PVP piracy - Destroyed three trader ships over 4t of cargo... help me understand

[Sapyx]

I can think of numerous reasons why an Open trader might choose to run rather than submit to demands.

- "Don't reward the terrorists, it only encourages them". Spend millions on rebuys, not one cent in tribute - that sort of thing. In other words, they're RPing a character who refuses to give comfort to criminals, even at personal risk and expense. I never play in Open, but if I did, I would definitely play this way; it's how I play against the NPCs. No criminal scum is getting one rusty scrap of biowaste out of my cargo hold.

- Perhaps the last time someone interdicted them and issued demands, they were blown up anyway for the LOLs, even when they complied with the demands. Let's call this option "experience".

- A variant on the second reason above, that they may be so busy g out and trying to escape that they aren't really paying attention to anything in Comms.

- The interdicted player may not be speaking the same language you are, and/or may not be familiar enough with the language to understand any unusual jargon or abbreviations you may have used in your communications. Especially if you're going the full talk-like-a-pirate RP.

- They may have accidentally hit "Open" instead of some other mode and never noticed the potential danger until too late.

 

[Leper Messiah]

erm maybe it's because they don't "trust" the pirate? IMO FD should create a pirate career, with bases and weapons, these weapons would be like ion cannons and enable pirates to disable the trader, but also fries and temporarily disables the lethal weapons on the pirates ship (handwavium).

 

[Snarfbuckle]

- I hardly ever look at the comms window
- Text is small and messages are not always obvious
- My first reaction after interdiction is not focus on text window and start chatting
- Upon interdiction by CMDR's rabbiting the normal response
- Most interdictions are of hostile and deadly intent by the attacker

 

[Shockbot]

So I was pirating at the Parun CG last night and had 6, or so, customers. My demands were: drop 4t (four!) of cargo. I've stated demands before opening fire (and waited for a response) and then repeatedly while firing at the target. I let players go if they dropped cargo even if they tried to run first (other pirates may not).

But: Some players chose to be destroyed rather than dropping 4t. They are in Open with the chance of piracy and when someone comes along with very reasonable demands they seem to prefer losing their ship over it??

Help me understand.... Why?

You doing it right! It would be a pleasure for me to get pirated from you

Did they have a cargo?

 

[Red Fox Four]

So I was pirating at the Parun CG last night and had 6, or so, customers. My demands were: drop 4t (four!) of cargo. I've stated demands before opening fire (and waited for a response) and then repeatedly while firing at the target. I let players go if they dropped cargo even if they tried to run first (other pirates may not).

But: Some players chose to be destroyed rather than dropping 4t. They are in Open with the chance of piracy and when someone comes along with very reasonable demands they seem to prefer losing their ship over it??

Help me understand.... Why?

The answer is simple.

Even if they drop cargo there is no guarantee the so-called pirate won't just blow them up anyways.

So why drop cargo and allow them to get some credits before they pop your ship?

You can blame two things for this.

1. The griefers who simply attack players with no interest in any cargo and just want to kill things to inflate their own online ego.

2. Years and years of EVE Online where it is common to rather self-destruct than give loot to pirates exactly because it was commonplace to get destroyed even if you dropped the cargo cause people wanted the kills registered on their Kill lists on Battleclinic and other such sites.

Personally I never dropped cargo for pirates in EVE cause I knew the probability of them simply destroying my ship after I had dropped it to be really high. I'd rather just do self-destruct, deny them the kill and the cargo, deal with the insurance for a new ship and done. It would be an economic impact, however such things were always factored in as a risk when flying cargo anyhow considering the huge amount of griefers and trolls in EVE.

I see Open Play and Elite as no different. Sure there are some on the forums here who say they do legit piracy, but that is a huge minority compared to the amount of players with the sole intention of destroying your ship.

Run or self-destruct > dropping cargo.

Bottom line: Why give a pirate free cargo when there is a significant risk of getting blown up regardless if you drop cargo or not.

 

[StiTch]

Couldn't yank the ethernet cable out fast enough.

 

[william1134]

I suppose another thing is that you can't trust a criminal.

How do they know they just want you to stop next to them to drop your 4t of cargo, only for you to then decide you now want it all?

 

[Sentenza]

So I was pirating at the Parun CG last night and had 6, or so, customers. My demands were: drop 4t (four!) of cargo. I've stated demands before opening fire (and waited for a response) and then repeatedly while firing at the target. I let players go if they dropped cargo even if they tried to run first (other pirates may not).

But: Some players chose to be destroyed rather than dropping 4t. They are in Open with the chance of piracy and when someone comes along with very reasonable demands they seem to prefer losing their ship over it??

Help me understand.... Why?

I never comply. If nobody ever complies, sooner or later you will be forced to give up doing that

 

[racer1]

I was possibly one of your victims last night, although I was in Eurybia so maybe not lol.

Normally, in the old days , I would wait and see with piracy as I quite like the interaction.

I was in Eurybia I noticed a suspicious python cmdr flying about. I was in an unmodded asp with minimal shields, was an new cmdr not the ones in my sig.

I was then interdicted by an NPC twice before said cmdr interdicted me. The interdiction bugged and failed for me instantly - don't know if that was because both cmdr and npc interdicted me simultaneously?

CMDR issued his demands, which I didn't really read as my muscle memory had already started escape procedure to high wake out. Reason for this I guess is that these days people rarely pirate they just attack.

Once I'd started to run I briefly reconsidered stopping and giving some cargo. But decided to keep with running since I'd already started.

CMDR opens fire. I notice I am not out running him and then realise I am in my new cmdr with no mods against a python probably fitted with dirty drives.

My FSD cool down takes ages as it was in failed state post interdiction.

My shields take a little while to drop, I am doing some mild evasive maneuvers. I'm dropping chaff but he seems to be using fixed weapons.

I set high wake target and engage the drive, but after a while I realise, I have messed up and seem to be low waking...

NPC arrives to join the fun and also opens fire on me lol.

My shields drop, low waking is taking forever and I've pretty much given up by now but I still survive for a surprisingly long number of seconds.

TL;DR Genuine piracy is so rare these days, my automatic response is to run. After that I was a bit tired and made some mistakes lol.

Hopefully a decent crime and punishment system will be in game one day with a buff to genuine pirates

 

[Gunshow]

On mobile so can't reply you, but damn right I will as soon as I get back to desktop.

+1 to you, CMDR. I respect your career choice and your methods.

True RP piracy is sadly a dying art.

High Risk/High Time/Low reward for the pirate, and the (well founded) assumption by CMDRs being pirated that you are just another griefing player killing psycho.

I, for one, have been killed on sight a number of times, trying to give people chances. I was prepared to drop whatever amount of personal weapons I was carrying, but instead I was just bombarded with their full silo of weapons while my throttle was at zero, waiting for at reply...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Should have asked for 3.

 

[DaveB]

Pirates are a cost of doing business in the ED universe. If I think I'm equipped well enough both in ship loadout and personal skill I may become a part of their costs of doing business too

Otherwise it's a lot cheaper to negotiate than to lose all the cargo plus a rebuy if I'm not in a position to wake out

 

[Jukelo]

I never comply. If nobody ever complies, sooner or later you will be forced to give up doing that

Because that worked out so well in the past. Remember how CODE died off at around the same time SDC became a thing? Protip: it's not a coincidence.

 

[Arkadi]

Pirates need traders. I have the vague feeling the Cmdrs who attack pirates are not really traders. They might have had some engineer commodity or some mission commodity they dont want to give up on. That's different from a trader who easyly can drop some of his cargo.

Unfortuantly I have the feeling traders are a dying species in this game. There are to many more profitable endeavours then trading. Also if I decide to trade I can fully understand people rather doing it in solo mode. Since NPC are not a big threat there is no need for the trader to seek company in a wing and has no real reason to play in open - except if he is seeking the thrill to meet other players who might be friendly or not...

so..

if trade was more lucrative and there was a reason for traders to play in open - there would be a gameplay for pirates. As all of this is not the case the pirate is left with NPCs to pirate or meet combat-oriented commanders who only carry mission-related (unique) cargo...

And yes... this is also not paying very well, if you are not incredible lucky to find some traders with low-temperature crystals or painite in theire hold.

 

[Sylow]

I find such threads interesting. Because in some way, they also explain the bad experience i had in open. I mean, in the time i was there, i never was interdicted and asked for cargo. It was always a case of "interdict and destroy", without any communication.
.
So the -direct- blame for me giving up open is on those who never tried to communicate but simply went ahead to destroy me. Unfortunately based on all those statements along the line of rather being destroyed than giving up a single ton of biowaste, i can also understand that the few actual pirates the game ever had got frustrated and turned to simply destroying ships.
.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Because that worked out so well in the past. Remember how CODE died off at around the same time SDC became a thing? Protip: it's not a coincidence.

It's a cunning Code plot to make them seem more agreeable.

Well, I say cunning, but it's more transparent than Caitlyn Jenner.

 

[Sylow]

Bottom line: Why give a pirate free cargo when there is a significant risk of getting blown up regardless if you drop cargo or not.

.
There's also a lot of truth in that. Especially considering that you make yourself a sitting duck by playing along.
.
Also, there's another thing to consider by now: at least from a technical point of view, you don't need to make demands any more now. Hatch breakers go right through shields by now, so they can be launched right after the interdiction was done. I mean, i am not a pirate, but i use them when i need to gain reputation to get another PP weapon. Thus i can tell that no, you won't empty a T9s cargo hold with them without first disabilng them, but you can snatch some cargo quickly. That should yield you more than the demanded four tons. Also i have my doubts that they're still useful once a engineer boosted fast ship starts to run, but against the normal slow cargo boat, they should still be useful.
.
And yes, i am aware that you were not so much out for the mentioned four tons of cargo, there's better ways of making money in this game, but rather for the interaction. But still the hatch breakers and their current implementation have to be mentioned, as the only real defense against them is not being interdicted or having several PDS ready to shoot them down. (Although i am not sure if PDS still shoots down hatch breaker limpets. )
.

 

[Truesilver]

So I was pirating at the Parun CG last night and had 6, or so, customers. My demands were: drop 4t (four!) of cargo. I've stated demands before opening fire (and waited for a response) and then repeatedly while firing at the target. I let players go if they dropped cargo even if they tried to run first (other pirates may not).

But: Some players chose to be destroyed rather than dropping 4t. They are in Open with the chance of piracy and when someone comes along with very reasonable demands they seem to prefer losing their ship over it??

Help me understand.... Why?

I did all my trading and smuggling in Open, up to 1.3 billion, and I was pirated five times, all five whilst a very new player, all five times with impeccable RP (props to the pirates). Here is what happened:

1. I was in a Sidewinder, pirated by a Cobra III. I turned and attacked and he expressed surprise, then left.

2. I was in a T6, pirated by a Viper III. I successfully low-waked.

3. I was in a T6, pirated by a Viper III. My drives were shot out and in those days there was no reboot/repair, so I died.

4. I was in a Python, pirated by the legendary Cmdr Bangfish. I successfully high-waked.

5. I was in a Python, pirated by a Python. I successfully high-waked.

Outcomes:

Four escapes. One death. Not one ton of cargo given.

I am happy with that.

I would still be happy with it had it been five deaths.

I guess it's the same reason that (again when a new player) when I was interdicted by the dreaded Cosmic State in Leesti, 3v1, I just told them to "bring it". Contrary to my expectations, they let me go with kind words.

I read later that a guy who tried to comply with their demands to save his T6 ended up having to drop all his cargo, then had his canopy cracked, was then forced to scoop his own cargo under fire with a cracked canopy, and was then butchered anyway.

I guess the short answer is that some of us will not be forced to do anything ... in a computer game.

 

[Maverick and Goose]

wow. i was getting between 30 and 50 tonnes each encounter in my python/annie. if they didn't remain still while dropping (making it a PITA to scoop) they got popped! you're doing fine. keep at it. what ship were you in, BTW?

 

[Globusdiablo]

...I guess the short answer is that some of us will not be forced to do anything ... in a computer game.

Good post, and good point.