The Privateer Bands

Privateer portrait from Planets Nu

The Privateer Bands race icon from VGA Planets Nu

The Privateers are derived from the Orion Pirates of Star Trek: The Original Series.

Race Characteristics

Overall, the Privateers are statistically one of the more successful races. The Privateers are built around the ability to hide and rob ships, then capture them through towing. They are weak in a straight fight. However, they have valuable advantages in speed and stealth. The Privateers are considered a difficult race to play because of the coordination and planning required.

Strategy Guides

Privateer Guide at Gaming-Strategy.com Privateer Discussion Panel from PlanetsCon 2023.

Racial Abilities

• Gravatonic Accelerators: 3 Privateer ships have Gravatonic Acccelerators, which allow them to travel twice as far as other ships at the same warp speed.
• Rob Ship: robs fuel from ships at the same point in space.
• Beam tuning: Beams weapons deal three times the normal crew killing.
• Tow capture: Can tow-capture fuelless ships. (also called boarding)
• All of the crew goes traitor when boarded by another ship.
• Cannot clone foreign ship designs

Ship List

See The master ship list for a list of The Privateer Bands ships.

Important Ships

• Meteor Class Blockade Runner: This ship is one of the most important and sought-after in the game. The MCBR has a Gravatonic Accelerator in addition to significant fuel and cargo capacity, 4 beams and 4 torpedo tubes. It is the Privateers' main ship for taking larger prey. Besides robbing, the MCBR can be used effectively for logistics, towing around other ships.
• Br5 Kaye Class Torpedo Boat: A small ship, but it has a Gravatonic Accelerator and two engines, and useful for towing and smaller capture.
• Br4 Class Gunship: Similar to the Br5, but with 5 beams instead of 4 beams and 1 torp tube.

While being fast, the MBCR, Br4, and Br5 will all be destroyed by a mine hit.

• Lady Royale Class Cruiser: The LRCC generates credits when carrying clans.
• Bloodfang Class Carrier: With 7 beams and 4 fighter bays, the 'fang is the heaviest ship in the Privateer fleet but mediocre among the heavier ships in the game.

Strategy

Overall Strategy

Offensively, the main tactic of the Privateers is to use "wolfpacks" to rob and then tow ships they wish to acquire. Defensively, it is similar. Since the Privateers' main ships are not heavy, and because they are weak in a straight fight, they often use the excess minerals to build defensive starbases.

Early Game

The Privateers, using the Gravatonic Accelerators, can expand quickly early. They are also able to pick off other races unarmed transports early.

Fighting Against Privateers

It can be frustrating to fight against Privateers. This section will explain to cope with Privateer infiltration into your space.

• Be cautious and don't put your ships in dangerous situations. Do not try to intercept Privateer ships in the hopes of killing them.
• Ally if you can with a race with anti-cloaking technology like the Loki (Feds, Lizard) or D19b (Fascists). Crystal webmines can be a very effective defense against Privateers. Having your own cloaked ships (Like thet Birdmen's Dark Wing or Resolute) can help you avoid being robbed, and attacking Privateer planets.
• Set primary enemy to privateers or kill mission, at all times.
• Lay minefields around your planets. Multiple, overlapping minefields are best because they are harder for Privateer to sweep. Play tricks with the enemy by laying minefields, then scooping them up again. When Privateer thinks it's safe and there are no mines, surprise minefields in their path can result in many destroyed MCBR, which cannot survive 1 mine hit.
• Use Beam-up Fuel mission over planets in case you get robbed. If you own the colony or if it's un-owned, you will beam up fuel after getting robbed, allowing you to get away. Whenever you are over a planet you are secure in controlling (have a lot of clans on), Have only 1 fuel on board and then beam up fuel. This will minimize the amount of fuel that Privateer can rob from you to fill their fuel tanks with.
  

If you are afraid that a cloaked Privateer ship may ground attack a planet to prevent you from beaming up its fuel, set the planet's friendly code to match your ship's, so that you can still beam up fuel after losing the planet.

• Use ion storms to your advantage by timing your attacks on enemy planets or ships with ion storms. The ion storms will de-cloak the enemy ships.
• If you think your ships are at risk of getting captured, do not put any beams on them. This will prevent the privateer enemy from using them against you to rob your ships of fuel. Carriers and torp ships are still quite good without beams, as long as they have ammo for fighters/torps.
• If you are a cloaking race, stay cloaked to avoid getting robbed. Cloak happens before rob in host order, so as long as you are not damaged, you can cloak to protect yourself from getting robbed. Carry extra supplies with you to repair battle damage against Meteors, to avoid getting robbed.

Alliances

Overall

Most races benefit greatly from an alliance from the Privateers, more than the Privateers benefit from an alliance with them. Therefore, Privateers players may with to ally defensively. Combining advantages and disadvantages, the Robots make a good ally.

The Solar Federation

The Feds are attractive for having a number of ships with special abilities, and some effective heavy ships.

The Privateer Bands

Set AlliancePrivateer= in page. Information about allying with ..

The Cyborg

The heavy and powerful Borg cubes, towed by Privateer MCBRs at double speed can be a very effective, hard-hitting combination.

The Crystal Confederation

Since webmines are so difficult to handle for the Privateers, the Crystals are a good race for the Privateers to keep good relations with. The Crystals will want cloaking ships for dropping webmines, allowing them to turn their strong defensive advantage into offense.

The Robotic Imperium

The heavy and powerful Robot ships, towed by Privateer MCBRs at double speed can be a very effective, hard-hitting combination. Also, the 'bots will seek cloaking ships to drop mines in advance of a battle group, or behind enemy lines to disrupt internal movements.

Enemies

Overall

Races with special minelaying abilities or Loki decloaking abilities have the best answers for the Privateer tactics; cloaked ships avoid being robbed.

The Solar Federation

Fed Loki class destroyers will decloak ships seeking to rob, allowing them to be destroyed.

The Lizard Alliance

Lizard Loki class destroyers will decloak ships seeking to rob, allowing them to be destroyed.

The Empire of Birds

The Birds have some ability to avoid being robbed because of the number of ships with cloaking devices.

The Fascist Empire

Fascist Glory devices can make things difficult for Privateers.

The Privateer Bands

Set EnemyPrivateer= in page. Information about fighting with ..

The Crystal Confederation

The Crystal webmines are the most effective defense against Privateers.

The Robotic Imperium

The 'bot 4x minelaying makes traveling across many lightyears with gravatonic accelerators a hazardous proposition.