[Suicide Junkie]

If you don't want to depopulate, just use a standard colony ship and manually transfer 1M.

The point I'm trying to make is that pirates should not have ANY colonies.

In the game I'm playing, My homeworld has been producing more resources than I need. The two colonies just add to that.

Only recently have I run low. Since I recently got Crew converters, and I'm trying to retrofit 60 ships.
After running out of minerals, I started trading with the other races, but now I'm out of organics & radioactives too. I've actually had to capture ships for scrap, and I get just over one ship retroed for each scrap ship.

IMO, pirates should not be using planetary-made resources like this. Scrapping should be important, so therefore no colonies should be allowed. Captured Colony ships provide 100% of my new colonies (so far, 100 turns in, thats two colonies & one on the way after repairs)

I am in 1st place, with higher tech than anybody else and haven't built a single colony ship! I control 3 planets and one colony ship.

It is my firm belief that (human) pirates do not need, and should not have colony tech in any way shape or form. Colony Captures are unavoidable, but acceptable.

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How did I get first in tech levels with only 10,000 research points you ask?
Simple - everybody else researched different tech areas, and I stole 'em all.