Who are the pirates supposed to Pirate ?

So wrong, many reasons to have cargo scanner...

You do not even know if they have cargo, where they are makes no difference to this and many players at CG's have zero cargo for whatever reason.

Without scanner you are forced into guessing and looking like a right tool when they respond to your request with "i do not even have cargo"

You cannot pirate without a cargo scanner unless you are willing to also randomly attack players with no cause, you cannot ask for the correct amount of cargo since you do not know they are carrying etc etc...

C'mon this is coming from CODE one of the supposed piracy groups, at least pretend you know what it is to be a pirate!

Every group needs it's resident psychopath for comic entertainment.

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From what I understand Piracy is getting a much needed overhaul with the next update, and speaking as a bounty hunter I really hope that it encourages more pilots to take up a career as a space pirate, because that will give us bounty hunters some legitimate targets.

But my question is, if the improvements in piracy results in an upsurge in pirates (as I hope it does) then who exactly are the pirates supposed to pirate, given that almost all traders are already treading in solo ?

Will the possibility of 'real' pirates entice more traders into open. Or will it scare the few open traders into solo ?

Ok two things:

1. There is not Piracy in game because people are hiding in Solo and Private(my self included), why risk it all when you can risk nothing?, and the part FD calls Piracy is actually just NPC grinding.

2. There is no real bounty hunting in game because as stated above people would switch to Solo and Private of you try to hunt them down for the bounty and you can't even place bounties on people, and the part FD calls Bounty hunting is just NPC grinding where you go to places and kill NPCs the whole day then you become Elite after a while(which doesn't mean much tbh)...
 
Ok two things:

1. There is not Piracy in game because people are hiding in Solo and Private(my self included), why risk it all when you can risk nothing?, and the part FD calls Piracy is actually just NPC grinding.

2. There is no real bounty hunting in game because as stated above people would switch to Solo and Private of you try to hunt them down for the bounty and you can't even place bounties on people, and the part FD calls Bounty hunting is just NPC grinding where you go to places and kill NPCs the whole day then you become Elite after a while(which doesn't mean much tbh)...

It has gotten slower and slower that is for sure but i streamed piracy against players every Friday night for over a year. Yea its slow but it does still exist if you are willing to get small rewards for your time spent.
 
I'm surprised your still going SubSynk, good to see though!

Great to see you around still too :) To be fair i finally called that piracy Friday night stream as over on the channel last Friday night .

Friday night piracy & rum streams may return one day but maybe in a different form. (less rum hah)

Nice to see some pirates still exist Derath.

See you in game o7
 
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C'mon this is coming from CODE one of the supposed piracy groups, at least pretend you know what it is to be a pirate!

Not supposed, we are a dedicated piracy group.

Though if I do find myself ever stumble upon a report about Majin not following the code reasonably in piracy...

*Le glare*
 
From what I understand Piracy is getting a much needed overhaul with the next update, and speaking as a bounty hunter I really hope that it encourages more pilots to take up a career as a space pirate, because that will give us bounty hunters some legitimate targets.

But my question is, if the improvements in piracy results in an upsurge in pirates (as I hope it does) then who exactly are the pirates supposed to pirate, given that almost all traders are already treading in solo ?

Will the possibility of 'real' pirates entice more traders into open. Or will it scare the few open traders into solo ?


I don't think "real" pirates will entice more traders into open, and if it does, it will only be by a very small margin.

You cannot really expect anyone to behave in a way that some people might think it is acceptable in a game designed to allow you to murder anyone as much as you want.

No, I believe the reason why peoples stay in Open Mode is because they ENJOY it for whatever reasons.
To me, all depends about how much FUN you can have.
Fun is like color (almost), and you know what it is said about it, right ? It is always a matter of taste.
Not to mention that almost every single one of us has an idea about what is fun or not.

Asymmetrical PvP interactions (1 vs many, pirates vs Traders) can't be balance perse, it doesn't matter how hard Frontier will try to make it acceptable.
It is almost always about feelings and perception. And those two are tightly connected to how a person behave.


All Frontier can do is to keep improving game mechanics, create new ones, add content, fixe bugs.
But they can't make anyone engage in a certain type of activity with and/or vs others if it is something someone don't enjoy.

As many have said before, the focus of the game is, maybe, not just about PvP and that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it and have great fun doing PvP activities.
It just means that the only people you'll ever find in open are the ones who actually enjoy that game mode.


Cmdr Teldja
 
I used to pirate in a cobra, i made no money whatsoever, i did it for the fun of pulling over the very rare player trade ships and demanding their cargo. I amassed a considerable bounty on my head in the process, 3-4 million if i remember right. I always had bounty hunters looking to cash in, it was fun as hell trying to keep that bounty, and the bounty hunters had fun chasing me.

Then Frontier decided to kill that part of the game dead by making bounties last no more than 7 days to stop credit selling/farming - talk about smashing a peanut with a hammer. It killed player orientated bounty hunting, and to be honest, my motivation to pirate diminished, what's the point if nobody is going to chase me off?

As a result i barely play anymore. I have done trading, missions & exploring, but nothing comes close to player generated content, and before you say just go PVP, i see no fun in the min/max builds and the reward for just killing - my cobra was built for speed and purpose, she was weak, but so much fun!

I hope they can sort it out one day, but after 10 months or more, i'm certainly not holding my breath [sad]

Yeah the player to player interaction is severely lacking in this game. They have no trading, bartering, good forms of communication, or any other reason to work with or fight with other people, especially since if you try to pirate they can easily quit the game or go into phase space anyway, leading to many people just escaping or wimping out of any sort of conflict. And even if they decide to stay and see it through, the lack of any sort of trading system makes it hard to actually pirate cargo/money from people. You have to tell them to drop a vague amount of stuff that you think might make you a decent profit, and since that's considered stealing you get hunted by the Feds anyway, even if they weren't even there to see it. Unless the people abandon the cargo instead, which they would honestly be stupid to do.

Because of this the only real enjoyment I get out of the game is going on a private server with my group of friends and trying to kill as many ships as we can in a war zone or somewhere similar before we get bored again in like an hour or so. The only time I come back is when they release a particularly big update, although they are starting to make those horizons only which I don't have. Honestly the only reason I would come back to play for any length of time is it I either get horizons, (which probably won't be for while at least) if they release a game changing update for the base game, or start getting ready for star citizen.

If they just had more tasks to do and made the existing ones less tedious and repetitive, this game would have more reason to play it. It just appears as if they tried to cut most forms of role playing and "fun", if you will, from the game, instead replacing it with unforgiving balancing and poor interaction. Some people though, have flat out said they actually LIKE the complete lack of communication, which I find . The game is an MMO for gods sake, in most other MMOs player to player interaction makes up 80% of the gameplay at least.

I swear every time I see someone with 1000 hours on this game on steam I spend hours on end thinking of how they could possibly have gotten that much out of this game. (Although to be fair most people lien that act like they go on a clan server and mod the game or something, i don't remember)
 
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But my question is, if the improvements in piracy results in an upsurge in pirates (as I hope it does) then who exactly are the pirates supposed to pirate, given that almost all traders are already treading in solo ?

*raises hand

However, when 2.2 rolls around, you may find a pair of lasers that you can't shake off of your six ;)
 
I don't think "real" pirates will entice more traders into open, and if it does, it will only be by a very small margin.

You cannot really expect anyone to behave in a way that some people might think it is acceptable in a game designed to allow you to murder anyone as much as you want.

No, I believe the reason why peoples stay in Open Mode is because they ENJOY it for whatever reasons.
To me, all depends about how much FUN you can have.
Fun is like color (almost), and you know what it is said about it, right ? It is always a matter of taste.
Not to mention that almost every single one of us has an idea about what is fun or not.

Asymmetrical PvP interactions (1 vs many, pirates vs Traders) can't be balance perse, it doesn't matter how hard Frontier will try to make it acceptable.
It is almost always about feelings and perception. And those two are tightly connected to how a person behave.


All Frontier can do is to keep improving game mechanics, create new ones, add content, fixe bugs.
But they can't make anyone engage in a certain type of activity with and/or vs others if it is something someone don't enjoy.

As many have said before, the focus of the game is, maybe, not just about PvP and that doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it and have great fun doing PvP activities.
It just means that the only people you'll ever find in open are the ones who actually enjoy that game mode.


Cmdr Teldja

It's not so much player actions that are the problem. Weirdly. It's the repercussions and security model that actually defines the experience. Frontier expressly added a pirate faction; in principle there is support for this style of play. Regardless of how one might feel about it, Frontier attempted to accommodate as many different ways to experience the game, as possible. Which is actually a pretty admirable intent.

The problem, really, stems from the consequences and the mechanics (or lack there of) available. Perhaps frontier had romantic notions of what pirates were; perhaps they thought it just sounded "heaps good" (like so many things of late - it sounds cool so ship it - the consequences often aren't optimal). PP is an example of a system that was added, had a huge amount of potential; and then pretty much ignored when the developer realised they almost certainly couldn't actually develop it further and develop other aspects of the game. Something had to give.

This has been repeated across several facets. The developer throws in what is ostensibly a pretty cool feature, and then sort of ignore it a bit, and it either atrophies, or becomes hilariously abusable (causing wild swinging of axes down the road). Perhaps this is simply how it is, for a small(ish) game studio when trying to use the shotgun approach to features.

Either way; people have relocated to solo, or private groups, because the mechanics and security model and structure around combat and law are really really lacking. It doesn't make a lot of sense, because ultimately it's view as a QoL improvement, when it should be considered a key precept.

Crime, punishment, Security - all of these things are key in defining the end user experience. They are actually critical. You will always have pirates, gankers, traders, explorers, smugglers, white knights, chaos merchants; what is vital, imho, is a security model and mechanics system that allows these things, without ending up what can only really be described now as a free-for-all.

People will be people, you can't change people; but you can influence (not control) how they interact. You can build a model where piracy can work, and people can be reprobates, with checks and balances. And it's that last part Frontier, despite I think some genuine best intentions, just don't know how to do.

It's hard. But it really needs to happen. Otherwise Frontier will eventually find all these amazing new multi-player features they have coming down the line, are going into a void, as people have long since given up find alternatives. Be it solo, private groups or simply another game entirely.

The game really does have awesome potential; but if the foundations aren't solid, the entire thing becomes a bit broken. I am really hoping 2.1/ 1.6 is some degree of realisation that things can't just be shallow and they need proper thought and design.
 
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But if they do that, they would admit that the driving vision was hopeful thinking instead of thought through plan.
I fear ego prevents people there from doing what has to be done, they are too married to thought of PvP to let go.

Once more I dig out comparison to UO. Developers were much in love with PvP that they did everything but get rid of it when they tried to "fix" the game. It required intervention from EA which put in charge guy with task "Fix it or kill it" and with no personal attachment to PvP.

So I fear that FD will remain stuck in the vision of PvP everywhere where players can meet, and that will eventually be the downfall of this game. Though as positive note, competitors appears stubborn enough to want to commit exact same failure with their competing brand. Though with possibility of modded private servers. I have put my hopes on those private ones for now...
I would rep you a thousand time for this if I could. Majinvash's previous reply in this thread says it all. I rarely even visit the forums anymore, and just play my solo game when I play ED. The experiment of ED as a multiplayer game is over, it's failed. Mobius is still being invaded, FD still cowers and does nothing, while the malcontents (I've named one) prattle on daily. UO had to come to grips with the mentally deficient and damaged members of its player base, but it doesn't look like Frontier ever will. Like many, I don't even really care that much anymore. As long as the solo game is entertaining, I'll play it, but as soon as it isn't, I'm gone. No faith left whatsoever in Frontier to sort it out. Harsh words towards Frontier to be sure, but make no mistake the sentiment is heartfelt and genuine.
 
From what I understand Piracy is getting a much needed overhaul with the next update, and speaking as a bounty hunter I really hope that it encourages more pilots to take up a career as a space pirate, because that will give us bounty hunters some legitimate targets.

But my question is, if the improvements in piracy results in an upsurge in pirates (as I hope it does) then who exactly are the pirates supposed to pirate, given that almost all traders are already treading in solo ?

Will the possibility of 'real' pirates entice more traders into open. Or will it scare the few open traders into solo ?

NPCs? Players who WANT to be pirated (all three of them)? Shouldn't the question actually be "Why do the traders in solo/group not want to play with us?" to which the answer would be "Because being a defenceless victim is no fun and there's no reason for pirates to pick on someone their own size or stay away from civilised space".
 
NPCs? Players who WANT to be pirated (all three of them)? Shouldn't the question actually be "Why do the traders in solo/group not want to play with us?" to which the answer would be "Because being a defenceless victim is no fun and there's no reason for pirates to pick on someone their own size or stay away from civilised space".

It comes back to how the game works. You can't change people. This is true across the board. But you can define how interaction works, with checks and balances.

If people expect pirates just to stop, then that's no more realistic than pirates expecting all traders to immediately fall over themselves to acquiesce.

What can be done is making it viable for both parties. Sure, some will cling to extremes of interaction types, and you can't change that. But there's nothing stopping frontier from overhauling security and insurance and mechanics to make it work better for the broadest range of play styles possible.

Because sometimes if the middle ground is good enough, more people will populate it.
 
It comes back to how the game works. You can't change people. This is true across the board. But you can define how interaction works, with checks and balances.

If people expect pirates just to stop, then that's no more realistic than pirates expecting all traders to immediately fall over themselves to acquiesce.

What can be done is making it viable for both parties. Sure, some will cling to extremes of interaction types, and you can't change that. But there's nothing stopping frontier from overhauling security and insurance and mechanics to make it work better for the broadest range of play styles possible.

Because sometimes if the middle ground is good enough, more people will populate it.

Yep. Right now there's no reason for pirates to behave this or that way, neither rewards for positive piracy nor consequences for negative... it's a free for all and the only real reward is the "lulz", so you get the most negative behaviours coming out quite often.

Change the environment, and you'll change the behaviour. Make piracy more positive and fun for EVERYONE, and you'll get more people wanting to be on BOTH sides of it. Right now there's no reason for traders to WANT to be victims so they go where they're not. Surprise.
 

Robert Maynard

Volunteer Moderator
What can be done is making it viable for both parties. Sure, some will cling to extremes of interaction types, and you can't change that. But there's nothing stopping frontier from overhauling security and insurance and mechanics to make it work better for the broadest range of play styles possible.

Because sometimes if the middle ground is good enough, more people will populate it.

Exactly. It has to be "fun" - and not just for the pirates.

*If* the Pilots' Federation were to get involved in compensating members who are illegally destroyed by other members then we might see an improvement. The compensation could include cargo (although not at 100%). So, if a trader had a choice between dealing with the pirate or facing a 5% ship rebuy (or possibly less) + a 20% loss on cargo (rather than 100% as it is now) it might change the dynamic.
 
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