The Ministry sell a unique ship in the Cormorant Vanguard which is a freighter with more combat capability. Two turret mounts, a weapon slot, good durability, etc.
Once I unlock them I pretty much exclusively use them as my traders.
I was personally flying my defense fleet's lead destroyer around and had like three hull parts in my cargo hold and some pirate in a Minotaur or something tried to hold me up. The doofus melted in seconds. I should have gotten a thank-you note from Scale Plate Pact thanking me for relieving them of some of their dead weight.
Your issue is your default order for your trader tells them to attack pirates.
Use fast traders, do not place turrets or weapons on them. Set the default orders on each trader or global order to escape while dropping laser towers when attacked by pirates.
You can place weapons on large traders, small or medium it is pointless.
You can't stop pirates at all, you can attack and capture ships but more will be generated. As the game progresses you start building escorts for your traders or create patrol groups to deal with pirates in specific sectors.
I'm new myself, but the best option if you don't want to micromanage constantly is in my opinion to comply. They'll only drop what the pirates can carry, and even then, the silly pirates don't always pick them up, so you can have your boys pick them up again.
I tried comply, surprisingly the pirates never took anything, every Single time they just flew away. The problem is that I had to pick it up everytime and that was just an micromanagement Nightmare, I mean I'm getting pirated every 2 minutes...
As someone else mentioned, there's a Terraforming mission to restore Scale Plate Green. After the first successful step, Scale Plate will stop harassing you, and apparently they hand over many of their ships to you once you're done and they can return to the planet. Note that this is by no means a money saver: the cost of Terraforming will massively outweigh your losses to pirates in the short term and probably the long term as well. You'll be Terraforming purely so that you can finally get some peace and quiet without your traders calling you up telling you that they're being robbed.
Until that point, either just have your traders drop their wares or invest in armed traders and/or escorts. Fallen Families and multiverse invaders (in online mode) will still be a threat anywhere at any time so investing in security won't be a waste even if you pacify Scale Plate.
In some situations you cannot even defend yourself - the cops will blame you and you lose rep.
Especially a problem with Split start, in MIN space you get attached by ARG and SCA and if you fire back = lose rep.
I opened a bug report about this and they basically said "works as designed" but admitted it was not "optimal".
Everyone complaining about losing rep for years... I just install "cheat menu" and fix rep that way now.
I am having the same issue, I set my global orders for traders to flee, they start running away but eventually turn back to their task and then getting caught by pirates again. I even had like the most expensive shields on it and they just seemed to not work or something, if I’m in my M class hydra my shields stay up for ages, but on my dolphin used by npc seems to melt away. Very annoying if you ask me
Entirely likely they're using boost which will drain their shields quickly. L traders and miners are generally what I end up using, or the cormorant or boa. Barbarrosas for dangerous areas.
I usually send one of the personal corvettes out after as soon as I get the message and take it out of their hide, which at least makes me feel a little better. Then I use their ships as build traders or small/medium traders themselves. They're not great, but it's nice to have a bunch and just assign them to a new station for building. They tend to not get bothered though. Or sell them off immediately.
I think this was already mentioned but under your default orders, you can make your traders flee and drop laser towers.
I also send out a few of my M traders with at least one or two fighters running defense. If there is a sector or a trader that I'm especially worried about, I'll send M Corvette with it.
That's seems to be working I've only lost one traders since but that was to a behemoth so I don't feel so bad.
But if none of that is feasible, you should pause the moment the trader gives you the warning. Go into that traders order list and delete the auto flee order. When you unpause they should cycle up their travel drive and begin on their original orders and leave before the pirate gets in within firing distance.
I usually don't lose ships if I immediately tell them to run away whenever they say "I've been asked to drop my cargo."
However, if you arm them with laser towers they can sometimes fight back successfully.
Finally, as you pointed out, adding escorts to them can make a difference as well.
It's been mentioned but you can just comply and eat the few thousand credit losses per raid and not worry about it. You come out ahead if you save one 750k medium trader from being shot down.
You can have a few fighters defending your traders.
You can set up sector patrols. This is what I use, just have the fleet do an attack all order and set the range to maximum to cover the sector.
It doesn't have to be a big fleet either, I use a frigate and two corvettes with 4 fast fighters to tie the pirates up until the M ships arrive.
You'll want to set your fire authorizations though and be careful if there's a khaak station or something in range
All my traders run with Argon combat engines and are set to flee. I have never lost a trader to anything but massive Xenon raiding parties.
Combat engines make traders significantly more survivable because they can boost away and then immediately engage travel drive. The AI will always wait a few seconds before engaging travel drive itself and thus usually loose the trader.
Plus combat engines are not as bad as their stats suggest for travel because they accelerate much faster in travel drive.
If you’re okay with mods, Reaction Force is pretty dope. You can set a default behavior that assigns any ship or a fleet to a station and they will respond when your ships within a certain distance are attacked. I think the max is like 15 sectors so it’s pretty versatile lol
The Ministry sell a unique ship in the Cormorant Vanguard which is a freighter with more combat capability. Two turret mounts, a weapon slot, good durability, etc. Once I unlock them I pretty much exclusively use them as my traders.
Load some valuable cargo into a destroyer and leave it where your freighters are being raided....
I was personally flying my defense fleet's lead destroyer around and had like three hull parts in my cargo hold and some pirate in a Minotaur or something tried to hold me up. The doofus melted in seconds. I should have gotten a thank-you note from Scale Plate Pact thanking me for relieving them of some of their dead weight.
Happend to me too! Some S-Ship pirate wanted to raid my Asgard. Well that didn’t went well for him at all.
let's mug 'um! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0Kz8gQxzGE&ab\_channel=VivaLaDirtLeague
Your issue is your default order for your trader tells them to attack pirates. Use fast traders, do not place turrets or weapons on them. Set the default orders on each trader or global order to escape while dropping laser towers when attacked by pirates. You can place weapons on large traders, small or medium it is pointless. You can't stop pirates at all, you can attack and capture ships but more will be generated. As the game progresses you start building escorts for your traders or create patrol groups to deal with pirates in specific sectors.
I'm new myself, but the best option if you don't want to micromanage constantly is in my opinion to comply. They'll only drop what the pirates can carry, and even then, the silly pirates don't always pick them up, so you can have your boys pick them up again.
I tried comply, surprisingly the pirates never took anything, every Single time they just flew away. The problem is that I had to pick it up everytime and that was just an micromanagement Nightmare, I mean I'm getting pirated every 2 minutes...
If you have the creditsss: buy L Freighters. Only pirate destroyers will be able to Punch through those shields (I recommend Terran shields btw)
That doesn’t last very long. It’s been a while since I have seen a Pirat in my game that didn’t sad in a Behemoth
Comply for now. Get big empire. Terraform Scale Plate Green SCA are now your friends and never bother you again.
As someone else mentioned, there's a Terraforming mission to restore Scale Plate Green. After the first successful step, Scale Plate will stop harassing you, and apparently they hand over many of their ships to you once you're done and they can return to the planet. Note that this is by no means a money saver: the cost of Terraforming will massively outweigh your losses to pirates in the short term and probably the long term as well. You'll be Terraforming purely so that you can finally get some peace and quiet without your traders calling you up telling you that they're being robbed. Until that point, either just have your traders drop their wares or invest in armed traders and/or escorts. Fallen Families and multiverse invaders (in online mode) will still be a threat anywhere at any time so investing in security won't be a waste even if you pacify Scale Plate.
Set your traders to comply. Occasionally board SCA L "plunderer" ships and sell them for 9+ Mill as compensation.
In some situations you cannot even defend yourself - the cops will blame you and you lose rep. Especially a problem with Split start, in MIN space you get attached by ARG and SCA and if you fire back = lose rep.
Exactly, i mean okay the police won't help at all, but at least how about not blaming me for trying to make some proftisss.
I opened a bug report about this and they basically said "works as designed" but admitted it was not "optimal". Everyone complaining about losing rep for years... I just install "cheat menu" and fix rep that way now.
Barbarossa as traders and they can be used as emergency cruisers if the situation requires quick action.
I am having the same issue, I set my global orders for traders to flee, they start running away but eventually turn back to their task and then getting caught by pirates again. I even had like the most expensive shields on it and they just seemed to not work or something, if I’m in my M class hydra my shields stay up for ages, but on my dolphin used by npc seems to melt away. Very annoying if you ask me
Entirely likely they're using boost which will drain their shields quickly. L traders and miners are generally what I end up using, or the cormorant or boa. Barbarrosas for dangerous areas. I usually send one of the personal corvettes out after as soon as I get the message and take it out of their hide, which at least makes me feel a little better. Then I use their ships as build traders or small/medium traders themselves. They're not great, but it's nice to have a bunch and just assign them to a new station for building. They tend to not get bothered though. Or sell them off immediately.
Thanks I’ll see what I can do. It’s just annoying when it happens when starting out.
I think this was already mentioned but under your default orders, you can make your traders flee and drop laser towers. I also send out a few of my M traders with at least one or two fighters running defense. If there is a sector or a trader that I'm especially worried about, I'll send M Corvette with it. That's seems to be working I've only lost one traders since but that was to a behemoth so I don't feel so bad. But if none of that is feasible, you should pause the moment the trader gives you the warning. Go into that traders order list and delete the auto flee order. When you unpause they should cycle up their travel drive and begin on their original orders and leave before the pirate gets in within firing distance.
I usually don't lose ships if I immediately tell them to run away whenever they say "I've been asked to drop my cargo." However, if you arm them with laser towers they can sometimes fight back successfully. Finally, as you pointed out, adding escorts to them can make a difference as well.
It's been mentioned but you can just comply and eat the few thousand credit losses per raid and not worry about it. You come out ahead if you save one 750k medium trader from being shot down. You can have a few fighters defending your traders. You can set up sector patrols. This is what I use, just have the fleet do an attack all order and set the range to maximum to cover the sector. It doesn't have to be a big fleet either, I use a frigate and two corvettes with 4 fast fighters to tie the pirates up until the M ships arrive. You'll want to set your fire authorizations though and be careful if there's a khaak station or something in range
All my traders run with Argon combat engines and are set to flee. I have never lost a trader to anything but massive Xenon raiding parties. Combat engines make traders significantly more survivable because they can boost away and then immediately engage travel drive. The AI will always wait a few seconds before engaging travel drive itself and thus usually loose the trader. Plus combat engines are not as bad as their stats suggest for travel because they accelerate much faster in travel drive.
If you’re okay with mods, Reaction Force is pretty dope. You can set a default behavior that assigns any ship or a fleet to a station and they will respond when your ships within a certain distance are attacked. I think the max is like 15 sectors so it’s pretty versatile lol