Been gone, was thinking of reinstalling. Does piracy still suck?

[Cidcaldensfey]

Was a pirate, killed lots of NPCs/players for money/laffs. Had a lot of fun doing it but the money was awful. Not only that, but the missions system stunk with the whole USS mess. Each of these emails Frontier sends me, I read over the notes and get a little intrigued. But there seemed to be a lot of bad with Elite: Dangerous which didn't really make it worth the time investment.

Also, I see people are still arguing over poor traders getting popped because they were playing on open.

 

[Sonoskay]

Was a pirate, killed lots of NPCs/players for money/laffs. Had a lot of fun doing it but the money was awful. Not only that, but the missions system stunk with the whole USS mess. Each of these emails Frontier sends me, I read over the notes and get a little intrigued. But there seemed to be a lot of bad with Elite: Dangerous which didn't really make it worth the time investment.

Also, I see people are still arguing over poor traders getting popped because they were playing on open.

How long ago were you a pirate.

its actualy the only "job" That sucks as much as it did from the beginning of 1.3.. Heck it sucks more than it did in 1.2

Bounty hunting, Trading, Smugling, and mining all got buffs , Exsporing is the same as its always been

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

I played from August 2014-January 2015. By the time a game like Elite: Dangerous reaches a the halfway mark of its first year without a significant change, I think it pretty much dictates how the rest of the game's life will be. I haven't seen any actual changes to piracy in any of the game notes I had been reading. I guess it is back to 'I'll just wait for Star Citizen' with everyone else, hahahaha. Sad but true.

Any of the actual decent pirates who played since release didn't just pirate. They were bounty hunters as well since piracy was not viable. It doesn't make sense that the profession with the highest amount of risk involved along with the highest level of detriment (all the negatives that go along with it, both from a game mechanic standpoint and community) happens to be the least profitable. Crime does pay and it pays extremely well, but Elite: Dangerous doesn't seem to be realistic in this aspect, yet tries to taut itself as a space sim for some reason.

For instance, smuggling liquor in X3 was illegal and had some consequences. However, it also net a ton of fast, easy money. In Elite: Dangerous, the closest thing to it would be slaves, which while it was easy money, it also seems to be pretty sad since it is just one facet of an otherwise awesome game which needs to be looked at again.

Disappointing. Oh well, at least I saved money by not spending it on any extra Frontier stuff

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

[h=2]Been gone, was thinking of reinstalling. Does piracy still suck?[/h]
Yes, pirates still suck and they should all be hung by the neck over the entrance to space docks!

 

[Elgered]

Since release the game changed a lot. It only costs you a few hours to check if you like it more, the way it is now.

I am still missing a lot around the piracy mechanics, but IMHO it is much better now (only the thing with the 20 cargo limit is annoying right now, but I guess it will be changed soon).

 

[MarcusKross]

Just don't.. especially if you are primarily thinking of playing as a pirate. Give it a couple or more months to rest.

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

Just don't.. especially if you are primarily thinking of playing as a pirate. Give it a couple or more months to rest.

That was pretty much what people were saying six months ago. The rewards were trash and I had about a 600K-700Kcr bounty on me.

 

[Bokugo]

Well you can now equip a ship with drones to go pick up cargo/rocks for you so you don't have to scoop. So I guess technically it did get a bit better. And yeah the 20t limit was said to be raised to 100t (outside of station zones where it will still remain 20t) so that will be fine eventually.

 

[MarcusKross]

That was pretty much what people were saying six months ago. The rewards were trash and I had about a 600K-700Kcr bounty on me.

If you want my honest opinion i can lay it down it will contain much negativity but will be based on facts.

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

If you want my honest opinion i can lay it down it will contain much negativity but will be based on facts.

It's not fun if you hold back. Go for it.

 

[Veth]

It looks like Piracy is probably the least profitable profession.

Trading - 6 million an hour last I heard, possibly more like 7+ million since Powerplay with Torval.

Bounty Hunting - 4-5 million an hour, if you join Lavigny for the Bounty payout increases (100% highest at Rank 5) can go as high as 10 million an hour, maybe 6-7 on average.

Smuggling - much higher now, if you are in Archon Delaine space with low security or better yet Rank 5 so that scans don't matter, can make as high as 7-8 million an hour in an Anaconda.

Mining - About 3 maybe 3.5 million max if you keep resetting the bulletin board for lots of mining missions. Needs a buff, but way better than the 300k an hour average max in 1.2

Exploration - Hasn't changes since the 1.2 (I think?) buff, honestly probably less than Mining though if Explorers actually counted all travel time.

Piracy - I hear everyone say its really bad but rarely get numbers. One said it could be as low as 100k an hour. With the Black Market buff that sounds low to me, but even if it were 1 million an hour that's still way behind everything else especially for the risk involved.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

I played from August 2014-January 2015. By the time a game like Elite: Dangerous reaches a the halfway mark of its first year without a significant change, I think it pretty much dictates how the rest of the game's life will be. I haven't seen any actual changes to piracy in any of the game notes I had been reading. I guess it is back to 'I'll just wait for Star Citizen' with everyone else, hahahaha. Sad but true.

Any of the actual decent pirates who played since release didn't just pirate. They were bounty hunters as well since piracy was not viable. It doesn't make sense that the profession with the highest amount of risk involved along with the highest level of detriment (all the negatives that go along with it, both from a game mechanic standpoint and community) happens to be the least profitable. Crime does pay and it pays extremely well, but Elite: Dangerous doesn't seem to be realistic in this aspect, yet tries to taut itself as a space sim for some reason.

For instance, smuggling liquor in X3 was illegal and had some consequences. However, it also net a ton of fast, easy money. In Elite: Dangerous, the closest thing to it would be slaves, which while it was easy money, it also seems to be pretty sad since it is just one facet of an otherwise awesome game which needs to be looked at again.

Disappointing. Oh well, at least I saved money by not spending it on any extra Frontier stuff

Saying the game hasn't changed isn't really fair. You can now pirate in wings making it impossible for the trader to get away.
Open is barren atm, too many trigger happy people means there are now very few traders running around even in community goal areas where I was yesterday. The only large T7/T9 traders in Open that I know of are in backwater systems where no other players venture.

I'd say come back to see what this next major update is ("soon" tm ), at the moment there's also a 20 ton cargo limit meaning if the trader drops 21T the first container explodes to keep it at 20T. Thats being amended to 100T and the 20T limit is now going to be just for stations since it was done to be anti-grief.
Smuggling illegal stuff has got a buff so payout should be better but as mentioned you still have got the problems of finding a target and getting them to drop things. 90% of people I see in Open are combat fitted judging by the sub-system scan and even when traders were plenty they often refused to drop cargo.

 

[MarcusKross]

It's not fun if you hold back. Go for it.

OK then i'll keep it short and simple due to being in a sleep deprived state. Say piracy in any game that features it PVP immidiately comes to mind that is what makes it fun and engaging. Simply the game still doesn't have solid mechanics supplying this kind of gameplay. Logoffski maneuver is still present and there is always the grand Solo vs Open thing where the trader can simply go solo to avoid 'unpleasant' surprises and the FSD interdictor doesn't have any kind of cooldown too. There is no risk&reward scheme in place for both piracy or trading in dangerous environments and on top of that there is the new 20t cargo limit per instance ( was implemented due people dumping ridiculous amounts of cargo near stations cluttering everywhere and creating all sorts of problems). As for PVE Piracy there still isn't any kind of player to npc interaction apart from taking physical action you still have to shoot and hope for em to dump cargo or try to use hatch breakers ( you cant ask for cargo from a pve ship ) and even if u did profit margin is still low. So its still dull and underwhelming.

 

[Cidcaldensfey]

Just read a post by someone, apparently pirating NPCs is 5000% less economical effective than commodity trading. Was in a different thread but seems exactly on point. It doesn't really seem like FD knows what they are doing.

 

[Veth]

Just read a post by someone, apparently pirating NPCs is 5000% less economical effective than commodity trading. Was in a different thread but seems exactly on point. It doesn't really seem like FD knows what they are doing.

I don't think Frontier has any real idea how much each profession can make.
I honestly think we have a serious communication issue with the Devs.

 

[Angus]

Just read a post by someone, apparently pirating NPCs is 5000% less economical effective than commodity trading. Was in a different thread but seems exactly on point. It doesn't really seem like FD knows what they are doing.

I'm not saying they're infallible, I've felt a bit left out of the party with Community Goals, Wings and now Powerplay, but my take on it is that is not an oversight and Frontier don't really want piracy to be very attractive. I think they keep it as an option, but not a very appealing one.

Coupled with that, I think for piracy to work well you would need the victims to be onboard with the concept, and a lot of us aren't, especially if we are the victims. So rather than dropping cargo in the face of near hopeless odds, many will fight to the death (or more accurately and importantly, fight to ejection) rather than line the pockets of the pesky predator with pirated plunder.

I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one. I'm not into piracy myself, so it isn't a problem for me, but if I was, it seems to me that seizing people's ships (as well as their cargo) would be pretty much essential.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

I've stopped pirating since the last patch, the 20 ton limit really hurts piracy. It's supposedly getting raised to 100 soon, but for now it's still in place.

Since January there have been a few changes to piracy the ones I remember are:

+An increase by 50% for stolen goods. It was 50% galactic avg, now it's 75%.
+Drones make scooping less tedious and quicker.
+Interdiction damage and repair prices have been reduced, further increasing a pirates profits.
-Stolen rare goods no take into account distance from home system instead of just seeing for full price.
-New mass lock values, that makes a type 9 unpiratable by anything short of a python or conda
-As mentioned there's a 20 ton limit to the amount of cargo allowed in one instance.

It's very much a case of 3 steps foward, 2 steps back, and then one running long jump backwards with the 20 ton nerf. If I were you I'd wait until the fix that should be out soon. Once that is out, piracy might be worth trying. Even to just get a revised opinion on it.

Just read a post by someone, apparently pirating NPCs is 5000% less economical effective than commodity trading. Was in a different thread but seems exactly on point. It doesn't really seem like FD knows what they are doing.

In the post he was referring to npc pirating, pvp piracy is better but not by much.

 

[Mexicola]

Smuggling - much higher now, if you are in Archon Delaine space with low security or better yet Rank 5 so that scans don't matter, can make as high as 7-8 million an hour in an Anaconda.

How are you making this much smuggling? I barely get 1.2K profit for smuggling slaves.
What profit per ton are you getting there and back?

 

[Rauminen]

Yes.

8/char.