My suggestion is that when you add a ship to your catalogue and set the pirates able to use it, that you could also be able to set the percentage that the ship would spawn.
Thus you would be able to give the pirates different size / difficulty of ships, and put the large ones at a very low spawn rate. Making the pirates able to have fleets instead of just the small fighters, but also have it so your server isn't over run by extreemly strong pirates.
It would also make the spawning of a capitol class pirate(like the heldtech Damocles set at a 1% spawn) like a server event. Where all the factions would have to come together to defeat the common foe.
Thus you would be able to give the pirates different size / difficulty of ships, and put the large ones at a very low spawn rate. Making the pirates able to have fleets instead of just the small fighters, but also have it so your server isn't over run by extreemly strong pirates.
It would also make the spawning of a capitol class pirate(like the heldtech Damocles set at a 1% spawn) like a server event. Where all the factions would have to come together to defeat the common foe.