You know you dont have to kill them to win

Just go round them. They are clearly designed not to be taken out. The ever-present invincible pirate base is a poor design decision, IMHO .. and even then before the last patch you at least had the option of playing random maps without it.

Well, to take the pirate planet over, I found building multiple siege capital ships (like 6 or more) along with a slew of carriers worked fine. Basically the siege cap ships go straight for the planet and decimate it. Then pirate reinforcements will stop coming. Next is the clean up of all the pirate fleets. The fighter squadrons work well for this. Can also throw a battlecruiser in there as well. The key is to take out the planet before anything else to prevent futher reinforcements.

I've taken it out during relic hunting for the title, both at the slightly powerful stage with 4 cap ships and a bunch of good frigates and cruisers, and at the incredibly powerful stage, with 16 capital ships, and a fleet worth 2000 (maximum). With heavy casualties. Unless going for relics or suchlike, theres not much point in getting them. I mean, its only an income of 7 and you can't build any logistics (though they make handy novalith cannon platforms)

I would say that on small and medium maps, and certainly in multiplayer, theres no need in taking them down. And in huge maps? Unless you're somehow untouchable, theres no need either. If you're fed up with them attacking, a novalith cannon is handy for taking them out from a distance, or the vasari weapon. Pity I play the advent now ^^. Then again, I imagine that a fleet with a mothership with "malice" could take them down pretty fast.

Pirates are very nasty early on. Later though, you have several advantages over the pirates:
1. You get technology upgrades. Pirates don't.
2. You have recharging shields. Pirates don't.
3. You have special abilities. Pirates don't.

Don't engage pirate systems using only light frigates! You'll get creamed by their numerous cannons. Let their ships come to you first, and take them out. Then eliminate those cannons with LRMs, bombers, or lead with a heavy duty capital ship. After a while, you'll find that pirate systems aren't so dangerous after all, even if they take some time to drill through.

Tactical structures are an amazing defense against pirates. Spam orbital guns, hangar defense, and some repair facilities. A well outfitted system can fend off pirates indefinitely. Toss in a newbie capital ship as well, for the experience.

In fact, pirates seem a bit too easy for me. Hmm... they could really use a capital ship for those truly epic bounties...

Another thing to do when assaulting a pirate base is to wait until just after you've taken out the latest raid from them so it doesn't generate a bunch of new ships when the raid timer expires and you're in the midst of their planet. Nothing worse than having a fleet "appear" out of thin air when you're otherwise busy with all you can handle.

Pirate ships that survive a raid go back to their home system and hang out. When you first fly in, you may see a huge cluster of ships at one edge of the gravity well - that's the survivors from previous raids. If you had a game where the bounties were high, odds are better they'll have a much larger number of local ships that were created in previous raids and don't have anything else to do.

Also, there's nothing saying you can't go in, snag a few of their ships to whittle their defenses down without getting close to their gauss cannons, and jump back out to recover and recharge. This has the added benefit of sending their ships back to their original locations so you will have more time on your next assault to take a few more out before the main mass of them arrives. If you waded directly into the middle of them without managing your fleet and you had your capships sitting in the middle of a mass of gauss cannon and enemy ships, it's no surprise that you got annihilated.

-- Retro

Probably the funniest battle I ever had was at the end of a ridiculously long game, when I decided I was going to take over the pirate base. I sent my full fleet of 14 cap ships and a couple hundred frigates into the pirate fortress, which by this point had amassed probably a couple thousand ships. When the two fleets opened fire, my system pretty much just stopped. So I sat there for like 6 minutes, waiting for something to happen. FINALLY things started moving again, and the entire pirate fleet was gone. My fleet had lost, I think, two Iconus Guardians and a few Illuminator vessels. I was stoked.   

In the mid to late stage of the game (when you have beefed up your armor/offense), pirate bases are fairly easy to take out. Just have several capital ships and a medium support fleet. Awesome awesome XP for them to level up on.

Remember, they are basic ships, no tech advances and NO shields. Basically pound for pound one of your ships equals four of theres.

Jump in, stay on the edge of the gravity well, wear them down, if things look rough, jump out, resupply quick and jump back in. You can repair and resupply faster then they can.

Once the ships are taken out, then take out the defenses.

On my first move I send my entire fleet of one fighter and my free capital ship into the pirate homeworld.

I then type to the computer AI 'I'm here for the Black Pearl and Jack Sparrow'.

While my two ship fleet is getting blown up I then go back to my homeworld and scuttle all my structures.


I'm so scared of pirate raids later in the game I figure this way I lose early and on my terms.

The best thing to attack them with is a heavy Capital ship that can take a pounding, with a lot of heavy cruisers, some LRMs, and support ships. Even then, I wouldn't do it until you have a decent number of weapon/armor/shield upgrades. Without those upgrades you're basically fighting on equal terms. With the upgrades, your ships can take a real pounding from Pirate guns.

You will take losses unless you vastly outnumber them. What you need to do is fight well clear of the defense platforms. If you get in trouble, retreat and come back later. They don't resupply too fast.

Pirates send out fleet according to the amount of bounty, and the amount of good targets and things to raid. On the three player map im playing, bounty on the person raided is usaully around 1500 credits, but the pirates are on elevated status and sending out massive fleets. Well, at least they are hitting my enemies!