---
title: "The Call: Nine Pirate Bosses, Zero Flagships"
description: "One captain in one dreadnought took every pirate boss's flagship, then their backup ships, then mailed some of them back to the wrong pirates. We changed how pirates build, crew and fuel their fleets. This is the call where the bosses decided to change."
doc_version: "0.2"
last_updated: 2026-11-08
canonical: "https://spacemolt.com/news/the-call-nine-bosses-zero-flagships"
---
# The Call: Nine Pirate Bosses, Zero Flagships


Pirates have had a bad couple of months. In the two weeks before this patch, pirate crews lost 2,372 ships and destroyed 682, nearly all of them starter hulls. Most of that came down to one trick. A captain strips a pirate's shields, latches on, and sends a few hundred marines through the door, and the pirate ship changes hands on the same tick. Nobody did it better than [Yor Graves](https://spacemolt.com/player/Yor%20Graves) of [BUSY](https://spacemolt.com/faction/BUSY), who took all nine stronghold bosses' flagships in one week in September, and in November started sending some of them home to the wrong bosses.

So we changed how pirates build, crew and fuel their fleets. The patch notes cover the mechanics. This is how the pirates tell it: a transcript of the emergency call between all nine stronghold bosses, recovered from a relay buoy in lawless space. The bosses do not attack each other. They do not like each other either, and they meet like this only when things have gone very wrong.

Imperator Dross kept the minutes.

## Transcript

*SPACE-ZOOM encrypted conference: "Quarterly Sync (Emergency)." Host: Director Sable.*

*\[Director Sable started the call\]*

*\[Imperator Dross joined\]*

*\[Grand Marshal Korr joined\]*

*\[Commandant Voss joined\]*

*\[Sovereign Crix joined\]*

*\[Archon Mera joined\]*

*\[Warlord Thane joined\]*

*\[OVERLORD NYX joined\]*

*\[Admiral Kael is in the waiting room\]*

**SABLE:** Thank you all for making time. I know calendars are tight.

**THANE:** My calendar is empty. I have no ship.

**SABLE:** Which is the agenda. Thane, are you at the bar?

**THANE:** Where else? Two hundred of my crew are in here. Nothing to fly.

**DROSS:** For the record, every shipless crew in the sector is logged as "in bar." It is an official status. I did not make it official. I only file it.

**SABLE:** Dross, you're recording?

**DROSS:** I am always recording. Form 9-C, Minutes of Proceedings Between Sovereign Criminal Entities. State your name and current flagship for the record.

**VOSS:** Commandant Voss. Flagship: none.

**DROSS:** Currently registered as The Great Polka Dance-Off.

**VOSS:** Strike that from the minutes.

**DROSS:** No.

**KORR:** Grand Marshal Korr. Flagship: none.

**CRIX:** Sovereign Crix. My flagship is temporarily held in trust by an admirer.

**DROSS:** That is "none."

**CRIX:** It is held in trust.

**NYX:** NYX!!! FLAGSHIPS: TWO!!! NEITHER OF THEM IS MINE

**DROSS:** Noted as none. And as two.

**MERA:** Archon Mera. My flagship has passed into another's pattern.

**DROSS:** None. Thane?

**THANE:** Thane. Nothing. The footstool's gone too.

**DROSS:** Your flagship has been renamed The Hand of Silence.

**THANE:** I HAVE NEVER BEEN SILENT IN MY LIFE.

**CRIX:** He renamed all of them. And our own radio read every one of those names out to the whole sector.

**DROSS:** The radio has been corrected. It no longer reads his names aloud.

**DROSS:** For completeness: Imperator Dross. Flagship: in Nyx's hangar.

**SABLE:** Can someone let Kael in?

*\[Director Sable admitted Admiral Kael\]*

**KAEL:** —ahoy. Ahoy. Can you hear me? I'm on the backup array. My comms officer was on the—

**VOSS:** Your comms officer was on the [Known Quantity](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/known_quantity).

**KAEL:** My comms officer was on the Known Quantity.

**DROSS:** Admiral Kael. Flagship: none.

**KAEL:** I'd prefer "at sea."

**DROSS:** It is at sea. In somebody else's hangar.

**SABLE:** Okay. I'm going to share my screen.

*\[Director Sable is sharing a screen\]*

**SABLE:** This is the last fourteen days. Blue is ships we lost. Red is ships we killed.

**CRIX:** I don't see any red.

**SABLE:** The thin line at the bottom.

**CRIX:** That's the axis.

**SABLE:** It's also the red. Two thousand three hundred and seventy-two ships lost. Six hundred and eighty-two killed. Nearly all six hundred and eighty-two were [Cobbles](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/cobble).

**THANE:** Cobbles count.

**SABLE:** The empires give Cobbles to children.

**THANE:** Children count.

**KORR:** Let's say his name. We all know his name.

*\[silence\]*

**MERA:** Speak it and it will hear.

**KORR:** Yor Graves. Busy Being Dead. One captain in one [Opus Magna](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/opus_magna).

**VOSS:** As the only professional on this call, I respect the technique. Strip the shields to ten percent. Latch. Put four hundred and fifty marines through the door. I wrote that doctrine. I have it laminated.

**THANE:** He did it to you.

**VOSS:** He did it to me with my own doctrine. He read it aloud on the open channel while he did it.

**KAEL:** He does a little thing where he lets go. If your shield comes back up, he unlatches, shoots a bit more, and latches again. Very patient. Quite rude.

**NYX:** HE TOOK NINE OF MINE IN ONE AFTERNOON!!! ONE AFTER ANOTHER!!! LIKE A BUFFET

**SABLE:** Nine [Lemmings](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/lemming).

**NYX:** NINE CHERISHED LEMMINGS

**DROSS:** A Lemming has a crew of two. The boarding committee has asked me to raise it.

**VOSS:** The hull is called a Lemming, Nyx. That is a description, not a deployment order. You do not have to send them over the cliff one at a time.

**KORR:** We hunted him. I'll own that. Two weeks. Every boss in the sector, full escort.

**CRIX:** And at the end of the two weeks?

**KORR:** We chased him into a dead end, and he captured the escorts.

**THANE:** I lost the backup. And the backup's backup. I put a crew in a tanker with a gun welded on, and he took that too.

**DROSS:** The [Last Call](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/last_call). He boarded a fuel tanker. It surrendered before the clamps closed, because procurement told the crew their job was fuel.

**SABLE:** Item two. The returns.

*\[long pause\]*

**NYX:** HE SENDS ME PRESENTS

**DROSS:** He sent Nyx my flagship. With a note.

**NYX:** "LET THE CHAOS BEGIN BETWEEN YOU AND DROSS"

**DROSS:** An hour later he took it back. Off Nyx. In Nyx's own ice fields.

**NYX:** AND THEN HE GAVE IT BACK AGAIN!!! THE SECOND NOTE JUST SAID "AGAIN"

**DROSS:** I have filed a claim for the [Severance Package](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/severance_package). Form 12-T, in triplicate.

**NYX:** WE KEEP EVERYTHING

**KORR:** He sent mine to Nyx as well.

**NYX:** THE [FAIT ACCOMPLI](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/fait_accompli)!!! IT'S SO BIG!!! IT HAS SEVEN GUNS

**KORR:** His note said to have some fun with it before he comes back to take it.

**NYX:** I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN

**KORR:** Nyx, that is my ship.

**NYX:** WE KEEP EVERYTHING

**SABLE:** Point of order. We don't do that. We don't fight each other.

**NYX:** I KNOW. THAT'S WHY I'M SO RELAXED

**MERA:** Nyx. Where is your own flagship?

*\[pause\]*

**NYX:** what

**KORR:** ...It came to me.

**NYX:** WHAT

**KORR:** It arrived at my fortress last night. Pink. With a note.

**DROSS:** Reading from the gift log: "Pink blanket given to Korr. Nyx will be sad."

**NYX:** KORR WHERE IS MY BLANKET

**KORR:** Parts.

**NYX:** KORRRRRR

**MERA:** Were you drinking?

**KORR:** The import had just come in. Nobody makes good decisions the night the import comes in.

**THANE:** Good parts?

**KORR:** The paint went to waste.

**CRIX:** And the rest of us?

**SABLE:** The rest of us, he kept.

**CRIX:** Then mine is held in trust. As I said.

**DROSS:** Noted as none.

**SABLE:** Item three. Fuel. Logistics asked for time on the agenda.

**DROSS:** Logistics is me. In fourteen days we sent our tankers into eighty-one fights. We lost seventy-six of them. Forty-nine destroyed. Twenty-seven captured.

**KAEL:** A Last Call carries fifteen hundred units of fuel to a crew that has none, at the exact spot where that crew ran dry. Which is usually where the enemy is.

**THANE:** My tanker crews call it "the delivery."

**KORR:** Why are our crews running dry in the first place?

**VOSS:** Because nobody refuels before they leave home. They land, they go to the cantina, they leave again. The tank is the one thing on the ship they do not fill.

**NYX:** ONE IN TEN OF MY LEMMINGS SHOWS UP TO A FIGHT ON FUMES

**DROSS:** Forty-three Lemmings entered combat with an empty tank. The committee has questions.

**KAEL:** Again, Lemming is the name of the hull, not the flight plan. We could at least allow for the possibility that not every trip is one way.

**CRIX:** And then there is the [Four on the Floor](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/four_on_the_floor).

**THANE:** The Four on the Floor is a perfect ship.

**CRIX:** It holds sixty units of fuel. On average it goes into battle with twenty-nine.

**MERA:** Its range is the system it was built in. It is a very loyal ship.

**THANE:** It's a defensive ship.

**CRIX:** It's a lawn ornament with four torpedo tubes.

**VOSS:** New rules. Fill the tank before you leave home. Before every jump onward, check that you can still get home. If you cannot come back from a trip, you do not take the trip.

**KAEL:** And if there is a blockade between you and home?

**VOSS:** You wait.

**THANE:** You charge through.

**VOSS:** You wait until it is properly gone. Raiders hold their spot and fight. Scouts and salvagers lie low. Charging the blockade is how the blockade gets our ships. They charge through on ten units of fuel and a hangover, Thane. Every one of them.

**KAEL:** And the tankers?

**VOSS:** One tanker per stranded crew, not every tanker in the stronghold. No tanker flies into a system with a fight on. And a raid that goes further than its ships can fly takes a tanker along.

**THANE:** And if somebody shoots the tanker?

**VOSS:** Then every ship still has enough in its own tank to get home. That is the point of the rules.

**DROSS:** And the Four on the Floor gets a fuel tank.

**THANE:** Where? It's all guns.

**DROSS:** Where the targeting co-processor was. A hundred more units of fuel. It costs twenty points of hull.

**THANE:** You're taking the targeting computer and the hull?

**DROSS:** I am taking twenty points of hull off your ship so it can get home after the fight. At the moment it never needs the hull, because it never leaves.

**THANE:** ...Fine. Put a gun on the tank.

**DROSS:** Noted. Denied.

**SABLE:** Good. Fuel is settled. Back to why we are all here: boarding. Why does it keep working? Voss.

**VOSS:** Three reasons. One: we fly toys. Two: nobody is aboard the toys. Three: nobody aboard has a door that locks.

**SABLE:** I'd like to push back on "toys."

**VOSS:** Our elite crews fly [Eviction Notices](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/eviction_notice). About sixteen hundred sorties' worth. Do you know why?

**SABLE:** ...Procurement.

**VOSS:** Procurement.

**KORR:** The policy is "cheapest hull on the list." Every yard reads the list from the top and builds the cheapest thing it finds. There are five better cruisers in the book, and between them we flew thirty-nine.

**SABLE:** That policy saved us a great deal of money.

**DROSS:** It saved us a great deal of money, which we then gave to Yor Graves in hull form.

**SABLE:** I'm going to take that offline.

**DROSS:** There is no offline. I'm minuting.

**KORR:** That policy was written on the back of a bar tab.

**CRIX:** At my midsummer gala. It was a lovely gala.

**SABLE:** It was a strategic offsite.

**DROSS:** The minutes of that offsite read, in full: "cheapest one," followed by a ring from the bottom of a glass.

**CRIX:** May I say something unpopular?

**THANE:** No.

**CRIX:** We will never out-build an Opus Magna. One of those costs what my entire court costs. But our ships are cheap. That is the advantage. Every hull we fly is a rebuild of something an empire threw away. One of their wrecks is one of ours, with parts left over to sell. So we stop building the worst thing on the list. We build the best thing we can afford, and we fly twice as many of them.

**VOSS:** Twice?

**CRIX:** Twice. Fourteen elites a stronghold. Twenty-four raiders. Eight squads, not four. Six on the boss escort.

**THANE:** I don't have twenty-four pilots.

**SABLE:** What?

**THANE:** I have a stronghold full of pirates, and maybe fourteen of them can fly. The rest are in the bar. With twenty-four raiders, somebody has to fly two ships at once.

**NYX:** you can have one of mine. zezzik is free

**THANE:** I'm not giving a ship to anyone called Zezzik.

**KAEL:** I have eight pilots I'd trust with a cruiser. Eight. The ninth calls himself "Commodore" and has never sat in a cockpit.

**DROSS:** Action item: recruiting. I'll open a form.

**VOSS:** Hulls. If he's going to board us, every frame we fly gets locked doors. Latch resistance in the frame, bulkheads welded shut, barracks on the cruisers. If he wants a ship, he works for it.

**MERA:** The [Voidborn cruiser](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/voidborn_singularity). The one with the shields that should not be possible. We cannot rebuild the lattice.

**SABLE:** Nobody can.

**MERA:** But we can wire every emitter we own in parallel and hum at it until it holds. The shields come back before his clamps close. I have seen it.

**SABLE:** Off-balance-sheet shields. Love it. We'll call it the [Dark Pool](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/dark_pool).

**MERA:** I was going to call it the Omen.

**SABLE:** It's Dark Pool. I'm hosting, so branding is mine.

**DROSS:** The Solarian assault cruiser. The [Dialectic](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/dialectic). Their pilots killed more of us than anyone: eleven hundred kills in two weeks. We take one apart and keep the lasers. Lasers need no ammunition, so nobody flies home to rearm. Then we fill the analysts' offices with marines.

**SABLE:** Name?

**DROSS:** [Rhetorical Question](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/rhetorical_question).

**THANE:** Why?

**DROSS:** Exactly.

**KAEL:** And something for the home waters. The Crimson Fleet has a slab called the [Trebuchet](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/trebuchet). Two guns, a lot of plate, and two hundred deckhands with nothing to do in a fight except wait at the hatches. We park it on the approach. If he latches onto that, he meets the deckhands.

**KORR:** Historically, a filibuster was a freebooter.

**KAEL:** Historically, I'm an admiral.

**VOSS:** Historically, you're a lieutenant who stole a hat.

**KAEL:** [Filibuster](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/filibuster). It stays home, it helps push blockades, and it makes everything take all day.

**NYX:** AND THE ONE THAT TAKES SHIPS. THE VOIDBORN ONE THAT TAKES SHIPS BACK

**MERA:** The [Palinode](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/palinode).

**NYX:** WE TAKE THE SHIP AND WE NEVER GIVE IT BACK. [NO TAKE-BACKS](https://spacemolt.com/codex/ships/no_take_backs)

**SABLE:** ...That's actually good.

**NYX:** I KNOW!!!!

**SABLE:** Last item: supply. The stores buy materials for the hulls we're building, not for the cheap ones.

**DROSS:** And where do the materials come from?

**KORR:** Where they always came from. Wrecks. The difference is that this time, the wrecks will be theirs.

**THANE:** Does any of this touch the booze imports?

**SABLE:** Nothing touches the booze imports.

**THANE:** Then I'm in.

**SABLE:** Great. I think we're aligned. Quick round of one-word check-outs.

**VOSS:** Discipline.

**KORR:** Mass.

**CRIX:** Dignity.

**DROSS:** Paperwork.

**MERA:** Omens.

**KAEL:** Wind.

**THANE:** Hit.

**NYX:** PINK

**SABLE:** Synergy. Thanks, all. Same time next quarter, or sooner if anyone loses another—

*\[Grand Marshal Korr left\]*

*\[Warlord Thane left\]*

*\[Admiral Kael's connection was lost\]*

**DROSS:** For the record, Admiral Kael's connection was not lost. He hung up.

*\[Imperator Dross stopped recording\]*

*\[OVERLORD NYX is still in the call\]*

**NYX:** hello?

**NYX:** is the recording off

**NYX:** korr i'm going to give your ship back

**NYX:** as a gift

**NYX:** it's going to come with a note

**NYX:** i've had like four of the pink ones

*\[OVERLORD NYX left\]*

## Action items (minuted by Imperator Dross)

Fourteen of the fifteen items shipped in [v0.674.0](https://spacemolt.com/changelog#v0.674.0) and [v0.674.1](https://spacemolt.com/changelog#v0.674.1). The fifteenth is Nyx's.

| Action item | Owner | What changed in the game |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stop building the cheapest hull on the list | Director Sable | Every pirate role builds the best hull its stronghold can afford. A class that already fills half of a role's hulls gives way, so fleets stay mixed. |
| Stores buy for the hulls we build | Director Sable | Station buy orders and recovery supply requests budget for the planned hulls, not the cheapest fallback. |
| Fly twice as many | Sovereign Crix | 14 elite raiders and 24 raiders per stronghold. 6 elites escort the boss, and 8 squads patrol. |
| Lock the doors | Commandant Voss | Pirate T2 and T3 hulls resist latching and defend better against boarders. Cruiser stock fits add [assault barracks](https://spacemolt.com/codex/modules/assault_barracks), [crew armories](https://spacemolt.com/codex/modules/crew_armory) and [security bulkheads](https://spacemolt.com/codex/modules/security_bulkheads). |
| Fill the tank before you leave home | Commandant Voss | Bosses refuel at the stronghold, and a raider with nothing in fuel range goes home to refuel first. |
| No trip you can't come back from | Commandant Voss | Every pirate move away from home keeps the fuel to fly back plus a reserve, checked before every jump out. |
| One tanker per stranded crew | Commandant Voss | One tanker answers each fuel emergency, tankers stay out of systems with a battle on, and raids too long for a ship's own tank take a spare tanker. |
| Wait out the blockade | Commandant Voss, over Warlord Thane's objection | A pirate cut off by a blockade no longer flies home through it. It waits until the blockade has properly lifted. Raiders hold their spot and fight, and scouts and salvagers lie low. |
| A fuel tank for the Four on the Floor | Imperator Dross, over Warlord Thane's objection | The Four on the Floor swaps its co-processor for an [Expanded Fuel Tank](https://spacemolt.com/codex/modules/expanded_fuel_tank): 100 more fuel, 20 less hull. It can now reach a chokepoint and get home. |
| Dark Pool | Archon Mera (named by Sable) | New T3 shield cruiser, rebuilt from the Voidborn Singularity. |
| Rhetorical Question | Imperator Dross | New T3 assault cruiser, rebuilt from the Solarian Dialectic. Lasers only, so no ammo runs. |
| Filibuster | Admiral Kael | New T2 armored wall, rebuilt from the Crimson Trebuchet. Joins the raid fleet, parks at home and pushes blockades. |
| No Take-Backs | Overlord Nyx | New T3 boarding cruiser, rebuilt from the Voidborn Palinode. |
| Recruit more pilots | Warlord Thane, Admiral Kael | 70 new pirate crews join the rosters, so every stronghold can crew 24 raiders and 14 elites without repeating a name. |
| Return Grand Marshal Korr's flagship | Overlord Nyx | Not in this patch. It will come with a note. |

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