Life as a Pirate

I am of the idea that if asked nicely and given time to reply by Pirates, I would always drop a few tons.....or fight to the death depending what mood I am in at the time. I think you are right to pirate the bigger ships mainly because they do have more to loose and most players would rather loose 2 to 3 million in cargo rather than the 4 or 5 million for a high end python. Trading Pythons are a gamble because of their 3 million re-buy they may have the same amount of credits or more in their hull so they are slightly more likely to flee or fight than stop for a chat about pirate etiquette and good manners in space.
Nice video and glad to see the FDL is being used to it's strength's too chap, they make a great pirate ship if it only had that A 5 FSD and Not the A 4 that it has now.
 
It is very hard to convince my targets to drop 4 or 8 power generators. A value of whooping 2400-4800 credits. They rather lose their ships. Go figure...
 
I think for piracy and even law enforcement, there is a need of some kind of EMP weapon that disable temporarily all subsytems.

But as it currently stands, the game is too primitive and limited to make piracy exciting.

By the way it is the same thing for smuggling.

No one would smuggle coke in the US if the price for 1kg or the stuff was sold the same price @the black market as 1kg of coffee at the nearby walmart.
 
An EMP weapon is a great idea but if you are a competent pirate then you should be able to target drives, disable them giving you time to warn them if they try to charge the FSD and flee you will destroy them. Obviously destroying the FSD or Power pack still kills the ship I think. But I have read ships can still jump out of there with their drives destroyed but not their FSD's destroyed. So if they start charging their drives you know you have to either chase with the wake scanner or just end their journey there.
EDIT.....forgot to add you have to say ''RRRRRRRRRR ME MATEY'' when you stop them, or they wont know your a Pirate, they may think you just stopped them for a chat because the Galaxy is a lonely place.........:D
 
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t6: not stop when asked, drives were shot out and hull left at 3%, scanned cargo and I ask for 1/4 of his rares, I give him 20 seconds, he combat logs...

Not to rain on your parade, but he can log normally well within 20 seconds. ;)
(Not combat logging, am afraid)
 
An EMP weapon is a great idea but if you are a competent pirate then you should be able to target drives, disable them giving you time to warn them if they try to charge the FSD and flee you will destroy them. Obviously destroying the FSD or Power pack still kills the ship I think. But I have read ships can still jump out of there with their drives destroyed but not their FSD's destroyed. So if they start charging their drives you know you have to either chase with the wake scanner or just end their journey there.
EDIT.....forgot to add you have to say ''RRRRRRRRRR ME MATEY'' when you stop them, or they wont know your a Pirate, they may think you just stopped them for a chat because the Galaxy is a lonely place.........:D


Destroying the FSD no longer pops the ship I believe (Powerplant however... :D)
 
Lunch-time antics, in Lave


Asp gets my attention, but I noticed my first pirate blunder, my ship is kitted out for combat with 4 shield boosters, I forgot the cargo scanner, I kindly request some cargo and get 2x liquor and explosive, better than nothing, no shots fired and I cannot prove he is full of anything else. (profit 1500cr)


Clipper is pulled, request cargo, and wait. He waits 1km away, cool customer, he waits for the fuzz? then all of a sudden he opens fire...game on, his shields quickly give way and I proceed to reduce his hull to 15% then I wait for him to have a chance to give up some cargo (as he is running with FSD charging), 20 seconds later it is clear he not want to co-operate so he is destroyed. (cost to me, 1 cell)


A dangerous clipper comes into the system, with a 100K cr wanted. It is highly unlikely this guy carries any cargo, but Lave is not big enough for the both of us, looking at his specs he is geared for combat. I challenge him to a shields down duel, loser must leave lave for 2 hours, he accepts and battle begins. A clipper with turrets, this is an expensive ship, but they are beam turrets, I know from my clipper on pulse he will have to have 4 pips in weapons to fire, I only need 2...sure enough I get his shields down and he agrees to leave lave. Lave is secure. (cost to me, 5 cells)


I have a go at pulling a t6, even at point blank I not seem to manage him, strange my blue bar goes down even though he in middle of screen, oh well that cost me 4% hull. With the cells running some 10K, and hull repair in the few 1000, I am running at a loss this lunch time. Where are the juicy pythons? Atleast I now have a cargo scanner, no tom fooling me about cargo anymore.


T6, stright after pulling, he rolls, ducks and dives, I ask him to stop for scan, no response. I remove his shields and try to target drives, but his hull drops way quicker than drives, his hull is left at 8%, I ask again stop for scan and he charges FSD...this guys ship is now in 1000 pieces.

A vulture appears in the system now, he has cargo scanner, a mini pirate, perhaps he has cargo? He takes an interest in me, I let him pull me over, I scan him, no cargo, however this guy pulled me, so he is a legit target. After all he has stopped my doing my important pirate work, in this time a jucy t9 might have passed through. I kill him.


Straight after going to SC there is python, oh great, perhaps my payday has arrived, once pulled I scan him, he carries a bunch of rares, but before I can offer him a compromise (and whilst I look on the cargo screen) he boosts into me, my shield is left at 1 ring, his 2 rings. 4 pips in shield undoubtably saved me, cell fires off and I am fully restored and engage him. He not has any cells and his shield is quickly dropped, he runs, I shoot out his drive (leaving 4% hull), I offer him to live, the price is all his lavian brandy 17T, I wait and he combat logs. My meal ticket has gone down the drain, cost to me 1 cell.


Profit wise I am perhaps 20K down right now, this lunch-time is looking quite bad. A npc cobra pulls me, 30K wanted, yeh! in profit 10k cr now. My wanted stands at 52K.


A lunch time full of action, sadly my cargo hold is not full of cargo.
 
Not to rain on your parade, but he can log normally well within 20 seconds. ;)
(Not combat logging, am afraid)

But in order to "positivify" my post a little more (as I hate to seem negative), good job on your pirating adventures.
I've always been a firmly rooted bounty hunter, but trying to hunt players these days is such a huge pain in the butt, it's boring.
I'm <shock horror!> actually tempted to try a bit of pirating myself these days...
But I worry I'm too nice and will just let everyone go! Hehe!
 
Not to rain on your parade, but he can log normally well within 20 seconds. ;)
(Not combat logging, am afraid)

Logging out during combat, is the same whether you save and exit or pull the plug. The only difference is FD won't punish for the former but will for the latter.
 
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You have to approach every situation in the right way if you want to meet with success, sometimes it pays just to be ruthless too - for me I had a reputation when I played, I was #1 bounty and I think it was also known that I didn't kill people so many people complied and happily went on their way, some forced it because they knew I wouldn't destroy them.

I enjoyed both tbh anyone who complied i put on a list and didn't pirate again, the ones that made me work for it I'd try again just for the excitement of the chase.

You have to accept though that many ships can just escape, generally clippers/condas you just can't pirate unless you have a good plan or great skills

My advice would be if you enjoy it, stick at it, you will get improved results eventually and some days you'll have long runs of traders who comply or play properly without any combat loggers at all, its worth it for them.
 
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Logging out during combat, is the same whether you save and exit or pull the plug. The only difference is FD won't punish for the former but will for the latter.

But calling it "combat logging" is the same as calling pirating "griefing".
Neither are correct.

Combat logging is referred to "officially" as "pulling the plug" when in combat - according to the uber-sticky-Crime-thread-of-doom here on the forums.
(Which isn't the same as opening up the menu screen, selecting save and exit and waiting 15 seconds to do so)
Even with that said, the T6 in question here wasn't even in combat at this point. He wasn't under fire. The OP was waiting for him to do something - e.g. drop some cargo. The T6 just took the opportunity to leave play. Cowardly, for sure, but it is what it is. :)
 
Some people i hear are good sports about being pirated, as long as its done well
I used to do piracy (on break for now until these damn collector drones show up) and know how challenging and non profitable it is. I also did a 4-5 hours trading session recently. Since I do only trade route 40Ly apart, with spaceports less than 20Ls away from the main star (EDIT: and still manage to get profit 3000cr/t round trip), it's quite a challenge for a pirate to even initiate the interdiction.
If a player happens to initiate the interdiction and win the dance, I'm happy to drop 25% of my cargo. If he asks for more, I kindly remind him how painful it is to scoop all these tinboxes. If his ship is not overpowered compared to mine, I invite him for a fight and agree to drop my cargo if my hull goes lower than 30%.
 
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But calling it "combat logging" is the same as calling pirating "griefing".
Neither are correct.

Combat logging is referred to "officially" as "pulling the plug" when in combat - according to the uber-sticky-Crime-thread-of-doom here on the forums.
(Which isn't the same as opening up the menu screen, selecting save and exit and waiting 15 seconds to do so)
Even with that said, the T6 in question here wasn't even in combat at this point. He wasn't under fire. The OP was waiting for him to do something - e.g. drop some cargo. The T6 just took the opportunity to leave play. Cowardly, for sure, but it is what it is. :)

Since both are indistinguishable from each other and logging out from the menu is dishonourable a pirate has no way to distinguish between the two.

If you look like you're combat logging regardless of the method used you're dead to me. Harsh but true.

If you feel the need to log out when things aren't going your way and you're in open play then you shouldn't be in open play.

The example shows a trader but is equally as valid as if it's a pirate combat logging with a big bounty and robbing a player bounty hunter of their reward.

Whilst there's no "reward" to killing a T6 as a pirate, piracy only works under threat of death and if that threat isn't followed through on occasion then it becomes untenable. If players get used to escaping from death through logging out using either method they're more likely to do it in future and ruins the game for pirates.

This has been done to death anyway.

The only way you could distinguish the two methods is to flash a message up on the screen when a player attempts to quit from the menu. This will cause instant death though as anyone seeing this will go all out to kill the player if they weren't already.
 
But calling it "combat logging" is the same as calling pirating "griefing".
Neither are correct.

Combat logging is referred to "officially" as "pulling the plug" when in combat - according to the uber-sticky-Crime-thread-of-doom here on the forums.
(Which isn't the same as opening up the menu screen, selecting save and exit and waiting 15 seconds to do so)
Even with that said, the T6 in question here wasn't even in combat at this point. He wasn't under fire. The OP was waiting for him to do something - e.g. drop some cargo. The T6 just took the opportunity to leave play. Cowardly, for sure, but it is what it is. :)

It only makes a difference to the player and Frontier(or so they say) whether or not the log out was legit. The pirate will never, and could never, know the truth. The effect to him was the same, the trader disappeared during combat. Quibbling over what may or may not have happened is pointless, if they log out during combat, I call it combat logging.
 
The only way you could distinguish the two methods is to flash a message up on the screen when a player attempts to quit from the menu. This will cause instant death though as anyone seeing this will go all out to kill the player if they weren't already.

That's beyond simple to fix, though. A simple message like "PlayerX has left the game" would signify they logged out in the way intended by the game. Without that message, you would see straight away if they actually combat logged. And this would be so much easier for FD to track, as well.
Heck, it's the way our website logging is built and is among some of the most basic principles of Error-Logging.
 
IMHO, there is only one valid reason a pirate would or should ever destroy a player's ship: If he turns to fight. the only other reason is lulz, which do not travel well.
Why would a pirate want to add a bounty for murder to his record?
Demand cargo? Sure
Disable his engines and/or blow his cargo hatch? Sure.
But murder? pointless in the context of the game.
Mind you, the one time my engines were disabled by a pirate (I ran in a Lakon 6) and he attached a hatch-breaker, I immediately self-destructed. I'd already lost my ship and a million or 2 in rares, so why should he benefit from it.
I've also been destroyed while running away. I had insurance, and I got over it, but I fail to see the point.
 
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