Hidden pirates

[Chewie]

I think it takes a lot of the fun out of it to have the pirates so easy to spot.

How about:- pirates look like ordinary ships until they either attack you or you have a history of attacking them... i.e. none of them are enemies until they attack. (A bit like bounty hunters).

This would allow them to sneak up on you when you are otherwise busy.

[Chris Gi]

Welcome to the forum, Chewie, and thanks for your idea!

In fact, we're feeling quite the same and already changed some of the Pirate behaviour.

pirates look like ordinary ships

Pirates now may use ships of other races as well. This is a configurable feature, allowing them to either use only their own ships, use ships of the other races like Boron, Argon etc., or even use Xenon ships.
Second: Pirate ships are equipped with an ID-Jammer (configurable as well). Depending on it's mode, it changes the ship name. For example, a Pirate Orinoko enters an Argon Sector. The pirate ship is then renamed to "Argon Nova". In "Difficult" mode, the ID of the ship is also changed from "RM3...." to "AM3...", making it impossible to distinguis a Pirate ship from an Argon ship without explicitly checking the ship type. If the ship the Pirate is using is an Argon Nova, you can only hope the homebase is set to "Piratebase ...". Well, if it's moving faster than an Argon Nova normally would, it uses Pirate tunings...
These all are configurable features. Thus, anyone who likes the old system, could have it the usual way.

[Chewie]

Excellent.

On my old copy of the Genesis mod I had scripted in a range of different pirate owned M3s and made them fly as convoys/wingmen etc. to add some variety.