0.80 The pirates are hiding in ship graveyards and are imposible to kill.

I created a special escort, I took a small hull and loaded it with beams. and engines and gave them a smidgen of Armor. I produce 2 for each Survey ship and so far as a fleet they fly to the anomalies and have been beating the pirates and getting the goodies. 

Thanks, I'll try that, but it seems wrong to me that the survey ship that I created with weapons should lose them when analyzing an anomaly. In the battle viewer it shows that the weapons are not there.

As the Terrans all of my survey ships have weapons and while it seems I am only getting the warning on manual survey, the only way I have lost is when my hit points are eroded to about half. The weapons work fine in the battle viewer.

With a custom race my surveyors show that they have weapons but you can't tell from the battle viewer. The just fly around taking fire and they win about 50% anyway.

Weird, go figure?? It obviously needs some work. I also did the fleet thing exactly as Larsenex and that does work well, plus the fighters get the surveyor bonuses from the graveyard anomalies.

My starting surveyor can beat the pirates as long as it's above about half hull strength.  I also designed another medium hull surveyor with beam, armor, shields, and ECM, and it beats the pirates too.  Surveyors I've found in ship graveyards have no weapons at all, so they lose.

And I am playing a custom race I based on the Terrans.