I wrote this out for another thread, but it seems like a good place to post it here, since it's fairly detailed and with pictures and stuff.
The Pirates all have essentially modified versions of TEC ships. They lack any shields that their TEC counterparts have as well as any special abilities they have, and have some odd decorations, spikes, torches other things that make them appear slightly different than their TEC cousins. They often have better armor than their TEC counterparts and their total hull points is around that of a the TEC's unit's combined hull and shields, but due to the lack of shields they can have no shield mitigation, which makes them very vulnerable to focus fire.
As for the specific ships...
The
Pirate Rogue is one of the most common early pirates to see, it is essentially a TEC
Cobalt Light Frigate. They're pretty standard Light Frigates, they have the same Armor and Damage types as the Cobalt (Medium Armor, Anti-Heavy Damage) decent durability and damage but nothing special. They cannot Sabotage Reactor like an upgraded Cobalt and have no antimatter stores. There's typically only one hanging around the Pirate Base.
The
Pirate Reaper is the Pirate's flak unit, being essentially a modified
Garda Flak Frigate, with the middle section significantly shortened. Like all the flak they have a surprising number of hitpoints, they have Heavy Armor like the Garda, and do Anti-Very-Light Damage. They can cover themselves from all sides, and do well against fighters and bombers. These accompany most raids and serve against fighter craft, there are usually nine of them in the Pirate Base waiting.
The
Pirate Pillager is essentially a
Krosov Siege Frigate with some spikes and the Pirate insignia above it. These are often the greatest threats during pirate raids, since Pirates lack Capitals of any kind, they need these to actually do damage to your worlds, otherwise they are confined to attacking orbital structures and ships in the area. The Pillager has less additional armor that usually accompanies Pirate units compared to a TEC unit, still seem to have Light Armor and do Anti Heavy Damage and still lacking shields, they are usually fairly easy to knock out. Nearly all raids will have at least one of these units in them, and there are usually three Pillagers wasting their lives away the Pirate Bases.
The
Pirate Corsair is the single biggest threat to your ships and structures in most Pirate Raids, being a
Kodiak Heavy Cruiser with the typical pirate decorations, as well as a notable metallic
skull decoration on the bow of the ship. Although slightly fewer hitpoints than a Kodiak, the Corsair has three more armor points than the default Kodiaks and in large groups during later pirate raids they can be very strong, although they typically appear in few numbers earlier in the game. They seem to retain the Very Heavy Armor and Composite Damage of the Kodiak. Corsairs do not have the Intercept ability of the Kodiak. These are the mainstay of the Pirate Base's guard units, usually fourteen of them will be waiting to fend off an assault.
The
Pirate Cutthroat is the only unit wholly unique to the Pirates, having no real counterpart from TEC or any other faction, although it could be considered a support ship of the Pirates, in it's own way.
To me, it does not seem to much resemble the
Percheron Light Carrier, but I guess it's a matter of interpretation, since to me it more resembles an elongated Kodiak. The Cutthroat is the only Pirate vessel that has Antimatter stores and a special ability, called
Plunder, this ability steals an amount of credits from the target ship, and causes a coin to appear above the ship casting the ability. The number of coins may
vary, presumably depending on the amount of credits taken. I'm not sure on how much is taken though with this ability, due to the antimatter drained from jumping and the long cooldown, it's rare for this ability to be used many times during a single raid. According to the game files the Cutthroat has Light Armor and Anti-Medium weaponry. The Cutthroat is a very common Pirate ship to encounter, particularly during early raids, six of them are usually skulking around the Pirate Base.
The Pirate
Defense Platform is a carbon copy of the TEC
Gauss Defense Platform. Fairly powerful with high armor and hit points, with Very Heavy Armor and Anti-Medium damage, they have the weakness of all the stationary turrets, they're immobile and have a short effective range. Only located at the Pirate Base, Nineteen of these encircle the base to make easy bombarding difficult and are fairly concentrated, but can be dispatched with relative ease at long distance.
That's it in a nutshell. Mostly just TEC variants with more armor and no shields, the Cutthroat really is the only unique unit to the Pirates. Presumably their Armor type and Damage types correspond with the unit they mimic, although I can't say for sure what the type of damage or armor the Cutthroat has...
