Pirate Cutthroat

Unlike all the other ships in the Pirate's arsenal, the Pirate Cutthroat serves primarily as an offensive support ship for the Pirate Armada.

Overview

The Pirate Cutthroat actually is a one of a kind and does not resemble any of the military TEC ships, instead being modeled after a TEC Trade ship without a cargo hold. It is the actual raider in a pirate fleet and uses its Embargo and Plunder abilities to steal money directly from a player.

Tactics

Using the Pirate Cutthroat

You can field Cutthroats yourself if you can capture them, for example with the Corsev Battlecruiser. While Cutthroats can function as a front line fighter with a fairly significant relative damage bonus advantage versus light frigates, they also have utility cruiser features. If you have several Cutthroats, you can Embargo multiple planets by sending them on a multi-pronged mission. Their embargo income and production reduction factors are those that of a level 1 Sova Carrier. Their antimatter regenration is however only .5/sec, so they need 170 seconds to recharge enough antimatter to use the ability (longer than the 120 seconds ability cooldown), while a level 1 Sova can recharge the antimater needed for the Embargo ability in just 100 seconds. The Cutthroats can also steal money directly by attacking ships with an ability called Plunder.

Fighting the Pirate Cutthroat

Travels in raid groups with Pirate Corsairs, often favors civilian targets, while the Corsairs attack enemy threats. Individually weak, but its five laser cannons quickly add up in the large groups it often forms, especially when defending its base from a disgruntled empire tired of pirate attacks or one eager for capital ship levels. The Pirate Cutthroat makes up a large portion of pirate raids, and there are usually six defending each Pirate base. The Cutthroat is the only pirate ship with an ability (Plunder) which steals income from ships, but strangely not structures. The Cutthroat has damage bonus versus medium and light armor, so it will often seek such targets in the gravity well, including all civilian ships.

Against the Cutthroat, you could send your fastest ships and fighters/bombers to deal with them. Tasking your slower, more powerful ships with attacking this target is more risky because Cutthroats often do not tend to stop and fight the ship you're attacking it with. They will instead relentlessly seek out and attack your civilian ships and structures, leading your ships on a wild goose chase throughout the gravity well, where your ships would be more effective dealing with stationary Corsairs. Given however that most of your frigates (except heavy cruisers) and fighters/bombers only deal half damage versus pirate armor, a more cost-effective solution is to plant turrets or a starbase in the area that the Cutthroats are likely to roam; you can predict this by noticing the path that your trade ships take in and out of the gravity well. Because of the multipliers, a single turret does approximately four times the damage that a light frigate can dish versus pirates.