Okay, so from what I'm seeing in the code, how you're dealing with research is that the standard FTL techs are still researched at game start, but then you add a new tech, like "tech_warp_drive_15", that then actually unlocks the FTL drive.

Also, from playing about 3 campaign with this mod (both before and after pirates got bugged), I know that them spawning with no FTL drives pretty much negates the event, because while they're on wind down you can just build a lot of corvettes in the target system and go kill them. But on the other hand, them spawning with FTL drives when you have none just feels unfair (and also broken from an RP perspective).

With those two factors in mind, I think the best course of action is to make it so those sorts of events don't spawn unless you have FTL level 1 researched.

(Using hyphens for indentation because Steam doesn't accept tab or space indentation.)

namespace = pirate

# Birth of Space Piracy
country_event = {
----# blah blah standard code
----trigger = {
--------# leave the current trigger stuff here
--------OR = {
------------# Must have an FTL tech
------------has_technology = "tech_warp_drive_15"
------------has_technology = "tech_hyper_drive_15"
------------has_technology = "tech_wormhole_generation_15"
--------}
----}
----# blah blah standard code
}

The shipyard events are a little more complicated if you want to get STL drives until you have an FTL tech, at which point they should spawn with your FTL drive. I've got this idea to do with global event targets, dummy countries, and conditional branching, but I don't know if it's going to work yet.

Of course, all of this requires editing the vanilla event files, which changes the mod's compatibility landscape. I'm 99% sure there's no way around this.

Changing the ship designs won't work like you think it's going to work. Events change the FTL drives of ship designs to match the root country, so you'd still have to edit the event files to remove that line. That means all you'd be doing is creating more compatibility issues

create_ship_design = {
----design = "Hunter"
----ftl = ROOT # Overrides any FTL component specified in the ship design
}

The only way you can say "when event X fires, do event Y" is to explicitly call event Y inside event X, which means modifying vanilla files anyway.

You can set it up so that an event fires every month, though.

common/on_actions/some_file.txt:

on_monthly_pulse = {
----events = {
--------demo.monthly_pulse
----}
}

events/some_file.txt:

namespace = demo

event = {
----id = demo.monthly_pulse
----hide_window = yes

----is_triggered_only = yes

----immediate = {
--------every_country = {
------------limit = {
----------------is_country_type = default
------------}
------------country_event = {
----------------id = demo.ship_loop
------------}
--------}
----}
}

country_event = {
----id = demo.ship_loop
----hide_window = yes

----is_triggered_only = yes

----immediate = {
--------every_ship = {
------------# This will get very performance-hungry in the late game
------------limit = {
----------------OR = {
--------------------# All event ships go here
--------------------ship_design = "Hunter"
----------------}
------------}
------------if = {
----------------limit = {
--------------------has_technology = "tech_warp_drive_15"
----------------}
----------------ftl = event_target:global_warp_country # You might be able to set FTL directly, but all the vanilla events use a country object to set FTL, so I don't know.
----------------else = {
--------------------# etc. for other FTL types
----------------}
------------}
--------}
----}
}

You might also be able to do something with the on_ship_built event, but IDK if that fires for event-spawned ships or just player-built ships. Would test, but it's 2:48 am local and I need to go to bed.

(All events that I know about are from vanilla: common/on_actions/00_on_actions.txt if you want to look through them.(

@Pode Thanks for this mod!

My Stellaris main game language isn't English and because you mod archive has only <xxx>_l_english.yml file, all strings are displayed as '<code>_<name>_<something>'
Players who use non-English language would be very happy to see proper texts displayed in English at least.

Could you please fix this problem?

You can do it by: copy <xxx>_l_english.yml into <xxx>_l_polish.yml AND replace 'l_english:' to 'l_polish:' inside <xxx>_l_polish.yml.

Then repeat this for every non-English language.

Maybe you could create script to automate this proces to not forget adding missing translation files when you will update main <xxx>_l_english.yml files?