There is something really off with piracy values.

[-Marauder-]

This is late midgame (2275) for one of my trade routes. The Max Piracy here is 420.83 and will likely go up a lot more as trasde value rises. Now, in theory this isn't a problem. Except the protection in comparison seems incredibly small and insufficient. Even several patrolling fleets would not be able to suppress this. It would take roughly seven fully upgraded Hangar Starbases to deal with this.

Just as a reminder, we have a tradition that adds a grand total of 5 trade protection! One could change that tradition to 50 and it would still do virtually nothing.

 

[Frydendahl89]

Late game piracy is kind of broken if you're playing heavy on trade value. The only real way to mitigate it is heavy use of gateways - put one in basically each of your trade hub systems and funnel the trade value back to the capital through them.

I generally hope they will rework the whole trade network mechanics eventually, right now it's a pretty boring 'set it and forget it' system, and there's basically zero interaction with other empires through the system.

Why can't we make a Galaxy spanning Silk Road? Why can we trade resources with empires we barely know exist, on the opposite side of the galaxy?

 

[TrotBot]

Late game piracy is kind of broken if you're playing heavy on trade value. The only real way to mitigate it is heavy use of gateways - put one in basically each of your trade hub systems and funnel the trade value back to the capital through them.

I generally hope they will rework the whole trade network mechanics eventually, right now it's a pretty boring 'set it and forget it' system, and there's basically zero interaction with other empires through the system.

Why can't we make a Galaxy spanning Silk Road? Why can we trade resources with empires we barely know exist, on the opposite side of the galaxy?

and don't forget to have some hangarbay starbases on gateways, as they contribute their protection through the gateway, which counts as one jump. so fully upgraded would add 5 more jumps of protection out of every gateway in your empire.

 

[-Marauder-]

Late game piracy is kind of broken if you're playing heavy on trade value. The only real way to mitigate it is heavy use of gateways - put one in basically each of your trade hub systems and funnel the trade value back to the capital through them.

I generally hope they will rework the whole trade network mechanics eventually, right now it's a pretty boring 'set it and forget it' system, and there's basically zero interaction with other empires through the system.

Why can't we make a Galaxy spanning Silk Road? Why can we trade resources with empires we barely know exist, on the opposite side of the galaxy?

This isn't even late game though. But honestly, this seems like they really didn't do the numbers. Because having a tradition that provides 5 trade protection when we can get piracy in the hundreds or later thousands seems, very underpowered.

 

[Frydendahl89]

This isn't even late game though. But honestly, this seems like they really didn't do the numbers. Because having a tradition that provides 5 trade protection when we can get piracy in the hundreds or later thousands seems, very underpowered.

The problem basically is that trade protection scales incredibly poorly, while trade value can take off like a rocket if you focus on it.

 

[TomorrowsHerald]

I sometimes wonder if the whole piracy and trade lane thing isn't a bit of a hassle really and if we'd be better off without it. Suppression is such a headache I tend to prefer just stationing my reserve fleets in vulnerable areas. Even when I want to set up patrol flotillas, it turns the fleet menu into a mess that's very annoying to navigate. It would be helpful if once designated patrol fleets simply went to their own menu rather than clutter up the fleet one.

 

[John MacWhat]

I find myself often avoiding collecting trade just because piracy is an annoying game mechanic. That's not a decision based on comparing the cost of the fleet to the value of the trade, it's just straight up avoiding the mechanic because it isn't fun. If my main trade station that is near my capitol can't reach the trade value for a system, I just leave it uncollected.

 

[HFY]

You can get 8-jump collection (which does traverse wormholes & gateways) from a single station parked one jump away from your empire capital, and then you can build a gateway in that system (and a few others) to get empire-wide coverage with no chance of piracy.

Demands that you do an Engineering-focused tech push before you blob out too much, but that's not uncommon.

I suspect that tactic is what's taking the pressure off of fixing trade routes -- the fact that trade routes just don't get used after Gateways become available.

 

[John MacWhat]

Also, there is no piracy in systems with starbases. So, you can just do a line of anchorages between your capitol and your trade collecting star-base. Works okay if you have a small or medium sized empire, but annoying when you start getting systems with significant TV that are more than 8 or 9 away from your capitol

 

[SectorsAreOkay]

The trade system could have been interesting, but it never is. I look at it once in a while to make sure piracy isn't an issue and adjust starbases accordingly. I'd rather they just ditch the trade route system entirely if all it's going to be is an occasional mini game to deal with nuisance level piracy.

 

[Lidhuin]

Also, there is no piracy in systems with starbases. So, you can just do a line of anchorages between your capitol and your trade collecting star-base. Works okay if you have a small or medium sized empire, but annoying when you start getting systems with significant TV that are more than 8 or 9 away from your capitol

However, you do need to remove existing piracy after building a starbase. Which is a nuisance and not at all obvious.

 

[Mastikator]

Late game piracy is kind of broken if you're playing heavy on trade value. The only real way to mitigate it is heavy use of gateways - put one in basically each of your trade hub systems and funnel the trade value back to the capital through them.

I generally hope they will rework the whole trade network mechanics eventually, right now it's a pretty boring 'set it and forget it' system, and there's basically zero interaction with other empires through the system.

Why can't we make a Galaxy spanning Silk Road? Why can we trade resources with empires we barely know exist, on the opposite side of the galaxy?

You actually only need 1 trade hub if you're using gateways. Put a gateway next to your trade hub and every other gateway will extend the collection.

@OP you need 21 corvettes stationed in the system to remove the piracy. But more corvettes will do the job faster. A single 100 corvette fleet is enough to remove all piracy in your empire if you just set it to patrol the trade routes. They can keep pirates in check while you build a couple of gateways.

 

[fourteenfour]

Late game piracy is kind of broken if you're playing heavy on trade value. The only real way to mitigate it is heavy use of gateways - put one in basically each of your trade hub systems and funnel the trade value back to the capital through them.

I generally hope they will rework the whole trade network mechanics eventually, right now it's a pretty boring 'set it and forget it' system, and there's basically zero interaction with other empires through the system.

Why can't we make a Galaxy spanning Silk Road? Why can we trade resources with empires we barely know exist, on the opposite side of the galaxy?

Well the real world Silk Road was affected by borders where as trade in this game isn't. I would love to have border respect in this game. Where if you wanted to trade with another empire you had to be able to trace a safe route to their space. While this would still require suspension of believe with regards to how fast goods can travel it would bolster the early game importance of wormholes and even choke points.

For a game that involves conquest of territory and such this game does an amazing job of ignoring borders and distances. diplomacy, trade, and reassignment of leaders, respects no border nor cars about distances involved.

 

[ponasozis]

Piracy is just annyoing mechanic and main reason i ignore trade builds. There is absolutely nothing fun in killing 10k pirate fleets when you have 200k fleet a jump away

 

[A.J.]

Also, there is no piracy in systems with starbases. So, you can just do a line of anchorages between your capitol and your trade collecting star-base. Works okay if you have a small or medium sized empire, but annoying when you start getting systems with significant TV that are more than 8 or 9 away from your capitol

I place defensive platforms in my systems having NO star bases. They do a good job of defeating pirate fleets at a minimum of cost/influence.

Thing is, I generally include fighters on these platform(s), but these don't seem to have the same effect as do fighters on star bases.

 

[Ferrus Animus]

The core issue is that piracy scales with trade value, while all mitigation tools scale lineraly to a fixed amount (like 6x10 from hangars plus other bonuses).

As such the only tool to supress it is using fleets to patrol.

The easiest way to deal with it is sadly to completely circumvent it. Liek others said starbases suppress piracy in their system and piracy only happens on trade routes between collecting starbases and the capital. As such an easy way is to make the capital starbase a trade hub (6 range from trade hub modules, +1 from hyperlane registrar, +1 from mercantile tradition starter) which means any system out to 8 jumps is automatically collected without piracy.
The next step is gateways. Collection goes through gateways, which means if you have a gateway in your capital system, each gateway collects TV within 7 jumps.
Before gateways you can place other collection starbasses and fortify the enitre route to your capital.

And if you want to weaponize it, you can place starbases so you can then reassing trade route flow to go through the space of your enemies/allies/despicable enutrals. As the AI doesn't have better tools to mitigate piracy and doesn't understand it, these routes will create piracy in the trespassing systems and spawn pirates. While the AI nowadays kilsl the spawned fleets it si still a useful distraction if you are willing to lose your TV.

 

[-Marauder-]

The entire piracy system feels honestly half baked and unfun. That a tradition giving a grand total of 5 trade protection exists is what really baffles my mind.

 

[Frydendahl89]

The entire piracy system feels honestly half baked and unfun. That a tradition giving a grand total of 5 trade protection exists is what really baffles my mind.

There's even a Custodian resolution in the galactic community that gives a similar anemic +5 trade protection. It's ludicrously difficult to even get to that stage, and the reward is basically a pittance.

 

[-Marauder-]

There's even a Custodian resolution in the galactic community that gives a similar anemic +5 trade protection. It's ludicrously difficult to even get to that stage, and the reward is basically a pittance.

They really should be changed to give a % decrease to piracy, or something along those lines.

 

[DeanTheDull]

This is late midgame (2275) for one of my trade routes. The Max Piracy here is 420.83 and will likely go up a lot more as trasde value rises. Now, in theory this isn't a problem. Except the protection in comparison seems incredibly small and insufficient. Even several patrolling fleets would not be able to suppress this. It would take roughly seven fully upgraded Hangar Starbases to deal with this.

Just as a reminder, we have a tradition that adds a grand total of 5 trade protection! One could change that tradition to 50 and it would still do virtually nothing.

While I can agree that trade defense measures is an issue (I'd support % decreases rather than flat bouffs), the discussion in the threat misses a point-

Trade Builds incentivize relatively tall/habitat builds, rather than wide-conquest. It is, to some degree, an anti-conquest meta.

While this can be circumvented (have trade jobs in empire interior, industry on exterior), and as a whole makes trade builds less meta, this is a good gameplay pressure if trade-builds can be good enough to justify it. It creates an incentive to not conquer other empires (because you can't defend trade lanes), incentivizes late-game conflicts (when gateways allow trade management), and adds an instability risk-reward factor.

This does, in meta terms, make it 'not as good' in many respects- and I feel habitats come too late to really build your build around- but it should be noted trade-build piracy protection is a limiting mechanic against unrestrained conquest.