i wish piracy was viable. I'd play alestorm - drink and it would be a blast.
Unfortunately, piracy is a crime and crime doesn't pay in elite. Not yet anyway. And there aren't any pirates in my area to spice anything up.
Piracy needs a non-destructive way to steal goods and it has to be relatively fast and yet still allow the trader to avoid it. Meaning, piracy needs a way to quickly interrupt a hatch without taking down shields or damaging the system allowing an item to be taken. This should occur one at a time with this method, each time requiring direct line of site for the limpet to momentarily disrupt the hatch and retrieve 1 item. All the while the trader is maneuvering to keep the pirate out of line of site and escape or fight. Obviously this would be a crime.
This way pirates have potential to make credits every encounter regardless if they do damage or the trader jumps out asap. The trader might lose a ton of two during a quick get-away but hardly enough to destroy their gameplay. The pirate racks up bounties during each heist. Here the pirate goes for quantity to fill their hold, possibly getting a couple ton per ship they interdict assuming they're good and the trader is just boosting away asap.
This would make piracy much more an act of pure theft. You could still go the route of full on demanding all the cargo or blowing out their hatch but most piracy i believe would follow the "sip from many" method as it would be easier on the pirate and drive less of their victims away to other systems / modes.
I think with the above in place, you'll see piracy become somewhat viable rather than people just doing it when they're bored to pvp and it would actually start fitting the role as intended. And it would be self regulating since the new bounty changes going into affect would quickly become an issue for all but the actual dedicated pirates.
