Thinking about flying the black flag-help get me started.

[_Fissure]

So, with my Anaconda almost completely upgraded (minus A8 PP and MGC), it's time for me to begin planning out my next ship purchase and project. At first I considered going for a FDL, but I already has an A-rated FAS for fast combat/PvP. Buying a FDL just seems at bit redundant. "Well, how about a Clipper?" I thought to myself. I've had my eyes on it for a while, and its not terribly expensive. Alright, Clipper it is!

But, I thought, what is a ship without a purpose? What role would a Clipper play in my fleet? I have an Anaconda and FAS for combat, with a multi-roll Python as well. My ASP is my smuggler, and if I ever bumped my head and actually considered A-B trading I'd use my Conda or Python. Any future exploration trips would be done in the Conda, or I would bring my DBX out or retirement. What role could this new ship fill? Where does my future Clipper belong?.....

....why, terrorizing the space ways, of course! A bit of space piracy would suit it well. Additionally, piracy is the only profession (outside of mining, which I refuse to do) that I have not yet tried.

So, being an interested in potentially becoming a new member of this black-bearded profession, I'm looking for seasoned space scum to guide me through the basics of space-way robbery. I've read a few guides and watched a video or two, but they all seemed to be a few months old at best, and I'd like a fresh perspective before dropping some cash and hitting the road.

Here is the Piracy-Clipper build I put together. Please feel free to use your piracy experience to cretique it. I thought about fitting my Anaconda with an all cannon loadout to really roleplay, but it simply isn't viable.

http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_...v0124.Iw18aQ==.IwBj5Yu6wJiiOQ==?bn=Black Moon

I'm considering swapping the Class 7 and Class 6 internals. This would give me weaker shields but more cargo space, while also reducing the outfitting cost by several million. I also considered swapping the PAs for cannons, for role-playing reasons primarily.

Additionally, any advice your experienced pirates have on how to pirate would be greatly appreciated. Where do you pirate outside of CGs? Pirating CMDRs vs NPCs. How do you best disable a ship that tries to run? Etc.

Thanks in advance for any and all input.
_Fissure

 

[Gray Lensman]

First walk to your engine room. Then locate the system override for the reactor containment and trigger the shutdown option. Now activate the reactor overload / destruct sequence and wait right there for a while. This is the best option for a career in piracy.

 

[Lateralus]

I see your post is already attracting salt.. get used to that.

I would say lose the PAs and get rails for the size 2 slots and 1x gimballed beam/ 1x gimballed pulse for the C3 slots (the positioning of the C3 hard-points makes gimbals a must). The rails take down traders shields fast and can be used to snipe sub-systems at a distance, while the lasers work better if you're closer to your target and can lock-on to sub-systems.

If you swap your 7A shield for a 6A prismatic you will get the same shield strength as the 7A standard shield and gain 64 tonnes of cargo space (need to pledge to Aisling Duval for 4 weeks and get to rank 3). Having 2 collectors is good but if you're demanding more than 30 tonnes you probably want 3 or 4 as you don't want to be hanging around too long after the drop (players tend to drop into your wakes and security wings sometimes show up after a while). Also with the current combat meta you probably want to get some armour, as if your shields do drop you will be ripped apart by a combat spec'ed ship with rails.

The best place to stalk targets is in well documented trade routes (search reddit and the forum to find those). CGs tend to be dangerous for lone-wolf pirates because of vigilante wings hunting them. LTT 9810 -> Cemiess was quite a good trade route to pirate traders but there's probably better routes now as this route has become over-fished.

As for the actual robbery, if you're pirating players - get yourself a macro keyboard so you can quickly send the trader prewritten instructions - writing them out during the encounter usually means your target escapes. If you can't get a macro keyboard the next best thing is to copy a paragraph to the clipboard and ctrl-v it into the comms panel after you interdict.
Don't let them stall too long before responding to your message, because they're probably planning to run or waiting for reinforcements. If you see thrusters burn, start firing immediately because they're not planning on stopping and every second is vital - their FSD is quickly cooling down ready for them to jump.

If you're close to them use your C3 lasers to take down they're shields, or your rails if you are more than 1k away, then use rails to snipe the thrusters down to 0%. You can also use other gimballed weapons on sub-systems, but make sure you're close to them (within 750m) as hitting them from distance is difficult and you often end up taking their hull down instead if you miss constantly.
Once they're disabled you can then send them another comms message to see if they're more keen to talk, if not you can use your hatch-breakers. If they do want to talk try to get abandoned cargo rather than jettisoned as you will be able to sell it on the legal market.

If you're pirating NPCs disable the target by reducing it's power-plant down to 0%, you can then hatch-break without flinging cargo all over the place (NPCs tend to fight back even when they're flying freighters). If they have an escort wing take them out first, as the trader will stay close to its wing-mates usually and you don't want to be hassled while scooping.

There's probably stuff I've missed, I'll let others fill that in.

 

[goemon]

hey,

i can only talk on pve piracy, but on pvp piracy on the "receiving" (and enjoying) end:

- neither pve nor pvp does pay, not in any comparison to bhing... even if you pirate a t7 with scientific data (around 2 mio on the bm)

- when i was pirated, i always prefered to get the macro/paste shortly before interdicted. because after i submitted i will directly need to start my evasive manouvers, if i want to live. if i know shortly before the interdiction, i might make up my head to drop you my load. one of the best messages i got in SC was "you are pirated. write STOP, when you want me to stop shooting and drop cargo." in that way i was clear about intentions, and pirate wasn't nervous whether he will loose time shooting at me.

- clipper makes a great miner ... anyways: no need for class 3 hatchbreaker, class 1 is enough. you not gonna shoot two.

- medium cannons are great pve to shoot out powerplants as described above

- 100 t of cargo is the least you wanna have - it's the maximum amount of cargo in an instance away from a station (in a station instance it is 20).

- good weapon combi for the large is one fix, one gimbal (to strip shields, even if your target chaffs). large cannons will likely destroy an npc t7 instead of its powerplant

 

[Lateralus]

- 100 t of cargo is the least you wanna have - it's the maximum amount of cargo in an instance away from a station (in a station instance it is 20).

I'd say this is a little unrealistic, most NPCs carry a maximum of 40t right now (even T9s, hopefully this gets fixed) and asking for 100t of cargo from a player is a big ask - they'll probably try and run if you demand that much from a T6/Asp/T7. I always ask for about 15%-25% of their cargo as they are more likely to be cooperative.

 

[CMDR Argent Steel]

If I ever try piracy it's going to be with a small fast ship. Probably a cobra.

 

[SCSkunk]

The Clipper is just begging to be a pirate ship, as everyone knows. It's also a great Trader for CG's in Open. Here's my current build, it's not optimal but I prefer an ADS on all my ships...

http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_....Iw18aQ==.CwBjCYQRmq-BkwGYHJEA?bn=The Pelican

It really benefits from Prismatics, and I use medium cannons for RP and also because they don't suffer from the Ship Size/Hardpoint modifier. As for cargo space, you don't want to have to run to a station after every haul do you?

 

[goemon]

I'd say this is a little unrealistic, most NPCs carry a maximum of 40t right now (even T9s, hopefully this gets fixed) and asking for 100t of cargo from a player is a big ask - they'll probably try and run if you demand that much from a T6/Asp/T7. I always ask for about 15%-25% of their cargo as they are more likely to be cooperative.

well, as written, i do only pve piracy. more cargo space means less often returning to base. also, you can rob those looking for goods t9's. pve there isn't much use of a class 7 shield neither. also, 15%-25% of a t9, or anaconda... anyway, you can go with less, and take the class 6 internal for cargo, too.

If I ever try piracy it's going to be with a small fast ship. Probably a cobra.

you really want to have a collector limpet controller, hatchbreaker, and good shields pve (because those t9 have turrets), this lets a cobra mkIII down to 24 T of cargo. okay for mission piracy. but for pirating missions i prefer a courier. enough internaly, 8 or 12T of cargo... a FAS could make a decent medium pve piracy ship.

 

[Sup3rfluiD]

Unrealistic for pv maybe but not for pp. piracy is meant to hurt, not tickle! I never want to cheat my victims of the real experience. For me it's lose your cargo or lose your ship, simple and painfull ! If they run, great; the only point of the exorcise is role place anyway, if they belch credits then that's fine to. Most guys tell u it doesn't pay, maybe they're just not forcing the demands hard enough?

 

[goemon]

Most guys tell u it doesn't pay, maybe they're just not forcing the demands hard enough?

no, it has more to do with several caps... let us assume you are a totally lucky pirate, who is able to interdict player-traders on a palladium route, those traders don't flee and don't log... an instance can hold 100 T of cargo, thats 1 Mio in palladium max. you have to start from a station, get into supercruise, probably jump to the system you are pirating, interdict trader, let him drop cargo, collect cargo, hyperjump, go to station, sell it.

for this alone you need around double time of an trader running a 1 jump a-b-a route. now, if you factor in, that very often you won't find any traders, trader will highwake, system security will interdict you etc. - you'll see that making money is hard, repairs aside. this even more applies to pve piracy, because most npc-traders will have 20-40 higher value goods, and a lot of mineral extractors on board.

now, pirating players with cargo more worth then palladium isn't much more profitable - rare goods have a max. allocation, you will have a hard time finding anyone with more then 20-30 rares on boar, thats between 300 k to 1 mio profit again.

pve hafnium transports are fun, but mainly have 1 T of hafnium (300 k). ships with scientific reports (8-25 * 200 k) are very rare.

and there aren't enough player miners or MA-farmers around.

so, no, it doesn't pay.

is this a problem?

well, it isn't so much for players like me, who pirate pve to influence the BGS. it is a rich mans hobby, and basically playing the BGS has a lot of strategies which doesn't pay (one of the heavy hitters is "npc grieving", e.g. shooting as many ships of a minor faction as possible, and rack up as many bounties and fines as you can).

but it is a problem, that there is no way to make it a okay paying occupation, because, if you aren't payed for it, you basically don't think in terms of "risk", you only think in terms of thrill. which means, pirates are most probably "thrill-crime"-doers, not pirates.

i would very much wish for npc miners having painite or palladium in their loads in high/haz res (you'd still have more risk then npc bounty hunting, because you have the police, you npc bounty hunters, and you have your fellow npc pirates who will attack you), instead of copper. i also would wish for t7/t9 in high tech/extraction systems having cargo holds full of progenitor cells or palladium.

if you'd have a pve enviroment, which allows profitable piracy, you'd also have more pvp-pirates playing for risk instead of thrill of player kills.

i started a fresh account back in november; I do know quite a lot of things about this game; I'd like to be able to say to myself: you know all this stuff, this time, take the risk of a criminal career, because it will pay better. what did i do instead of it? bounty hunting in high res. safest source of income. community goal trading. and some longrange smuggling. i personally would be okay with bulktrading being most profitable, or smuggling - but hunting pirates, who can't make a living from their piracy, as the safest source of income sounds very weird for me.

 

[Derath]

You will need the following to pirate

Cargo Scanner, Hatchbreakers, Collectors, One low damage fixed/gimbal, and the rest good weapons for shields/module sniping.

Something like this

http://coriolis.io/outfit/imperial_...v2o24.Iw18aQ==.IwBj5Yu6wJiiOQ==?bn=Black Moon

Are you looking to pirate players, NPCs or both?

 

[Lateralus]

well, as written, i do only pve piracy. more cargo space means less often returning to base. also, you can rob those looking for goods t9's. pve there isn't much use of a class 7 shield neither. also, 15%-25% of a t9, or anaconda... anyway, you can go with less, and take the class 6 internal for cargo, too.

I've had limited success robbing larger ships (T9s, Pythons etc) in medium sized ones (FDL or Clipper) because they tend to be able to shield tank enough to be able to high-wake. I've found if you pull a T9, Python or larger over and ask for a more reasonable amount, they are usually more cooperative. Here's an example (granted I only had 32 tonnes of space, I may have asked for more if I was in a Clipper);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Was3KpO1DRA&t=10m50s

 

[Derath]

I've had limited success robbing larger ships (T9s, Pythons etc) in medium sized ones (FDL or Clipper) because they tend to be able to shield tank enough to be able to high-wake. I've found if you pull a T9, Python or larger over and ask for a more reasonable amount, they are usually more cooperative. Here's an example (granted I only had 32 tonnes of space, I may have asked for more if I was in a Clipper);

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Was3KpO1DRA&t=10m50s

In my experience you shouldn't base any of your personal piracy choices/targets on high wakes, high wakes aren't a sign of a failure on your part it just means your target knows enough about the game systems to be impossible to pirate. Almost every ship available can escape from a pirate by high-waking apart from extremely disproportionate matchups (adder vs FDL for example) or flying coffins (T7/9)

 

[Lateralus]

In my experience you shouldn't base any of your personal piracy choices/targets on high wakes, high wakes aren't a sign of a failure on your part it just means your target knows enough about the game systems to be impossible to pirate. Almost every ship available can escape from a pirate by high-waking apart from extremely disproportionate matchups (adder vs FDL for example) or flying coffins (T7/9)

You are correct, we shouldn't, but if your demands are reasonable enough that they don't high-wake and submit to your demands without a chase - win. If you ask for 100 tonnes, most will run (you may have a few nice paydays though, granted).

If I'd had a Clipper in that video I probably would've demanded 50-75 tonnes from the T9 - would've been worth close to a million.

 

[Derath]

Yeah reasonable demands are really the key to maximizing profit, sadly if the OP chooses to go for NPCs it is 100% luck most of the time you will make <1mil/hr or even less if you have less cargo space.

As far as I can tell for example NPC's only carry a full cargo if its worthless, gold? A t9 might have 30, clothing and scrap? 500 easy. I find the whole thing rather frustrating still, I remember why I loathe NPC piracy so much