Fix Piracy by making Commodity Trading more risky by increasing purchase prices.

[DemiserofD]

Here's the problem with piracy.

A Trader buys 800t of Agronomic Treatment instantly, and sells it instantly in 10 minutes. They sell each unit for 30k profit, but because they get it all instantly, they can make 150m/hour.

A Pirate pirates about 0.5 units of Agronomic Treatment per second. It takes ~1600 seconds to steal 800 units, and then 10 minutes to unload it all. They then sell it for a 25% discount. Even if you ignore the process of finding a target, they cap out at about 45m/hour. Accounting for finding a target, more like 22.5m/hour.

You simply can't steal these commodities fast enough to make a profit. So you can either steal faster, or the goods they steal need to be more valuable. Stealing faster would take a lot of technical changes to limpets, which is difficult; by contrast, changing prices is relatively easy.

Proposal​

• Increase the price of trade goods.
• Do not increase trade profit.
• Thereby increase piracy profit.

Agronomic Treatment is currently bought for approximately 10k, and sold for approximately 40k. Post-change, you would buy agronomic treatment for 220k, and sell it for 250k.

The trader would make the exact same profit per hour.

The Pirate, however, would make 280m/hour during the piracy process, and 140m/hour on average.

Trading would have a higher buy-in, but players could start by trading lower-value goods and work their way up. Military Grade Fabrics, for example, have a profit of 14,091 right now. Their price would be increased to about 135k.

This makes piracy worth doing!

 

[Roybe]

PvP has always been, and will always be, a sideshow!

 

[Tividar]

Here's the problem with piracy.

A Trader buys 800t of Agronomic Treatment instantly, and sells it instantly in 10 minutes. They sell each unit for 30k profit, but because they get it all instantly, they can make 150m/hour.

A Pirate pirates about 0.5 units of Agronomic Treatment per second. It takes ~1600 seconds to steal 800 units, and then 10 minutes to unload it all. They then sell it for a 25% discount. Even if you ignore the process of finding a target, they cap out at about 45m/hour. Accounting for finding a target, more like 22.5m/hour.

You simply can't steal these commodities fast enough to make a profit. So you can either steal faster, or the goods they steal need to be more valuable. Stealing faster would take a lot of technical changes to limpets, which is difficult; by contrast, changing prices is relatively easy.

Proposal​

• Increase the price of trade goods.
• Do not increase trade profit.
• Thereby increase piracy profit.

Agronomic Treatment is currently bought for approximately 10k, and sold for approximately 40k. Post-change, you would buy agronomic treatment for 220k, and sell it for 250k.

The trader would make the exact same profit per hour.

The Pirate, however, would make 280m/hour during the piracy process, and 140m/hour on average.

Trading would have a higher buy-in, but players could start by trading lower-value goods and work their way up. Military Grade Fabrics, for example, have a profit of 14,091 right now. Their price would be increased to about 135k.

This makes piracy worth doing!

Alternatively, inflate black market prices. Smaller change easily justified - the premium represents buyer willing to pay for goods that aren’t tracked through legal channels.

 

[zikolach]

• Increase the price of trade goods.
• Do not increase trade profit.
• Thereby increase piracy profit.

Alternatively, inflate black market prices. Smaller change easily justified - the premium represents buyer willing to pay for goods that aren’t tracked through legal channels.

How about both at the same time? For legal goods increasing the price, for illegal ones - increase black market price.

 

[DemiserofD]

Alternatively, inflate black market prices. Smaller change easily justified - the premium represents buyer willing to pay for goods that aren’t tracked through legal channels.

I do agree that black markets should pay more, but only for illegal goods, not stolen ones, unless they're also illegal. Smuggling vs piracy and all that.

 

[Tividar]

I do agree that black markets should pay more, but only for illegal goods, not stolen ones, unless they're also illegal. Smuggling vs piracy and all that.

Two birds with one stone. Stolen goods and illegal goods - they're both contraband and presumably off-grid. Inflating Black Market prices would provide a reason to BGS for states that allow Black Markets to exist, and would support both piracy and smuggling. Both of those career paths could use some love.

 

[V'larr]

I'm worried about other effects this could have, and my gut feeling with the game economy is it needs to be pushed back down, not increased.

But...if things are largely kept at the scale they are now, it might be fine. Lower-cost commodities might even become relevant again.

 

[Brrokk]

How about both at the same time? For legal goods increasing the price, for illegal ones - increase black market price.

It would be quite weird for black markets to offer better prices than standard. I could buy gold from the station shop, nip down a dark corridor to the dodgy office and say "This gold is so stolen, heh heh..." How daft are the criminals in ED?

 

[TobiasFuzz]

Piracy seems to have no place in this game besides role-play. You can make more profit with almost every other activity. This is especially true for player to player piracy. Lets look at the ED World background: The player belongs to a very priviledged class, he/she is a member of the Pilots Federation. Piracy was historically done by outcasts, poor people or used as war tactic by weak nations against major powers (asymetrical warfare). I think it is not supposed for a member of the PF to do piracy as this profession opens way more lucrative ways of earning a living.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

How daft are the criminals in ED?

Well, they're trying piracy - a profession with maybe a 50% survival rate per attempt when done by NPCs, and a return on a good day of a few million credits per attempt - in a ship that even accounting for the "hot ship/modules" costs could be sold for at least ten times that.

Paying out double rate for stolen goods would be sensible by comparison ... and could be justified in the same way that the ridiculously inflated payouts for legal missions can be: the cargo itself is valuable; denying your opposition access to it is much more valuable.

 

[cmdr milesred]

you get that this type of piracy is petty theft, right?
even though technically it is grand theft, the method is pick pocketing, it is small time stealing.
It is small time because it is bits and pieces of a much larger cake.

As a criminal, or a crime lord, it is not a desirable trait to have in your surroundings.
it is preferable to have minds around you that think bigger.

stolen is stolen and unless it is a rare 1 of a kind thing, will and should always be worth less than anything legal because it is hot/stolen.
stealing diamonds or coffee is the same at this level.
there is only one way to improve piracy.
but to do that you have to acknowledge different levels of theft and recognize which one will obviously work better for pay.

I get asking fdev to change it, but why? it is a low level criminal activity, as such it pays poorly. this is real.
you however are flying a multi-million credit ship, yet you set your sights on barely paying for fuel and ammo as a career by stealing from others in the same boat?

crime pays, but there are levels to it, just like any career in the game.

be a thug or be a boss.
your choice.

so be it.

 

[Ettanin]

Agronomic Treatment is currently bought for approximately 10k, and sold for approximately 40k. Post-change, you would buy agronomic treatment for 220k, and sell it for 250k.

The trader would make the exact same profit per hour.

The Pirate, however, would make 280m/hour during the piracy process, and 140m/hour on average.

Trading would have a higher buy-in, but players could start by trading lower-value goods and work their way up. Military Grade Fabrics, for example, have a profit of 14,091 right now. Their price would be increased to about 135k.

This makes piracy worth doing!

I hate doing this, as there is this thread but your idea holds no water in the trimodal way the game works.

Trader - goes to solo or trusted PGs to not get pirated or even blocks known pirates.
Pirate - plays in open to steal from other players, won't instance with traders that blocked them.

Under the proposed margins which give an increased form of risk in requiring more seed money for the same earnings, traders WILL either use goods that have the best span possible with the lowest price (to reduce required seed money), thereby making piracy not profitable for player pirates, or completely avoid pirates, both players and NPCs, at all cost (which is trivial with how NPC interdictions can be evaded and as for pirate players, mode choice and blocking helps).

TL;DR: The proposal will fail because player pirates and player traders usually won't meet each other or the trader factors in optimization in their margins by reducing seed money spent to be unattractive to player pirates.

 

[Tividar]

It would be quite weird for black markets to offer better prices than standard. I could buy gold from the station shop, nip down a dark corridor to the dodgy office and say "This gold is so stolen, heh heh..." How daft are the criminals in ED?

Depends on your assumptions about contraband and the black market. If legal goods generally carry with them a trail of ownership proving their legality and the end possessor's right to carry, while black market items lack this digital trail or carry a forged one; black market items could be materially more expensive and more valuable to a certain class of buyer. Same goes for illegal goods.

 

[DemiserofD]

I hate doing this, as there is this thread but your idea holds no water in the trimodal way the game works.

Trader - goes to solo or trusted PGs to not get pirated or even blocks known pirates.
Pirate - plays in open to steal from other players, won't instance with traders that blocked them.

Under the proposed margins which give an increased form of risk in requiring more seed money for the same earnings, traders WILL either use goods that have the best span possible with the lowest price (to reduce required seed money), thereby making piracy not profitable for player pirates, or completely avoid pirates, both players and NPCs, at all cost (which is trivial with how NPC interdictions can be evaded and as for pirate players, mode choice and blocking helps).

TL;DR: The proposal will fail because player pirates and player traders usually won't meet each other or the trader factors in optimization in their margins by reducing seed money spent to be unattractive to player pirates.

That problem is partially caused by the trade problems which currently exist. There is no real motivation to pirate atm, because it's profitless, so most interdictions are gankers instead, which leaves no reason to cooperate. By fixing piracy to be profitable, the chances of survival increase and the likelihood of allowing interdiction also increases.

This isn't the ONLY fix needed, but it's part of it!

 

[Ettanin]

That problem is partially caused by the trade problems which currently exist. There is no real motivation to pirate atm, because it's profitless, so most interdictions are gankers instead, which leaves no reason to cooperate. By fixing piracy to be profitable, the chances of survival increase and the likelihood of allowing interdiction also increases.

This isn't the ONLY fix needed, but it's part of it!

That part is not enough and the current mechanics are hard-counters. To make piracy profitable with relations to trading you need to introduce risk (a nerf) for traders by increasing the required seed money for the same profit margin or force the player to be involved in it by making the hard-counters unfeasible (which was discussed a no-no ad nauseam).

The trader will work against the risk by using minimal-cost goods with similar margins as the numerically most profitable ones. As the 25% cuts falls tighter then, it's unprofitable to steal from them. Your idea nerfs trading by making it require more seed money for the same effect.

Also, you can't fix gankers, not even by making piracy more profitable. Parasitic gameplay is parasitic gameplay (the nature of any PvP action). And it's easier to make ship go boom than to make ship go spill. Gankers want salt, not credits.

As I said before, I did not want to derail the thread into yet another mode/PvP debate. I just wanted to point to the flaws that there are for that idea with the current environment.

 

[DemiserofD]

That part is not enough and the current mechanics are hard-counters. To make piracy profitable with relations to trading you need to introduce risk (a nerf) for traders by increasing the required seed money for the same profit margin or force the player to be involved in it by making the hard-counters unfeasible (which was discussed a no-no ad nauseam).

The trader will work against the risk by using minimal-cost goods with similar margins as the numerically most profitable ones. As the 25% cuts falls tighter then, it's unprofitable to steal from them. Your idea nerfs trading by making it require more seed money for the same effect.

Also, you can't fix gankers, not even by making piracy more profitable. Parasitic gameplay is parasitic gameplay (the nature of any PvP action). And it's easier to make ship go boom than to make ship go spill. Gankers want salt, not credits.

As I said before, I did not want to derail the thread into yet another mode/PvP debate. I just wanted to point to the flaws that there are for that idea with the current environment.

The real key to making players want to engage in potential pvp scenarios is keeping them prepared for it. Nobody is going to risk pvp if they'll die in 2 shots, but if they're already in a defensively-built ship, they'll be more willing to take that risk. This comes by making NPCs more dangerous in dangerous parts of the galaxy, like low security and anarchy systems, while simultaneously making higher security systems safer, so players are able to play there securely.

Anyway, I'm not JUST talking about pvp piracy here; this would effect pve piracy as well, which is where most piracy will take place ultimately.

 

[Ettanin]

The real key to making players want to engage in potential pvp scenarios is keeping them prepared for it. Nobody is going to risk pvp if they'll die in 2 shots, but if they're already in a defensively-built ship, they'll be more willing to take that risk. This comes by making NPCs more dangerous in dangerous parts of the galaxy, like low security and anarchy systems, while simultaneously making higher security systems safer, so players are able to play there securely.

So even more nerfs just to make your idea work? Strongarm players to make them no longer care about the intensity of the danger? Players play games for various reasons. FDev has a reason on why to keep NPCs low-threat. If a game does not befit a player anymore, they will look elsewhere.

Maths say there is no way to make it right for both sides. Piracy only becomes viable vs. trading if the profit for the trader falls below the magic 300% ratio between profit after sale and spent seed money (i.e. 30k CR earned by selling items for 40k CR which were bought for 10k CR). So you need to cap profits there (yet another nerf for the trader) to keep piracy viable, no matter how high or low you shift the prices.

If you want to do piracy, do it for the lulz (or the memes), not for the credits.

 

[Robert Maynard]

The real key to making players want to engage in potential pvp scenarios is keeping them prepared for it. Nobody is going to risk pvp if they'll die in 2 shots, but if they're already in a defensively-built ship, they'll be more willing to take that risk. This comes by making NPCs more dangerous in dangerous parts of the galaxy, like low security and anarchy systems, while simultaneously making higher security systems safer, so players are able to play there securely.

Making NPCs more dangerous for all players, just to satisfy some players' curiosity as to whether it might encourage players to engage in PvP, is not likely to be appreciated by the players whose game was changed to satisfy a different subset of the player-base - in which case it's not likely to have the desired effect - as it may simply make those adversely affected by the changes resent the fact that the game was changed, and those who sought the changes in the first place.

For some it's simply the fact that PvP is a tediously predictable waste of game time - and suggesting that players in general will "enjoy" the attentions of players engaged in parasitic gameplay is a bit of a stretch.

 

[DemiserofD]

So even more nerfs just to make your idea work? Strongarm players to make them no longer care about the intensity of the danger? Players play games for various reasons. FDev has a reason on why to keep NPCs low-threat. If a game does not befit a player anymore, they will look elsewhere.

Maths say there is no way to make it right for both sides. Piracy only becomes viable vs. trading if the profit for the trader falls below the magic 300% ratio between profit after sale and spent seed money (i.e. 30k CR earned by selling items for 40k CR which were bought for 10k CR). So you need to cap profits there to keep piracy viable, no matter how high or low you shift the prices.

Again, the base suggestion is primarily meant to address PVE piracy. PVP is never going to be a primary method of doing anything, and fixing it will involve substantially more changes, comprehensively across multiple systems.

That said, I do believe this change will, on the whole, improve things slightly, even there. It won't fix everything, but it would be foolish to expect that. Rather, we can hope for a slow and incremental change, gradually bringing things to a better and better state.

Moving on from the base suggestion and to your criticisms of my response to your comment; I don't think my change would be forcing players to do anything. There are more than enough medium and high security systems for every player in the game to play completely freely. In fact, by substantially changing the gameplay experience between different security thresholds, it actually gives a lot more content for everyone to enjoy. Right now, all security levels are functionally identical in terms of how people play inside them. Changing that, encouraging players to have different builds and playstyles in different Security levels, will substantially expand the available content of the game for a minimal investment of developer time. And on top of that, it will create a game where players are encouraged to play in open, can get used to doing so, and then have a reasonable expectation of survival should they encounter PVP.

The big problem with PVP right now is this; it's very rare. This means that sacrificing efficiency for the sake of survivability is mathematically a poor choice; the amount of time you will save having a build that can survive a PVP encounter is less than the amount of time you would save by just accepting you will die every once in awhile. So even if you are playing in open, the mathematical best choice is the same build you would use in solo. That being the case, it's better to just go play in solo and stay alive.

My goal would be to invert that; if players have to build a defensively oriented build regardless of where they are playing, then that removes a substantial part of the disincentive to play in open, and therefore, players are more likely to play there, even if that means encountering PVP piracy.

 

[Ettanin]

My goal would be to invert that; if players have to build a defensively oriented build regardless of where they are playing, then that removes a substantial part of the disincentive to play in open, and therefore, players are more likely to play there, even if that means encountering PVP piracy.

So yes, strongarming players into a specific playstyle. This won't work well.