X4: Foundations // Ways to deal with pirates

[@alejodavies]

I pirate them right back. I set alerts in the systems where I have a lot of traders for M and L SCA ships. Captured a good few minotaur raiders. At first they were my pirate patrols, but yesterday I made a new production station and assigned a stack of them as traders. They're not efficient, but with the added Raider cargo hold, they can move wares and hold their own against other raiders. Unless they have cluster missiles.
I also pause every time there's a pirate alert. Don't want my freighter doing a 22-point turn in front of an SCA phoenix.

[@immi9748]

Yeah, i think thats a great way to get ships in the early to midgame. But at some point of my current game i run into a point where i had to deal nonstopp with pirates. So i was not willing anymore to pause all the time for them.
I also forgot to mention that when use comply, the pirates are happy and we can collect our cargo directly afterwards.
At least i can't remember that i had troubles with that.

[@csfelfoldi]

Good info. Although I just tend to set it to comply and ignore pirates, think of it as protection money. If it hurts early game than just stick to safe sectors like Argon Prime where they usually get hunted down by local police. Lategame honestly it's more bother replacing station traders than dealing with the few million credits you lose to raiders. One guy also pointed out that you can befriend HAT, SCA and VIG while patrolling Split shipyards for FAF ships effectively removing pirates from the equation.

[@capitalofcambrom]

Yep in every new playthrough I go straight to the global orders and tell all my ships to comply with pirates. Cost of doing business.
I only intervene if they are stealing from one of my stations.

[@SpaceDad42]

Meh. Drop laser towers and run. Mind your alerts and intervene with teleport if needed.

[@moonraven8394]

I deal with that problem in a different way.
Pirates only target vessels that are classified as freighters. So they ignore miners and combat ships. By setting up my traders with combat ships (Barbarossa for L-Class, Minotaur-Raider for M-Class), my traders are complete ignored by them. The only pirate attacks i got, where on my Iden i used for the HQ (while having 6 Barbarossa on a trading-station moving high-value goods around).

[@immi9748]

ty, i mentioned you and your solution in the video description =)

[@khugansixtyeight]

Hi Immi, just found your channel and subscribed. I learned from this video that I have neglected the use of mass drivers and the mimic command. I want to briefly describe my method for dealing with pirates. I immediately pause the game when a freighter notifies me about harassment. I go to that freighter's destination station and slightly drag it's line making a new waypoint at the station. This causes the freighter and the pirate to ignore each other once un-paused. I then send in my QRF ships to kill the pirate. The QRF ships are 4 or 5 single (not in fleet) Nemesis with all beam weapons that are patrolling 10km radius on the highway in various sectors. I'm going to try your method for a more hands-off approach. Thanks for making a video related to X-Game, one of my favorite series of games.

[@immi9748]

drag drop near stations works?
in the past i tried to dock the freighter, but seems docking has an different effect.
I will test it out when i start a new game with the next big patch. Until then i have to many and i dont want to pay attention to pirates all the time ;D

[@Shinypally]

So sad that this is not sorted on developer's side. "Prevent piracy" order and all the ships would do is check for enemy pirates every few seconds and if there is one visible in the system, intercept it. It's really easy to program as well. Whatever is the reason, it's clear that current state makes the experience with the game miserable.

[@ElectricallyCharged]

So far, I've had decent luck with Dolphins and Sturgeons, or certain Argon/Paranid/Split transports that fit the alternative in the event of droughts in Boron space.
Though, just incase, I tend to intercept them myself (and later have interceptors and destroyer fleets on standby) just incase the ships find themselves in a bad relative position and angle under certain circumstances.

[@xzaratulx]

I recently set up some patrols and used Satellites where the enemy usually attacks from. Still the patrol doesnt immediatly response -> I assigned defence ships to the miners now

[@jeromedefossez4444]

thx you too fast! i have to stop every 1à second to understand what you do ;o)

[@immi9748]

youtube also has the option to reduce the video pace down to 0.25x. But then i would mute and activate subtitles.

[@Rinshun_]

Would it be efficient to patrol only the routes of the traders instead of the whole sector (from the gates to the most important stations)? Or even assign an escort to each trader? Space is too big to police

[@evilways961]

Thanks for video...

[@jv85fr]

Quick question: how do you deal with pillager type of pirate that flush storage out of your stations (most anoying when trying to accumulate resources for mass teleportation research)

[@immi9748]

Good question. They are of the nasty kind. Im not quiet sure, but as soon they have this pirate symbol next to them you can mark them as enemy and shoot em without rep loss. Even if, i would take the rep loss in case they dont show up to often ;(
Else Terraform the SCA homeworld and get reputation with them which is not possible without Massteleportation^^
Did anyone tried to build Mining stations with processing facilities around the important, so the pillager goes for them maybe?

[@totallylegit4092]

I want to get a ship that will most likely survive longer than 10 ingame days as a hauler.
I got a 3 star pilot finally and I want it to autotrade.
But so far every hauler I get gets blown up sooner rather than later.
I was thinking maybe use the boa for this because I see it is fast enough to survive.
My biggest issue is that when I give my haulers a fighter escort, they are never there to support the hauler when it gets jumped. No matter how many speedy little ships I assign to the bloody thing.

[@immi9748]

Yeah, the autotrader problem!
It's just how the game works, sooner or later every freighter blows up. We can only screw up the odds for their survibility.
If you go for early game Autotrading you must turn on the pirate harrasment notifications definitely to save their ass, the 3 star captain is a to rare asset.
I gave up on escorts too ;D

[@lordlorian81]

Escorts dont work automatically
I invest in lasers
Throw out 100-200 laser turets and stay close to them
Then collect
Still shitty manual work ..
And there is no ignore option to pirate threat (
But there is ignore to attack option
So if you pause fast enough
You can prevent ship stop ,turn or other stupid thing that ai thinking doing
In most cases
Ship that does not stop can run
But if ship is standing than lasers

[@gallakailancer3692]

Dealing with pirates? Same way you deal with khaak, destroy their installations, pirate bases spawn pirates so destroy their bases.

[@cdgonepotatoes4219]

Counterpoint: if you make yourself resistant to them but let them be, they'll drive down the competition's business.