Ideas for 'fixing' Piracy

[Anopheles]

Yes, you hate us. We're the reason you're in solo, why cows give birth to two headed calves and why civilzation is doomed. Did I forget we're all psychos who just want to ruin your day? Right. Now, for substance.

Piracy should be easy to begin, moderately difficult in the execution and a right royal pain in the tropics afterwards.

The following is a brief list of things that will make piracy more worthwhile for pirates and less irksome for traders.

1: Cargo Insurance. You pay a little extra for your commodities. It gets robbed, you still get paid for your cargo. Premiums do go up initially after every robbery, but fall per successful trade (this will prevent (but not eradicate) insurance fraud, which should be a thing).

2: More running of 'other people's cargo' missions. Pilots gets half for accepting the mission and half for completing it. This permits fraud, makes people more likely to drop the cargo and so on.

3: Murder should have a bigger bounty, escalating for each murder in a short time and resetting after a period of not murdering. Pirates will then have to worry about choosing between a bigger bounty or letting someone go.

4: Assuming the old strata of Anarchy to Corporate from the earlier games, anyone known to be a pirate (even after bounties and wanted status being cleared) should be banned (persona non grata) from the top strata (Corporate) to begin with and then slowly all the way down to the Second from Bottom Strata (Fuedal, iirc), for continued acts of piracy in a 20ly bubble. This should last for a period of time after the last act or until some kind of 'penance' is done. Anarchy stations that are well equipped should be dotted about, giving the Pirate the option to a)perform a penance to get access or having to travel for good equipment.

5: Fix interdicting, if it isn't in 1.2.

That will do for now.

 

[Derath]

Scooping needs a fix, that and cargo timeouts + limpet speeds being above ship speeds, and thrusters need a progressive speed reduction based on damage (more a pvp change than a piracy change) just throwing some extras in there!

 

[Sim Maker]

300,000 copies sold...........and you guys can't find targets?......that's telling you something right there.......
...
I hope FD don't destroy the game trying to keep the very few "Pirates" happy.........

 

[Derath]

300,000 copies sold...........and you guys can't find targets?......that's telling you something right there.......
...
I hope FD don't destroy the game trying to keep the very few "Pirates" happy.........

All the OP's suggestions basically make piracy harder lol... or have less of an impact so 0/10 for reading comprehension, maybe they are trying to keep the "not very few" traders happy?

 

[Jezzah]

300,000 copies sold...........and you guys can't find targets?......that's telling you something right there.......
...
I hope FD don't destroy the game trying to keep the very few "Pirates" happy.........

Those that do pirate know what they are talking about. Give us a break for wanting to improve what we know about.


As for my suggestions similar to you anopheles.

1. A harder penalty for murdering for sure outside of anarchy space.

2. Get rid of the currently too easy bounty pay off altogether. Another system of wiping your bounty which is more difficult but doable with effort. Perhaps via contacts made within the criminal world.

3. Let us sell our loot at better prices at the right places. ie anarchy systems we are allied with. Which leads on nicely to...

4. A path to "criminal elite" for honourable piracy. With a proper path of reputation...the more piracy you do the more you are pushed out of civilised space but into the arms of piratical corporations. Missions structures and community goals of our own etc etc.

 

[Bangfish]

I just wish for two things only. Resolve combat logging and make the cargo more spread out when released in one big batch instead of one large cluster. When a mark releases like 30t I have to move extremely slowly to avoid container accidents.
Of course, running with 7M bounty just from cargo scans while psychos are getting 5-11k per murder is ridiculous. I can't keep spamming chaff to keep cops disrupted for minutes before I scoop my stuff up. Need chaffs for them crazy clippers.

 

[CloneWarrior85]

Yes, you hate us. We're the reason you're in solo, why cows give birth to two headed calves and why civilzation is doomed. Did I forget we're all psychos who just want to ruin your day? Right. Now, for substance.

Piracy should be easy to begin, moderately difficult in the execution and a right royal pain in the tropics afterwards.

The following is a brief list of things that will make piracy more worthwhile for pirates and less irksome for traders.

1: Cargo Insurance. You pay a little extra for your commodities. It gets robbed, you still get paid for your cargo. Premiums do go up initially after every robbery, but fall per successful trade (this will prevent (but not eradicate) insurance fraud, which should be a thing).

2: More running of 'other people's cargo' missions. Pilots gets half for accepting the mission and half for completing it. This permits fraud, makes people more likely to drop the cargo and so on.

3: Murder should have a bigger bounty, escalating for each murder in a short time and resetting after a period of not murdering. Pirates will then have to worry about choosing between a bigger bounty or letting someone go.

4: Assuming the old strata of Anarchy to Corporate from the earlier games, anyone known to be a pirate (even after bounties and wanted status being cleared) should be banned (persona non grata) from the top strata (Corporate) to begin with and then slowly all the way down to the Second from Bottom Strata (Fuedal, iirc), for continued acts of piracy in a 20ly bubble. This should last for a period of time after the last act or until some kind of 'penance' is done. Anarchy stations that are well equipped should be dotted about, giving the Pirate the option to a)perform a penance to get access or having to travel for good equipment.

5: Fix interdicting, if it isn't in 1.2.

That will do for now.

1. You don't need cargo insurance, you risk flying out to make a profit with cargo, you risk loosing everything.

2. Err.. no?

3. Murder already get's a high bounty, don't forget that you don't get any profit if you murder, you have to pay everything you used.

4. I agree here.

5. Fix your internet connection and interdiction works, sorry, this is a p2p game, where 80% of these issues are user fault, not the game.




Anyway, if you want REAL suggestions to make piracy better:

a) Fix interdiction submissions FSD cooldown, it should be the same as when successfully interdicted.

b) Increase by 5-7 seconds the FSD cooldown, it needs to be just a tiny big bigger, but NOTHING too serious, every added second is a gift and should be used well.

c) Make FSD warmup being slowdown correctly with any ship proximity. Masslock isn't working very well either. If we want to go "lore-friendly" with small ships mass-locking bigger ships, perhaps add a module that creates a magnetic pulse (uses a big chunk of energy) this magnetic pulse will create a "bubble" which if any ship is inside that bubble it will be mass-locked.

d) Make limps not use cargo hold.

e) Make ejected cargo stay in space for huge amounts of time (+20min)

f) Create a smuggler rank (invisible) which will boost the sold items prices on black market up to 70% depending on the rank (rank increases slowly every time stolen cargo is sold)


g, h, i, j, k and l) Bring back the Distress Signal ASAP and when used it created an ISS (call IDS or something), which players can drop out and help either side.




Those are just a few suggestions to make Piracy more worth it.

 

[iain666]

All seems fair and good, except

3: Murder should have a bigger bounty, escalating for each murder in a short time and resetting after a period of not murdering.

It should be less of a slap on the wrist, not doing it for a while shouldn't be enough to make it go away.

 

[Quineloe]

300,000 copies sold...........and you guys can't find targets?......that's telling you something right there.......
...
I hope FD don't destroy the game trying to keep the very few "Pirates" happy.........

With what gall do you talk down on a legit, FD confirmed way of playing the game?

 

[ViciousMink]

Yes, you hate us. We're the reason you're in solo, why cows give birth to two headed calves and why civilzation is doomed. Did I forget we're all psychos who just want to ruin your day?

You forgot 'curdles milk as they fly by' and 'makes baby Siddhartha cry.' =)

Though seriously, I like these ideas.

 

[DaveB]

All seems fair and good, except



It should be less of a slap on the wrist, not doing it for a while shouldn't be enough to make it go away.

I believe the OPs intent was that your first one gets you the base bounty amount, your second and subsequent ones attract progressively higher amounts, which resets back to the base amount if you dont kill anyone for a while - not that the bounties you'd already attracted would go away.

 

[Derath]

You can't say murder currently has a high bounty clone warrior, sorry it just doesn't - some of your suggestions are good news too however throwing out the OP's points and saying "mine are better" when you have blatant fallacies in your post doesn't give you much credibility, even if they are infact good ideas .

The interdiction bug is well known, nor does it have anything to do with the p2p network or they'd just drop out immediately when it went glitchy - i've heard a very plausible theory that its caused by frame of reference changes mid interdiction which I certainly know happens in at least some of them however the entire cause isn't known at least as far as i'm aware.

 

[CloneWarrior85]

You can't say murder currently has a high bounty clone warrior, sorry it just doesn't - some of your suggestions are good news too however throwing out the OP's points and saying "mine are better" when you have blatant fallacies in your post doesn't give you much credibility, even if they are infact good ideas .

The interdiction bug is well known, nor does it have anything to do with the p2p network or they'd just drop out immediately when it went glitchy - i've heard a very plausible theory that its caused by frame of reference changes mid interdiction which I certainly know happens in at least some of them however the entire cause isn't known at least as far as i'm aware.

Murder bounty is fine, if you kill 1 or 2 guys, you shouldn't be in debt for all your life, continuous murdering, then yes. Remember, this is a game where loitering on an airlock or on a landing pad without permission will get you blown up, same goes with undocking without permission (not possible on Dangerous). Murdering ISN'T a serious offense on the Elite universe, so you shouldn't be hanged by just murdering 1 or 2 small fries.

Also... where did i say "mine are better"?????


Also while yes, interdiction has a bug, the majority of times is due to bad sync between players and this is usually caused a lot of times by the players connection.

 

[DaveB]

Yes, you hate us. We're the reason you're in solo, why cows give birth to two headed calves and why civilzation is doomed. Did I forget we're all psychos who just want to ruin your day? Right. Now, for substance.

Speaking as somebody who makes most of their credits from trade, no I don't hate you. You're a cost of doing business. Also a potential supplement to my income if your scalp is worth enough and I think I can get away with trying to collect it.

Piracy should be easy to begin, moderately difficult in the execution and a right royal pain in the tropics afterwards.

The following is a brief list of things that will make piracy more worthwhile for pirates and less irksome for traders.

1: Cargo Insurance. You pay a little extra for your commodities. It gets robbed, you still get paid for your cargo. Premiums do go up initially after every robbery, but fall per successful trade (this will prevent (but not eradicate) insurance fraud, which should be a thing).

Not so sure this is required. The risk of losing uninsured cargo along with the ship is the major piece of leverage you have to extort some of it.

2: More running of 'other people's cargo' missions. Pilots gets half for accepting the mission and half for completing it. This permits fraud, makes people more likely to drop the cargo and so on.

Nope. Makes it worse for everybody - Trucker can't drop cargo for you without abandoning the mission and getting fined for it, and it gets tagged stolen as soon as he does that so he can't abandon them (something I offer to do in exchange for dropping fewer cans)

3: Murder should have a bigger bounty, escalating for each murder in a short time and resetting after a period of not murdering. Pirates will then have to worry about choosing between a bigger bounty or letting someone go.

Makes sense.

4: Assuming the old strata of Anarchy to Corporate from the earlier games, anyone known to be a pirate (even after bounties and wanted status being cleared) should be banned (persona non grata) from the top strata (Corporate) to begin with and then slowly all the way down to the Second from Bottom Strata (Fuedal, iirc), for continued acts of piracy in a 20ly bubble. This should last for a period of time after the last act or until some kind of 'penance' is done. Anarchy stations that are well equipped should be dotted about, giving the Pirate the option to a)perform a penance to get access or having to travel for good equipment.

Would work but suppose we negotiated and I dropped cargo for you without a shot fired, and they were abandoned because that was your payment for letting me drop 5 not 10. How could the game detect this act of piracy?

5: Fix interdicting, if it isn't in 1.2.

Yep. The submit/boost/fsd dance is currently your strongest incentive to roll in shooting rather than hoisting the black flag and demanding your tax first.

Those that do pirate know what they are talking about. Give us a break for wanting to improve what we know about.

Even those of us that don't can see you're making sense.

2. Get rid of the currently too easy bounty pay off altogether. Another system of wiping your bounty which is more difficult but doable with effort. Perhaps via contacts made within the criminal world.

Leave it as-is but just make it impossible to pay off bounties until you've been crime-free for a week, not even getting fined in that time.

3. Let us sell our loot at better prices at the right places. ie anarchy systems we are allied with. Which leads on nicely to...

4. A path to "criminal elite" for honourable piracy. With a proper path of reputation...the more piracy you do the more you are pushed out of civilised space but into the arms of piratical corporations. Missions structures and community goals of our own etc etc.

Makes perfect sense. Anarchy stations shouldn't care if goods are stolen or not, they want 'em and have money, you want money and have the goods. Similarly for your smuggler cousins, illegal goods should fetch inflated prices on other stations black markets instead of being treated like ordinary stolen ones.

I fully agree you need a "pirate rank" but since your ideal piece of piracy does not involve any ammo expended on either side, your mark just complying with your demands and leaving you their cargo, the technical details to implement this could be a bit problematic.

 

[Quineloe]

Murder bounty is fine, if you kill 1 or 2 guys, you shouldn't be in debt for all your life, .

You aren't. Are you even aware how the bounty mechanics work?

By the way, do you have any lore or sources backing up your claim that "murder isn't serious"?

 

[Jockey79]

Traders, do trade missions for NPCs.
Bounty hunters, hunt NPCs (while they wait for human bounties to turn up or in between human targets)
Combat Pilots go to NPC warzones and earn cash splatting tons of NPCs.

So why can pirates not go steal from NPCs ??

I've done it, in those "Seeking" beacons and at Nav points.
So it can be done and you can make money at it if you use a cargo scanner and not attack randomly.

 

[Anopheles]

Not so sure this is required. The risk of losing uninsured cargo along with the ship is the major piece of leverage you have to extort some of it.

Losing your ship should be a traders number one concern. If it comes down to insured cargo vs your ship then most people will drop cargo and survive the encounter, I imagine as well as doing away with the silly 'my cargo out of my cold, dead hands' attitude.

Nope. Makes it worse for everybody - Trucker can't drop cargo for you without abandoning the mission and getting fined for it, and it gets tagged stolen as soon as he does that so he can't abandon them (something I offer to do in exchange for dropping fewer cans).

I'd do away with fine for failing. Not getting half the payment (2/3rds?) would be the price of failing to deliver. People would then have the choice to avoid dropping and risking all for a better payout or just taking a smaller payout and dropping someone else's cargo. Historically, most pirated traders where carrying other people's stuff.

Would work but suppose we negotiated and I dropped cargo for you without a shot fired, and they were abandoned because that was your payment for letting me drop 5 not 10. How could the game detect this act of piracy?

I suppose the act of interdiction of target (game sees how much cargo interdictee and interdicter starts with) and if interdictee dies or the interdictee enters supercruise with less cargo and interdicter has more cargo, then an act of piracy is flagged. Straight subspace piracy would need something else, but I'm sure it's possible. Naturally, successfully using limpets would be a flag.

'Fake Flagging' by dropping cargo after interdiction wouldn't be a problem because, a) the person pirating is hoping to be flagged for pirating because it means he's been successful, and b) people looking for random pvp generally don't care.

In fact, fake flagging could be way to prevent pointless murder because it would prevent people from getting access to new release ships and modules because they'll be banned from stations, having to do penance, etc.

Edit: Subspace piracy could be flagged by either the nav beacons, extraction site beacons or stations having A100 scanners that can detect anything for 30kms or whatever.

Mining sites... dammit. Still, something will occur to me later.

 

[Soliluna]

Speaking as somebody who makes most of their credits from trade, no I don't hate you. You're a cost of doing business. Also a potential supplement to my income if your scalp is worth enough and I think I can get away with trying to collect it.



Not so sure this is required. The risk of losing uninsured cargo along with the ship is the major piece of leverage you have to extort some of it.



Nope. Makes it worse for everybody - Trucker can't drop cargo for you without abandoning the mission and getting fined for it, and it gets tagged stolen as soon as he does that so he can't abandon them (something I offer to do in exchange for dropping fewer cans)



Makes sense.



Would work but suppose we negotiated and I dropped cargo for you without a shot fired, and they were abandoned because that was your payment for letting me drop 5 not 10. How could the game detect this act of piracy?



Yep. The submit/boost/fsd dance is currently your strongest incentive to roll in shooting rather than hoisting the black flag and demanding your tax first.




Even those of us that don't can see you're making sense.



Leave it as-is but just make it impossible to pay off bounties until you've been crime-free for a week, not even getting fined in that time.



Makes perfect sense. Anarchy stations shouldn't care if goods are stolen or not, they want 'em and have money, you want money and have the goods. Similarly for your smuggler cousins, illegal goods should fetch inflated prices on other stations black markets instead of being treated like ordinary stolen ones.

I fully agree you need a "pirate rank" but since your ideal piece of piracy does not involve any ammo expended on either side, your mark just complying with your demands and leaving you their cargo, the technical details to implement this could be a bit problematic.

Spitballing:

To engage someone in pirating you could have a 'pirate' ledger. This ledger being provided by a pirating station (in an anarchy system) as a piece of software installed on your ship (lore).

This would allow you (through the nav/contact interface or whatever is most appropriate) to choose pirate actions that can be responded too through the other player's interface or responded too by an npc.

Such actions could include:

-Instruction to Jettison Cargo: Requests player to jettison cargo, timed response (30s) with no response being taken as negative. Positive response would automatically jettison the cargo. Killing a player after this instruction would incur an inflated bounty and nothing added to the ledger.
-Instruction to Bribe: Requests a bribe of several fixed figures: 500cr, 5000cr, 50000cr, 500000cr 5000000cr. As above, with positive response providing the credits. Killing a player after this instruction would incur an inflated bounty and nothing added to the ledger.

These instructions would be considered illegal and cause bounty themselves.

Performing these 'score' or tally the pirate ledger on your ship, you could get score from kills or from the above but not both.

This would allow you to bring in some form of 'Pirate' ranking, you could potentially return this ledger to your system for increased rewards or something.

Pretty easy to actually implement for developers, but I have to say, tonnes of hours in the game, tonnes of moving about, always open play: no player pirates met, no PVP at all - actually haven't really met anyone in game.

Will hopefully run into one of you pirates soon

 

[CloneWarrior85]

By the way, do you have any lore or sources backing up your claim that "murder isn't serious"?

You get murdered by any tiny infraction, instead of finned or arrested.

You are left free without being arrested/killed after you attack and kill a criminal in front of a cop (irl you won't get away with it, as much as a bloody criminal that guy was).


Son, murdering isn't so serious on the Elite world.

 

[Mr_Blastman]

Traders, do trade missions for NPCs.
Bounty hunters, hunt NPCs (while they wait for human bounties to turn up or in between human targets)
Combat Pilots go to NPC warzones and earn cash splatting tons of NPCs.

So why can pirates not go steal from NPCs ??

I've done it, in those "Seeking" beacons and at Nav points.
So it can be done and you can make money at it if you use a cargo scanner and not attack randomly.

Because it takes WAY TOO LONG. Limpets are useless. They are worthless practically. They need to be improved in two ways:

1. Limpets should dump out MORE cargo in one attempt and dump it in a big chunk instead of a long stream (or just plain a lot more would be a vast improvement).

2. Shooting out a cargo hatch to 0% should immediately dump all the cargo in a hold as if the player jettisoned it, forming a nice big pile in one spot.

If both of those were the case, pirating AI would be a lot tastier and simultaneously make some human players a little easier to deal with.