Most players turn off pirates for competitive MP.

However, it has been noticed many times that noobs find pirates very deadly, while any experienced players find them bugs on a windshield. Most games against the AI, with the exception of the first one or two raids, I never place a bounty.

This should give you some comfort, as you get used to the game you will find pirates get less deadly. 12hrs is a very, very long game against 1 hard AI. With practice you'll get that down to under an hour (depending on your speed settings). So don't fret the pirates. Turn them off if you need too while learning more of the game, although I do believe at some point you will need to turn them back on to get the hang of it.

Anti pirate techniques: If it is an early raid (no siege ships), against a planet with nothing but extractors, let them be. They'll head back to base after killing all structures/ships in the grav well. If it is more developed, put trade or refineries there. Pirates love to chase your little ships all around while your guns take them out one at a time. Build units in clusters so they can focus fire a target.

Good luck!

For newer players the pirates can still be quite deadly, especially if they haven't figured out which planet they'll probably end up attacking and don't starbase + repair bay it.

Awesome, I just assumed a lot of 4X pros would get kind of turned off by the RTS combat, but glad you like it.

Here's a tip, all else being equal the AI will but bounty on players it doesn't like if teams aren't present. This means if gets some of the diplomatic relations techs (and you should if you're in an open diplomacy FFA), and put bounty on the player who likes you the most and isn't an ally, you can usually start a bidding war between that player and the player he likes the least.

This does sound a bit odd. Pirates were sort of buffed recently as they get more upgrades over time, so in very long games maybe that's possible. Most of the player base does not play with them though, so it might have gone unnoticed.

If you play with capital victory on, using the TEC loyalists to try and rush to Novaliths can be effective, especially on the AI. You can only build 4 but it takes two shots close together to destroy any planet but a fully upgraded homeworld (well besides the occupied planet), while an upgraded homeworld will take 3. Human players will build a starbase with the axillary government upgrade to prevent this, but many times the AI doesn't do this or is just too slow at building one. If not on capital victory, the huge economic penalties the Novalith inflicts ensures you will eventually win a war of attrition,

Marzas are definitely one of the TEC's best 3 capitalships, the Akkan and Sova should probably be your first two in some order, but after the second ones Marza's remain a strong choice for the rest of the game. Its a nice offensive touch to compliment the Loyalist titan, and its ultimate ability, missile barrage, can destroy most frigates if it is not interrupted.

Its kind of hard to give the feedback you probably really need without more details of how you actually play, but I'd say early game expansion is the single thing you should try to do better each time you play. It's much easier to take a neutral planet than an enemy one, even if you prefer the more defensive TEC Loyalists you cannot ignore the economic potential of those easy picking planets early on. Not only are planets easy to make profitable, but each one gives you more logistic slots for more research labs and trade ports later on, thus determining your maximum economic and research potential.

Its random, arbitrary and certain to bite you when you can least afford it. The exact amount of time you have to place bounty is random so no one can "play" the system with certainty, but just 250 credits can make the difference between getting raided when your main fleet is already getting hammered by a real enemy. Ironically since you probably have your full attention on the attacking forces in this case, you're also most vulnerable in a bidding war as you'll be most distracted. As long one player has more bounty than you, it doesn't matter how big it is, in theory you could have a huge bounty on you the entire game, and never get a pirate raid sent at you. Most people say they would prefer pirates that wouldn't follow a set schedule and just attack whenever bounties get high enough (you can sort of do this with pirate missions though).

On the other end of the spectrum, for the good players at best its just a mild inconvenience to deal with pirates, at worst its free XP for their caps or worse titan. This means with an all pro game, if pirates were left on no one would place any bounties (and they certainly have more pressing things to spend money on), and they might actually want to be the target. Since if all players have equal bounty the pirates attack randomly, in a perverse way its randomly helping certain players, and the pros only want enough randomness to keep the game interesting, mainly in map positions. Anything else they hate, since it interferes with testing their skills against each other.

In short, pirates have always been to hard for new players, discouraging them right after the tutorial, and not hard enough for the best of players. The devs have tried making them both harder and easier than they are now, but this just shifts people from one category to another, its just something you can never please everyone with. So most people turn them off.

The Kol is actually the laughing stock of the TEC capitalship roster. It's the signature ship of Sins (people who got the collector edition of Sins will get a model of it), but its been woefully weak for years. Its main problem is its a huge antimatter hog. It never has enough to use all of its abilities at once, and even using just one it will tend to run out before other caps until you get it to level 6 and its ultimate, finest hour. This is a decent ability, and if you ever do build a Kol its to get Flak Burst, to try and deal with tons of enemy strikecraft late game. By then though bomber swarms usually have no trouble dealing with a Kol, so its very much a last ditch options.

Its other two abilities, Gauss Rail Gun (GRG) and Adaptive Force Field, are seriously weak, other abilities outclass them in every way, and they only affect one target, making them near useless late game, and early game the Sova carrier is better than the Kol (and probably every other cap) in every way save perhaps endurance, but its a carrier and doesn't need to be in close.

Now it does combo nicely with the Dunov battlecruiser's ultimate, which reduces antimatter costs, and if you also have finest hour the Kol can fire enough GRGs to actually make a difference. But you'd as much damage to an unlimited number of targets with the Marza's missile barrage, and one level 6 capitalship is far easier to get than two. And for the record if you really need a tough to destroy tank, the Corsev is a much better choice as its defensive ability is passive, it can capture enemy ships and do Area of Effect damage (AoE).

As for what actually took you out, its hard to say without even knowing what race you're playing against, but there are a handful of special abilities that are quite capable of doing that, especially if you aren't aware what units have them and how to avoid them. Its also possible you overestimated your strength or underestimated theirs, new players tend to do that. It does no good to build an invincible fleet if you can't recognize a death trap when you see it.

"As for what actually took you out, its hard to say without even knowing what race you're playing against, but there are a handful of special abilities that are quite capable of doing that, especially if you aren't aware what units have them and how to avoid them. Its also possible you overestimated your strength or underestimated theirs, new players tend to do that. It does no good to build an invincible fleet if you can't recognize a death trap when you see it."

here is my "invicible" fleet :

(orange player = TEC Loyalist - 1x lvl 10 titan + 5x lvl 3 Kols + ...)

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596977147756423319/D35385A2EF3DA9321459CFDEC88E79936F974F55/

here my fleet vs ennemy fleet :

(ennemy green AI = niteim rebels - 1x lvl 10 titan + 1x lvl 6 sova + 1x lvl 1 Marza + 1x lvl 3 Akkan + starbase + ...) 

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/596977147756420394/DF4663ACDBC4EC450081402FBCC2AD85F2D4D056/

here is the outcome of combat   :

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/596977147756418554/024E73DB5E49CC764544D75EE7E85EE778C722E1/

Can you pls explain the logic behind these needs (ok, detecting mines is obvious but not flak for instance ...)

I always let the combat autoresolve until now