Pirates and Generals

Pirates are a hostile faction that roams the galaxy between unclaimed planets. Every pirate fleet is led by a General, a named commander who makes the ships under them faster and harder hitting. Defeating a pirate fleet is how Generals first enter your empire. Once you hold one, you can put it in command of your own fleets or keep it at a planet to strengthen that planet's defense.

Pirates

How Pirates Behave

A pirate fleet docks at an unclaimed (wild) planet, stays there for a while, then flies to another unclaimed planet nearby. Only one pirate fleet occupies a planet at a time. Pirates never attack players. They do not raid planets, chase fleets, or intercept anyone. They only defend the planet they are docked at when someone attacks it.

The pirate population renews itself. When a pirate fleet is destroyed, a new one appears somewhere in the galaxy after a delay. A pirate fleet that nobody engages for a long time eventually disappears, and its General with it, leaving room for a fresh fleet.

Pirate fleets vary widely in size. Most are modest, a few are very strong. The stronger the fleet, the larger its General's speed and attack bonuses.

Finding Pirates

  • In flight: pirate fleets moving between planets appear on the galaxy map as their own fleet arrows. Hovering one shows the General's name and when the fleet arrives.
  • Docked: a planet with pirates docked is marked on the galaxy map, and its info card shows an Occupied by pirates banner with the General's name.

The General's name is visible to everyone. The fleet's ship composition and the General's bonuses are only shown when the pirates are inside your radar coverage. For an exact picture of a docked pirate fleet, send Spy Probes: an ESPIONAGE mission against a pirate-occupied planet returns a report of every docked ship. See Radar, Espionage and ECCM.

Fighting Pirates

There are two ways to engage a pirate fleet. Neither needs a war declaration: pirates are always valid targets.

  • Attack a docked pirate. Send an ATTACK mission to the pirate-occupied planet. The pirates defend with their docked ships and their General's bonus. There are no DROIDs, stationed allies, or planetary defenses on their side.
  • Intercept a pirate in flight. A pirate fleet travelling between planets can be intercepted like any other interceptable fleet, as long as it is inside your radar coverage and your fleet can reach its path in time. Pirate interceptions are always one-on-one: each interceptor fights the pirates separately, even if several arrive at the same point. See Interception.

Pirates carry no loot and their planets hold no resources, so the prize for beating a pirate fleet is its General. The General is only at stake when the pirate fleet is wiped out completely. If some pirate ships survive, the General stays with them, and the damaged fleet keeps its place.

If your attacking fleet is destroyed by pirates, any General commanding it is lost for good. Pirates never take prisoners.

Pirates and Colonization

A planet occupied by pirates cannot be colonized. A Colonizer that arrives while pirates are docked there turns back without claiming the planet. Clear the pirates first, or wait for them to move on.

Generals

What a General Does

Every General has a name and three fixed traits:

  • Speed bonus: the fleet it commands travels faster.
  • Attack bonus: the ships it commands hit harder in combat.
  • Fuel penalty: the fleet it commands burns more hydrogen.

The speed and attack bonuses reflect the strength of the pirate fleet the General originally led. The fuel penalty is independent of strength, so two Generals with similar bonuses can differ a lot in how costly they are to fly. A General's traits never change. A General is never a target in combat and has no hull of its own. It affects a battle only through its bonuses.

Capturing a General

When a fleet led by a General is wiped out, the General is either captured by the winning side or killed. Capture is the more likely outcome.

  • You wipe out a pirate fleet or an enemy player's fleet. A captured General boards your surviving fleet as a captive and rides home with it. While it travels it shows on your fleet's galaxy info card as a captive that will join your roster on arrival. It is placed at the planet the fleet launched from when the fleet lands. If the fleet launched from an alliance base, the General goes to your home planet instead, because bases cannot hold Generals.
  • Your planet's defenders wipe out an attacking fleet. A captured General stays at the planet that was attacked, with no journey needed.
  • A captive is not safe until it lands. If the fleet carrying a captive is itself wiped out on the way home, the captive can be recaptured by whoever won that fight, or killed.

A fleet destroyed by pirates always loses its General. When both sides of a battle are destroyed at once, any General involved is killed.

Stationed Generals

Generals live at your planets when they are not commanding a fleet. A planet can hold any number of them, and every General stationed at a planet adds its attack bonus to that planet's defense. The bonuses of several Generals at the same planet add together. The Overview Fleet tab lists which Generals are stationed at each of your planets.

Putting a General in Command

When you dispatch a fleet from a planet where Generals are stationed, the Fleet screen shows a Generals table. Select one to put it in command of that fleet. A fleet carries at most one commanding General, and a General already out with another fleet is shown as unavailable. Generals cannot be assigned when dispatching from an alliance base or from a garrison, and a fleet joining an allied attack travels without one.

In flight, only the commanding General's bonuses and penalty apply to the fleet. The Generals left behind at the planet keep boosting that planet's defense.

A commanding General goes wherever the fleet ends up at one of your planets. It steps off at the destination of a one-way transport to one of your planets, at a newly founded colony, and back at home when the fleet returns from any other mission. This is also how you move a General from one planet to another.

Losing a General

A General is only at risk when the fleet it commands is wiped out entirely. If any ship of the fleet survives a battle, the General stays with the survivors. There is no way to dismiss or scrap a General yourself.

Generals in Combat Reports

Every combat report involving a General has a Generals section. It lists each General on either side, including captives being carried home, and what became of them: captured, killed, or still with their fleet. See Combat.