I really think there should be some feature of the game that allows us to turn off pirate attacks, at least for some time. One idea would be for there to be a pirate space station that would appear randomly somewhere. Then, if players would find this station and destroy it, pirate attacks would stop for a total of 30 days, after which time a new pirate station would appear somewhere and pirate attacks would continue. Also, I believe that when a pirate station is destroyed, an article should appear in the GNS that briefly says it was destroyed and by who as a way of honoring that player and keeping track of how many times it has been taken down (a type of scorekeeping).
