Piracy micro management has turned the game into Shelfware for me

[Ameron]

Does this work with more than 1 stop? Let's say I want to patrol from A to E and pass through B, C and D in between. How do I do that?

Sadly you have to split the route in two, with two different fleets patrolling. One from A to C through B, and one from C to E through D.

 

[Strangedane]

Sorry, but You are either doing something wrong or don't fully understand how to manage piracy. Space a citidel 5 jumps out from your trade hubs. Fill them with hanger bays. Poof, piracy gone.

I Bring in 1,800 energy in Trade, have no patrols, and have 0 piracy. Have had one pirate spawn in the whole game as of 3350.

There are serious micro problems in Stellaris at the moment, but that is to do with managing planets thanks to the abysmal sector AI and system. Piracy isn't a problem if you know what you are doing.

1800 energy in trade at 3350?
You really shouldn't be questioning peoples abilities.
That's less than my total in 2275.
I think you're doing something terribly wrong and don't understand how to generate relevant amounts of trade.

Let's reiterate.
2275. Bringing in around 3000 tradevalue globally with around 40% being lost to piracy.

All routes into the cap have 500+ value on the last 2-3 jumps.
A fully upgraded citadel will protect what? 150 trade value?
That leaves 350+ value to be protected.

That's assuming you even have citadels in 2275.

 

[Bankipriel]

1800 energy in trade at 3350?
You really shouldn't be questioning peoples abilities.
That's less than my total in 2275.
I think you're doing something terribly wrong and don't understand how to generate relevant amounts of trade.

Let's reiterate.
2275. Bringing in around 3000 tradevalue globally with around 40% being lost to piracy.

All routes into the cap have 500+ value on the last 2-3 jumps.
A fully upgraded citadel will protect what? 150 trade value?
That leaves 350+ value to be protected.

That's assuming you even have citadels in 2275.

You don't understand how to build your starbases. Here is my explanation from another thread on this same topic:

So, bastions provide trade protection in systems that *don't* have an upgraded starbase. As you mentioned, hangar bays provide 10, so with x6 hanger bays, a bastion will provide 60 trade protection (as I'm sure you know.) This, however, is not the optimal way to ensure 100% trade collection, and should really only be used to protect the minor incidental trade from outlying rural worlds. The key to trade collection lies in the fact that systems *with* an upgraded starbase (of any kind) cannot generate piracy---they are immune.

So, imagine seven systems connected in a line by hyperlanes: 1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7

If 1 is your trade capital, and you build anchorages on 2, 3, 4, 5, & 6, and then make 7 is a trade hub with full/six trade modules, then every system within six jumps of starbase #7 will be collected by 7 and transferred down the line of piracy immune systems to the trade capital. I find that 1-3 trade hubs is all I need to collect from 20+ worlds until I am able to get gateway technology. By placing trade hubs 12 jumps apart, connected by contiguous starbases, 14 starbases can collect trade from a huge area of a space with 100% efficiency and 0 piracy.

This is what I meant by a central "backbone" of stations. The intermediary starbases between the trade capital and trade hubs can be anything, but having multiple trade stations with overlapping collection ranges is inefficient and doesn't seem worth the 12 trade that could be generated from modules compared to the 36 naval capacity, so I always them into anchorages. Sometimes I will leave my trade capital as a trade hub, sometimes not. It totally depends on where the planets are and how I can get the best collection coverage from as few trade hubs as possible.

It used to make sense to build starbases over planets, however, that is generally a terrible idea in 2.2.x. Instead, you want to build a trade hub where it should be once it has a reach of 6 to collect from as many planets as possible. And then build bases/anchorages in an unbroken line from trade hubs to your trade capital. So long as all trade is moving from collection hub through systems with starbases, no piracy will ever be generated. Bastions can be built for purely defensive positioning, and no patrols are necessary.

This strategy does mean that some large, "key" worlds may not be in collection range during early game, so building bases in the manner I've described is a strategic choice that will result in less trade collection during early game. I prefer to build my bases where I want them long-term, and I simply don't build up trade on worlds until it can be collected. This often results in generator districts during early game (that provide more energy faster from fewer pops), that I then turn into city districts mid/late game, once the planet's infrastructure (gene clinic, cloning banks, robotics factory, etc.) are in place, and I have the collection range to take advantage of clerk generated trade. Changing districts is much cheaper, as well, costing minerals rather than the alloys needed to relocate or restructure a star base.

Let me know if any part of that is still unclear. No one should suffer pirates needlessly XD

 

[Strangedane]

You don't understand how to build your starbases. Here is my explanation from another thread on this same topic:

WOW YOU'RE GOOD MATE!!!

You're suggesting precisely what I said I had to do to save my trade value.
I'll admit I never saw that coming.

Did you even read the thread or are you just randomly shitposting?

I said:
"Losing 250+ tradevalue from 5 different routes is WAY more than what it would costs to plop down the basic bases. A fast count tells me I would need around 20 bases to close my tradenetwork off and gain 1250+ extra trade value.
Sadly, this runs up to several thousand alloys, and as such, I'd rather annex a neighbor.
This doesn't change the fact that if you actually want to save your trade value, the best way to do it is with lvl 1 starbases."

 

[Flame13223]

Make 3 bastions in your empire and you won't have any piracy...

 

[Zergor]

"Losing 250+ tradevalue from 5 different routes is WAY more than what it would costs to plop down the basic bases. A fast count tells me I would need around 20 bases to close my tradenetwork off and gain 1250+ extra trade value.
Sadly, this runs up to several thousand alloys, and as such, I'd rather annex a neighbor.
This doesn't change the fact that if you actually want to save your trade value, the best way to do it is with lvl 1 starbases."

Seems strange that you need that many. Either you don't place them optimally or you control half of a fairly big galaxy. In the later case alloys should not be a problem.
Can we have a look at a screenshot of your galaxy ?
Because a bastion defend up to 6 jump away, you only need a bastion every 13 jumps.

 

[Strangedane]

Seems strange that you need that many. Either you don't place them optimally or you control half of a fairly big galaxy. In the later case alloys should not be a problem.
Can we have a look at a screenshot of your galaxy ?
Because a bastion defend up to 6 jump away, you only need a bastion every 13 jumps.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1641475778

I'm kinda tiny at this point actually.
Top middle part of the galaxy.
But it's still earlygame and bastions will defend 2 jumps away and nothing more because I haven't drawn starbase upgrades yet.

And even if they did, 60 tradeprotection is absolutely nothing when looking at 500+ trade value.
Making the full route of starbases will be the only thing that actually gets all the trade home.

The estimated 20 needed is mostly because one of the routes go south around my territory.
That costs me 7 starbases, else i could do it in 10, but a fine count puts me at 17 needed.
No matter what I do, the southbound trade route snaps back after any changes, so I can't shorten that route. (which might actually be for the best as that would put one of my ingoing routes above 1000 value)

 

[Zergor]

Yeah I admit the bastions are a good investment when you can have 4 slots on them (I try to get that fast).

You only need 4 though even with 2 slots (you will miss 1 system in the right corner and one in the middle until you research extra slots or you can add a 5th )

Edit: the second from the left should be 1 system down to protect one extra system.

 

[Volapyk]

You can manually set which starbase to send your trade to, if that changes after you have manually set it without changing anything, it is probably a bug and should be reported.

Also remember that hangars provide 20 trade protection from each module, meaning if you have 2 that is 40 protection, which is enough to send 200 trade value through without getting pirates (at least if i remember right, it is only 1/5th of the trade value that can get pirated). So if you if need to protect 500+ maybe try and steer it through different systems. Can't see your capital in the screenshot so can't tell how to do it for you.

 

[Acheron]

6 Hangar Bays (or other defense modules) will fights piracy a long way, 6 jumps to be precise. Plus, systems can get such piracy protection from several star bases within range. With some of these, you should be able to reduce piracy enough that only a few systems need a handful of corvettes to patrol.

Also, be mindful which planets you specialize on commerce. Ideally, you will specialize your homeworld and neighboring systems. Trade routes should run through as few systems without starbases (of any kind) as possible. If that is not possible, try at least to select a cluster of worlds in the same or neighboring systems, then put hangar bays in the starbases in the region of the resulting trade route, as said above, protection overlaps.

 

[aprogressivist]

I gotta say, it's hilarious how many people are saying that it's OK that the UX of Corvette management is poor because there are other solutions.

Paradox: "Hey guys, here's a few options to deal with the new piracy system, one of which is Corvette patrols."

Player 1: "Corvette patrols are really unfun to set-up and a pain in the ass to manage."

Player 2: "SO DUNT USE THEM USE MY FORT STRAT GIT GUD NUB LULZ"

No. Corvette patrols are offered as a potential solution to piracy by the devs, pretending that it's okay that they're not fun and don't really work is letting the devs off the hook for incomplete design.

 

[Zergor]

I gotta say, it's hilarious how many people are saying that it's OK that the UX of Corvette management is poor because there are other solutions.

Paradox: "Hey guys, here's a few options to deal with the new piracy system, one of which is Corvette patrols."

Player 1: "Corvette patrols are really unfun to set-up and a pain in the ass to manage."

Player 2: "SO DUNT USE THEM USE MY FORT STRAT GIT GUD NUB LULZ"

No. Corvette patrols are offered as a potential solution to piracy by the devs, pretending that it's okay that they're not fun and don't really work is letting the devs off the hook for incomplete design.

Personally I think corvettes are a good way to repair an oversight (it takes time to build a bastion to defend a few undefended routes, during that time corvettes can do the trick). But yeah placing corvettes in all your trade systems seems painfully ineffective.
Bastions will always be superior due to their great defense range and defense value.

 

[KingAlamar]

At least in the late game when we can spam the devil out of gateways we can bypass the vast majority of this mechanism.

IF it could be made to work without too much micro or annoyance I'd rather take some elements from "Civ" style games and add in some Stellaris. Basically assign anti-piracy fleets to each sector. Within each sector food/minerals/energy/alloys/consumer goods/strategic elements/etc. flow back & forth with automated "trade caravans" between planets or other places where "goods" are harvested / transported. The more anti-piracy fleets + Starbase protection level in a given sector the smaller the possible pirate fleet size / losses would be. The more "goods" [in or out] that flowed in that sector the larger the potential for piracy would be.

The idea is to balance player agency vs. micro-management.

The player still needs to review how many ships they dispatch and where they dispatch them for anti-piracy efforts. Breakdown by sector or starbase or some other element seems fair. Screens showing current "piracy protection" vs. "piracy threat" vs. "current piracy losses" would form the basis of the decisions.

Then you let the AI automate "trade convoy escort" & "anti-piracy" missions within that sector / radius from starbase. If piracy gets too high an alert could be spawned keying the player to "look at this". If piracy gets "way too high" you could actually lose some production permanently. Also net "gains" from that sector would be stored instead of going into empire coffers until the empire gets piracy under control.

So you have a system where piracy [potentially] has teeth, doesn't involve constant micro [messages for high piracy], BUT still has the player taking a role in deciding WHERE to protect ; HOW MUCH to protect ; and WHEN without getting bogged down into details.

 

[KingAlamar]

Personally I think corvettes are a good way to repair an oversight (it takes time to build a bastion to defend a few undefended routes, during that time corvettes can do the trick). But yeah placing corvettes in all your trade systems seems painfully ineffective.
Bastions will always be superior due to their great defense range and defense value.

Please note that no disparaging remarks are aimed at YOU or any other player by what I'm about to say .... [Probation incoming??]

Having Bastions being able to protect against piracy INSIDE of a particular system is reasonable. Hangars could support fly-bys to keep any asteroid belts clear ... long range weapons are a deterrent ; etc. I like this for flavor reasons and the fact that it just plain makes sense!!

Bastions providing protection OUTSIDE of a particular system is at best a nonsensical bandaid applied to a system that isn't as well thought out as it should have been. If I felt comfortable expressing my real feelings .... well I guarantee I'd be perma-banned from the forums

As such I'd support any system that adds a little more common-sense to the "piracy" mechanic. I'd really support one that tried to balance "good decision making" vs. "low micro" vs. "immersion" in a meaningful way.

EDIT: I could buy getting protection from "hangars" to systems connected by GATEWAY or WORMHOLE. The strike craft just go through said gateway / wormhole.

 

[AlanC9]

Bastions are a trap option. They burn way too much fleet cap to be worthwhile.

 

[KingAlamar]

Bastions are a trap option. They burn way too much fleet cap to be worthwhile.

I still like Bastions at choke points as static defense bases. I'd of course prefer tweaks to the current system(s) but I wouldn't say bastions are a total waste at all points of the game for all reasons.

With the exception of Mega Corp playthroughs I don't generally need to use Bastions much for piracy suppression as I generate an efficient-enough empire without having massive trade that needs to be constantly protected via special measures.

Oh ... add to that I play tall-ish with 35-60 systems for a long time before I begin any big pushes which helps a lot.

 

[Zergor]

Bastions providing protection OUTSIDE of a particular system is at best a nonsensical bandaid applied to a system that isn't as well thought out as it should have been. If I felt comfortable expressing my real feelings .... well I guarantee I'd be perma-banned from the forums

I must admit that it would feel more realistic if only hangar did protect the other systems. Hangars are already the go to thing for pirates because of their range if a pirat fleet enter the system.
But bastions with hangar feel like a realistic way to deal with pirates: they can send small fleets to the neighbooring system to defend them and get rid of pirates.

Bastions are a trap option. They burn way too much fleet cap to be worthwhile.

I agree, they are horrible for defense purpose because adding static defense is a trap. But you can build them without static defense jsut to protect your trade. Lvl 2 is often enough to protect well a bunch of system so it's relatively cheap.

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

It's not needless micro. You have to actually deal with the consequences of a large empire. I don't think having to take a few seconds to assign a fleet to patrol, or build and extra starbase or two along heavy trade routes is a big deal. I mean, if your goal is to play the game of get minerals, build doomstack, steamroll galaxy and that's all that's fun for you, then I suppose piracy, economics, etc. will be a "needless micro". Maybe you should play a different game.

I personally like the idea that I can't 100% deal with the costs of a large empire and have to divert resources or suffer the consequences. Most of the time, it's quite manageable even still. Even corvette patrols aren't that bad and that don't need to suck up that much naval capacity. A few fleets of 8-12 ships is generally enough.

 

[nestorius]

Just have a starbase with hangers it really isnt hard I never use patrols and it really isnt that much micro. and no it isnt a few thousand alloys One starbase isnt a few thousand alloys a level 2 starbase with 4 hangers has 56 piracy protection plus you can increase this with traditions unless you have a giant empire you dont really need to spend that much.

how much does this magical 56 piracy protection cost? 900 Alloys (200 for first starbase 500 for upgrade and 50*4 for the hangers) if you need a star fortress then it is and extra 1350 but that is heavy late game

 

[nestorius]

Ok I recently played a game where I took over the whole galaxy was just trying to get achievements so messing around was a smallish galaxy and had about 20 000 trade.

I did end up having some piracy issues in some areas so I was forced to build maybe 2-3 starfortresses each one does 89 to 97 protection dont know if the first level is counted that is 356 to 388 protection I agree due to the way my empire was structured at times I had massive bottle necks also I sorted it out later with gateways and got rid of all the bastions. I really dont think it costs so much with the market place of ideas or consumer benefits it didnt feel too expensive and tbh I had more than enough alloys. I have to say I have never had issues with micromanaging trade apart from initially when I didnt understand it. How much Piracy are you getting and where?

I really just never have seen what you are experiencing I do agree that it is a little more difficult but it isnt too much micro or too expensive.

One more thing Piracy is only 25% of trade value