I'm very disappointed in the developer's complete lack of understanding about their piracy mechanics. I know we've always suspected this, but the current phase of the Interstellar Initiative and the Livestream from 9th May made this absolutely evident.
Let's look at the Executive Producer's approach to piracy in the Livestream:
In fairness, he admits he's not very experienced at piracy, so maybe we can forgive him for not bothering to check the T7's loadout for point-defence and ECM.
But when he says "I'm going to strip his shields and go in with a hatchbreaker" every pirate collectively facepalms. The devs made a very deliberate and conscious change to allow hatchbreakers to bypass shields years ago! Evidently, Adam didn't make any effort to do a bit of background reading or research, or better still try talking to some of the player pirates in the community to better demonstrate gameplay they expect us to get involved in.
Unfortunately, it gets worse.
My days of piracy are long behind me, but my husband is an active player-pirate. Last night I watched as he made his way out to the Initiative system to hunt for NPCs and players to steal Guardian trinkets from. Then a few things hit us - the system is HIGH security, with both dockable stations controlled by the ruling faction, with no Interstellar Factors facility. How is a genuine pirate supposed to ply their trade in this environment? Even disregarding the sheer difficulty in stealing from these heavily guarded convoys equipped with PD's and SysSec response in less than a minute, launching a hatchbreaker at a clean target is considered Assault - a bounty offence. With no way to clean the bounty, the pirate cannot repair or rearm at the system's stations because they will be Wanted and under Anonymous Protocols.
I'm not usual negative or overly critical of FDev; on the whole I love the game and I understand the difficulties in software development from first-hand experience. But this is a very disappointing demonstration of their lack of awareness of some gameplay styles and player perspectives.
Let's look at the Executive Producer's approach to piracy in the Livestream:
In fairness, he admits he's not very experienced at piracy, so maybe we can forgive him for not bothering to check the T7's loadout for point-defence and ECM.
But when he says "I'm going to strip his shields and go in with a hatchbreaker" every pirate collectively facepalms. The devs made a very deliberate and conscious change to allow hatchbreakers to bypass shields years ago! Evidently, Adam didn't make any effort to do a bit of background reading or research, or better still try talking to some of the player pirates in the community to better demonstrate gameplay they expect us to get involved in.
Unfortunately, it gets worse.
My days of piracy are long behind me, but my husband is an active player-pirate. Last night I watched as he made his way out to the Initiative system to hunt for NPCs and players to steal Guardian trinkets from. Then a few things hit us - the system is HIGH security, with both dockable stations controlled by the ruling faction, with no Interstellar Factors facility. How is a genuine pirate supposed to ply their trade in this environment? Even disregarding the sheer difficulty in stealing from these heavily guarded convoys equipped with PD's and SysSec response in less than a minute, launching a hatchbreaker at a clean target is considered Assault - a bounty offence. With no way to clean the bounty, the pirate cannot repair or rearm at the system's stations because they will be Wanted and under Anonymous Protocols.
I'm not usual negative or overly critical of FDev; on the whole I love the game and I understand the difficulties in software development from first-hand experience. But this is a very disappointing demonstration of their lack of awareness of some gameplay styles and player perspectives.
Last edited:
