Piracy and Risk

Not sure if you're talking to anyone in particular, but have some rep anyway. I know that not all players are pirates, and not all pirates are [Bleep]s. If we ever meet, direct me my name, and I'll submit for you, and drop some of whatever I'm carrying. At least you seem like one of the good guys.

Sorry, I should have clearly directed my post to the OP. I'm a trader myself since pirating is not sustainable, I switch between occupations in order to have more interaction with other players since trading is pretty solitary as of right now. Thanks cmdr for understanding, you seem like a good dude so there's a chance that I might not interdict you to begin with as was the case with the cmdr type 7 the same night I killed the OP. If I did choose to interdict, I certainly wouldn't want to ruin the time you've spent in game forcing a rebuy or asking you for too much cargo. When cmdrs choose not to interact is when the killswitch is engaged so to speak. I've met many new friends playing this way, and these interactions have saved my interest in playing ED.
 
And it's precisely that reason it shouldn't be in the game. If a pirate liberates you of your cargo, what little can be taken with limpets and shooting the hatch, you shouldn't be able to go nuclear to prevent him from getting it. All it would do is encourage traders to self destruct out of spite.

Why not? If a player pirate ever manages to bust my hatch I will turn around and shoot the cargo that is spilling myself. You force me into a fight, I stop playing to have fun or to win, and start playing to prevent you from earning anything instead, regardless of how much it costs me.

I don't care if this ruins the game for the pirate. He is intentionally trying to ruin the game for me in the first place, and obviously doesn't care about that at all. I'm just reciprocating the favor.
 
Piracy is not about trying to "ruin" your game.

Like the real world, the actions that other people take aren't about you. They're about the person committing the action.

Pirates engage in piracy because it's more interesting to them than playing space truckers, not because they want to make your personal effort to earn money .

Similarly, your action of self immolation instead of paying a fee is about your personal desire to restore the power that you feel has been taken from you by being in a situation where you fail to see a potential positive outcome. You redefine the situation so that you have the power to make both people "suffer" - if it were actually about the other guy, you'd realize that your action doesn't actually set him back anyway.

So "why not?"

Because it's behavior that incurrs a severe cost to you and a minor inconvenience to the opposing party. Introducing mechanics to encourage that behavior is essentially just encouraging people to act like idiot children, and nobody wants to play a game with a bunch of idiot children.
 
Why not? If a player pirate ever manages to bust my hatch I will turn around and shoot the cargo that is spilling myself. You force me into a fight, I stop playing to have fun or to win, and start playing to prevent you from earning anything instead, regardless of how much it costs me.

I don't care if this ruins the game for the pirate. He is intentionally trying to ruin the game for me in the first place, and obviously doesn't care about that at all. I'm just reciprocating the favor.
You can do that all you want, you just shouldn't be given an uunstoppable, efficient and deadly tool to do it with. I've had traders do that to me before, they were usually dead before they got to canister number 3.

I'm ok with, traders suiciding, I'd even be ok with traders trying to kill you with a suicide, what I'm not ok with, is traders throwing a fitt because you took some of their cargo so they suicide to stop you from collecting it.
 
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It's not easy for traders to see, but you have it wrong. First, to get this out of the way, someone is opposing the Antal CG and thus is killing you outright, he has no need for your cargo, but I believe you know this.

Second, there is a difference between a pirate and a murderer. Perhaps this murderer wants the Antal CG opposed, or perhaps he just wants to murder. He is by no means a pirate.

Third, piracy is HARD. It is impossible to get all of the cargo off of anything Type-6 and larger if they don't comply to demands, the police arrive in force in most systems where players trade (So we often have to run before scooping all cargo), we make a horrible profit, and I won't get started on NPC piracy. Please, I understand you're trying to be unbiased, but please play the pirate first, a Cobra would be a good starter.

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Why not? If a player pirate ever manages to bust my hatch I will turn around and shoot the cargo that is spilling myself. You force me into a fight, I stop playing to have fun or to win, and start playing to prevent you from earning anything instead, regardless of how much it costs me.

I don't care if this ruins the game for the pirate. He is intentionally trying to ruin the game for me in the first place, and obviously doesn't care about that at all. I'm just reciprocating the favor.

Piracy is not a player actively trying to hurt you as a person, it is about enjoying an actual profession. Both players should enjoy the experience. If a pirate is skilled enough to steal your cargo and push you away, he's earned it, and if you escape, you earned your profits. This game is not an imaginary internet points accumulation simulator, nor is there any goal. If your goal is to get to an Anaconda by trading and then end the game, do it in solo.
 
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First, to get this out of the way, someone is opposing the Antal CG and thus is killing you outright, he has no need for your cargo, but I believe you know this
Second, there is a difference between a pirate and a murderer. Perhaps this murderer wants the Antal CG opposed, or perhaps he just wants to murder. He is by no means a pirate

The OP wasn't murdered, he was killed for not complying or communicating once he was pulled out of SC, I didn't even deploy my weapons until he began trying to boost and FSD out. I even dm'd him to let him know that I would not attack him. I explained the series of events a couple posts up that led to him losing his hull and cargo. I really wish that traders who are not interested in human interaction retire to solo if they don't want to be bothered by anyone other than NPCs. OP can't have is cake and eat it too, if he's going to crap on the occupation of pirating after being interdicted and destroyed for noncompliance then I've got two things to say 1) you're in open expect to be interdicted and have to converse with other players including pirates, btw how is trading risky if you're going to complain anytime you get interdicted or lose a hull to your own bad decisions 2) retire to solo where there's literally no skill or risk required to make a hefty profit trading. I can't believe we have a pirate fricken faction power (next to the system he was interdicted in non the less) and we're still having these discussion with traders.
 
Pirates are scum!! always were and always will be. If I don't get away, I will get as close to the Pirate as possible
and self destruct, its an honour thing, as in death before dishonour, that is my code. Suck it up matey's
 
Weird, I sure remember losing my ship to weapons fire with no threat posed to the attacker. Sounds like murder. Regardless, I never complained about being interdicted or pirated, I asked about the imbalance in how much time and money cargo ships lose when destroyed versus the pretty clear lack of penalty for the one doing the killing. Extortion is not really the best example of 'human interaction' I should desire to experience. Deriding others for not needing skill while bravely interdicting Type 6s without shields is a little amusing though. You must have trained on the flight stick for many years to be able to rise to the challenge there, and with a wingman no less to back you up. Maybe drop the whole superior attitude regarding player skill.

I'm not sure I understand the concept that players should be forced to switch to solo if they don't want to just hand over materials to other players on a whim. Should not every step from interdiction to cargo acquisition have a good chance for both sides to succeed? I lost my poor escape attempt and paid the price, oh well. I'm willing to take my lumps. My point remains that the pirate loses nothing currently when he blows me out of the water. I already said I supported making piracy more lucrative for those actually attempting to steal materials. Traders make a lot of money, I understand this. Of note, I was a miner doing a test run, so unless you'd really like to argue mining is super lucrative right now, maybe stow that line of thought too.

It's interesting as well that a CG that may attract pirates sure isn't attracting bounty hunters to deal with them. How do you think the state of bounty hunting is currently as implemented? Circles back to one of my original points that you don't see pirates fleeing systems from pursuers. You do hear stories like in this thread that they had to jump away from NPC interdictions that never posed much threat. Pretty scary stuff there. I'd personally like to see more parity between the income of the various roles being played while also having them all share in the danger. If pirates have any good stories of the NPCs actually doing their jobs or bounty hunters care to relate how they make a good living ending pirates' predation, I'd love to hear more.
 
To be honest, speaking as someone who isn't a pirate, but plays in open. This is the attitude that causes problems for everyone else. The few pirates that stick to the job (and it's hard, and not overly profitable in the long run) get sick of people not dropping anything because they would rather lose XXX millions as opposed to XXX thousand in cargo. It's a silly attitude which detracts heavily from the spirit of the game. Something a hardcore mode would fix in all cases.

That is actually the viable strategy: never allow the pirate to gain anything. Maybe he'll reform when he has enough of it.

The basic problem with piracy in a PvP game is that people do not want to be the prey, which is understandable. Player pirates usually pick the fights that they can win, meaning every time you see one you're outgunned. If you outgun the pirate... you don't see him in the first place since he won't bother with you and go pick an easier target.

Not giving in to the pirates is the only viable long term strategy, especially since once you left some cargo most players will blow you up anyway, often with a few insulting remarks on your maternal ancestry along the way. That's the LOL and PvP crowd for you.
 
Pirates are scum!! always were and always will be. If I don't get away, I will get as close to the Pirate as possible
and self destruct, its an honour thing, as in death before dishonour, that is my code. Suck it up matey's
Self destruct doesn't do any damage, it doesn't matter how close you get.
 
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Have you pirated before? Do you have any experience in piracy? Do you know how much pirates make in comparison to traders? Do you know how complex piracy is? Do you know that FD screwed up the patch and limited 20 cargo per instance?

Do you know that pirates are extremely frustrated right now, and if you want to live, drop your cargo as instructed and don't argue, or get into a larger ship?

You know what... I'm sick of this, traders complaining when pirates got screwed over by a patch that reduces the profession itself to nothing. Nope, still not satisfied... still going to complain about it in General Discussion...

Welp, thanks for reminding me, going to open a thread, as well complaining about piracy's broken state.
 
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You might want to read some of the posts in here GluttonyFang before replying. They address your questions if you're actually looking for responses and not just hoping people will weep for the poor pirate. Good luck with your thread. Hope all that's broken with piracy is exposed, including the lack of consequences for those who do a sloppy job of it.
 
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I'm not sure how people are getting ID'ed again by the same person. Avoiding a pirate is easy, even if they do drop out of SC.
 
You might want to read some of the posts in here GluttonyFang before replying. They address your questions if you're actually looking for responses and not just hoping people will weep for the poor pirate. Good luck with your thread. Hope all that's broken with piracy is exposed, including the lack of consequences for those who do a sloppy job of it.

I want to see you proposing a system that will somehow separates "good piracy" from "bad piracy." Then we can discuss that further, currently people have no interest in distinguishing a pirate from a griever. The difference isn't reinforced by any in-game mechanic, either.

There will always be grievers, people who find amusement in purely ruining another individual's gameplay with not the slightest consideration. And the amoral profession of piracy will always take the blame for it, because people need something to blame, otherwise it is their fault (which sometimes is the case).

Complaining about a subject is different than coming up with a solution.
 
Piracy is the hardest profession in the game!

Are you kidding, OP?!

It is HARD to make a living as a pirate. I barely scraped by until I was unemployed with the 1.3 update and 20 ton cargo nerf. Piracy needs gigantic buffs, not penalties.
 
I'm not sure I see the need to separate piracy into those delineations, but merely start with consequences for ship destroyers. People keep commenting on the reward aspect of trading and it's already agreed, they make a ton of money when doing it right. The part forgotten is how much is lost when their ship is destroyed. Pirates currently do not fly around systems trying their hardest to avoid the law, they scoff at it and continue doing whatever they want. Their income may possibly be low, but their risk is nil. For all the talk of traders being the ones to take it to solo to play it safe, pirates are by far the safer choice until I start reading horror stories of NPC cops crushing criminals with impunity or pirates not being able to escape bounty hunters and being forced to fight.

What I would change in general are allowing drones to steal cargo from vessels once the hatch was defeated, and/or specialized systems based around that, while at the same time giving more options to the courier to actually have some response and chance at evasion. Currently there is little to no hope of out-flying an interdiction and once in normal space you are mass-locked and that's it. Comply with demands or be destroyed. Pirate wins, or pirate wins.
 
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I'm not sure I see the need to separate piracy into those delineations, but merely start with consequences for ship destroyers. People keep commenting on the reward aspect of trading and it's already agreed, they make a ton of money when doing it right. The part forgotten is how much is lost when their ship is destroyed. Pirates currently do not fly around systems trying their hardest to avoid the law, they scoff at it and continue doing whatever they want. Their income may possibly be low, but their risk is nil. For all the talk of traders being the ones to take it to solo to play it safe, pirates are by far the safer choice until I start reading horror stories of NPC cops crushing criminals with impunity or pirates not being able to escape bounty hunters and being forced to fight.

What I would change in general are allowing drones to steal cargo from vessels once the hatch was defeated, and/or specialized systems based around that, while at the same time giving more options to the courier to actually have some response and chance at evasion. Currently there is little to no hope of out-flying an interdiction and once in normal space you are mass-locked and that's it. Comply with demands or be destroyed. Pirate wins, or pirate wins.

Haha. No.

See, it works like this:

1. Comply with demands and live plus get protection for the next few days. You will only be pirated once ever few days or week by legitimate pirates.
2. Don't comply and get destroyed

The trader has a choice. The trader, who possibly makes millions to over ten million an hour can give up some cargo worth 500k or so and be on their way. Dent to profits: MINIMAL

The trader has a second choice: Hire wingmen to protect them and cut into their GIGANTIC profits. Traders make ridiculous sums of money. They have more than enough to pay for protection. Pirates will probably ignore them if they have protection. Traders win, though, they pay their tax another way.

Lastly, if pirates could shoot out drives, hold a player in place then milk cargo out, players would end up living that way, too.

I make next to nothing pirating. I've been playing this since December and don't have anything close to a Python or 'Conda by earning the majority of my income through honest piracy. Traders can get a 'conda in a week or two if they grind for it.
 
Haha. No.

See, it works like this:

1. Comply with demands and live plus get protection for the next few days. You will only be pirated once ever few days or week by legitimate pirates.
2. Don't comply and get destroyed

The trader has a choice. The trader, who possibly makes millions to over ten million an hour can give up some cargo worth 500k or so and be on their way. Dent to profits: MINIMAL

The trader has a second choice: Hire wingmen to protect them and cut into their GIGANTIC profits. Traders make ridiculous sums of money. They have more than enough to pay for protection. Pirates will probably ignore them if they have protection. Traders win, though, they pay their tax another way.

Lastly, if pirates could shoot out drives, hold a player in place then milk cargo out, players would end up living that way, too.

I make next to nothing pirating. I've been playing this since December and don't have anything close to a Python or 'Conda by earning the majority of my income through honest piracy. Traders can get a 'conda in a week or two if they grind for it.

no trader in an asp or smaller is making millions an hour and definately not 10s of millions and I am not saying pirating is easy as a profession, but load of high value product in a t6 (what the op was using) may cost 1million and make a profit of at best 150k. to lose that half his stock will a good hours grinding so its not an easy loss/job there either. I would be surprised to see a new player have a conda in a week of grinding trade and if so how much time a day is one spending trading, myself it is lucky to be 2 hours thats 14 in a week add a couple of bonus hours for the weekend and maybe 20 hours, at 2 million an hour (cause traders make soooo much) thats still a long way off a conda and barely a good clipper (assuming you have the rep to buy one).

Sorry pirates, while what you do is not easy, and its completely within the game mechanics and I dont actually have a big issue with the job itself, the idiots that are out asking for 20+ tonnes of a traders stock (in a t6 etc) you are not working hard you are tryng to cream it from weaker players.
 
I've never witnessed a pirate provide any such protection offers. Regardless, what you present is a false choice made with a ludicrous hypothetical. Only the higher tiers of traders are pulling in figures like those and they are not relevant at hand to the discussion of say a T6 miner. My choice in that situation was to lose maybe an hour's worth of mining or a few hours. That was it, there was no upside. Even if one complies, you are often dusted regardless.

As for wingmen, I'm not sure who you're playing with that just happens to have people online wanting to do nothing but escort duty for hours. That seems very strange to me.

I agree with you about disabling ships, and thought that was already a possibility as I've had my thrusters destroyed and not my ship in the past. But I'll take your word for it that it's not currently working.
 
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