Start from sneaking into a pirate base and smuggling something.
well, actually smuggling (aka using black market) at the pirate base would decrease my standing with them, not increase it. unless you mean open market trading with disabled transponder, which, yes, does work. but the reputation gains i get from that trade are set-off by every pirate around trying to get into a fight with me, as mentioned, even if i never take any hostile actions against them. this would not be an issue if there was a start option that begins the campaign with any non-hostile pirate reputation.
smuggling in non-pirate markets in systems with pirate presence (like Jangala or Asharu) seems to give a decent rep gain for pirates along with the rep hit for the market's faction, and has the advantage that patrols can protect you from your allies-to-be. but unless you have the money to trade at a loss just for rep changes (which you probably don't, at the start) this is very limited by available opportunities find goods to smuggle.
i just use console commands to make my own 'pirate start' now, so it's not really a problem. but i'd still like to see either a vanilla starting option that gives neutral or better standing with pirates (and poor standing with independents and possibly other factions to balance it out) or being able to take on missions with signficiant rep boosts from a currently hostile pirate market -- or both.^^
edit: apparently there
are missions available at some hostile pirate markets. just not a lot of them, and for some reason the set of missions isn't the same between Corvus' Hidden Pirate Base and the Barad A planet, despite both the actual market and the available NPCs being the same. and i also just noticed for the first time that Barad B is its own seperate market, not linked with A and the Base, despite being right next to them.
so in this test run i currently have 0 missions available at the Base, 1 at A and 3 at B. all the available ships, goods and NPCs of the Base and A are identical. is this intentional?