It was a large map, with five galaxies, all players. I was currently facilitating the downfall of two empires in a star system connected to mine, and mine only. The first thing I did, of course, was set up a foothold, the pirate base. Two birds with one stone. Get rid of the annoying pirates, who would be going after my bounty-wearing head, and gain a defensible foothold. Unfortunately, no.

I had controlled the pirate base for ten minutes, colonized it, developed it, stationed ships and built defences, for I expected it to be a long, drawn out war. I had scout ships at the star at all times, and had recently explored the planets using those ships, in stead of the conquest. I invaded one side, and had captured one of their planets, and was moving on to the next, with a massive fleet. By the time I destroyed their colony on the ice planet, it said pirate raid imminent. I took no notice, because this had happened in my original system, where I had controlled the pirate base, and nothing had happened, to my knowledge. When I reached the enemy's capital, to deliver the killing blow, it said the pirate raid was launched, and within two minutes, it appeared at the first asteroid I took from the opposing faction.

This makes no sense, for I had controlled the pirate base for over fifteen minutes by that time at the least, had units stationed at the star and my captured planets, and had recently scouted. They literally appeared out of nowhere half-way through the phase-lane, despite the fact that I had researched advanced radar to detect incoming ships two jumps away. There was literally no way that the pirates could have built up their fleet like usual and launched a raid. I didn't even have the most bounty out of all the factions in that system anymore. The one who did was on the opposite side of the system. The pirates appeared out of nowhere, literally, with no plausible explanation for doing so, as well as targeting a stronghold I had built up, where there was little bounty to be found compared to others in the system.

Has anyone else experienced this?