+1 To that! Sounds like a great idea.

Yes to Bamdorf and to Ex Mudder. I am very CERTAIN that we are going to get a 'Pirate Arrrgh' DLC in August. There is just too much potential for such a minor add to the game. 

Raiding trade routes.

Extorting funds from all players and AI.

Disrupting mining operations.

Inciting rebellion/unhappiness on nearby worlds!

All can be properly done in a DLC which should keep Derek, Paul and Co all working through the year....

This is just one of the areas in which GC3 can, and I expect will, go from being pretty good at launch to something special over the next few months.

Just my 2c.

Yo Ho Me hearties,Yo Ho!

That's actually a perfect way to implement Ideology points without being forced to settle something.

Pirates should have hidden bases on asteroids. It doesn't make sense that they have shipyards floating in the middle of no where.

They should also be a galaxy wide faction that trades for tech.

This can be modded however I'm unsure of the impact it would have on a game long-term. You could add the Scavenger ability from the Snathi DLC to the Pirate faction allowing them to occasionally capture any ships. Unfortunatly, In order for them to use special ships like constructors you may have to edit the AI a bit as they only seem to use colony ships (I can't help you with Ai editing in Gal Civ 3 yet but i remember seeing a post or 2 about it in the forums somewhere).

You will need to edit the Pirate Faction at the bottom of FactionDefs.xml by adding the following line:

        <RaceTraits>ScavengersAbility</RaceTraits>

to the faction where RaceTraits are Defined

You could also create your own ability based on the Scavenger ability instead to change how often they capture other ships, the scavenger ability is found in  \Galactic Civilizations III\DLC\DLC3_Snathi\Game folder rather than base game folder in the file DCC3_AbilityDefs

The pirate faction ship style uses asteroid bases for their star bases and you could use the above method to allow them to capture and use constructors.

If you want to just change the look of the shipyards they use you could either create a new one and replace the current shipyard or you could replace it with one of the pirate starbase designs. Keep in mind that this will replace the shipyard for any faction using the default Pirate shipstyle. To avoid this I would recommend making a copy of the default pirate shipstyle to make your changes on with a new name, then editing the Pirate faction in FactionDefs to use the new shipstyle.

Info on creating ship style sets can be found in the following links:

https://forums.galciv3.com/465834/page/1/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl2RVWDTvzE&list=PLVA5Lf10pstMfYckhKGNE2YjlAtbRaTD1&index=1

Thats not how I would see space pirates. I would see them as more advanced versions of their naval counterparts. As in they would attack your ship, kill your crew, take some hostage to refill their ranks possibly, and loot/salvage your stuff. Thats it, thats all the interaction they should provide.