carbon Fiber & Polymer, and later on you'll add Dilithium to that list of rare minerals that you simply never have enough of.
Get a jump on that problem before it starts, then. Grab at least one source for those two critical elements right away, and eventually target them for monopolization & big profits.
Essentially, your goal isn't to have tons of crap that you don't need (unless you're playing the Smuggler angle). Instead try to focus on at least having enough of every element in the game, so as to avoid having to blow money on NPC merchants.
#13: Empire Worlds pay out a high amount of revenue for your influence, due to their higher populations. The downside is that they will continually try to break out of your blockade, will spawn troops to try to remove your bases, they take a lot more effort to get any influence (though bombing helps - see above) and, worst of all, you can't build there until you completely take over through either a Criminal Network, or later through regular ground trooper invasion & conquest.
A good plus, however, is that once you break them they'll constantly try to make new Construction Ships. This is very useful, especially when you've blockaded them with a fleet of "Harpoon" ships designed around ship capture (blasters, tractor beams, assault pods). This will quickly net you easily half a dozen or more unfinished (barely started) construstion ship hulls left floating in space. Of course getting them running again will prove difficult & time consuming, as you will need to design/build a Space Station as an orbital drydock (1 construction yard, 1 of each fabricator, little else). The good news is that if you skip on on non-essentials you can make such a structure for less than 2000CR with less than 1000CR maintenance - which the planet itself can easily pay back. Once that is built you then have your constructor repair the captured ones and send them to the drydock for upgrading into an actual FTL ship (otherwise those captured ships are useless). They'll be out of fuel and moving at a speed of >5, so they'll take their sweet time getting to the drydock, and they'll need to refule once they get jump drives installed.
Why go through all this hassel? Ummm, free construction ships? Having five or six constuction ships as a pirate is something you won't normally see until year 20+. With this system you can have this many in under five years, and that will give you a serious advantage in the long run - especially if you're a Smuggler.
Remember to get Pirate facilities onto these worlds ASAP, as even keeping a small fleet in permanent orbit will not be enough to hold 100% influence once their population gets too high. You'll also want to conquer and/or Criminal Network one of these first, so as to get them to stop struggling. Luckily with their high populations the money hit from the changeover won't be bad (more on that later).
When the time comes to expand past the first Empire conquest you won't be able to use the Criminal Network a second time. Instead you'll just have to invade with regular ground troops like a regular schmuck Empire. Luckily, through the liberal use of bombers, you'll never need more than about eight infantry to take any world. That's important, because ground troops are stupid expensive to maintain. Which is why other than your actual dropship invasion fleet you should have zero garrsion troops. Rely instead on orbital space ports and Pirate Fortresses for all you anti-raider defense.
#14: Independent Worlds have lower populations than Empire worlds, which has the advantage of making them easier to Influence but the disadvantage of giving less revenue. However, in many ways they are actually better than Empire worlds as targets.
Firstly, they don't fight back. This includes ground forces, so the only threat to your Pirate facilities comes from enemy raiders - which you should be blocking by having a small fleet of about four ships in permanent orbit until your base gets built.
And that's the other advantage... bases. You can actually build orbital bases over these worlds without controlling them first. Now I'd suggest that as soon as you spot one of these planet that you start designing a new type of Small Space Port just for this purpose. Make sure to swap the Gas Extractor for a Mineral Extractor (meaning don't just use the original Gas Giant base design that you start the game with). Fortify it as much as possible within reason; remember, "small" is just a name - you can actually make it any size you want so long as you can afford the cost. Try to keep it under 3000cr in maintenance and the planet itself, once you've got Pirate facilities on it, should pay for the base itself.
For >3000cr maintainance you should be able to fit 40 fighters (10 bays), 4 functional construction yards (with support fabs), 3000+ shields, some assault pods & tractors (good for capturing fools that try to attack this thing) and 5 of each type of lab. In other words, something far superior to your starting base. In fact, once you get 2+ of these planet bases you should just ditch (scrap) that original gas giant base entirely, as it's draining money and giving nothing back. The planet bases, in contrast, are helping keep these planets under control and are parked over a source of (now) permanent income.
Later, once you've got a Criminal Network someplace and can build colony ships, you should target these worlds for colonization but do not do this until you have a Pirate Fortress on the planet first! Why? Because once you colonize a planet you can no longer build pirate facilities there - only regular "empire" facilities. So if you don't already have your Pirate Fortress built before your colony ship sets down, you never will.
Why bother? Check your research screen - every Pirate Fortress is something close a 250% increase in your research output. Within three Independent planets, each with a Small Port in station over them (5 labs per station) and with a Pirate Fortress on each you will soon be racking up new technologies very, very quickly - and it only goes up exponentially from there.
#15: Total Self-Reliance. Redesign your construction ship template to include one or two bays of fighters, set tactics to Evade/Standoff, retreat to Shields at 50% and add one each of the Mining Engine and Gas Extractor.
This has several advantages. First, sighting a measly space slug will not cause your ship to abandon what it's doing and go scampering off. Instead it will circle around the pest until your fighters kill it, then get right back to work. Ditto for enemy Exploration ships, though your fighters aren't likely to kill it, the point is that they'll get sent running instead of you.
The second and far more important advantage is that your ship can now extract all of it's own resources if need be. This comes in very handy as a time saver for when you are building a project and get hit with the "Insufficient Whatever" alert. Normally when this happens your construction ship will just sit there like a useless lump until a freighter finally gets off it's lazy butt long enough to bring you the goods so that you can continue.
Or you can just go fetch it yourself, because you can do that, now. I cannot count the number of times I've found myself stuck because I was short 20 units of Steel or something equally trite. I thought to myself "Waitaminute, the planet that I'm building this mine at has steel already! Gah!" Well now when that happens I just switch modes for a minute or two and get the dang steel myself. Compared to the 15+ minute wait times that freighters often take, even if you have to go to the next star system over, it's faster than waiting for a special delivery.
So yes, increased functionality is always good. Focus military ships into a single purpose, but multi-task with the rest. The other advantage of this type of constructor is one that you'll hopefully never have to use, but here it is anyway; if you're ever backed into a wall and have lost all your bases and ships except for a single, lone constructor..... well, given long enough, that one ship can eventually mine enough stuff to build you a new base entirely on it's own.
Oh, and if you're really into micro-management, putting a gas extractor on an Explorer effectively means limitless range. Think about it.
#16: Hire Private Eyes. Why build actual state funded monitoring stations when you can just incorporate Long Range Scanners into your mining stations? Let the private sector pay for that crap, man!
#17: Scam the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s! Explorer ships can be profitable, as later in the game once you rival pirates start making some money of their own you can negotiate with them for profit. At 30,000cr per Secret Location this can be pretty lucrative, especially for one that is filled with death traps. Also, there is no reason not to sell the locations of Independent planets that you've already taken over (base + fortress) as the knowledge won't do them any good, and each time you do that's another 20,000cr you can use to further fortify your position with.
#18: Personelle Management, Right clicking on any ship, structure or planet gives you an option called "transfer character here." This is the only way to relocate Intelligence Agents off of that obsolete starter base that you want to scrap. Good to know! It's also good to highlight (in some way) any ships that have Captains or Admirals on them, so that you don't accidentally Retire the ship with them still on board (which is fatal to said person). An asterisk or even naming the ship after them works, depending on how much work you want to put into it.
If you ever get someone with Inspiring Presence then make sure that you keep them bunked with as many other people as possible, in particular your Scientists and Intelligence Agents. Later in the game, once you start to take the technological lead, your counterintelligence operations will become the most important use of your spies, and getting free points in that skill between enemy attacks is a very good thing.
Likewise, anyone who is Demoralizing needs to be isolated onto a ship by themselves or, better yet, used for suicide missions. Again you can use the right-click "transfer character here" function to get people into places that they won't normally go on the regular Character Screen menu. So yes, you can put a particularly horrible scientist with all negative traits onto a suicide bomber ship and send it against an enemy base to get rid of the bum.
#19: Read the Fine Print. For some reason the description of Raiders and their actual stats are backward. It says their focus is on making bases, but they actually suck at it. For base building take Mercenary or, better yet, Smuggler. Why this is I do not know. Personally, Balanced is probably the easist style to play, as it allows you to change your strategy at any point in the game and thus adapt to an ever changing environment easier. You won't excel at anything, but you don't take any penalities, either.
#20: Stay here, I'll kill you later. It is interesting to note that since you can no longer build Pirate Facilities on a world once you've colonized it, that means that any colonies that you make with your own colony ships are basically screwed. As shown above, you're much better off either colonizing an Independent planet that you've subjucated (Pirate Fortress already present) or simply conquering an Empire world that you have likewise already subjucated (again, Pirate Fortress present).
For this reason if you really want to maximize your potential (not to mention save on garrison troop expenses in the long run) then you need to let one rival Empire (or even another Pirate) survive to colonize planets for you.
Then you just take them from them like the piratey ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s you are.
You can theoretically farm this "last survivor" until every planet in the galaxy has been properly set up with Pirate Fortresses like they should be.
They key is to start off building as many ore & gas miners as you can right at the opening, so that you're not beholden to static mines. Yes, actual mines work better in the long run but as a pirate that wallet is ticking down from the moment you hit start and until you get a postive cash flow (something Empire players take for granted) then trying to get a mining network together is impossible.
It pays, however, to make sure that you customize all your ship designs, most especially your mobile miners and freighters. A good 300-size mobile miner should have 10 cargo bays, 2 extractors and (important) no luxury extractor. See, the AI for "private sector" Pirate ships is sadly the same as it is for Empire ships, which means if left to their own devices your miners will wander off to go extract luxury goods which you have absolutely no use for because you have no planets instead of getting useful materials. The solution, then, is to deprive them of this ability entirely and keep them focused on what matters.
Next you'll want to make designs for "mini-mines." That's the smallest, cheapest mine that you can design: 1 command center, 1 commerce center, 1 small fuel cell, 1 basic reactor, 1 power collector, 1 extractor, 1 docking bay, and 5 small cargo cells. The whole thing should cost less than 600cr to make. Of course it's totally vulnerable and yes you'll want to upgrade these as soon as you can afford it. However, when first starting off your location is still secret and your main goal is simply making sure that you've got at least 1 mine for each rescource type. Since the mini-mine itself takes very few rescources, you can quickly spam them all over the very same planets with resources to make more-mini mines in short order.
So the steps are: Lots of mobile mining ships (x2 as many ore as gas is a good ratio), followed by mini-mines, and then follow those with regular size 600 mines (with an emphasis on defense systems).
Never, ever buy freighters. Steal them from others. Your main ship right off the start is a "Harpoon" frigate. That's a basic 300-size ship with a tractor beam, about 4 blasters, and 2 assault pods. When you make little fleets of 2 or 3 of these to patrol planets that you want to Influence, you can also use them to snag the literally dozens upon dozens of freighters that go to business with those worlds. In one game I managed to accumulate well over 100 small freighters... and never bought a single one.
You will also want to get as many Hidden Pirate Bases planted early on as possible, preferably on Empire worlds that will someday have high populations and income. Aplanet may only show 2K of income right now, but someday it may have over 30K. The sooner you get those bases down there to siphon off that money the better.
There is a huge hurdle players will face mid-game; it's what I call "The Transition" phase. That's when you finally build your criminal network and can actually start taking over planets like a regular empire. The problem with this is that, for some reason that I do not fully understand, a conquered planet only pays you a fraction of what it did before when you were just leeching off it with your bases. So as your pirate empire grows from just a smattering of orbital dockyards and hidden bases into an actual flag color on the map your income will nosedive and your wallet will start huring in a big way.
Overcoming this means planning ahead and carefully picking only the choicest targets, preferably the richest planets that you know will keep paying out good no matter what.
Here are some examples of good starting pirate stuff:
Mini Mine
1 x Command Center
1 x Commerce Center
1 x Life Support
1 x Hab Module
1 x Docking Bay
1 x Mining Engine or Gas Extractor
1 x Fission Reactor
1 x Standard Fuel Cell
5 x Standard Cargo Bays
Total Cost: 396 for Ore, 383 for Gas
Upkeep: 70 for Ore, 69 for Gas
Materials Required:
(Ore) 12 Silicon, 11 Gold, 14 Polymer, 34 Steel, 5 Aculon, 6 Iridium, 9 Helium, 4 Lead.
(Gas) 12 Silicon, 11 Gold, 17 Polymer, 33 Steel, 6 Iridium, 9 Helium, 4 Lead.
As you can see, if you start off nailing 1 Gas MiniMine on Helium and 6 on the ores, you'll quickly have the ability to produce an infinte number of more mini-mines. Later you will want to upgrade all of these, naturally, but it's a proof of concept; a bare-bones system to get you started quickly.
Pirate Builder (Size 900)
1 x Command Center
1 x Gerax Hyperdrive
2 x Standard Armor
26 x Standard Cargo Bays
1 x Construction Yard
1 x Energy Plant
1 x High Tech Plant
1 x Weapons Plant
1 x Docking Bay
2 x Energy Collectors
10 x Standard Fuel Cells
36 x Proton Thrusters
20 x Thrust Vectors
11 x Life Support
11 x Hab Modules
1 x Standard Fighter Bay
1 x Gas Extractor
1 x Mineral Extractor
Set tactics to Evade, not Flee
Though a relatively expensive refit for just starting out, it's well worth it as soon as you are able to afford it. With a cruise speed of 22 and a 21 degree turn rate, it's still fast for it's size. It has enough cargo bay to hold the materials to build nearly anything, even late in the game. It's got enough energy collectors to not waste fuel while building, and 650 fuel points give it excellent range. It's fighters can kill off space slugs and scare away rival exploration ships without interupting your work. Most importantly, however, it can gather all it's own materials if need be. As stated above, this is a blessing when freighters take forever to do deliver supplies that can often be found in the very same star system that you're building in.
Pirate Civilian Ships
Freighter 300 Template
1 x Command Center
1 x Gerax Hyperdrive
1 x Energy Collector
2 x Fission Reactors
4 x Life Support
4 x Hab Module
1 x Covidian Shields
For Small...
5 x Standard Cargo Bay
5 x Standard Fuel Cells
18 x Proton Thrusters
8 x Thrust Vectors
1 x Standard Armor
For Medium...
10 x Standard Cargo Bay
5 x Standard Fuel Cells
12 x Proton Thrusters
9 x Thrust Vectors
1 x Standard Armor
For Large...
15 x Standard Cargo Bay
4 x Standard Fuel Cells
7 x Proton Thrusters
8 x Thrust Vectors
4 x Standard Armor
So even though they are all technically the same size (300) they all have distanct roles. Smaller ships move less cargo faster, larger ships move more cargo but more slowly. The choice is yours.
Mobile Miner 300 Template
1 x Command Center
1 x Gerax Hyperdrive
2 x Fission Reactors
1 x Energy Collector
1 x Corvidian Shield
4 x Life Support
4 x Hab Module
5 x Standard Fuel Cells
5 x Standard Cargo Bays
4 x Standard Armor
13 x Proton Thrusters
For Ore Miner...
10 x Thrust Vectors
2 x Mining Engine
For Gas Miner...
8 x Thrust Vectors
2 x Gas Extractors
The advantages here over the stock designs are obvious. First, you have two extractos per ship, so you'll harvest twice as fast. And you have more cargo room to hold it in, and more range. Most importantly, however, is that we've ditched the luxury extractors entirely. Why does a pirate with no colonies need luxuries at all? Yes, there are smuggling missions, but frankly by the time you are accepting smuggling missions for luxury items you should have actual mines in place for those things and not relying on the random whims of AI controlled ships to make sure that you actually have enough supply to make such a contract feasible. What mobile miners are for is essential materials, not luxury items. And these do a very good job of that. They are, of course, more expensive than the stock designs (about 1300 each) but well worth the price.
Pirate Combat Ships
Now this is what you've been waiting for, right? Here are some templates to get you off to a good start.
All ships assume...
1 x Command Center
1 x Energy Collector
5 x Standard Fuel Cells
2 x Fission Reactors
1 x Gerax Hyperdrive
4 x Life Support
4 x Hab Module
Harpoon
2 x Assault Pod
4 x Maxos Blaster
1 x Tractor Beam
5 x Corvidian Shiels
12 x Proton Thrusters
4 x Thrust Vector
5 x Standard Armor
Set tactics to All Weapons/Point Blank
Hornet
1 x Standard Fighter Bay
2 x Maxos Blasters
11 x Proton Thrusters
5 x Thrust Vector
6 x Standard Armor
Set tactics to Evade/Evade
Archer
4 x Concussion Missile
13 x Proton Thrusters
4 x Thrust Vectors
4 x Standard Armor
Set tactics to StandOff/StandOff
Of these you'll be wanting more Harpoons than anything. These are the heart of your operation, able to capture cilivian and enemy ships with ease as well as conducting planetary raids. To this their AI combat strategy will be to tractor beam targets into themselves, lay into them with blasters until their shields drop, and then board them. When large hull designs open up you'll naturally want to add a hypewave deny system.
The Archer will be your second most common ship, good for annoying the crap out of your enemy as your circle around them launching missiles from outside their own weapon range. Do not underestimate the power of a dozen of these things working together to trash an enemy base. Weak point is enemy fighters, as they have no point defense. You'll want to change that when you get bigger hulls.
The Hornet mini-carrier is the least effective but still useful. Use it augment other fleets with the longest range weapon of all - fighters. Four fighters isn't much, of course, but the template leaves plenty of room for easy imporovement as large hulls open up (read: more room for more fighters). Eventually you'll turn this design into a dedicated Carrier class, trading the blasters for actual point defense weapons.
Originally posted by DireEpidemic:
for pirates i feel the a.i. makes huge mistakes for some examples, you should only play them manually.
-pirates never use their colony ships even if they capture them-
Ah, but you can! Sometimes you get lucky and nab an abandoned colony ship. This can let you quickly bypass the entire "Criminal Network" hurdle entirely.
The best way for a pirate to use a colony ship is, of course, to colonize a Independent planet that they've already build a Pirate Fortress on. That way you get extra starting population, the race diversity bonus, and you get to keep your pirate base bonus - all in one package.
Originally posted by DireEpidemic:
-they never work to secure the resources they need, you'll be stuck because you'll never get a resource (your ships will stay at stations the whole game due to lack of resources for refiting-
That is why the first thing you build is mobile mining ships, not mines. The AI for those actually does work (most of the time), because it uses data from the "by priority" screen; meaning that they go out to find whatever you have the most demand for. If you're short a lead mine, for example, you'll probably notice your mining ships going out for lead for more often.
Just make sure too not put luxury extractors on mobile miners, for reasons explained previously.
< Message edited by Tanaka -- 8/24/2014 9:11:16 AM >
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