I'm guessing the devs are more looking at bugs then game changes but I feel this simple idea might alleviate some of the problems I'm seeing people are having with pirates, primarily with how the AI interacts with them.
I'm hearing a lot about the AI getting killed by pirates, even in the last Dev steam they talked about how its a hard problem to fix and they are trying to work on a solution, albeit so far unsuccessfully
As it seems that now pirates are not in nebulae any more, and most of them seem to spawn next to planets to guard them basically. Why not add a small area of influence around their base similar to a mining star-base where if a planet or resource is within its sphere of control, you can't mine them or colonize a planet until you kill the pirates controlling it. (see picture below)
This would prevent cheese tactics by human players(guessing people might have a problem with this). Could also stop the AI sending colony's into there death over and over all the time, basically balancing the tactics that could be used by AI vs Player. Instead of seeing an empty planet and the AI going "oh I'll get that" and go to its death, it will go "oh I'll have to kill that pirate first as its controlling that area , then I'll send in my colony. This would also give more of a Flavor to the pirates then what they are right now making them seem less like mindless wandering barbarians and more a controlling force in the galaxy.
Now i know there are probably other issues people are having with pirates, but im curious to see how this solution could change the game for better.
