Sick of hearing "Piracy is too hard and yields poor profits"... what's new?

[uberdude]

just because you don't like non consensual PVP it does not make it a bad playstyle for the people who do. now i can understand that you don't get that but to say that to people who do deserves irl physical pain makes you wrong.

If i really wanted to see others hurt in real life. That would make me Sadistic, not wrong. Sorry my sarcasm didn't register. And as always.

Safe travels commander.

 

[Quineloe]

Sometimes you first have to fly around some moon or planet before you can depart, it's really easy to interdict people during those periods.
Then, there are players who FSD before selecting a destination anyway, to obscure their destination from scans made at their departure station. Again, making them really easy targets if you're just waiting nearby to ambush them.
And the third group I already mentioned: those who are merely passing through a system. Again, easy to interdict, but they're obviously not in their destination system, so rares cargo will be worthless in that system.

Oh please, that is so rare it's a non factor.

Seriously, you're theorycrafting around examples here that have no meaningful existence in the game. Most people go straight to hyperjump from the station. No one bothers sitting at a station (he is most likely wanted at) to scan high wakes, nevermind how incredibly boring that would be.

On top of all that, once you DO find someone who started the trip to sell distant rares, he will seriously outjump you, as rare traders have maximized jump range - something not possible in a combat fitted piracy ship.

 

[Simi Kusoni]

I hope FDev make Piracy as hard as it should be, let's see how much it hurts when you can't even enter systems without being shot at, because you're a renowned Pirate.

Actually I don't mind that idea.

A bit like Eve, have some central low value systems where pirates can't venture and outer systems with higher value resources etc. that are more dangerous due to rampant piracy.

I always preferred fighting over something to piracy anyway. Fighting over space or resources is far more fulfilling that just trying to nab people's cargo.

Not sure if it would work given ED's instancing however.

 

[Scimiter]

Piracy bring a bit of life to the game, as soon as I am well established money wise, I shall kit me a good ship out and try my hand at it, I wont be doing it for money, but just for the fun of it, a ton or two of cargo will do nicely.

 

[Mikkel Toxwenius]

I am honestly sick of hearing people complain about Piracy not yielding profits on par with other professions. Well guess what folks!?!?! That's Piracy in general for you...

There's just too many people playing ED that seem to think Piracy is some glamorous and fun venture that should be super easy and yield high profits per hour compared to other sources of income. Quite simply, Piracy should be a last resort. It's the kind of thing you resort to doing after you lose your life savings in a casino, or the kind of thing you do when you accidentally become wanted across the entire Milkyway galaxy.

A lot of the people complaining, come across as teenagers who've just inherited Daddy's money and want to go and do something exciting and dangerous: "Hey Giles, should we use my inheritance to buy a big ship and become pirates? That sounds like fun right?"... "Yaa that sounds like fun Tarquin... let's become pirates and like... have parrots and stuff yeah?". Think 'Made in Chelsea' in space.

Piracy IS and SHOULD be a hard existence... in fact, besides a few annoying game mechanics (Interdiction submission etc) it is currently way too easy to pirate traders out of their cargo with little consequence. There's literally NO drawbacks to piracy right now apart from the income, because if traders comply with your demands, you don't even get a bounty or any kind of negative reputation effect...

I hope FDev make Piracy as hard as it should be, let's see how much it hurts when you can't even enter systems without being shot at, because you're a renowned Pirate.

I'm sick and tired of hearing about people being sick and tired of hearing about of people being sick and tired about piracy being to hard.

To be serious though, I think both you and the people that complain about piracy being to hard are right. See, piracy is way to hard (impossible) to make a proper living from, even if you are a top-dog super duper fantastic swell flying ace of a pirate. It's still vastly inferior in terms of income compared to all other forms of income.

On the other hand: Consequences of piracy is practically non-existent. Bounties for outright murder of innocent ships are ridiculously low. Not to mention that there is no consequence for the gentlemen pirates that only "take what they need" after they talk their victims into dropping cargo (which I sense is a seldom occasion).

So what do we need? To sum up the above I would suggest the following (these are just a few petit-fours of a much wider set of features that I am sure the wise heads at FD could cook up):

1. A much better basis for very skilled pirates to actual earn serious cash (I typed "very skilled" in bold just to emphasize that you really need to be very skilled to make pirating profitable.). That could be easier access to pirate bases to sell goods; access to certain pirate upgrade modules, for example a "cargo-preserver" module that sometimes preserves some cargo from blown up victims. Or perhaps special modules that prolong the time it takes for the victim to fire up it's FSD.
2. Much MUCH more serious consequences from pirating, especially outright murder
3. Murdering ships with no cargo, or very low cargo (like below 5 tonnes), should mean doubling the bounty and rep penalty from the murder.
4. The lower the combat rating of the victim the higher the penalties for the pirate.
5. Pirating in medium and high sec systems should be very hard and a pirate should be subject to massive security pursuits. Lower sec systems should be conversely less dangerous; and in turn lower sec systems could have better trade yields to traders... see where I am getting at here?
6. etc etc

 

[Simi Kusoni]

Threads like these make me wonder why some players bother with "open" mode.

 

[uberdude]

Threads like these make me wonder why some players bother with "open" mode.

I bothered with it at an attempt at being sociable. I forgot that ED isn't doing "Sociable" at the moment. I did however have a lovely conversation with a fellow clipper pilot a few days ago. Told me how he liked ED using the DK2 and so on.

Hopefully with open chat and wings in 1.2 I'll have more of a reason to play open.

 

[Tarman]

I'm sick and tired of hearing about people being sick and tired of hearing about of people being sick and tired about piracy being to hard.

To be serious though, I think both you and the people that complain about piracy being to hard are right. See, piracy is way to hard (impossible) to make a proper living from, even if you are a top-dog super duper fantastic swell flying ace of a pirate. It's still vastly inferior in terms of income compared to all other forms of income.

On the other hand: Consequences of piracy is practically non-existent. Bounties for outright murder of innocent ships are ridiculously low. Not to mention that there is no consequence for the gentlemen pirates that only "take what they need" after they talk their victims into dropping cargo (which I sense is a seldom occasion).

So what do we need? To sum up the above I would suggest the following (these are just a few petit-fours of a much wider set of features that I am sure the wise heads at FD could cook up):

1. A much better basis for very skilled pirates to actual earn serious cash (I typed "very skilled" in bold just to emphasize that you really need to be very skilled to make pirating profitable.). That could be easier access to pirate bases to sell goods; access to certain pirate upgrade modules, for example a "cargo-preserver" module that sometimes preserves some cargo from blown up victims. Or perhaps special modules that prolong the time it takes for the victim to fire up it's FSD.
2. Much MUCH more serious consequences from pirating, especially outright murder
3. Murdering ships with no cargo, or very low cargo (like below 5 tonnes), should mean doubling the bounty and rep penalty from the murder.
4. The lower the combat rating of the victim the higher the penalties for the pirate.
5. Pirating in medium and high sec systems should be very hard and a pirate should be subject to massive security pursuits. Lower sec systems should be conversely less dangerous; and in turn lower sec systems could have better trade yields to traders... see where I am getting at here?
6. etc etc

You hit the monkey on the head with this one. Both risk and reward need to be retooled more sensibly in a number of areas for piracy to have a place as a fun and relatively profitable career, without turning it into a free-for-all on traders.

 

[Saara]

very skilled [/B]pirates to actual earn serious cash (I typed "very skilled" in bold just to emphasize that you really need to be very skilled to make pirating profitable.). That could be easier access to pirate bases to sell goods; access to certain pirate upgrade modules, for example a "cargo-preserver" module that sometimes preserves some cargo from blown up victims. Or perhaps special modules that prolong the time it takes for the victim to fire up it's FSD.
2. Much MUCH more serious consequences from pirating, especially outright murder
3. Murdering ships with no cargo, or very low cargo (like below 5 tonnes), should mean doubling the bounty and rep penalty from the murder.
4. The lower the combat rating of the victim the higher the penalties for the pirate.
5. Pirating in medium and high sec systems should be very hard and a pirate should be subject to massive security pursuits. Lower sec systems should be conversely less dangerous; and in turn lower sec systems could have better trade yields to traders... see where I am getting at here?
6. etc etc

Adding depth to all aspects of gameplay is really needed , and piracy is just second after mining)
Base for 5. looks to be introduced in 1.2 , new game mechanics can allow "distress signals" for npc or bounty hunter to come.
Special tacling modules to slow FSD are also wery good idea ,stop those pesky submit-run tactics. Maybe make it take a weapon slot like gimballed weapon which adds gravity distorion and slow FSD charge.
And yes , piracy should not be about murdering everyone , I really enjoy roleplaying NPC pirates who "ask" for cargo.
Pirate stations are already ingame , just make them a bit more common. Asteroid ring-hidden station is just massive win.
Well , hope devs have good plans for this.

 

[uberdude]

Well , hope devs have good plans for this.

I hope so as well, I hope by ED 2.0 things will be almost unrecognizable from ED 1.1 in terms of content and things to do. Unfortunately I think 2.0 will be the first paid DLC. but if it has lots of goodies I'll happily through my money at FD.

 

[Rekal]

I have to agree with the OP. It just seems ridiculous that a pirate would be worried about their rate of income. Seriously, you troll around for 30 minutes, find a player mark, and then it's a crap shoot to see if they drop cargo, escape laughing at you, or get blown to bits with said cargo. Sure, it might be exciting and fun for that 2 minute chase, but you didn't actually DO anything for 30 minutes except fly your ship around, why would you expect to earn anything for that time?

Yes, Frontier advertised this as a legitimate play style. It was never advertised as profitable, or sustainable. Why would any rich pirate continue to pirate? What you should be clamoring for are privateer commissions, but even those would be geared more toward NPCs.

Any argument claiming it's not *fair* to have such a low paying play style is null and void until someone posts a video of themselves pirating a Type 6 while flying a Type 6. That would be fair, right? It would also be funny to watch.

 

[kapitankev]

Oh please, that is so rare it's a non factor.

Seriously, you're theorycrafting around examples here that have no meaningful existence in the game. Most people go straight to hyperjump from the station. No one bothers sitting at a station (he is most likely wanted at) to scan high wakes, nevermind how incredibly boring that would be.

On top of all that, once you DO find someone who started the trip to sell distant rares, he will seriously outjump you, as rare traders have maximized jump range - something not possible in a combat fitted piracy ship.

I'm not sure why you're not finding many distant rares, if people are buying rares in lave for example there are also a lot of people bringing in rares from further afield. Hang around outside the dock and scan a few people...there's plenty of distant rares about.

Catching them at the nav beacon is the trick, with the current submission/quick FSD cooldown nonsense it's hard to get people to drop cargo though. Often you end up interdicting the player again and again each time inflicting more damage while each time he gets slightly closer to the station. It's def my policy now to kill this sort of player, i used to get them down to a few percent and then let them go. not anymore. My first demand as a pirate i that you stop your engines and talk.

Last night I ended up hunting with a cobra I pulled over so it's not always a bad thing.....unless you've got some rares.

 

[Hitsuke]

your signature says bounty hunter.

Are you really?

Or are you a bounty farmer, sitting at a Nav point?

You should realize that currently only players can be hunted, and if there are no player pirates - as you think is a great thing for some reason - you can't be a bounty hunter.

That's the thing though... I'm not bounty hunting "Pirates". I'm bounty hunting griefers for the most part... why do I say griefers? Because the real "Pirates" keep their bounties and make themselves wanted. You can go on the top 5 list and see the REAL pirates in the game, but the majority of so-called "Pirates" will grief someone out of some hard earned cargo, cash it in and pay off any accrued fines or bounties that resulted from the encounter. They aren't pirates, they're scrubs frankly... Part time pirates like Giles & Tarquin who want to do something to ruin someone elses day and feel uber in the process. Then they go back to trading, mining, or whatever other day job they have.

 

[Hitsuke]

Threads like these make me wonder why some players bother with "open" mode.

Why? Because I think that being a "Pirate" in ED (or being classed as one) is way too easy? See there are REAL pirates in ED currently... guys with 25m bounties on their heads. They constantly have to watch their backs, and often find themselves being chased by numerous hunters. I can respect those guys, because they play the role properly imho. It's the quilts who go out, "Pirate" 2 or 3 traders, scoop the goods, cash them in and then pay off any bounties or fines that I can't stand.

Those guys ARENT pirates. They are wannabe pirates, who want to be known as badasses, but aren't even remotely badass. They're super soft nancies who are too scared to keep their wanted status because they know full well, that if a half decent bounty hunter comes looking for them, they will get rofl stomped. They're badasses when they're attacking poorly armed haulers, and that's it.

 

[pluton]

if people are buying rares in lave for example there are also a lot of people bringing in rares from further afield. Hang around outside the dock and scan a few people...there's plenty of distant rares about.

But I sell my distant rares at He Pora or some other nearby system a jump away before stocking up in the Lave cluster. I expect others do the same. There's no point in carrying a hold full of valuable cargo in a dangerous area when there's no need.

It's unlikely that a pirate will find me with distant rares. That will make a difference when the value of stolen rares varies with distance.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Piracy has always been extremely lucrative in reality. No reason it shouldn't be in ED.
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Hopefully when passengers are implemented we can start ransoming them for a decent amount. It would also be nice to have credit transfers so that the pirates could ransom any ship, and not just ships with cargo.
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More ways to incapacitate ships would be nice also. I imagine Non-lethal policing tactics would have carried on into the year 3300, and pirates would be the first to steal their equipment.

 

[Quineloe]

I'm not sure why you're not finding many distant rares, if people are buying rares in lave for example there are also a lot of people bringing in rares from further afield. Hang around outside the dock and scan a few people...there's plenty of distant rares about.

Catching them at the nav beacon is the trick, with the current submission/quick FSD cooldown nonsense it's hard to get people to drop cargo though. Often you end up interdicting the player again and again each time inflicting more damage while each time he gets slightly closer to the station. It's def my policy now to kill this sort of player, i used to get them down to a few percent and then let them go. not anymore. My first demand as a pirate i that you stop your engines and talk.

Last night I ended up hunting with a cobra I pulled over so it's not always a bad thing.....unless you've got some rares.

That makes no sense. If you scan someone going into Lave Station with a hold full of rares from distant systems, say Witchhaul Kobe Beef, Fujin Tea and so on, he will sell those rares at Lave station, and the information is now worthless. And many rare traders don't even risk that, they sell their rares at one of the dozen non-rare systems in the Crucis Sector near Lave.

I've watched enough piracy streams and almost all their interdictions there have local rares as they're filling their hold as they prepare for the next journey. It is extremely rare to catch someone with Witchhaul Kobe Beef in Lave, and equally rare to catch someone with Lavean Brandy in Witchhaul.

 

[uberdude]

Piracy has always been extremely lucrative in reality. No reason it shouldn't be in ED.
|
Hopefully when passengers are implemented we can start ransoming them for a decent amount. It would also be nice to have credit transfers so that the pirates could ransom any ship, and not just ships with cargo.
|
More ways to incapacitate ships would be nice also. I imagine Non-lethal policing tactics would have carried on into the year 3300, and pirates would be the first to steal their equipment.

Could take it a step further if player to player transfers are implemented. Would be easy to start up a Mafia gang that extorts protection credits from traders. In reality it's already possible to do that. I'm in a lucrative trading route. Mob comes in and approaches me (respectably) and says "wanna keep using this route? want a little more protection? drop 50 tons of (something valuable) and we guarantee your safety for (however long a time). Player to player transfers will make it easier for this.

Also i think 1.2 is going to allow winged traders to make 5% more on there trades? Haven't read the details on that yet.

Perhaps the days of the pirate are closing and the days of the mob are at hand.

 

[kapitankev]

That makes no sense. If you scan someone going into Lave Station with a hold full of rares from distant systems, say Witchhaul Kobe Beef, Fujin Tea and so on, he will sell those rares at Lave station, and the information is now worthless. And many rare traders don't even risk that, they sell their rares at one of the dozen non-rare systems in the Crucis Sector near Lave.

I've watched enough piracy streams and almost all their interdictions there have local rares as they're filling their hold as they prepare for the next journey. It is extremely rare to catch someone with Witchhaul Kobe Beef in Lave, and equally rare to catch someone with Lavean Brandy in Witchhaul.

You're missing the point, people do take their rares all the way to lave or other systems nearby...you just need to hang about near a nav beacon and sooner or later you'll come across some. It's not that rare at all.

 

[Hitsuke]

Piracy has always been extremely lucrative in reality. No reason it shouldn't be in ED.
|
Hopefully when passengers are implemented we can start ransoming them for a decent amount. It would also be nice to have credit transfers so that the pirates could ransom any ship, and not just ships with cargo.
|
More ways to incapacitate ships would be nice also. I imagine Non-lethal policing tactics would have carried on into the year 3300, and pirates would be the first to steal their equipment.

Piracy has always been and will always be a case of "Oh look how much money I've got, but I've got nowhere to spend it".

The way the game is right now, the income is low, but so are the consequences. If you want higher income and profit, then you can be damn sure you can expect much harsher consequences for pirating. None of this... "oh look, I've made 500k off those three hijackings, I'll just pay my 25,000 credit bounty and I'm done".