Pirates Still Not Right

pirates too powerfull?? wtf, they are, if anything, to weak!

a random fleet of ships, numbering about 10 ships or more, should be able to kill a level 3 capital ship. maybe even half of that will do, depending on which ships the fleet consists

I am guessing you need to get better at defense, did the capital ship had enough support?

but sure, maybe your the economic or research type a guy and don't want to invest into a fleet early on, maybe not the best choice but oh well, sure, if thats what floats your boat. However, if that is the case, why do you get pirates in the first place? If you do not invest into your fleet then you should have the money to get the pirates bother somebody else,

so maybe you just aren't that good at this game, no problem, i sucked ass too when i started so maybe you need some time to get used to things and all without pirates,

if that is the case, TURN THEM OFF,

how can you feel like you wasted money because YOU didn't turn something you did not like JUST OFF,

Just turn off the pirates, dummy.

LOL! You will show THEM!

I know I shouldn't let it bother me but the arrogant attitude of some of you jerk-wads is really something.  I've been playing computer games since the late 1970's and have probably logged more game hours than some of you twits have been alive.  I've played Sins for eighteen months almost daily and I am no novice at the game. I know how to turn off the pirates but will not as that would violate the intent of the game.

Sins and Entrapment were brilliantly written and presented game programs.  The game developers somehow have lost their way in Diplomacy.  It is no longer realistic in its playability. Pirates historically were not, are not now, and never will be able to perform as they do in this new release.  I had high hopes for Diplomacy but am extremely disappointed with it as it is now.

Yes I will show them.  There are at least twenty other gamers I know who are waiting for my recommendation to buy Sins.  That won't happen as long as it stays in its present form.

10 LRF + Repair bay beat back first 2 waves of pirate attacks for me. *shrugs* Though Ive said in other pirate complaint topics Ive never had a problem with pirates even in 1.0, but Im guessing its my play style.

Just play with them off. Or you could go back to playing Entrechement.

The intent of the game is however you want to play it. Thats why they give you options. I myself always play with small fleets on becuase I dont like getting lost in the competiotion to get the 1000+ ship fleet. Others like to play with large fleets. Niether of us os violateing the spirit of the game. Sometimes I play pirates on, somtimes off. The new power of the pirates actualy make me want to turn them on more often. Even a massive pirate attack can be beaten back by a smaller player fleet. Plus it is extreemly rare that I cant outbid the AI for a pirate attack, especialy early on. I think You just need more practice getting up early deffences or paying attention to the pirate meter more closely...

And its all about Distant Stars super pirates

w00t!

working on them for diplomacy

I'm somewhat in the same boat; I find it unrealistic that their cruisers have more armor than my starbases after hours of playing.  Is there something I myself can modify in GameplayConstants or something to just turn these guys down?

All pirate upgrades have their own research subject entities:

RESEARCHSUBJECT_PIRATE_ARMOR1
RESEARCHSUBJECT_PIRATE_HPMAX1
RESEARCHSUBJECT_PIRATE_REGEN1
RESEARCHSUBJECT_PIRATE_WEAPONS1
RESEARCHSUBJECT_PIRATE_WEAPONSCOOLDOWNS1

Edit the values as you wish. There's a setting in gameplay.constants I believe that specifies how many upgrades per raid they pick up.

I agree, I wish the ability of the pirates to capture ships had been retained, and that they got abilities to help them further as anti-trade, like cloaking and phase inhibitor immunity.  Massive stats increases are just too crude.  Why boost them out of all proportion to the AI tech tree, what is the intention?  It's like a bad mod.

Is there a new 'pirate' armour type for all their ships, so that they are all the same?  What are the modifiers?  They were dumb in the first version, but all armour the same would be even cruder- and back to ultra siege in another form.  Is it not possible to add sophistication to the game with this expansion, I hoped that it would be subtle? 

So what does this make the TEC tech Insurgency then, if the pirates need vast numbers of ships with hugely increased armour and health not to be useless?  It's very badly balanced with the base game.  

yes there is a new armour type for pirates

        DamagePercentBonus:ANTIVERYLIGHT:Pirate 0.25       
        DamagePercentBonus:ANTILIGHT:Pirate 0.50           
        DamagePercentBonus:ANTIMEDIUM:Pirate 0.65   
        DamagePercentBonus:ANTIHEAVY:Pirate 0.60   
        DamagePercentBonus:ANTIVERYHEAVY:Pirate 0.50      
        DamagePercentBonus:ANTIMODULE:Pirate 0.30       
        DamagePercentBonus:COMPOSITE:Pirate 1.2
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALSHIP:Pirate 0.90      
        DamagePercentBonus:CAPITALABILITY:Pirate 0.75   

basically better have some HC's ready they get the best rate

Might I reply with a thought here?

I think there is a different attitude between those who are concerned with playibility and those concerned with realistic playibility.

The former see this [Diplomacy] as a good upgrade to a portion of the game [pirates] that probably needed a buff.

The latter sees pirate ships that are more advanced as far as hull, weapons, etc than their own ships and wonders how can that make any sense at all? It ruins their suspension of disbelief.

The former says- it is a game, what disbelief is there to suspend?

I fall into the camp where if it just doesn't make sense, even in a science fiction setting, it gnaws at me. Not saying I know what the answer is (although I have not seen any flaw in the pirates being buffed through overwhelming numbers rather than incredible stats-per-ship idea). Just saying that those saying "just deal with the pirates" are missing the reason it doesn't work for some of us.

Just my opinion.

This can now be modded. The PlayerPirate.entity has a list of pirate research, so you can add your own pirate researchsubjects for abilities and stick these abilities on their ships. Note that since they only pick an x number of upgrades per raid (2 by default, also moddable), the more research subjects you give them the less chances that they will pick it, and the longer it will take to more through all their research.

I also feel Diplomacy sounded great in the board room, but of all the directions they could have gone with this seems so.....blah. Think about it..if the pirates change wasnt stirring every one up, what else in this expanstion is worth getting excited over?

I dunno- the whole diplomacy part opens a lot of strategic options, and that is more than worth the price of admission for me. Your mileage may vary.

It makes unlocked FFAs worth playing again, which is the way single player was meant to be played.  It also makes civilian tech more appealing in locked team games, which was a real problem after Entrenchment gave a major bias to military tech.  I think the issue is they didn't have enough time to commit to Diplomacy.  Their main goal was to improve the unlocked team aspect of the game, which nobody liked, and they did with the relationship system, player missions and envoys.  However they needed more than that to sell it, so they threw in the pirate upgrades and pacts near the end.  It's kind of obvious from the finished product that they took the easiest solution to fix the pirates - give them lots of raw stat buffs.  It's not elegant, and it still needs some tweaking, but it works well enough.  If modders can do better, by all means the community will welcome such a mod.

As for those bitching about them being too strong, YOU CAN TURN THEM OFF FFS.  Get better at the game instead of demanding they get watered down again.  Players who know what they're doing appreciate the pirates not being free XP anymore.  If all you have by the third pirate raid is a cap and some light frigates, you would have been crushed by a human player a long, long time ago.  Turn them off or go back to Entrenchment until you learn the basics.

Well...20 gamers is not many at all...I guess I will recomend it to the 20 gamers that are hanging on MY every opinion and counter your shinanagains. LoL!

On Topic: I agree with whoever suggested a pirate-dificulty slider.  Everyone with HUGE E-Peens can set it to max and feel good about themselves, and people that want pirates, but not have them be THE deciding factor in the game can set it lower.  The problem is not so much that a human can not handle them it is that for a measly 250cr (what you will out bid the other guy by), you get a hellish death-fleet that no AI seemed to be able to defend against.  Smash his frontal defenses with the Pirates and you are free to run your fleet right through him.  The Missions are a little better because you are spending quite a bit to get a big raid but, as it was, you could just send the raid at his HW and they would level everything on the way, with your own fleet in tow to mop up.

You are right and i would also prefer if the pirates would behave more like "pirates" but after all this is still a sci-fi-game. In my opinion the pirates are ok now as compared with vanilla or Entrenchment. They were really useless.

So, even thought there is a very simple fix to the thing you least like about the game, you won't use it? You do not sound very rational.

I know I shouldn't let it bother me but the arrogant attitude of some of you jerk-wads is really something. I've been playing computer games since the late 1970's and have probably logged more game hours than some of you twits have been alive. I've played Sins for eighteen months almost daily and I am no novice at the game. I know how to turn off the pirates but will not as that would violate the intent of the game.

OH NOES HE HAS LOGGED ALOT OF GAMING HOURS, ALL OUR OPINIONS MEAN NOTHING NOW!

sorry for the sarcasm but how can you call others arrogant if you see the amount of hours you've played other games is a valid argument?

I do agree with the realistic part though, doesn't seem to make much sense that those pirates become that powerfull... then again, I don't care about it too much, pirates keep getting stronger, keep upgrading, that does make sense, and they can spend everything they earn into military research.. still, more armor then a starbase is a bit.. weird...

But if you are bothered by that, then turn them off,

the intent of the game is, above all else, to have fun. If the pirates seem to hinder your fun, then you turn them off.

I don't understand the "turn them off" responses; I want the pirates, just in a different form.  Then again, thats why I asked to see how I could fix it myself...

I liked the pirates more in the previous patch, yes they were epically hard, but thats what I enjoyed.

But whats really getting on my tits is the fact that idiots on the froums come online and moan about ' the pirates are hard, blah blah, I wont recommned it to my friends blah blah there are sooooo hard, that i wont play the game anymore blah blah'. listen to this advice,

NO ONE CARES! YOU EITHER PLAY A GAME BECUASE YOU LIKE IT, IF YOU DONT, STOP MOANING! MANY PEOPLE ON THE FORUMS ENJOY PLAYING THIS WONDERFUL GAME, AND BELEIVE IT OR NOT, SOME PLAY IT WITH THE HARDEST SETTINGS AND IN FFA!, OR IN MULTIPLAYER!

Listen to this advice, REPAIR BAYS + LONG RANGE FRIGATES + CAPITAL SHIPS = DEAD PIRATES!

STOP SPAMMING GUASS CANNONS, STOP SPAMMING HANGERS, STOP SPAMMING LIGHT COLBALTS!

Either Get an SB with repair bays, maybe a few hangers and gauss cannons to go with it mid or late game. get the research and upgrade your starbase to save your planet when being bombarded (Auxuially Government etc). Then you can kill the pirates and save your planet from dying!

I have explainined this soooo many times in forum when new people come online to slag this game off, stop being an idiot, this game is not a simple spam approach (except from an online perpesctive) single player you have to think, counter effective and expand and hold choke points FAST!, pirates always ATTACK YOUR FIRST PLANET NEAREST TO THE PIRATE BASE, SO DEFEND IT WITH AN SB AND A FLEET OF EITHER 2 CAPITALS SHIPS WITH REPAIRS BAYS OR GET AT LEAST 15 IRMS FOR THE FIRST WAVE, BUT SB IS PREFERABLE!

Ill be honest with you blwill, all you had to say was I 'needed some help', but blackmailling the developers to change it for your own personal needs, is just shamefull. the 500,000 people and more who broguht this game previously are happy with the changes made to the game, there was no need for that comment to be said.

last minute advice: IF YOU DIE, TRY SOMEHTING NEW, IF YOU DIE AGAIN, TRY SOMETHING NEW, IF YOU KEEP DYING, TRY SOMEHTING NEW AGAIN - UNTIL IT WORKS!

[_]-BlackHawk (Retired from muitlplayer 16/11/08 to 10/01/10)

May god have mercy on the muitlplayer game, becuase when i was around, no mercy was given. :*(

^^ by the way that just aint to people like blwill, but to others too, people need to learn, if the 500,000 and more are happy with the game, why do a few number of people moan about it, and say stuff like ' i dont wanna play the game etc. ruin the fun for us all.

adapt is the key to victory my friend.

this hits the nail on the head for a lot of us. if they wanted an evil [super]empire then change the name from 'pirates' to 'Ming the Merciless' (from Flash Gordon for those too young to remember way back when..). I could accept that better than I can choke down the idea of uber-tech pirates. if you call them pirates, then have them act like & have the abilities of pirates. what we have now is equivalent to the US Navy being out done [technically] by the Somali pirates. in the historical sense, the only pirates that took on naval warships ended up being very dead very quickly.

can the next patch please focus on making them an economic menace instead of what they are currently?