Pirates don't seem to make a lot of sense in the game.   All of their gun platforms seem to have 8k health which is crazy.   Their structures are equally very high in health.  Taking out a pirate system can take and hour or more depending on whether or not you're dealing with other attacks at the time.  Furthermore they never seem to move large sections of their forces outside of their systems, they send out five or six little ships and they have like 50 in their home system.  You'd think pirates would be more aggressive and less defensive.

Oh, once you take over a planet, your little build drone should be able to "disassemble" all the enemy mines in that system too, since it was their counterparts that built them.