Hey,
I was just checking out the new Beta 2 features, or at least trying to, when an enemy put a 250c bounty on me about 0.001 seconds before a pirate raid launched, and WHAM!!!
About 25 pirate ships attacked my only planet. I had nowhere near the research or fleet capacity to do anything about it. Add this to the fact that pirate ships have capital ship strength now, and it's just insane. You should not be able to wipe out another player's entire planet in the first 15 minutes of gameplay with a 250c bounty.
Also, the pirates kept on attacking me well after all of the 250c had been collected. That makes no sense to me. Please, make it so that you have to keep the bounty up in order to keep the attack going.
Finally, please make it so that you cannot change the "Wanted" player once the 15:00 countdown ends. The enemy AI in my game raised the bounty onto me less than 1 second before the raid launched. It is not humanly possible to switch the bounty onto someone else in that amount of time.
So this combination of things left me at "Game Over" without ever even engaging any of the real enemy AI empires. In summary, in my very humble opinion, the pirates are waaaay too strong. This might be okay in late game, but there is no way I could've done the research and necessary ship-building to fight these guys before their very early game attack.
In the event that the rest of the community disagrees with me (which is likely, seeing as how everyone else has been asking for stronger pirates), allow me to make this "Plan B" suggestion:
Maybe allow the player to set pirate strength in the game, rather than just turning pirates on and off. The Game Options setup screen could change "Pirates Inactive/Active" to "Pirate Strength: Off/Low/Med/High" or something like that. Even that would be a drastic improvement, as you would be able to have pirates in your game, without them becoming a game-ender.
Does anyone else think the new pirates are too strong, or have anything else to add?
Nope, I personally dont think they are strong enough (I even modded them to be stronger still)
in fifteen minutes you should have something that can stop the small attacks that the pirates send your away, I always do
edit: sorry did not mean to sound harsh, I learned long ago to get a solid fleet and defenses up in a hurry, when you play four or five unfair oppenents you learn to move fast
Agreed. I have no problems fighting off the pirates. Even when they catch me "with my pants down" on a particular planet, I can still manage to throw up enough defenses or bring in the cavalry before they wipe out the planet. I'm not sure they necessarily need to be any stronger, however. They are a pretty big nuisance right now as it is, especially since they pretty much always attack me and nobody else.
They should have an option for variable strength, then everyone will be happy.
I personally play without the pirates.
Sorry, but I don't consider 25 ships that each have the power of two frigates to be a "small attack." Using ten Ravastra Skirmishers, it took me like ten minutes just to destroy three pirate ships, and that was I all I could destroy before I lost all of my ships.
Anyway, this is precisely why the pirates' strength should be adjustable. IMO, the pirates are currently the equivalent of a Hard AI, and they attack much sooner in the game than a Hard AI. It's basically impossible now to play with pirates without rushing fast and hard immediately upon starting the game, and that's not everyone's play style.
You're the Distant Stars guy, right? Cause I love that mod, but I do play it with pirates inactive. The more powerful Pirate Base is a challenge I can handle in late game when I'm ready for it.
Skirms are extremely underpowered so never ever build them under any circumstances. Assailants are much better.
agree with this, as well as the need to build repair bays (should get them with in 5 mins) and have a fairly strong cap by 15 mins (I usually can get two caps at lvl 5 by the first pirate attack)
About the only point I can agree with is that very small bounty amounts should result in very small attack parties. On the other extreme though, I'd really like to eventually see massive pirate attacks coming from different directions with upgraded ships with shields and abilities if you throw enough cash at them. Or if they pillage enough earlier on to afford upgrades by themselves.
I also agree that pirates shouldn't respond overzealously to small bounties. However, I also think that predictable raids that come every 15 minutes need to be reworked. Lets have sporadic pirate raids that are actually based on real-time bounties rather than a massive bidding war every fifteen minutes.
I don't know how strong they've made pirates, but presently in Entrenchment pirates are so weak and easily stopped that it's not even worth my time and money to bid against them. If they're actually dangerous maybe it'll be worth bidding on them. Presently it's cheaper to just set up some small defenses and let them come. Heck, if you have a spare capital ship it can even be beneficial (free xp)
In fact, i think that it will be better to make the pirate thing more difficult by not showing the bounty money...
I play more the economic way... and i always win the bid because i can see how much is the bounty on the other and myself...
Now, the bounty system is like a e-bay thing... fully public transaction... not like a criminal organisation who make his business in dark secret place...
And remember, the first cap is almost free... choose the right one... a capital colony ship seem interesting... but if you have defense problem, better take a cap with a lot of weapons along with a cheap colony frigate... or if you build a lot of little ship, take the capital with a lot of support function...
In fact, sins have a lot of possible viable way for play... but the wrong way remain more numerous...
What would the outcome be if you could see the bounty amounts as it is now, but pirates attacked randomly between X and Y minutes? Additionally, the longer the delay would have the pirates send additional forces. I would think this way it would encourage people to have larger bounties on other players most of the time instead of just glancing at the screen seconds before an attack is warned about and having a bidding war.
I didn't know the pirates were any stronger until I read this... the only diplomacy games I've played so far were as Advent, and the (free) progenitor that formed my entire fleet at the time dealt with them just fine. The AI always likes to spam me with pirates... thing is I end up with stronger caps for the rest of the game, because of the early levels gained killing them. Plus they waste their money...
I was not yet able to build any Assailants. I normally use skirmishers as an emergency force when I just need to fight off enemy scouts or something. Once I get a little further into the game, I do focus my fleet-building on Assailants.
I honestly don't think the repair bays would have helped this time. The bays would have had to repair the ships faster than the pirates could destroy them, and the pirates were destroying each ship in just a few seconds.
I did also have one capital ship, it was a Lvl 3 Vasari battleship-class (forget the name). Working with the skirmishers, it was not able to destroy a single pirate ship, and its shields were depleted in like 30 seconds.
I would also like to see very powerful pirates, but not so early in the game. The pirates' strength should go from low to high along the course of a game, just like the players'.
BCXetreme,
what you are describing I have never seen before. 25 ships??
That is an approximate number, but it WAS at LEAST 20 ships, mostly the stronger pirate equivalents of Kodiak Heavy Cruisers. This is in Diplomacy Beta 2. I also have played with pirates active from time to time before, and not until Diplomacy did I see them send anything anywhere near this powerful.
i don't know how you guys manage it, IMO in Diplomacy the pirates are much stronger than before which is a good thing but it gets very irritating when your fleet gets wiped out in 5 min, currently there are 220 plus pirate ships in the game i am playing, when i sent my fleet of full 16 capital ships and more than 150 kodiak cruiser guess what when i pulled back there are only 8 capital ships left an 20 cruisers.
any advice on how to beat the pirates?
Bombers
Well I seen this today. The pirate guass platforms hit with the strength of a starbase. Well over 100 points of damage per hit and over 10K of hull/shield/armor strength. And when pirates have over 100 plus damage points handed out per ship, that makes them a capital ship to me.
JMO (never humble)
Suralle
I love pirates in Diplomacy as they are right now. They aren't a nuisance anymore and are an effective tool and a threat at the same time. I actually invested in the Vasari's "decrease pirate strength" research option. Don't change them too much if there is some sort of rebalancing that will happen.
As i wrote in an other thread, i am not happy with this combination of amor (more than 42) and range.
If pirates are able to have this without research center, what i should have, with a lot of them?
So this is unbeleavable, the story broken. So the pirates will die for me and be disabled.
It does seem a little ridiculous but Pirate ships do not have shields. And to be fair, they probably stole that technology that you researched by your research centers or bought the stuff illegally somehow. Or maybe even some faction fed the pirates. While their range and damage being ridiculously huge is kinda hard to explain but tacking on armor to a pirate ship is not that hard. Just tack on a couple more layers of titanium that they so easily steal. Nonetheless, they have no shields and thus no shield mitigation. Perhaps their pirate base also functions as a research center that just focuses solely on range and damage. Perhaps from their various raids of different races, they combined weapon techs for better range and damage somehow.
The opening post is right and anyone who doesn't see it must be playing on an easier difficulty than I am. If the pirates have technology like this without a single research orbital or an economy to support it, then it is technology that is available to every one. When each orbital platform is equivalent to a starbase and a single cruiser is like two capital ships then something is wrong. I like pirates as hassle and I agree that there is nothing wrong with them being stronger than they were in the original game, but there are limits. A raid by a fleet of miniature Orkulus every fifteen minutes is rediculous!
I agree completely, pirate ships should grow in numbers when raiding not in strength (hull/shields/range/damage). In my last game, I saw a Pillager (siege frigate) with 6000 hull. Come on,
6000...
for a single ship....
Pirates where in need of a big buff, but never like this. This is plain rediculous. I am now playing with pirates off again ffs.
Who playtested this? I also noticed that my game started to lag a bit because the pirates where always winning their engagement and returning to their gravity well. I could not believe the number of pirate ship that gravity well had. The AI and I where literally running away from any pirate ship, all the time. When you see a heavily upgraded starbase get blowned away in under 60 seconds, you know something is wrong...
Please tell me that this is just a bad joke form IC and that they will fix them in another patch. I would rather see the old pirates that we had in entrechment than this uber powerful-unstoppable death cloud of doom that we used to call a pirate RAID. And btw, I'm very curious where did those pirates found this uber tech that they have right now? Because last I checked my most durable ship was a cap ship with barely over 4000 hull. Watching in horror 2 dozen Pirate ship destroy 4 cap ships supported by over 3 dozen frigates is something I do not want to experience again, ever!
Dargoon,
The only defense I have found is use whatever resources it takes to ensure someone else is the target. You are right through the "raiding" fleets tend to camp in a system even when everything in it was obliterated. The only safe way to engage the pirate fleet is with bombers, huge numbers of bombers, and don't be afraid to run when the pirates try and close.
Pirates needed a buff but the current flavor is just a bit much. In the current form a mid to late game pirate raid is more powerful than my largest fleet.
Darvroth
Yes I wanted pirates to be upgraded a bit but not turning into Super Saiyan. I was playing a game and fully upgraded all my military. I merely messed up on one bid late game. I think AI put like 250 credit on me or something like that. Pirates showed up with 40+ ships on one of my gravity well. My starbase and defenses managed to kill the main pirate fleet, but several pirate pillagers sneaked around and started bombing my planets. I managed to get that starbase planet saving thing up before they killed my planet. It didn't matter anyway. The pillagers was able to shot down my strikecrafts, boming my planet and structures all at the same time (they were firing on my starbase from miles away). Pretty soon all my defenses died (they put Ogrov to shame). I would be able to defeat them with a large fleet, but I think that is just sad. The pirates don't need capital ships, their normal ships are much better than capital ships. I think pirates took away from the game since they become so unbalanced. You can put a couple hundred credits on someone and see them work.
You're right, they do stick around when there are mines in the system. Since they can't target mines, they just sit there and do nothing but I very much like the idea that the pirates stay in a system that they have just "raided" claiming it as there own.
What I dont like is the fact that they can reach an unbelievable technological level. If the pirates were removed and replaced by the aliens that are hunting the Vasari, then it would make more sence, and we would understand why the Vasari are running away. But the fact is that those ships are Pirate ships and that they dont even have the technological knowhow to install shields on their ships but somehow they can upgrade them and create an uber powerful-unstoppable black cloud of doom?
IC please fix the pirates, give them shields, increase their movement speed, make their damage composite but dont keep them the way they are now.
PLEASE!!!
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