Random thoughts on Piracy

So I've been thinking about Piracy and if I were to do it how would I do it? Well first up it'd probably work better in a group but that's by the by.

Firstly you want to Cargo Scan your target marks as they are in or leaving a station, they get scanned then all the time anyway, so no problems. Maybe pick a station that sells rare goods, you'll have people leaving them planning on making LONG trips that you can follow.

Then once you've got a likely target use a Wake Detector to follow them to an Anarchy system, this way you don't get a bounty on your head for attacking them or possibly killing them. Popup the Interdictor and drop them out into shooty space.

Weapons wise you want lasers, to keep their shields down and maybe hatch breakers, though targeting the cargo hatch seems a plan. Or the FSD though that seems a bit mean. (Note also, lasers don't cost to reload, important for the price conscious pirate).

A nice big ship to slow down FSD charge and carry loot seems the way to go. If you can work out an Anarchy that's on a trade route and has lots of traffic having a type nine ready to drop in and pick up the loot might be a thought. (If you have a crew).

I'd probably (if it's a CMDR) tell them to drop half their load and if they spool up the FSD I'm taking them out. This way you give them a choice, lose half their stock or all of it and their ship and pay insurance. If you ask for the lot they have less to lose by trying to run.

Finally you need an outpost with a black market, but the prepared pirate would have already found one of these.

So if I WERE to go the piracy route (and chances are I'll get bored at some point and give it a go) that's how I'd do it.

The point being it's not about "Yaaaarrrr" and attcking the nearst squib in a sidewinder so you can feel big about killing them it's about planning and working out how to make a decent wodge of cash, preferably without getting a price on your head.
 
No, you got it wrong.

1. You spam "next ship" while supercruising around until you target a CMDR in a hauler. Works better if they have no shields or guns.
2. Proceed to interdict them.
3. Kill them without saying a word.
4. Feel better about your balding problem.
5. Keep spamming "next ship".

That's the way of the real pirate.
 
No, you got it wrong.

1. You spam "next ship" while supercruising around until you target a CMDR in a hauler. Works better if they have no shields or guns.
2. Proceed to interdict them.
3. Kill them without saying a word.
4. Feel better about your balding problem.
5. Keep spamming "next ship".

That's the way of the real pirate.

Ahh.... now I understand.

My Avatar? 3 years ago, when I was still in my 30's... just.
 
No, you got it wrong.

1. You spam "next ship" while supercruising around until you target a CMDR in a hauler. Works better if they have no shields or guns.
2. Proceed to interdict them.
3. Kill them without saying a word.
4. Feel better about your balding problem.
5. Keep spamming "next ship".

That's the way of the real pirate.

That seems mean.

OP: Like your style. Well thought out, methodical and professional, but please don't pirate me.
 
Oh easthamd I thought Sallen was joking. I definitely got that impression.

And I'm not planning on Pirating any time soon. I'm a nice law abiding bounty hunter.

Of course... If I WAS going to go pirating... I'd do it this way and I'd look just like... a nice law abiding bounty hunter.
 
That seems mean.

OP: Like your style. Well thought out, methodical and professional, but please don't pirate me.

I'm sorry. I was indeed joking. In fact I'd love to be pirated by scimon. That is the proper way.

If you meant the balding joke was mean, well, I'm balding myself, so... :p

By the way scimon, is it possible that I've seen your name before in the Infiniminer release post comments? Back in the day?

EDIT: Just to be clear, the balding thing was not referring to any of you! I was implying griefers have poor self-esteem. Don't read into it too much.
 
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How PvP piracy works in Elite.

It doesn't.

So here is what you can do.

Option 1:
1. Fly around in Supercruise and find a random Hauler or Type6
2. Interdict the player
3. Immediately attack and take out shields
4. With shields down, target drives and disable them
5. While they are floating around start shooting limpets at them until they are empty or you are full
6. Go sell cargo or find another target

Consequence: You get bounty for assault, which is around 200-600Cr. The victim is floating around with no drives and has to self destruct to respawn, but at least you avoided the 6000Cr bounty.

Option 2:
1. Camp stations and cargo scan as they leave
2. Pick whoever has nice loot and follow them using FSD Wake Scanner
3. Repeat step 2 thru 6 from Option 1.

Consequence: Same as option 1, except you might avoid the assault bounty if you are in an anarchy system when you interdict. Not that the 200-600Cr bounty matters. One ton of cargo sold covers that expense.

"Oh!", you exclaim!
"But we should threaten them and force them to drop cargo", you suggest.


Sure, you go ahead and try that. 10 out of 10 times they will rather die than drop any cargo. I have no idea why, but I strongly suspect it's some old EVE Online mentality where you never gave anything to pirates ever since they would almost always destroy your ship anyways for the killmail. Plus... another very important factor from EVE, which is not featured in Elite, is that killing a ship still lets you loot items from the wreck. In Elite, killing a ship will destroy ALL items installed or carried by the ship.

But still... players rather die than give up cargo.

Furthermore I think you should be aware of the following:

1) Destroying the FSD will cause the ship to explode. Not sure why, but I have tested this and once the FSD module is reaches 0% the ship explodes.
2) Disabling Drives leaves the player permanently unable to activate frameshift or even maneuver their ships. Only thing they can do is self-destruct to respawn. So disabling drives then demand cargo to let them live is pointless... they are dead either way once the drives are disabled.

They seriously need to improve on pirating. Heavy consequences for murder and being unable to dock at stations in high population areas would be good starting points, but that also requires us to actually be able to do pirating without killing players and driving them off open play. To make that happen they need to add distress signal for getting repairs for disabled drives or FSD modules so victims can actually survive... and they need to make the cargo hatch breakers more effective as well as the cargo hatch easier to hit.

In current state however, being a pirate is a tedious and frustrating thing... for both the pirate and the victim.
 
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Not that I know... might work on NPC's, never got it to work on players.

Limpets is the easiest way.

Kill the Drives, spam limpets.

Optionally, take out their shield gen as well if their ship can take the hits to prevent shields coming online while limpets are en route.
 
Random thoughts? Hmmmm. Oh, ok, I know! You get to wear big boots! Oh, and a parrot... anna eye patch... anna crutch thing cos you only have one leg.... an you get to go "YARRRR!" a lot. Earing! can't forget the earing. Ummmm, think that's about it.... Is there a prize? How about cake? My head hurts... are we there yet? Oh look, shiney. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!
 
I wouldn't think of choosing the way of a filthy, trader killing pirate... or... would I? I don't know yet...
But any MMO game is only as great as the people playing it, or as much as the devs can rule out griefing for that matter. So far, I've not come across many players while playing through Beta and Gamma yet though, but the ones I did meet were quite nice and exploring or bounty hunting like me. (Whilest in EVE Online, I was almost instantly pirated many times after leaving the starting systems.)
So far, this game is brilliant!

Personally I don't see any point in randomly interdicting players and killing them on sight, since all you gain is a bounty and no cargo, except when using limpets before killing them off. But since you then succesfully stole their cargo, there's no point in killing them off anymore, and save yourself a kill-bounty.

If the distress signal option would be returned to Elite in the release version (I hope so), that would give pirated-dead-in-the-water players the option to shout out for help. It would be a great way to call for help while getting pirated, too! See if any ships nearby can come to your aid in the battle. Not too long ago I took a risk jumping to an unknown system and I caught myself out of fuel and loosing my ship and expensive cargo, whilest not finding that distress signal option anymore. (DOH!)
And it would also be totally awesome if you could fit a repair module, or repair drones, to fix critical systems on unfortunate players' ships.
 
And it would also be totally awesome if you could fit a repair module, or repair drones, to fix critical systems on unfortunate players' ships.

Well, there is the Field Maintenance module you can install for fixing internal systems on your ship. I bought one to test it out and to just repair myself in space after either initiating or being the victim of interdictions (which have a tendency to burn 1-2% off your internal modules).

It worked well enough, but it's more expensive than the station repairs from what I could tell (cost more to refill the module than just paying the regular repair costs).

Also it didn't work on thrusters mid-flight... though I never tried to manually disable the trusters before trying to repair them. I guess it would make sense that you can't repair thruster while it's active since it would probably end up incinerating any repair drones or cause a critical malfunction and overload or explode :D

But anyways, you CAN repair modules mid-flight using the Field Maintenance module (providing you have one installed).
 
Howdy commanders, I would like to see partial cargo jettison maybe a shielded cargo hold for a timed or triggered explosive cargo pod to make the pirates think twice.
 
Piracy and murder will be more fun in a group as you pull the poor wretch from supercruise. One could target the fsd and the other the cargo hatch, while the other just finishes it off leaving no survivors. Solo is fun too mind, just target the cargo hatch and blast away. It doesn't matter if the other pilot is killed. Anything that drops is a bonus. A python and a couple of upgraded cobras would make a nice team.

Shok.
 
Piracy and murder will be more fun in a group as you pull the poor wretch from supercruise. One could target the fsd and the other the cargo hatch, while the other just finishes it off leaving no survivors. Solo is fun too mind, just target the cargo hatch and blast away. It doesn't matter if the other pilot is killed. Anything that drops is a bonus. A python and a couple of upgraded cobras would make a nice team.

Shok.

With the current economy in place I doubt you would make enough money pirating to even refuel a python and a couple of upgraded cobras. It's like robbing a 7eleven with a SWAT team...

Sal.
 
With the current economy in place I doubt you would make enough money pirating to even refuel a python and a couple of upgraded cobras. It's like robbing a 7eleven with a SWAT team...

Sal.

Well, with the coming of release it won't always be like that. Also, you could just Kill them for having 'nothing' and wasting your time. Either way, it's fiendishly fun.

Shok.
 
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