How to deal with the piracy in the late game ?

[DreadLindwyrm]

I don't have Gateways and don't think this will help me in my current situation as well.

You'd be amazed what gateways every 12 or so systems can do for trade collection, with one gateway on your main (6 range) collecting hub, and one on each of a couple of bastions just to keep any uncovered trade route under control.

Add in a shipyard or three, and you can reinforce to anywhere almost immediately (well, as quickly as you can build ships).

 

[ComradeKroo]

To deal with Pirates
-Early game: use your fleet to patrol.
-Mid game: Hangar to secure Trade routes and trade area.
-Late game: 1 Gateway per Trade Hub.

 

[fuzzybuttons]

Just to clarify what everyone is saying, the Trade Hub collection range does go through the gateway. So once you have that tech, you only need one Starbase to collect trade.

In my last game, I had 6 Trade Hubs in the Starbase in my capital's system. I built a gateway there.

I then built additional gateways throughout my empire placed such that anything that produced trade that I wanted was no more than 5 steps away from a gateway. That's 5 steps because the Trade Hubs have a range of 6 and the step through the gateway itself counts as a step. So that made sure that all of these sources were within range of my capital's Starbase.

I also made sure that no system with a source of trade had a Starbase other than my capital system! If any of them did then the trade would be collected by their Starbase, since every Starbase has a collection range of 0 for the local system, even if you don't install any Trade Hubs in it. This would cause a trade route to appear from that Starbase to the nearest gateway, and any system along that might get piracy.

If all these steps are followed, then the trade gets collected by the main Starbase and there is no trade going along any trade routes. No trade means no piracy. Wallah.

 

[AlanC9]

I also made sure that no system with a source of trade had a Starbase other than these gateway systems! If any of them did then the trade would be collected by their Starbase, since every Starbase has a collection range of 0 for the local system, even if you don't install any Trade Hubs in it. This would cause a trade route to appear from that Starbase to the nearest gateway, and any system along that might get piracy.

The downside of this is that you can't have Deep Space Black Sites in those systems, which means 5% less Stability than you could have had..

 

[fuzzybuttons]

The downside of this is that you can't have Deep Space Black Sites in those systems, which means 5% less Stability than you could have had..

Yup, that did suck. It would be nice if I could turn off trade collection for a Starbase if I just wanted to build it for other purposes. What I ended up doing was placing the gateways in systems with planets that needed the stability the most. SInce those were adjacent to the capital through the gateway they wouldn't spawn any piracy.

I suppose the expensive route would be to put a gateway in every planet system. My game didn't last that long. Got too laggy. I even loaded the 2.2.3 release to see if it would improve, since the patch notes said they addressed some trade-related lags. It didn't seem to make a difference.

 

[Belhedler]

Fortresses with nothing but Hangar bays (prefix D on map) separated by 7 sectors exactly and 1 fortress with only trade hubs in the middle (prefix T on map) like that. You are standing at 172+ defense value per sector of interest. Prefix A, S and M stands for Anchorage only, Shipyards only and Mixed. Since the defensive fortresses double as a defending force, place them first and the trade hubs after them. Until you get portals, that I don't have yet (2365 currently), that's the only optimal way to do it. You could also make it so that pirates spawn at the same point every time and have a fleet to deal with it too.

You'd be amazed what gateways every 12 or so systems can do for trade collection, with one gateway on your main (6 range) collecting hub, and one on each of a couple of bastions just to keep any uncovered trade route under control.

Add in a shipyard or three, and you can reinforce to anywhere almost immediately (well, as quickly as you can build ships).

So where should I place my future portal(s) on my map?