Starbases and piracy

[TheGrouch91]

Hello there,

So I was under the assumption that upgraded starbases suppress piracy completely in their respective system. So I normally would just plant anchorages along my trade routes and not have to invest in anti piracy modules.

However in my current game there is now piracy in some of my starbase systems. Only some of them though, which is weird. Do the systems have to have a colony of some sort as well?

 

[Althizor]

In the trade view, you can look at each system and see what is providing trade protection. Starbases provide some trade protection in the system they are in. That protection can be increased and granted to other systems by building weapon modules (hangers provide the most here).


A starbase by itself would be sufficient for the early game, but there is no rule that a starbase automatically supresses all piracy. In particular piracy can get very high at chokepoints where many trade routes converge.

 

[Etrutian]

There is a map overlay that shows you what systems need more protection otherwise you will get pirates. I think its attached to starbases.

 

[TheGrouch91]

Uhm no that is not what I am asking. I am aware of how the basic protection works. However there are some inconsistencies that I can't explain:

Why is there piracy in Egrore but there is literally zero, not even the piracy tooltip in Itraben and Nolyon which are on the same route. Also piracy starts again in Habraq. How does that make any sense?

It has nothing to do with being over the starbase cap, I tested that. It has nothing to do with colonies in the system. It has nothing to do with trade being collected in the system itself. I just don't get it.

 

[evilcat]

There is a rumour that bastions (guns) create an aura of one system for each gun. With 6 gun bastion protecting 6 systems range. So you can create 12 systems spaces with 2 bastions at each end.
So you need to combine bastion with trade hubs. Need a lot of bases for that. Grasp of the Void new Meta!

Or have your favorite pirate spot. Park 10 corvetas nearby and constructor. Wait for pirates to spawn. Deal with them. And rebuild.

Overall,while i can live with bastions here and there. There could be a couple of civics, techs to give some passive anti piracy. Can build bastions on important chokepoints. But cant reach to every small system.

 

[Althizor]

Hard to tell with just a screenshot. The other systems might have had a fleet pass throuh them recently and surpress the piracy. Egrore has a lot of trade passing through it so it makes sense for there to be piracy, but trade leaves it in two directions, so I can't tell how much of it is going where.

 

[Askorti]

Are Itraben and Nolyon bastions with guns or hangars? Those increase trade protection. Meanwhile Egrore looks like a small station, so it can't fight piracy effectively.

 

[Althizor]

Are Itraben and Nolyon bastions with guns or hangars? Those increase trade protection. Meanwhile Egrore looks like a small station, so it can't fight piracy effectively.

If they had a lot of weapon modules, their protection would extend over to Egrore. Not sure if citadels provide more protection than lesser starbases without weapon modules, never looked that closely at it.

 

[TheGrouch91]

If it was that obvious I wouldn't have asked here guys. D: There are literally no guns or hangars anywhere. That was the plan all along.

But never mind that. I found the reason. Starbases just stop the accumulation of piracy. Any existent piracy that was accumulated before the base has finished still stays. Once the base is up and you suppressed the last bit of piracy that was already accumulated the system will be piracy free forever.

 

[Kryndude]

If it was that obvious I wouldn't have asked here guys. D: There are literally no guns or hangars anywhere. That was the plan all along.

But never mind that. I found the reason. Starbases just stop the accumulation of piracy. Any existent piracy that was accumulated before the base has finished still stays. Once the base is up and you suppressed the last bit of piracy that was already accumulated the system will be piracy free forever.

It's common throughout all PDX games that the user has to study the game to discover mechanics not shown in the tooltip or even the wiki.