i would like the ablity to pay a large portion of the current bounty on me to just delay the rats. (or all of it) mind you, that amount of money is then thrown into the next pirate raid, no matter who the target is. make the next bidding war more intersting .

historicly pirates use small fast ships which can outfight their target (unarmed slow merchent men) and out run their natural preditors (big slow but powerful navy ships) given a high enough value target, they have been known to band together into large groups to collectively raid high value targets, like ports. often sacking entire citys. since smaller constant pirate raids would drive the player insane, it is only these large "Raids" that are represented in game. seems reasonable to me. since a space born empire is a very dangerous target, with an admitidly large pay off, it only makes sense that masses go with strength in numbers. as for their apprent "scuicidal tendencys" who is to say that they simply run when badly damaged, and this is represented in game as a ship being destroyed? as for the "give pirates capitol ships" idea. pirates have no reason to WANT a capitol ship, much less the sustained cashflow to keep one running. for the same price a massive force of smaller ships of cruiser size or smaller is better. also, the pirates can NOT afford to look like a rival to the empires, lest said empires decide to "Annex" them. with 1 system, a multi system empire (like most players) would roll them under without much concern. if anything, a possable "Pirate Lord" with a capitol as symbol of (his her its) power makes more sense. of course, then you get into the issue of "would a pirate risk such a high value status symbol?" and "can the pirates afford to anger the source of the raw materals needed to BUILD their ships?" unless this new "pirate empire" joined one of the main empire/alliences (and risk being barbarian expendables, not that they arent now.) they would have no resources to make the ships to earn the booty.

theres one issue with strike craft. once you deploy them, you cant phase jump the feth away. for an empire, thats not to bad, youve got friends who care (or will at least tell your next of kin) for a pirate, its insane. lets see, bunch of high matence high power small weapons that i cant instantly pull back in if i need to run for my life... or a self sustaining ship that CAN. I'll take the latter thank you sir!

now there is a point to be made about that whole spare TEC carrier ability to make trade ships stop moving. give the pirates a larger ship to do that, and you cna get tons of support for it. in fact i will support it. or just give the pirates the interdiction ability.

The pirate 'bounty bidding' is an amazingly unique way to curb economic inflation. Bravo, IC.

I don't mind the pirates, but I agree there should be a simple way to turn them off.

The Pirates are not trivial. According to Blair Thomas, a designer, they are integral to the functioning of the game.

According to many beta-testers, the Pirates are the developers' way of dealing with inflation, curbing early rushes, and making the economic path viable (I won't comment again on how absurd "pirates" are as a mechanism for dealing with these kind of issues in a game, but I will say that I prefer Paradox's new methods of just letting the AI cheat its brains out to having "space pirates" be the equivalent of the Federal Reserve Board).

But even if those two facts weren't true (keeping in mind, though, that they are true), the Pirates require you to deal with them every 12 minutes . . . in a game with maps that can take 20 hours or more to defeat if you play slowly. They are not trivial. They are a major part of Sins. There are tons of other problems with this game (the biggest being siege frigates, too low of a unit cap for larger maps, the extreme difficulty in pinning an enemy fleet down because of how easy phase jumping is, and a UI that at times gets too cluttered during the endgame), but none seem as unfixable as the Pirates. Its very likely that Stardock/IC will fix virtually every other problem (especially the siege frigages and low unit cap) shortly. Its highly unlikely that the Pirates extreme importance to the game's engine will ever go away, even if we are allowed, by the grace of the developers, to turn them off.

I know that Stardock will mix most peripheral issues with their games. I have experience with them having bought Galactic Civilizations (both versions) and Political Machine (where Frogboy was much more understanding of the game's issues and responsive than he has been on this forum about this issue).

That's why I haven't bothered to come on and rant and rave about siege frigates or unit caps. I know those will be fixed and, really, neither are game stoppers (you can counter siege frigates and the larger maps where unit caps are a major issue aren't all that fun to play as a beginning player anyway).

But the response to people's criticism of the Pirates has been very disheartening. I'm most disheartened, I guess, by the fact that they are even in the game since I had a different impression of what kind of game Sins was going to be based on my experiences with Stardock and the previews and blog entries posted by Frogboy on IGN (none of which really mention how huge a part of the game Space Pirates are and, I think, with good reason since most casual fans would look askance at this kind of a game mechanic being used). The condescending replies from designers and Sins loyalists (betatesters mostly) are discouraging.

Anyway, I've posted much more about this than I wanted to. I can turn the Pirates off in my game easily. I hope that isn't wrecking my game in a way that I can't perceive and it is, I'm sure I'll find out shortly and then I'll just have to move on to an older strategy game.

I would like to see the Pirates raiding when they're not trying to collect a bounty and ignoring the bounty if attacking trade ships is more profitable. I'm not sure if I said it before, but almost destroying the pirate base then having them spawn a random fleet is lame, but not something I give too much thought to.

How are the Pirates any different then the Barbarians in Civilization? The Spores in Alpha Centari? The Anterians in Masters of Orion? Dread Lords / Minor Races in Galactic Civilization?

I'm just curious. It adds a different dimension to the game. Also, they are adding the ability to turn off and on the pirates and change the frequenecy of the attacks, which is what you wanted. I really hate to say this, but it doesn't take much in the terms of defense to push back an Pirate Attack or a Siege Frigate attack.

You seem to be too critical about this. I don't understand what is the big deal or how pirates are such a "game breaker" for you.

AFAIK, one of reasons for pirates is to keep the game in-check, especially early in the game. Removing pirates likely results in a more unbalanced game.

I don't think it's a good argument to say that pirates are used as a crutch by the AI. Pirates are there to act as a buffer for all sides.

It's like burning CDs without a buffer. You might not get buffer-underruns on one CD, on two, or even a dozen. But it doesn't mean it's better or safer without a buffer.

Anyway, I'm still hoping for a more fleshed-out role for pirates. Pirates should be loyal to no one. Bribes shouldn't be a guarantee of any sort. And timed attacks trivializes pirates into an artificial game mechanic. The threat of unpredictable pirate attacks should be a greater deterrent than a fixed schedule of regular attacks.

Also, giving pirates more "personality" would help legitimatize their role. Specialize in hit 'n' run, extortion, raiding trade routes, attacking choice planets, or whatever. Not all pirates are talkative and declare their intentions.

Oh well....

You don't deal with Barbarians in Civ, Spores in Alpha Centauri, Antarains in MOO2 or Minor Races in GalCiv every 12 minutes. Plus, those elements are more flavor or difficulty enhancers than vital cogs to the game's engines. Would Civ be any different if there were no barbarians? Not really. The same thing can be said about Spores and Minor Races (which can be turned off). Plus, those elements fade in importance as the game goes on. Pirates get weaker and easier to deal with as the game goes on, but you still are dealing with them every 12 minutes.

Pirates are apparently an integral part of the game in Sins. Beyond the silliness of the "pirate" nomenclature (if the Antarians in MOO2 had been called Killer Klowns, what kind of reaction do you think that would have caused? I don't understand why there isn't the same reaction to "Pirates" in Sins, especially in the wake of the redefinition of Pirates in popular culture caused by a certain series of Disney movies), the problem is that, depending on who you believe, the Pirates are being used as a crutch for either the AI, economy focused players or as a check against inflation and on the game's economy as a whole. That's pretty disturbing, isn't it? That space pirates are so vital to Sins' AI or economy functioning? I don't know. It really bothers me, perhaps more than just the annoyance of actually dealing with the Pirates.

Wow, just wow. I wonder what difficulties that you have played on. Just on Noble alone in Civ 4, I see a steady stream of Barbarians. Spores became strong in Alpha Centari, I mean a lot stronger. Antarians were constantly around being a threat and if you were the lead player you got smashed a lot. Dread Lords are not turn offable, unless you turn off Random Events.

As far as the Pirates go, I just straight ignore them. If they attack me, I stop the attack and move on. I always have a defensive fleet around my main core of planets. Once you defeat the Pirate Base, there are no more pirates in your sector.

I don't really consider them a crutch or a threat at all, unless I'm completely unprepared, then that my fault. They are just a neutral party that attacks other players, and unlike the Barbarians, Spores, etc, you can influence their decisions.

I, for one, am of the very strong feeling that turning off pirates in single-player would allow me to absolutely trounce the AI.

In multiplayer, I can see how Pirates are a great game mechanic that really adds to the tension and backstabbiness between players, but in singleplayer they are just a money sink.

You misunderstood me, I think. I want the option to turn the Pirates off and not have it catastrophically affect game balance, the AI or the economy. I'm not sure how much clearer I can say that.

Do I wish that Sins had been developed in a way that Pirates wouldn't be a core game mechanic? Yes. Do I wish that the extreme importance and omnipresence of Pirates had been more transparent before I became excited about this game? Yes. But that ship has sailed and now all I want is a workable option to keep me from having to deal with Pirates.

I've explained many times why I don't like them. I don't think anyone wants to hear it again.