Privateers Woes!!

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2429 days, 18 hours, 54 minutes ago

Privateers Woes!!

Hi Folks.

I'm not sure which forum to pop this into so hope it's ok here. I have a sort of complaint to make regarding this game. The Privateers seem to have a very unfair advantage over other races and that is the inability to attack them. I am currently playing a game where a Privateer player is systematically destroying me. Each turn he is capturing my ships and pillaging my planets. I have the Privateers set as my main enemy, I have set my ships to Kill and my planets to Attack All Ships and yet each turn their ships just sit in orbit of my planets with NOTHING I can do to stop them.

I have to admit it is quite off-putting and is ruining the game for me.

I understand the Privateers are pirates, but lets be real for a minute. If I really was commander of a vast intersteller empire and Privateer pirate ships entered orbit of my planets, I would be blasting them left, right and centre! I can NOT understand why I can't attack Privateer ships when with each turn they are wiping out my empire. It just makes NO SENSE to me.

There should be some way to attack Privateer ships. It just doesn't make sense that my ships and planetary defences would sit back and watch as Privateer ships capture our fleet and pillage our planets. I'm sure Privateer players love this unique skill the race has, but it is completely game destroying to know once a Privateer ship enters your space, you can basically sign off because you can't win, you can't stop them. The Privateers are even worse then the Cyborg in this case :(!!

I seriously think this needs to be addressed.

2429 days, 18 hours, 37 minutes ago

ghdpro

RE: Privateers Woes!!

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This is normal privateer strategy.

Your ships aren't attacking because they're out of fuel.

They're out of fuel because a cloaked MBR (Meteor Blockade Runner) uses "ROB" mission (fuel stealing). He can then the same turn tow your ships away and take them using their Tow-Capture ability.

To fight the Privateers you need one or more of the following:

1) A Loki class cruiser (Feds & Lizards). These will decloak any Privateer ship, allowing you to attack those pesky robbing MBRs before they can use ROB.

2) A Glory device such as the D19B (Fascists). Set these to "trg" and they'll blow any cloaker (even Birdmen, who are immune to Loki's) away.

3) Mines. Lots of mines. (any race, Crystals with webmines and Robots with 4x laying ability having an advantage). Lay large minefields around your planets and the Privateers will have to sweep them first, because most of their ships will be killed by a single mine hit.

If you are not one of the races listed above with better-than-normal resistance to Privateers, enlisting the help of these races is also useful.

2429 days, 11 hours, 9 minutes ago

dungeonmaster

RE: Privateers Woes!!

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Nothing is worse than the borg. But pirates and crystals come a close second.
The pirates have known enemy races: lizards, crystals, fascist, federation.
These races all have hard defences against them, loki, webs, pop ships.
If you want to be strong against pirates, you should play one of those races flat out.

The rest of us are left with a nemesis. So you must use advanced tactics of which there is often no guarantee, the pirate has may cards to play and you have few.
Single ships orbiting planets are relatively safe, because of host-order the ship can be set to beam up fuel and since rob happens before fuel beam up mission the ship can have 1 fuel onboard - which will be robbed - and then beam up the remainder from the surface and thus be able to fight. A high value target like a super carrier will likely be towed away to a waiting group of cloaked+fuelless ships, so I only recommend this strategy as a last ditch or if you're interested in a low-value trade.
A better strategy is to have a lot of fuel and a low-ID ship pairing. Your freighters should be built at the start of the game, and have low-ID. That way they can tow another ship around, like a probe for instance, and so long as they have enough fuel to avoid a direct rob, they will not be able to tow you off. Once you have 20 PBP you can build in the priority build queue. If you have low-ID and low value ships you can manipulate the build queue to build a high value low-ID ship. I did this in Taurus war to convert an MDSF ID#1 to a Firecloud.
Mines are your default defence, as is deep space. In deep space the pirate must guess your exact location to rob you, which is nearly impossible. Some races excel at deep space movement, the borg, the colonies are best. The robots have a minelaying advantage however in the end they almost always succumb to a good pirate, whereas the colonial minesweeping advantage proves to be the more painful of the two to the pirate. Mines orbiting planets are often no where near as irritating as small minefields between planets.
However the often unspoken "best" defence against pirates are starbases. Lots of starbases is a pirate nightmare. Unless he has access to Super Star Destroyers a wall of starbases is really bad news. His ships struggle immensely to take bases, only with heavy loses can his own fleet do so. Even if he acquires enemy fleet, the bases can whittle down his forces rapidly. You should at all times be building bases and I would say bases should take priority over mines.

All in all they can checkmate many races but likewise they can get checkmated. In a very bad spot, diplomacy is your best recourse.

2429 days, 11 hours, 4 minutes ago

echoclusterveteran

RE: Privateers Woes!!

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I second Ghdpro's response.

If you are the Fed, Lizard, Fascist, Crystal, or Robot – then the Privateer is scared as hell of you.

If you are the Bird, Cyborg, Empire, Rebel, or Colony – then the Privateer wants to eat you for dinner.

It really is that simple. If you are in column #2, make friends with someone in column #1.

2429 days, 9 hours, 39 minutes ago

azzazzello

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Birds are not that easy for privateer at least in my limited experience since most of their ships can escape robbing by cloaking.

2429 days, 7 hours, 33 minutes ago

donaldworrell

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you got to lay mines all over the place. then pray the privateer ships hit a mine and blow up.

2429 days, 6 hours, 41 minutes ago

paul

RE: Privateers Woes!!

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Hi Folks.

Thanks for all the feedback on this issue. I've taken note of your suggestions and will give it a try in the future. I think I'm a gonner in my current game but the next time I run into the Privateers I'll keep this these ideas in mind. Thanks!!

2429 days, 5 hours, 42 minutes ago

echoclusterveteran

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You are welcome. Write any time in the forums if you need help. We are all very opinionated but mostly friendly.

2429 days, 5 hours, 40 minutes ago

azzazzello

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One of the best ways to learn about Privateers and how to deal with them is to play them once. They are strong but not the power house that they seem at first.

2427 days, 14 hours, 37 minutes ago

iso--t

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If you dont have loki, POP or webs....

Always remember to use mission "beam UP fuel". Always set primary enemy privateers to all battleships. Lay large minefields. Attack their good planets, because the planet will be gone before they can rob you, and then you can beam up fuel... keep colonist aboard, so you can land them so privateer can not take his planet back easily by beaming down his colonists! And build lot of bases, they have hard time destroying them. Always try to do something "surprise" he wouldnt thought you are going to do...

A couple of thoughts...

2425 days, 19 hours, 5 minutes ago

elgeologo

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Minefields, a lot of minifields overlapping and Beam up Fuel.

Some privateers use to risk by towing the ship to rob and get to the waypoint where the wolf pack are waiting without fuel... this way, he doesn't get one ship sacrificed.
You may try to always change the weight of all your ship, this way if he tries this tactic, he will run off of fuel before arriving to the wolf pack. This will only work once...