I do hope Season 2 helps Piracy - Today's experience just confirms to me it doesn't work very well...

[Kristov]

Question about that crime system. As it is now traders more often than not and even more often than that log. But lets say I interdicted a ship which for whatever reason is impossible or near impossible to get cargo out of (ECM point defence and all that) and they refuse to coorporate. Will I get a bunch of bad rep because I find a bunch of very difficult costumers?

The law would still be after you, yes, you being bad at pirating doesn't negate the fact that you ARE trying to be a pirate. And yes, if you can't get around ECM or point defense, you are bad at pirating.

Target subsystem Power Plant, knock it down to 0%, no more ECM or PDS active, easy to get the cargo. Use of a cargo scanner shows you if this is even worth your time in the first place, hence smart pirates using them, no point sticking around longer than you need to, unless you like waiting around for the cops. Also why going after large well armed targets isn't such a good idea. I could get through the shields of a T7 or 9 in nothing flat and how their drives(pre 1.4) down so they couldn't get away in another few seconds. Post 1.4, I can have their shields down and their power plant down even quicker(it's easier to hit), giving me more time to get the cargo before the cops show up. I pirated using a Cobra mk III and Imperial Clipper myself, excellent ships for pirating, good cargo capacity, great speed, and great handling, making them excellent for piracy. The objective of a pirate isn't to fight it out, it's to get in, disable the target if required, get the cargo and get out again, less fuss and muss possible, so that you make credits fast and easy without being at risk. If you want to fight, be a bounty hunter, pays the same just much riskier(if you actually find NPCs to be a risk that is, since they will be your primary targets, sadly), and then you've got a reason for going after Pythons, Anacondas, Vettes and Cutters, because as a pirate, going after those, not a bright move, far too dangerous, especially for a Python(not a good PvP vessel you know, it's power plant is so easy to hit and milhul/HRPs don't help it much, by design, same with the Anaconda). I was a pirate, I went after cargo hauling targets that wouldn't tear up my pretty paint job, much less put big holes in my ship. Again, you want that, be a bounty hunter, that's what they do, pirates STEAL cargo, it's how pirates make credits since we can't take over another ship after all.

And I did quite well off NPCs, no risk, no muss, no fuss, cargo is cargo after all, it's all profit, and if you go after cargo ships, you get plenty of cargo. I made as much being a pirate as I did bounty hunting, 3-5m an hour on average, same as mining. Hell of a lot more than I make as an explorer, but half or less of what I make as a trader, slightly less boring than trading however, since there's no repercussions. They get the law and order system working right, I'll go back to piracy, I don't care about making less than I do as a trader if it's fun to do. That's why I'm an explorer, it ain't about the pay, good gods above and below, anyone doing exploration for the money is truly an idiot! It's about the enjoyment, the thrill of seeing things literally no other human being has ever seen, and truthfully, no other human being may ever see them. It's what I wanted to do from day 1, exploration, it's why I got Elite: Dangerous, I did piracy because it's something I usually do in these kinds of games, so I tried it out....yeah, no fun, maybe someday...

Personally, the law and order system working right is just part of the equation for me, as I've discovered in Star Citizen that it's SO much fun to board someone else's ship and take it, either by killing them(I'm not a good guy) or stealing it while they are doing something on a station(again, I'm not a good guy). When we can SELL those stolen ships...I've been the XO of a pirate group online for 20 years, we're waiting for that to come online, we're going to have a blast being the bad guys, the law and order system is already coming online and it's really interesting. FD needs to pay attention to what CIG is doing in that area...I know CIG pays attention to what FD does.

 

[Comrade Error]

The law would still be after you, yes, you being bad at pirating doesn't negate the fact that you ARE trying to be a pirate. And yes, if you can't get around ECM or point defense, you are bad at pirating.

Target subsystem Power Plant, knock it down to 0%, no more ECM or PDS active, easy to get the cargo. Use of a cargo scanner shows you if this is even worth your time in the first place, hence smart pirates using them, no point sticking around longer than you need to, unless you like waiting around for the cops. Also why going after large well armed targets isn't such a good idea. I could get through the shields of a T7 or 9 in nothing flat and how their drives(pre 1.4) down so they couldn't get away in another few seconds. Post 1.4, I can have their shields down and their power plant down even quicker(it's easier to hit), giving me more time to get the cargo before the cops show up. I pirated using a Cobra mk III and Imperial Clipper myself, excellent ships for pirating, good cargo capacity, great speed, and great handling, making them excellent for piracy. The objective of a pirate isn't to fight it out, it's to get in, disable the target if required, get the cargo and get out again, less fuss and muss possible, so that you make credits fast and easy without being at risk. If you want to fight, be a bounty hunter, pays the same just much riskier(if you actually find NPCs to be a risk that is, since they will be your primary targets, sadly), and then you've got a reason for going after Pythons, Anacondas, Vettes and Cutters, because as a pirate, going after those, not a bright move, far too dangerous, especially for a Python(not a good PvP vessel you know, it's power plant is so easy to hit and milhul/HRPs don't help it much, by design, same with the Anaconda). I was a pirate, I went after cargo hauling targets that wouldn't tear up my pretty paint job, much less put big holes in my ship. Again, you want that, be a bounty hunter, that's what they do, pirates STEAL cargo, it's how pirates make credits since we can't take over another ship after all.

And I did quite well off NPCs, no risk, no muss, no fuss, cargo is cargo after all, it's all profit, and if you go after cargo ships, you get plenty of cargo. I made as much being a pirate as I did bounty hunting, 3-5m an hour on average, same as mining. Hell of a lot more than I make as an explorer, but half or less of what I make as a trader, slightly less boring than trading however, since there's no repercussions. They get the law and order system working right, I'll go back to piracy, I don't care about making less than I do as a trader if it's fun to do. That's why I'm an explorer, it ain't about the pay, good gods above and below, anyone doing exploration for the money is truly an idiot! It's about the enjoyment, the thrill of seeing things literally no other human being has ever seen, and truthfully, no other human being may ever see them. It's what I wanted to do from day 1, exploration, it's why I got Elite: Dangerous, I did piracy because it's something I usually do in these kinds of games, so I tried it out....yeah, no fun, maybe someday...

Personally, the law and order system working right is just part of the equation for me, as I've discovered in Star Citizen that it's SO much fun to board someone else's ship and take it, either by killing them(I'm not a good guy) or stealing it while they are doing something on a station(again, I'm not a good guy). When we can SELL those stolen ships...I've been the XO of a pirate group online for 20 years, we're waiting for that to come online, we're going to have a blast being the bad guys, the law and order system is already coming online and it's really interesting. FD needs to pay attention to what CIG is doing in that area...I know CIG pays attention to what FD does.

I don't think I even want to bother with you. Implying I'm dumb for not using a cargo scanner and attacking ships with more loot and smaller chances of logging? No thanks.

And I don't do NPCs. If I want money I'll go trade/bore (what's the difference?) myself to death. Much easier and faster anyway.

 

[Derath]

I know CIG pays attention to what FD does.

What... Nothing?

 

[Goose4291]

What... Nothing?

They do and are probably laughing hard regarding the division that the game modes sharing the same universe has generated.

 

[Derath]

They do and are probably laughing hard regarding the division that the game modes sharing the same universe has generated.

Yeah i laugh at this one all the time, its like a lesson in how to not setup your game.

That being said i don't think its a new lesson, but I at least had forgotten what happened when you jumbled everything together its been a long time since I played UO or DAoC

 

[who?]

They do and are probably laughing hard regarding the division that the game modes sharing the same universe has generated.

There would have been division whatever decision they made.

If they only had one mode, you'd have an even bigger division between the PvE and PvP players. If they had multiple, discrete game modes, then how would they handle the lore? (e.g. What if the Empire won a war in Solo but the Federation won it in Open?) Would they maintain multiple versions of the storyline, or just greatly limit what players can do in each universe?

 

[mossfoot]

There would have been division whatever decision they made.

If they only had one mode, you'd have an even bigger division between the PvE and PvP players. If they had multiple, discrete game modes, then how would they handle the lore? (e.g. What if the Empire won a war in Solo but the Federation won it in Open?) Would they maintain multiple versions of the storyline, or just greatly limit what players can do in each universe?

Pretty much this. If they wanted to have a persistent world where the community as a whole affected the course of events both big and small organically rather than through hero-esque plot hammering, then I can't imagine what else they could have done.

 

[DaveB]

They do and are probably laughing hard regarding the division that the game modes sharing the same universe has generated.

Yeah i laugh at this one all the time, its like a lesson in how to not setup your game...

What makes me laugh is the folks with such a monotonous song seizing every place where they could possibly sing it, whether its relevant to the thread or not even though they know that ship sailed long ago.

Just one mode? Not only would the PvPvE "discussions" get even uglier than they already do with ragequits galore, but then the "serious MMO" players would be so up in arms about how bad the friend and ignore functions work they'd likely get fixed and there's de-facto private groups again...

Pick a mode and can't switch? Open would be even more empty than it is now.

Separate universes: Multiply the expense for FD to simply run it and multiply the work maintaining separate streams of all the curated content as they diverged by the same factor, further increasing the ongoing cost. Will never happen.

Now can we banish the mode switching discussion back to where it might actually belong? Please?

 

[Derath]

What makes me laugh is the folks with such a monotonous song seizing every place where they could possibly sing it, whether its relevant to the thread or not even though they know that ship sailed long ago.

Of course the ship sailed long ago, and its monotonous because its so obvious to everyone involved, probably even to FD themselves.

As to the rest of your point why bother seperating the universe? You cannot influence anything meaningful, and anything meaningful can already be influenced by invisible players (solo and groups), they don't have any curated content so that isn't relevant. They tried to take an easy route to appease everyone and found by and large it appeases no-one. Don't be an apologist for FD the only reason the system is like it is is they chose it, their reasons for choosing it are their own and we will never know them, you can infer that they are superior, i can infer that they are absolutely woeful, which is generally matched by their track record on other decisions.

And yes keep it where it belongs we weren't discussing mode switching it was a polite chuckle between two like minded players about something incredibly obvious to some of us, I wasn't looking to start a discussion as much as making a joke which you either get, or you don't. It isn't an insult if you don't.

 

[Boomer Kay]

Question about that crime system. As it is now traders more often than not and even more often than that log. But lets say I interdicted a ship which for whatever reason is impossible or near impossible to get cargo out of (ECM point defence and all that) and they refuse to coorporate. Will I get a bunch of bad rep because I find a bunch of very difficult costumers?

Well, it's a collection of ideas more than a complete concept and you can add many of the piracy related ideas from this thread, like the "protection money scanner", the indicators for the HUD and many many more.

Core is communication and decision making.
Sorry to say that, but I work in an environment where my decisions can have costly consequences for my company and I survived for 10 years there, but this game sometimes makes me feel like an idiot by the way it presents it's data. It's inconsistent, ambiguous, counter-intuitive and sometimes just plain wrong. (examples in some of my other posts across this board)

The idea is that *pirate* actions are rewarding based on the pirate career you take (since you and Kristov don't seem to get along, I come to the conclusion that having the ONE pirate career will not make everyone happy, either).
Either you're a risk seeking pirate, who cares little about the financial outcome. You tackle high risk targets with the risk of them actually fighting back -> this should be rewarded in form of +reputation with other pirates. You should still be held to your word as a pirate, so "ganking" low value or low rating ships should either give you no progress, or even negative.
A pirate who boasts stealing a baby's lolly is .. ermm .. yea. Doesn't really get better if he stole 10000 lollies from countless babies.

Mechanic kinda like the Pilot's Combat rating. Your rating vs. theirs (can be your pirate rating vs. their trade or their trade+combat combined). You attack a noob winder having a high pirate rating and good ship yourself .. poof goes 2 days of progress toward's your pirate's career (you wasted some of his time and a lot of yours). You attack a T6, he's stupid and tries to flee instead of just handing you some cargo (which would result in rep gain), you have to shoot him to keep your reputation (no reputation loss, no cargo, which would count to your rating - waste of time for both of you basically). You attack a higher ranked and higher tier ship like a cutter. He drops you cargo (+ cargo reputation), he successfully flees (no reputation), he decides to fight you, you win (+ reputation but no cargo).

The other pilot is more interested in getting cargo and less in actually challenging targets, so he gains more reputation by cargo scoops and maybe higher hits by shooting ships, or he just "scans" them for the protection money. Kinda like mafia money collectors (my favorite chinese takeaway was burned to the ground thanks to not being willing to pay to the chinese and russian "businessmen" .. thanks for that, cheeseheads ;P )

The career taken by the pirate should be communicated to his target (pirates do NOT hide their flags in the bunk of the ship ^^ ), so they can act accordingly and know that there's consequences for the pirate, that actually matter to him.
There should be constant decisionmaking, from chosing your target to chosing your actions after you engaged, but it has to be based on easy to understand data, which have to be sent by the game (<- multilanguage taken into account here) and are as clear as traffic signs.


And well, there seem to be hints at military careers coming, if I interpret GalNet correctly, so I don't hope to see anything like that in the near future.
If they want to make Season 3 the Season of the pirate, though .. more power to them.

If they turn high security systems actually dangerously high security, this will most likely kill piracy completely. There's no need to ever leave them, and if you're swarmed by 20 police clippers and FAS after 2-3 acts of piracy ....
And Eve might get away with putting high profitable trade in dangerous areas and low profit in high security, but here, the only thing this will accomplish it getting more people into solo and private group. The player pirates should be those few dashing and daring pirates that venture into high sec areas to increase their pirate rating.
And there's probably less Apple Stores in entire Somalia than on the island of Manhattan alone, so "trade" being "more profitable the higher the risk" is a pure, cheesy game mechanic and not really sustainable "in real life". You'd have to hire so many security guards for that store, it would probably be the least profitable on this planet (our HQ in Moskow actually has armed security and the chief of them is rumored to be ex kgb).

 

[Comrade Error]

To your third paragraph. No I love robbing a big haul as much as the next guy but that's just it, more risk = more reward in this case. I don't take much of the T6s and Asps either, I would like to seem them as fast as possible in an T9 or Anaconda trading but once they're there I don't mind taking a lot (as much as is allowed without cansiters exploding everywhere. Also I will reffere you to my sig and the last part of that quote. But sure a fancy title couldn't hurt

To your fourth paragraph. Aye, killing a trader certanly should put a fine bounty on me but I don't think killing a fleeing trader who is in something as flimsy as a T6 or T7 who blow up when you sneeze in their general direction and flees should give you negative pirate rep. None either since you didn't get anything but you gotta show you mean buisness. I mention them blowing up when you sneeze at the because of that you can't really get their powerplant atleast not without turning off all of your large weapons and only slowly chip at the PP with a small or med weapon and traders aren't going to wait for you to so very gently shut them down.

To your last paragraph. The middle east want guns (black market prefferably), the USA and the western world want cokain from South America and China has a lot of slave labour that they send out and use themselfs.

All of these examples include some developing country which is in conflict or just in general not a good shape. Conflict hit systems and or systems in Anarchy with a crime syndicate in control and maybe it's a high-tech system or a agricultural system they can use for a lot of nasty stuff would be good places to make a profit but they are not. You can't even sell your stolen goods to an anarchy station in an anarchy system without them going down in price at a black market.
If it does send people to solo those dangerous systems should have very dangerous NPCs hanging around aswell. Big wings of big ships either looking to cause grief or take a big chunk of your cargo.

 

[Kristov]

They do and are probably laughing hard regarding the division that the game modes sharing the same universe has generated.

Not what I was referring to, Chris Roberts has frequently made allusion to Elite: Dangerous when talking about Star Citizen, he's a KS backer you know, same as David is a KS backer of Star Citizen, they keep track of what each is doing with their work, as they are almost identical concepts, scale and socialization being the two points where they diverge.

As to the modes, Star Citizen has no such intentions, like any other MMO, it's a single shared game world for all players, an open PvP game world, and CIG actually caters to the pirate element, with a company in the game world, Drake Interstellar, that makes ships extremely suitable to piracy, from small attack vessel to large cargo ships/mobile chop shops. They already have working EW ingame, including an actual EMP weapon on the Avenger Warlock that knocks out all electronics on the target for a short time frame, and have 'advertised' defensive options for personal/hanger/ship that are non-lethal, so you can capture people, ostensibly to turn them over to the authorities, but slavery exists in the Star Citizen universe as well, so... I've boarded someone else's ship and shot them with my sidearm so I could take their ship(he blew up my ship while I was inside a station doing a PI mission, so it was justified), had I been armed with a non-lethal weapon, I would have used that instead...so I could take the sorry little piece of humanity and dump him on the edge of the system and let him walk home. I'm not a nice guy, I'm rather vindictive sometimes as well, what can I say?

With much smaller systems, and far fewer of them, only 140 or so at the start, seeing other players will be far more common than it is in Elite: Dangerous, and my group is far from the only pirate group already formed and ready to go. There are also many law enforcement groups as well, not to mention the actual UEE Navy and Advocacy(the cops), with a working law and order system(already ingame and working), so PvP will be happening, regardless of whether people want it or not, and no way to escape into Solo or Group mode, and due to a centralized server system, combat logging won't be real useful, we'll still be able to take your ship if you try it.

And funny thing, that's the game, some people, naturally enough, as we see in Elite: Dangerous, don't like that about the game, but there's been no deviation on that aspect either, it's part of the design, it's not going to be changed, Chris has been clear on that.

I think David should have allowed a single player offline game to happen myself, make it a static world, that's what CIG is going to do, you can run your own little private server, static, because it's not part of the real game, nothing you do in one translates to the other and the private server doesn't have the BGS operational in it. That gives those folks who don't want open PvP a way to avoid it without messing up the game world itself. CIG isn't offering that as a deal, it's just something Chris said they are going to do, give people the server software, not tied to the real game which means no BGS and it's a static world, so the folks who want to can just play by themselves or with a few friends without him having to compromise HIS game vision. Good idea really, but naturally people will whine and complain about the static game world on those private servers, but hey, if you don't want to play the game the way it was meant to be played, that's what happens. Wonder how many people would enjoy that for Elite: Dangerous, a static game world, no BGS running, but you can play with your friends and never have to worry about non-consensual PvP? No messing with the minor factions, no PP, prices for everything always the same, just a few of the things you'd give up for that, there's many more, would that be worth it?

I don't think so, but I also don't mind getting jumped ingame by a wing of players who just want to kill me, so I'm obviously not in my right mind, right?

Error, if you don't know how to disable a ship, you are doing piracy wrong, simple as that. If you don't bother to scan cargo, well, I'm going to, again, question if you want cargo or just want to shoot at players. Take out the power plant, all ship systems stop working, no more ECM or Point Defense or weapons or thrusters or anything, makes it very easy to bust their cargo hatch and take what you want without any problems. If you can't actually target well enough to do that, well, practice makes perfect they say, and I'm fully aware of how well those XBOne controllers work, plenty of folks who have no problems taking out subsystems and flying almost as well as Isinona(he's unique, not flies as well as, just almost as well).

And pirating is about making easy money, NPCs have cargo too ya know, and they never combat log, which is why I pirated them, because the humans all went away when I interdicted them, hard to pirate them when they aren't there, ya know? You like shooting at other players, that's not piracy, that's wanting to shoot at other players, and you want them to shoot back, which is good. Find others and do PvP with them, that's what the PvP groups do, they even had a league just recently, you should look into that.

 

[Fendalton]

You are exactly what is wrong with this game.

You lack the type speed to even say OK HOLD UP so combat log. He asks for Carbo, so drop cargo? Not his fault you wanted to RP or some .

No doubt Frontier won't have the balls to enforce their own rules which states that Combat Logging is against the rules.

Just another reason to show that any form of challenge in this game is circumvented by players combat logging. This is why this game is just a joke for anyone who isn't trading from A to B or exploring.

I cannot WAIT for the new PowerPlay tweaks to promote people going into open, it's going to be a Combat Log fest!

 

[NeilF]

Not what I was referring to, Chris Roberts has frequently made allusion to Elite: Dangerous when talking about Star Citizen, he's a KS backer you know, same as David is a KS backer of Star Citizen, they keep track of what each is doing with their work, as they are almost identical concepts, scale and socialization being the two points where they diverge.

As to the modes, Star Citizen has no such intentions, like any other MMO, it's a single shared game world for all players, an open PvP game world, and CIG actually caters to the pirate element, with a company in the game world, Drake Interstellar, that makes ships extremely suitable to piracy, from small attack vessel to large cargo ships/mobile chop shops. They already have working EW ingame, including an actual EMP weapon on the Avenger Warlock that knocks out all electronics on the target for a short time frame, and have 'advertised' defensive options for personal/hanger/ship that are non-lethal, so you can capture people, ostensibly to turn them over to the authorities, but slavery exists in the Star Citizen universe as well, so... I've boarded someone else's ship and shot them with my sidearm so I could take their ship(he blew up my ship while I was inside a station doing a PI mission, so it was justified), had I been armed with a non-lethal weapon, I would have used that instead...so I could take the sorry little piece of humanity and dump him on the edge of the system and let him walk home. I'm not a nice guy, I'm rather vindictive sometimes as well, what can I say?

With much smaller systems, and far fewer of them, only 140 or so at the start, seeing other players will be far more common than it is in Elite: Dangerous, and my group is far from the only pirate group already formed and ready to go. There are also many law enforcement groups as well, not to mention the actual UEE Navy and Advocacy(the cops), with a working law and order system(already ingame and working), so PvP will be happening, regardless of whether people want it or not, and no way to escape into Solo or Group mode, and due to a centralized server system, combat logging won't be real useful, we'll still be able to take your ship if you try it.

Going to be fascinating to see how another take/attempt on the same problem works out...

And pirating is about making easy money, NPCs have cargo too ya know, and they never combat log, which is why I pirated them, because the humans all went away when I interdicted them, hard to pirate them when they aren't there, ya know? You like shooting at other players, that's not piracy, that's wanting to shoot at other players, and you want them to shoot back, which is good. Find others and do PvP with them, that's what the PvP groups do, they even had a league just recently, you should look into that.

It's not so easy surely? ie: Trading and RES farming surely yield far far more CRs, without the negative reputation issues too!?

I still recon piracy needs a reputation/rank which means you have access to hidden/dedicate black markets which then can pay at higher values. Likewise with more interesting/better paying missions too.

 

[Majinvash]

What makes me laugh is the folks with such a monotonous song seizing every place where they could possibly sing it, whether its relevant to the thread or not even though they know that ship sailed long ago.

Just one mode? Not only would the PvPvE "discussions" get even uglier than they already do with ragequits galore, but then the "serious MMO" players would be so up in arms about how bad the friend and ignore functions work they'd likely get fixed and there's de-facto private groups again...

Pick a mode and can't switch? Open would be even more empty than it is now.

Separate universes: Multiply the expense for FD to simply run it and multiply the work maintaining separate streams of all the curated content as they diverged by the same factor, further increasing the ongoing cost. Will never happen.

Now can we banish the mode switching discussion back to where it might actually belong? Please?

Do you know why Open is quieter than it was say 7-8 months ago?

All the main players groups and Open players simply left because of how broken the mode switching is and the other mechanics made so weak players feel safe/have a way out of 99% of situations.
My in games friends list is ( was ) huge and I see maybe 10% of the players ever online.

All the older players just got bored of how stupid some of the mechanics are and moved onto better things.

I play around 2 maybe 3hrs a week now at best. PVE players might think they have won by that statement but its not them, its FD letting is player base down.
If you look at the majority of the important player groups who created real content months ago, you will find that if they are still around, they are made up of a handful of players.

All the excellent ideas on this thread wont make a smidgen of difference to Open because the option to avoid risk still exists and todays players are lazy and entitled.
If you had been forced to play in a mode from the beginning, if the option to skip between them had never even been a concept.
You would have a very very different player base, much more organised in game groups and I expect far better tools to support them.

Majinvash
The Voice of Open

 

[Boomer Kay]

To your fourth paragraph. Aye, killing a trader certanly should put a fine bounty on me but I don't think killing a fleeing trader who is in something as flimsy as a T6 or T7 who blow up when you sneeze in their general direction and flees should give you negative pirate rep. None either since you didn't get anything but you gotta show you mean buisness. I mention them blowing up when you sneeze at the because of that you can't really get their powerplant atleast not without turning off all of your large weapons and only slowly chip at the PP with a small or med weapon and traders aren't going to wait for you to so very gently shut them down.

Hence the rating and rewards/setbacks based on ranking differences.
If you're in a python and you see a trader in a inferior ship (most likely with lower ranking), you risk destroying him if you engage. You know that, so you can always let him run, if you don't want to risk looking like a wimp who steals baby's lollies in front of your fellow pirates (it's a "reputation" like system, so bragging to be hardcore while showing by your actions that your idea of challenge is to tackle weaker opponents, backfires at one point).
You claim you seek the challenge, well this is obviously NOT a challenge. You can always bring him up to try to get some booty and count on your reputation (rating) as badass pirate to convince him, since you can always shoot him down, if he annoys you or does not play with your rules.
You could also switch to a sidewinder and pirate those weaker targets, adding to your reputation. The badass pirate that taunts traders and authorities alike by showing them he can take them on in an inferior ship and get away with it.

Cargo negotiation has to be automated for that to work. Very clear messages.
When you engage, you can set a demand for cargo - the interdicted one gets a message "Pirate wants x cargo or he'll destroy you", he accepts - in that case the cargo is automatically jettisoned - or declines .. in that case it's the next round of decision making.
He claims he does not have the cargo. You can shoot him because you don't believe him, risking a hit to reputation if it was an inferior opponent or getting a raise in reputation for equal and higher targets. Or you can let him scoot. (you can expand on that with different options - cargo scanning and so on .. all leading to different outcomes).

To your last paragraph. The middle east want guns (black market prefferably), the USA and the western world want cokain from South America and China has a lot of slave labour that they send out and use themselfs.

All of these examples include some developing country which is in conflict or just in general not a good shape. Conflict hit systems and or systems in Anarchy with a crime syndicate in control and maybe it's a high-tech system or a agricultural system they can use for a lot of nasty stuff would be good places to make a profit but they are not. You can't even sell your stolen goods to an anarchy station in an anarchy system without them going down in price at a black market.
If it does send people to solo those dangerous systems should have very dangerous NPCs hanging around aswell. Big wings of big ships either looking to cause grief or take a big chunk of your cargo.

Different black market concepts.
Those black markets are so profitable because they're a monopoly. Any monopoly market is high profit. We don't have real monopolies in ED (even the rares, which are going that direction, there's substitute products). An it's not taxed. A soon as it's taxed, profit margins melt like butter. Look at cigarettes. Black market cigarettes are more profitable for the dealer because he avoids taxation by smuggling (not the goods are illegal, but their smuggling is), but they're cheaper.
That's more the ED Black Markets we have. Somewhere to sell your stolen booty and the per ton profit is higher than trading, because you didn't buy them. Trader's profit on 1t of palladium is some 2-4k, pirates is about 10-13k?

Just another reason to show that any form of challenge in this game is circumvented by players combat logging. This is why this game is just a joke for anyone who isn't trading from A to B or exploring.

Looking for a challenge? Your search has come to an end - like minded people that duke it out with other challengeseekers: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=231057

This thread is about "Pirates" and we've nearly come to the agreement that pirates look for booty and renown. There's no booty to be had from a full HRP FAS. One day NPC pirates will see the truth, too.

(and bullying me out of powerplay because it was unsufferable that I play from solo was not the smartest idea .. neither was wielding supposed sarcasm like a blunt cudgel .. now I have to find solutions for all of your issues, taking every part of your vulnerability into account while demonstrating the use of sarcasm as a surgical instrument .. I love the smell of coffee in the morning )

 

[Kristov]

Going to be fascinating to see how another take/attempt on the same problem works out...


It's not so easy surely? ie: Trading and RES farming surely yield far far more CRs, without the negative reputation issues too!?

I still recon piracy needs a reputation/rank which means you have access to hidden/dedicate black markets which then can pay at higher values. Likewise with more interesting/better paying missions too.

Indeed, it is interesting to see it playing out now in the alpha testing, people are committing acts of piracy by stealing other's ships, which I've done a few times, sometimes by force(killing the other player) and sometimes by stealth(sneaking on when they land or boarding it while in space). People aren't complaining about these actions either, ingame or on the forums, as it's expected in the game. There's a lot more focus of PvP combat in the game than there is in Elite: Dangerous, by Chris himself, CIG et al, and by the players themselves, so people just expect it and understand that it's how it works. Amazing what a difference THAT difference makes in the attitudes of the players.

As for piracy in Elite, I made 3-5m an hour pirating NPCs, mostly selling the cargo I took from them, occasionally picking up a little bounty money, but mainly just selling that stolen cargo, which is almost pure profit, the only expenses are my fuel, ammo and occasional repairs for interdiction damages. I make the same 3-5m farming CZs or Res, but the threat to my ship is a lot less when I'm pirating.

And what reputation loss are you referring to? I tended to pirate ships belonging to minor factions opposed to the minor faction running the station with the black markets I would use, they loved me.

 

[Derath]

Kristov you must know some trick to NPC's that I don't 3-5mil an hour is like 400-600 gold, or 250-350 imperial slaves an hour, i've never seen a freighter carrying more than 20 of anything :/, and even then its usually tea

 

[Boomer Kay]

Kristov you must know some trick to NPC's that I don't 3-5mil an hour is like 400-600 gold, or 250-350 imperial slaves an hour, i've never seen a freighter carrying more than 20 of anything :/, and even then its usually tea

Maybe it was nerfed to "encourage PvP piracy" - they do seem to change quite a bit of background stuff without putting it in the patch notes (see BGS thread).

Or the cargoscanner works like a prospector limpet and you get higher yield if you actually use it? mechanic certainly exists in the game. KWS also nearly seems to double the income from bountyhunting.

 

[DaveB]

Do you know why Open is quieter than it was say 7-8 months ago?

All the main players groups and Open players simply left because of how broken the mode switching is and the other mechanics made so weak players feel safe/have a way out of 99% of situations.
My in games friends list is ( was ) huge and I see maybe 10% of the players ever online.

All the older players just got bored of how stupid some of the mechanics are and moved onto better things.

I play around 2 maybe 3hrs a week now at best. PVE players might think they have won by that statement but its not them, its FD letting is player base down.
If you look at the majority of the important player groups who created real content months ago, you will find that if they are still around, they are made up of a handful of players.

All the excellent ideas on this thread wont make a smidgen of difference to Open because the option to avoid risk still exists and todays players are lazy and entitled.
If you had been forced to play in a mode from the beginning, if the option to skip between them had never even been a concept.
You would have a very very different player base, much more organised in game groups and I expect far better tools to support them.

Majinvash
The Voice of Open

Folks like you are one of the REASONS I fly in open when I do.. Code are fun to play with because whether you're pirating me or whether I'm hunting you, you give me a majorly puckering experience that I don't know how it's going to go. And if you say you'll do something, I can trust you to do it or die trying. Sometimes I might even be a part of you dieing trying.. (although I've only encountered you personally once. You took several cans of gold off me if I recall correctly, but it was quite a while ago so my memory may be a bit iffy.)

And no, PvE players don't think they've won for any of the reasons you cite. I consider myself a 50/50 PvP/PvE player and I sure don't. I'm a member of nearly half a dozen private groups - only one of which explicitly disallows PvP. I also play open when I think I can take the frustration factor of meeting PvP folks that DONT play like you.

ETA: I wonder how successful would a private group along the lines of Mobius be, where their rules were (PvP in CZs or against PP enemies is ok, pirates are welcome, mindless PKers are not) - If you started one like that I'd sure join it!