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[yajusenpai]

Imagine lugging around thousand of marine, pay for their salary, kick some door down raid for supplies, have 40% your man die and what you gain won't even last you two weeks.

Imagine colony destabilize and decivilize just by getting robbed such a meager sum when they easily produce 20x more than that.

[Megas]

Raiding for commodities used to give significantly more per raid, and was very profitable, then the spoils were cut back to what we have now.  It is still free stuff if you know who and what to raid.  Helps to raid multiple commodities at the same time to distract them and reduce casualties.

[Phenir]

Pick better targets for raiding or make better targets for raiding by tac bomb, creating supply shortage, and/or destroy orbital station. Use ground support ships to supplement your marines so your raid strength is higher with less marines, reducing the cost of your losses. Also experienced marines and tactical drills skill are a thing. Keep an eye on bars to be able to buy groups of fully experienced marines for cheap and also for security codes which vastly reduce casualties once.
As for whether raiding is worth it or not, it could be the only way to get some colony items or blueprints in some seeds. Even if you don't need it, a pristine forge does sell for 500k iirc. Then you sell it back to them and loot it again lol.

[Thaago]

Raiding is profitable when you don't try to take on the equivalent of a military base with a squirt gun (if you are losing 40% of your people you are just sending them on suicide attacks instead of targets they can handle).

If you can find one, check out the Phantom. Not only does it provide a great stealth bonus to your fleet, but it adds up to +200 ground combat strength (which is base strength, so gets multiplied by marine veterency and the leadership skill).

[yajusenpai]

Raiding is profitable when you don't try to take on the equivalent of a military base with a squirt gun (if you are losing 40% of your people you are just sending them on suicide attacks instead of targets they can handle).

If you can find one, check out the Phantom. Not only does it provide a great stealth bonus to your fleet, but it adds up to +200 ground combat strength (which is base strength, so gets multiplied by marine veterency and the leadership skill).

You notice this only make raiding even more unprofitable, right?
You need MULTIPLE SPECIALIZED RARE ship that require it's own supply and fuel, having to lug around ship that is no good in combat. It is a constant drain on your resource.
You have to buy the marine, you have to pay the marine.
Without colony pumping money into your wallet, having a competent fighting force is an expensive endeavor. If you have a colony you don't really need to raid except for a few colony item as you basically print money.

In comparison you can just rob a convoy without all the preparation and headache. Just use your usual and be rich.
A lot less investment, a lot more payoff.

Beside, If you have the Army that can completely suppress a colony with minimal loss, why don't you just take the colony?
Even if you can't hold it, you can just sell everything and throw it away.

[Thaago]

The Phantom was a piece of advice because it is so good: you can do it with the extremely common Valkyrie (or the pirate cruiser with ground support) or no ship at all. If I'm in the mood I raid from directly out of the tutorial and it is extremely profitable, even without the numerous bar missions you get for marine actions.

Plus your math is completely wrong: the upkeep from marines + a ship is much less than what you make from a few raids. Just a simple pirate station will give 20k+ in supplies and fuel and small/medium core planets give similar or more. None require very much investment (I think for pirate bases I break even if I hit 1 every 6 months, and that's with taking no marine bar missions at all. Those pay good money: a single one of those will cover a years worth of marine expenses, easy). Only the major military worlds have all that high defenses.

...

Beside, If you have the Army that can completely suppress a colony with minimal loss, why don't you just take the colony?
Even if you can't hold it, you can just sell everything and throw it away.

This explains it: You are playing with mods that completely change how raiding and ground combat works. The base game is not like that.

[yajusenpai]

Plus your math is completely wrong: the upkeep from marines + a ship is much less than what you make from a few raids. Just a simple pirate station will give 20k+ in supplies and fuel and small/medium core planets give similar or more. None require very much investment (I think for pirate bases I break even if I hit 1 every 6 months, and that's with taking no marine bar missions at all. Those pay good money: a single one of those will cover a years worth of marine expenses, easy). Only the major military worlds have all that high defenses.

Actual cost:
Approaching: Hostility for going in loud, OP/Story point for Insulated Engine Assembly and Militarized Subsystem and One Whole Skill Point for Sensors if stealthing. A few phase ship are useful so maybe One More Whole Skill Point for Phase Coil Tuning if you are going that route.
Crack the Orbital station: Supplies and fuel cost and weapon cost of a fleet that is able to take on a station (because you amass this naturally), Deployment cost for ship you deploy to defeat the Orbital station and its defender, Recovery cost if your ship go boom, Hostility/Relationship cost for the act of piracy
Tactical bombardment: Fuel cost depending on target's ground defenses.
Ground support ship: Time cost/Credit cost you need to find and obtain the Ground support ship, Recovery Supplies cost if you decide to steal the ship, Supplies and fuel cost when you lug your Ground support ship to the target, storage cost when for some reason you store your ship outside an abandoned station, Ship slot cost for lugging around ship unsuitable for combat
Tactical Drill: One Whole Skill Point. Opportunity cost of using that skill point elsewhere.
Marine: Credit cost for buying them, Credit cost for their salary, crew space.
Raiding: Credit cost and time cost to replenish lost Marine, (Possibly) Story point cost if you decide to use it, Hostility/Relationship cost for the act of piracy.
Inventory: Storage space for the extra cargo to hold the loot, Supplies and fuel cost for the extra cargo ship.
Destabilize and decivilize: Raiding reduce stability so you can't keep doing it.

Some of it is one time cost, some you continue to pay, I see that as "require very much investment". I also see you are ignoring quite a bit of the necessary calculation.

Considering you can skip majority of that by attacking convoy, getting a lot more loot without having to deal with a station.
I reassert my claim that raiding are no where near profitable enough. Achieving less, with more.

Using Heavy armament as example, Raiding usually never give you more than two digit, but attacking convoy or even invasion force can give you 400 or so.
I can even argue that invasion force are the best target as they give you ton of Heavy armament, Supplies, Metal and weapon.

This explains it: You are playing with mods that completely change how raiding and ground combat works. The base game is not like that.

That doesn't explain anything. I don't really know what make you think that.
I mean if you have overwhelming force to easily raid, you are more than likely to be able to take over a colony by force.
Taking a colony is good because colony generate passive profit , dismantling colony are instant profit.
It is just a simple statement.

[Megas]

Re costs:
* Re: Approaching:  No patrols in some systems so you can approach with impunity if your fleet is big enough to scare away the small pirate fleets and to discourage the traders from defending the market.  And if it is out in the fringe where you want to blow up the pirate or pather base anyway, raid then first for goodies then kill the station.  Even if you want to leave the base alive, pirates are probably enemies, maybe pathers too, so raid them for your free stuff.  Do not approach big heavily guarded worlds for raiding until raiding for rare items, but in that case, the loot is priceless and cost is no object.

* Re: Orbital Station:  For casual raiding of goodies with low danger, just ignore it.  Stations do not stop raids unless supported by other fleets (which is a reason to bring a large enough fleet to scare the fleets away from joining).  It only blocks bombings, which may/do not apply to popup stations out in the fringe.  If raiding a battlestation for blueprints, breaking the station helps, although that results in additional problems (fight all nearby defense fleets nearby, more rep loss, locked out of docking for services beyond contacts for longer).

* Re: Tactical Bombarbment:  No need against a small target with weak defenses.  Also, not an option if stealth raiding since this will auto-id you to the target faction for insta-hostile, assuming previous non-hostile rep.

* Re: Tactical Drills:  Not required, even against the likes of size 7 homeworlds.  Sure, it helps, but you can still raid without it if you cannot afford the skill and can pile up the Phantoms and marines.

* Re: Marines:  It is a good idea to bring about a couple hundred if interested in bar missions, especially hangar raid with powered armor pirate that lets you buy a ship cheap if you have enough marines on hand.  If not interested in those activities, then sure, it is a cost.

* Re: Raiding:  If raiding low danger commodities from a small world, casualties will be minimal.  If the target is an enemy (like pirates), rep is no problem.  If the target is non-hostile, stealth raid for low rep loss.  (Tip: Raiding with Ziggurat does not auto-id you, only actual ship combat with Z in the fleet auto-ids.)  If raiding for blueprints or forges, sure, casualties are high, but at this point, the loot is effectively priceless, and you pay anything to get them.  Taking time off to shop for replacement marines all over the place is the bigger problem with blueprint raiding (although doing so mitigates the six month wait for +2 stability to recover).

* Re: Inventory:  With reduced spoils of newer releases, not really a problem for a fleet big enough to scare away patrols and merchant convoys hovering around the market since you get dozens or a few hundred units, much less than all of the scrap loot from a typical late-game fight.

* Re: Destabilize and decivilize:  Does not matter against a hidden pirate or pather base in the fringe.  Even in the core worlds, if raiding for commodities only, once is enough because you probably swiped all of their excess inventory and cannot steal enough anymore to be worth it until they restock.  Only when chain-raiding for blueprints does this get annoying, although raiding with minimum forces for success for -2 stability instead of -3 helps.  Then again, casualties from blueprint raiding will be high, and player may need to leave anyway to get more marines.

Assuming gameplay without any mods.

Why not take over a colony?  Because you can't in an unmodded game.  The best that can be done in a no-mod game is to kill the world off then rebuild it as one of your new colonies over its dead corpse.  Player cannot take over worlds like the Knights can.

[yajusenpai]

It is fun overlooking into thing.

Re costs:

Not always can we do a perfect raid, any imperfection are paid for in blood.

Assuming gameplay without any mods.

Why not take over a colony?  Because you can't in an unmodded game.  The best that can be done in a no-mod game is to kill the world off then rebuild it as one of your new colonies over its dead corpse.  Player cannot take over worlds like the Knights can.

I guess not playing unmodded long enough do that to you. Last time I do that is like 1760.
In that case, it is one less reason to carry around a bunch of marine.
Bar Marine Mission are like the worst kind of mission there are.

[Bungee_man]

Raiding is basically free money, especially for pirate planets that are hostile either way and rarely have any defenses. Beyond that, you can cripple entire factions and secure colony items, and can be used to get large sums of supplies in the later game, so it is definitely useful in its current incarnation.

I do think the stability costs of raiding could be changed a bit, though. Right now, just sitting on a planet for about a minute or so lets you permanently remove it from existence, which feels a bit silly. Maybe scale up the rate at which recent raids increase defensive strength. I also suggested making pirate planets a bit more resistant to raids with an alternative spaceport structure a while back, which reduced production but also reduced raid effectiveness, so that the player isn't left wondering why nobody else is harvesting infinity free volatiles from Umbra.

[DeltaEpsilon]

Raiding can be made very profitable by applying it strategically. Trying to raid from neutral state is a futile endeavour.

If you want to get actual money from raiding commodities, you need to make the market have a massive oversupply of profitable commodities first. This is critical to ensure you get something worthwhile!
The easiest way to do that is to disrupt industries that use the commodities on planets that produce them. Once you have the beautiful like 5-6 greens, you can raid for that commodity and get a silly amount of it for free, more than you would be able by buying it from the market (both open and black). Then it's just a matter of selling it, which can be further be made profitable by inducing a shortage elsewhere.

If all goes well, you can quite readily be making hundreds of thousands this way.

[Beep Boop]

Actual cost:
Approaching: Hostility for going in loud, OP/Story point for Insulated Engine Assembly and Militarized Subsystem and One Whole Skill Point for Sensors if stealthing. A few phase ship are useful so maybe One More Whole Skill Point for Phase Coil Tuning if you are going that route.

There's a difference between going in LOUD, and going in BLACK. It's perfectly acceptable to be loud if your goal is to raid them. As long as they don't actually know who you are, you can be as loud as you want. You also might just plain not care. See below.

Crack the Orbital station: Supplies and fuel cost and weapon cost of a fleet that is able to take on a station (because you amass this naturally), Deployment cost for ship you deploy to defeat the Orbital station and its defender, Recovery cost if your ship go boom

You can perform a raid without assault the orbital station. It helps, but isn't required.

Hostility/Relationship cost for the act of piracy

This assumes the people you raid actually like you. There's relationship penalty to raiding Pirates or Pathers.
Some of it is one time cost, some you continue to pay, I see that as "require very much investment". I also see you are ignoring quite a bit of the necessary calculation.

Using Heavy armament as example, Raiding usually never give you more than two digit, but attacking convoy or even invasion force can give you 400 or so.

Say what now? I can get a few hundred for sacking Kapteyn. Are you only clicking to send one marine party? You gotta send the full party.

I mean if you have overwhelming force to easily raid, you are more than likely to be able to take over a colony by force.

Yeah, hey, there is no such thing in vanilla.

[majk]

People, are we seriously going to defend raiding as a source of income because:
"If everything is min/maxed and done perfectly you can make profit!"?
Seriously?

I did a few playthroughs including min/maxing and raiding was only useful for three things:
1:
Stealing coloy items.
This is no doubt THE goat and maing reason why i would bother with raiding.
2:
Ending tri-tach crisis withot bothering with their fleets.
3:
Decivilizing planets to colonize if you don't want to be permanently hostile to half of the sector for setting off some orbital fireworks.
This one sucks, decivilized tag on a planet is such a bother.

Raiding for money is pointless, you can do almost anything else to make WAY more cash without ruining your reputation.
It is really sad but butchering trade fleets is more profitable and safer than trying to raid planets.
Doing exploration quests gives more money.
Selling to markets for which you butchered trade fleets is better.
Bounties give you cash and 'new' ships.
Ai farming made me about 10milion spacebucks in two months(including the round trip to and from the red system).

By the time you get enough stuff to raid for money, the amount of profit you can make from it is pathetic.
Yes, you can make profit, but why spend 10bucks to make 12bucks when there are far better ways to print cash.

[DeltaEpsilon]

People, are we seriously going to defend raiding as a source of income because:
"If everything is min/maxed and done perfectly you can make profit!"?
Seriously?

It's not a good source of income, far from it, but it can be made a source of income.

By the time you get enough stuff to raid for money, the amount of profit you can make from it is pathetic.

Well, it's not that pathetic. Getting 150k-250k a pop isn't bad.

[Megas]

Raiding for commodities is an opportunistic thing for me.  If I haul a few hundred marines in case I want to raid hangars for ships (during midgame when I take any good pristine ship I can find for sale), I might as well raid the poorly defended outlaw worlds for some extra stuff now and then.  I generally bring one or two raider ships and about 200 marines with my late-game fleet to buy ships in bars and to bully a weak pirate base or two along the way.

Decivilizing planets to colonize if you don't want to be permanently hostile to half of the sector for setting off some orbital fireworks.
This one sucks, decivilized tag on a planet is such a bother.

Yes.  If I want to recolonize that world, sat-bombing is the way to go since Decivilized is so bad.  Even if the world was habitable, I will take Pollution over Decivilized any day.  I read that sat-bombing a world off the map can remove Decivilized, which got me thinking maybe I can build up a decivilized colony and let the Pathers or Diktat bomb that world off the map during a crisis to remove Decivilized after it grows to size 4, before I rebuild it without Decivilized.

Would be nice if player can bomb a decivilized world before colonizing to remove it.  Even better would be to remove it after colony grows to max size since the growth bonus no longer applies, but the stability and hazard penalties remain.