Dear devs,

In my continuing string of I-want-this-and-that-on-the-game-and-space-ponies-too, here are my suggestions to improve the pirates:

Let them behave more like mercenaries. Mercenaries would take up on the role of direct attack against enemies. It should be an extension of the marketplace.

Mercenary parties:

In the marketplace, Hiring mercs would be like an auction. Occasionally a merc band would gear up to action, and if 1) no one placed a bounty or 2) the bounty was too small, they would go by themselves on a pirate raid. Therefore, 'pirate raid' would be an attack mode of the mercs. The merc/pirate bands could have names, like (silly example alert) 'Andromeda Cutlasses'. Several mercenary parties would be operating at once in the system, in different concentrations.

Parties will have different strenghts, and their strength determines how much they will charge for a raid. A definite numeric value won't be displayed though, only a word vaguely describing their strength, like the current pirate activity descriptions. There will be always at least one 'leader party', which is the most powerful mercenary faction in the system. All other parties are subject to the leader to operate. The leader party always takes a share of the loot when foreign mercs are operating inisde its territory. As they pillage and plunder, they get stronger.

Mercenary nodes:

Mercenaries have their ways of concealment, and a mixture of stolen technologies, so they can operate without owning a node in the system. When they operate without possessing a node, they jump straight to the star 'from nowhere', and go after their target. This means you just can't 'wipe their node' to remove them from the game. They will be there until the end.

One 'leader party' would be in operation on each mercenary node. If there are 2 or more mercenary parties in a big or huge game, there will be increased pirate activity, with each Leader Party having its own countdown. Due to competition though, sometimes they will attack each other instead of always attacking a player/AI. Mercs would have their own scout ships, hopping around to get intelligence reports, so that they can pick up an easy target.

They should have access to repair bays, hangars, planetary shields, mines and disruptors.

Attack modes in detail:

There is the good-and-old 'Aye ,mateys!' 'pirate raid' attack. The ships which would go into this attack would hunt for trade ships to steal credits/metal/crystal. If they get the amount they want or have 50% casualties, they flee. The pirates initiate their attack on one node, but if they see a large fleet jumping in, they might quickly jump to another node and continue pillaging there. During late game, pirate capital ships (!!!!! more on it later) would use a tractor beam to suck up the trade ships whole.

'Capture ship' mode. Sometimes they might get bold and try to get gear for their rank. In this mode they will focus on neutralizing fighters/bombers and attacking shipbuilding structures. Pirates would use more flak ships/structure busting. Ion cannons to neutralize foes also come into play. If they are successful in destroying they will grow in strenght, and ships will possibly show up in the black market. They might also try to use their mighty capital ships to suck ships from your fleets and run away (but won't ever launch this on a massive fleet). Like the other attack modes, They will flee if their strenght is reduced to 50%.

'Attack enemy' : You will tell them to harass one enemy. They will mix strategies of both previous attack modes and pillage and burn one target until they are satisfied, or they lose 50% of their fleet.

On the previous 3 attack modes, you can ask them to attack a specific node if you pay extra bounty.

'Joint attack' : Must have at least one fleet. You will tell the mercs to fight along with that fleet, and they will follow for a specified amount of time, or until they are reduced to 50% fleet, whichever comes first. If you jump into a hot spot massively outnumbered, they might run away on the spot though (and you lose reputation - more on this later).

Mercs/pirates will by themselves do 'capture ship' and 'pirate raid' modes against any target. In those 2 modes, if you place a bounty and they are successful, they will share the loot with you in the case of the 'pirate raid', or give you a discount in the case of a 'capture ship' attack (for a limited amount of time).

Reputation among mercenaries:

The player should be rewarded by playing nice with the mercs. They are people too! If you repeatedly send them on suicidal missions, they won't want to work for you anymore, charging more and more. On the other hand, if you play nice with them, you will be able to get them to trust better in you and get better prices.

When auctioning for mercenary services, the player would place the bounty on himself, instead of placing it on an enemy. When the auction concludes, the winning player will choose the enemy and one of the 4 attacks. One way of gaining reputation is: the player will be able to choose if he wants them to attack with 100% force, or to pay better, letting them atack with a smaller force. If you pay well, they'll like you more.

Another way to gain reputation is to choose wisely the target. By default, the mercs pick up a target according to their own intelligence reports, to fight against someone they know they have reasonable chances. You can (pay up and) brief them with your own intel reports though, and ak them to pick a specific target. If you ask them to go against a too strong opponent, they might refuse, or ask for money and miitary support.

You can give military support on any merc attack mode, borrowing ships from your fleet to them. This will make them like you (gain reputation), because since you are putting you ass on the line, they will understand they are not just being used for fodder. You risk losing ships though. Wou can borrow any ships from frigates to cruisers or capital ships. While it's a gamble, you will be improving their chance of success and you rank amongst them, reducing you fees. The ships borrowed will not be identifiable as yours, and you will not have control of them. The survivors will return to your fleet after the merc run.

Bogus briefings can damage your reputation. If you look at a planet and notice it is lightly protected, but between the time your scout goes away and the merc contract, the enemy builds a starbase there. When the merc raid hits, they found a powerful defense, and fail. Conversely, you can give them a false briefing, telling that the place is a piece of cake while it's actually heavily defended. You can do this becase you are evil (mwahaha), or because you actually intend to strike there together or before the mercs.

Finally, the player should be able to buy ships for his rank. This way, the player could bring ships instantly (in build time terms) into action. They would be more expensive of course, like 2x the cost. civic improvements could reduce this cost.There should NOT be an infinite assortment of ships though. The ships available would be available based on successful 'capture ship' attacks. Even if all attacks fail, they will always have ships, but less of them. Successful attacks would make for a richer market.

This unfolds the interesting possibility of having ships from the other faction inside our ranks. While possible, this should be very expensive. For example, if you are TEC, to buy TEC ships you pay 2x the price. To buy Advent or Vasari ships it would cost 3x or 4x as much.

I believe even capital ships should be available, though they would be very rare and maybe require a successful 'capture ship' raid against a capital ship factory. Alien Star bases would be off-limits though, as they require too much specialized training to operate.

With all this, it only makes sense to be able to set your empire's 'attack stance' against mercs. The sensble default is to 'return fire only', meaning you will leave them alone as long as they leave you alone. You could set yourself to 'don't attack mercs' at all, or 'attack on sight'. Currently, pirate ships are attacked on sight, even if they are hading to attack an enemy node. A last option is to 'Help them out'. With this last option, even if you have set moderate bounty settings, you can still improve their chances by telling some of your ships (or a fleet) to follow them for the ride. When you give military support in the bounty screen, the ships  will fight for the mercs unidentified, therefore the enemy will not be able to identify you as the attacker. If you help them out by sending a fleet of yours along (with the 'help them out' stance), they will acknowledge the support (trusting you better), but you will be identifiable as the aggressor. You will keep control of your fleet, so you can pull them out whenever you want.

This setting should show up in the diplomacy for empire-wide defaults, but you should also be able to change the stance per gravity well, per fleet or per ship.

The merc ships:

Besides the well-known pirate ships, they should also have in their ranks standard ships from the other factions, which were captured. All pirate ships are tuned for speed and maneuverability, should they need to turn around and flee (which they often do).

They should also have ships specializing in their operations:

Towboat: Armed with powerful tractor beams and Ion cannons to disable ships. It is used whenever the pirates want to rob ships, be them trade ships or military ones. Once the disabled frigate is attached onto the ship it is considered lost, as destroying the Towboat will also damage the ship. This ship is very fast when empty, but gradually loses speed as it gathers more ships. It can carry 2 frigates or 1 cruiser. It also possesses weapons to fend off fighers and bombers, but they cannot be operated during the huge tractor beam operation, as there is not enough energy for all systems.

Hijacker: The hijacker has ion cannons as well as anti-fighter/bomber, but it relies on boarding to take control of enemy ships. only cruisers and capital ships can be taken in this way. Once it disables the cruiser/cap ship. It attaches itself to the ship so that the pirate crew can invade. will send up to 3 groups of boarding parties to take over the enemy ship (like a special ability, but limited to 3 uses). in the case of cruisers, 3 boarding parties are requires to take its command. Capital ships require its level + 5 boarding parties to have the ship command overthrown. Up to 4 boarding ships can lock on to capital ship at once, but their boarding parties keep atacking even if the ship is detached from the capital ship. If the pirate raid fails, the capital ship gradually eliminates all boarding parties.

Scavenger: The scavenger captures pieces of destroyed ships to try to salvage technology from it. It converts the captured pieces in credits/metal/crystal and research. Having powerful matter processors, it has a remarkable self-repair ability, and can support other ships in battle. It can also throw a cloud of its nanodisassemblers against enemy ships, which will interfere with the ships repair/shield systems, and destabilize their weapons reducing accuracy and cooldown.

Pirate/mercenary capital ships:

The Eater: A very big ship robber, it swallows frigates and cruisers whole inside it. Besides the assorted weapon systems, it has tractor beams and Ion cannons to disable/swallow ships, and can also lay mines behind it when it is going away. It can also deploy a missile barrage if it encounters fierce opposition. Another attack is to send back a 'greek trade ship' loaded with explosives to ram against enemy ships, which does a wide are damage explosion. It can eat up to 4 frigates or 2 cruisers.

TEC/Advent/Vasari: Eventually the mercs will get their hands on captured capital ships, and will use those to assist on their attacks.

Hybrids: Sometimes the ships they capture will be heavily damaged, or they will run short of spares. They will find creative ways to join, mix and duct tape different technologies together, so don't be surprised to see what seems like a seemingly Advent colonization ship firing a missile barrage, or anything like that. Usually they strip out systems they will have little use of to put others which are their favorites. Missile barrage, Finest hour, laying mines, greek trade ship (maybe others) are mercs favorites.

Final words

Avast, me hearties! Ye shall give those landloller scurvydogs a royal whipass and take all'em pieces of eight! Arrrrrrr!!!