No more NPC pirating of commodities.
- Thread starter Kaltern
- Start date
IMO the FD devs modeled ED pirate behaviour fairly well. [up]
It makes perfect sense for a pirate to try and take what they want by force rather than work for it. [arrrr]
They're criminals - they do what they do because they have ZERO desire to work a boring low paying job to acquire what they want. In their heads they've done the cost/benefit/risk analysis (something every human being does either consciously or unconciously every time they make a choice) and have decided the benefit is greater than the potential cost and risk. And when it comes to criminals monetary gains is not the only benefit weighed in their minds either. Some just get off on the use of force, harming others etc, etc etc.
It really is that simple. [yesnod]
That may not make sense to you (nor most normally socialized homo sapiens) but it makes perfect sense to criminals (duhhhhh - that's why theyre criminals).
Besides if it weren't for pirate evil doers what would there be for us bounty hunters to do?
I have to scream "NO" at this.
Yes, it's annoying as can be to be repeatedly interdicted for flying around with a rubber hose in your hold and be a shining beacon to every pirate in the quadrant.
I know, I've been enduring it for the past two days getting my Type-9 up to snuff.
BUT.. when I have Massacre missions for pirate factions, or want to make some real money bounty-hunting.. I absolutely love pirate bait.
It's cheap, and while not sold everywhere, it's sold in enough places that it doesn't take long to get, and you only need 1 in your hold to whip pirates into a frenzy.
So no, please, leave this exactly as is it.
If you need a hand getting from Point A to Point B with pirate bait in your hold, drop me a line - I'm glad to wing up and run escort with ya - as long as we're not on opposite ends of the galaxy!
Yes, it's annoying as can be to be repeatedly interdicted for flying around with a rubber hose in your hold and be a shining beacon to every pirate in the quadrant.
I know, I've been enduring it for the past two days getting my Type-9 up to snuff.
BUT.. when I have Massacre missions for pirate factions, or want to make some real money bounty-hunting.. I absolutely love pirate bait.
It's cheap, and while not sold everywhere, it's sold in enough places that it doesn't take long to get, and you only need 1 in your hold to whip pirates into a frenzy.
So no, please, leave this exactly as is it.
If you need a hand getting from Point A to Point B with pirate bait in your hold, drop me a line - I'm glad to wing up and run escort with ya - as long as we're not on opposite ends of the galaxy!
All this is true, but what doesn't make sense is that you can sense you have commodities on board and decide to pull you our of SC when we players have no such facility. I mean all the 'I've been looking for you' and 'look at that nice ripe big haul' make sense when you are doing missions (because you can see that someone might have overheard your getting the mission and given tip offs out). Maybe the same is true of commodities from the market or mission reward, but it really doesn't make sense when you go mining in an empty spot, or pick up stuff from the depths of space where no-one is plausibly watching.
I also don't like that engineer commodities seem to attract more attention from NPC Pirates than most other types of good despite the galactic value of them being relatively low on the whole. I'd expect more grief from a load full of palladium picked up in a low-sec station than from 4 commodities worth less than 1000cr received from a mission, but that's not my experience. Especially when I'm flying a FDL or Vulture, rather than a cargo tub which you would expect to have more of a 'pirate me' marker on it.
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A ton of anything is pirate bait if you drop into a Haz-Res or (Comp) Nav beacon, so I don't think having to have them pull you out of SC too is strictly necessary for that task.
Basically this. I am not trying to cause trouble here - but using engineer commodities as pirate-bait is an exploit designed to make you more money - it isn't a 'helpful' or intentional game mechanic.
If I am flying a t-7 full of platinum... I'm just asking for trouble, pirates are going to want in on that and it's going to be real easy to get it.
If I am flying an Imperial Cutter full of the same, but also armed to the teeth, a single FDS or even an Anaconda should be thinking twice about taking me on, regardless how 'desperate' they are - it should be too much risk vs reward. Besides, and this has been brought up over and over and over and.... I'f I'm carrying 250 platinum, your FDL or FDS isn't going to carry much of it. So if I HAVE to give up, why can't I drop the equivalent of their hold space in cargo - then I get to fly off with no incident, the pirate is happy and the game rules are satisfied?
What one calls pirate bait is not an exploit at all. There's plenty of real life historical precedent for it. The most recent and glaring to the best of my knowledge was the use of Q-ships in WWII during the battle of the Atlantic.
This is what wiki has to say about them: (text is linked to full Wiki Q-Ship article)
Q-ships, also known as Q-boats, decoy vessels, special service ships, or mystery ships, were heavily armed merchant ships with concealed weaponry, designed to lure submarines into making surface attacks. This gave Q-ships the chance to open fire and sink them.
They were used by the British Royal Navy (RN) and the German Kaiserliche Marine during the First World War and by both the RN, the Kriegsmarine and the United States Navy during the Second World War
Personally I've done the Q-Ship thing in ED quite frequently. If a pirate is dumb enough to pull my Python out of super cruise for a few tons of engineer type commodities then it sucks to be him!
Going to have to totally agree here.. though there are plenty of more recent examples of this - law enforcement agents around the world make use of these sort of tactics every day. Military forces make use of decoys and disseminate misinformation regularly. It's a perfectly valid tactic, and definitely not an exploit of any kind - it's called being smarter than your opponent.
As a bounty hunter, my job is to rid the galaxy of criminals. That means I have to find criminals to eliminate. If it so happens that certain cargo draws their attention - a few rubber hoses for example, then that's what I'm going to carry with me to lure them out of hiding.
Try flying around with a cargo hold full of limpets - you'll get scanned, and you'll get a message about not having anything they're interested in and they'll go about their business.
If being smart is an exploit - well.. I can't help that.
IMO the FD devs modeled ED pirate behaviour fairly well. [up]
It makes perfect sense for a pirate to try and take what they want by force rather than work for it. [arrrr]
They're criminals - they do what they do because they have ZERO desire to work a boring low paying job to acquire what they want. In their heads they've done the cost/benefit/risk analysis (something every human being does either consciously or unconciously every time they make a choice) and have decided the benefit is greater than the potential cost and risk. And when it comes to criminals monetary gains is not the only benefit weighed in their minds either. Some just get off on the use of force, harming others etc, etc etc.
It really is that simple. [yesnod]
That may not make sense to you (nor most normally socialized homo sapiens) but it makes perfect sense to criminals (duhhhhh - that's why theyre criminals).
Besides if it weren't for pirate evil doers what would there be for us bounty hunters to do?
It's not really modeling behaviour well, as ultimately pirates are still having to run a business and so they have to weigh up the risks and rewards. Risking an entire ship to try to earn a couple thousand credits is not good business, particularly if said ship is a multipurpose ship.
If they wanted to model behaviour properly, they would look at the value of the cargo and their chances of winning in a fight, rather than picking a fight regardless of the value of the cargo. Engineer commodities having relatively low value should be largely ignored by pirates, meanwhile cargo holds full of LTDs, Painite and platinum should bring pirates from all over.
Good points all - except for one thing. Pirates are criminals. Criminals don't think like the rest of us. What we find to be irrational, criminals may not - especially the dumb ones (and prisons are mostly populated by dumb criminals - a few smart ones get caught but not many).
Look at it this way.
In ED the dumb ones are the ones interdicting pythons, cutters, condas etc loaded with a measly 1000 cr worth of cargo with their Cobras and Asps or even Vultures and dying for their troubles.
The smart ones don't take the bait and move on. There's been many a time when I took a look at a bad guy trailing me and slowed down so he could catch up while I waited patiently for the interdiction which subsequently never occured - smart NPC or just a function of the RNG? If they don't interdict you don't notice 'em. All you notice are the dumb ones that take the bait.
Arguendo
Volunteer Moderator
They're not removing the commodities, but they are removing commodities from the Engineers' Blueprints. The CMM Composites et al will still be given as rewards, but according to their live stream they will be used for High Value missions (don't know why, 'cause they're worth jack all), and perhaps Community Goals.
Think of it as evolution in action....
FD please help stop Pirate on Pirate crime. Can we Pirates just get along? And OP, no. Even if you dont have any cargo in your ships hold, Pirates should be able to steal the oxygen from your cockpit and send you home on reserves.
See guys...
I told ya that not all criminals are motivated by money...
How are pirates risking their lives over 2k worth of cargo surviving long enough to upgrade out of their sidewinder?
Any successful pirate is going to know what they are doing and probably only going after laden cargo vessels. Pirates arent junkies robbing convinience stores for pocket change, they are managers of crews and assets and are going to make smart decisions.
Its kind of ridiculous when im messing around on a planets surface and decide not to pick up that platinum because i dont want the hassle of dealing with npcs.
Any successful pirate is going to know what they are doing and probably only going after laden cargo vessels. Pirates arent junkies robbing convinience stores for pocket change, they are managers of crews and assets and are going to make smart decisions.
Its kind of ridiculous when im messing around on a planets surface and decide not to pick up that platinum because i dont want the hassle of dealing with npcs.
TERMINATRIXXX
Banned
The issue here is that pirates in elite aren't common street level thugs looking to make a few quick credits, they are flying around using military grade hardware to attack defended targets.
Could you imagine in real life a group of criminals attacking a coast guard patrol vessel to steal whatever food supplies it has on board? Nobody with sufficient training and equipment to even begin such an operation would even begin to consider risking their lives and materiel to steal a jar of instant coffee, a few frozen pizzas and a loaf of stale bread, yet in Elite that is considered "normal" behaviour for a pirate.
Sure, some crazy people might be willing to attack military targets for basic supplies, but most of those people won't have access to the military hardware to attempt such an operation, and the few that do won't have the funds to mount multiple such operations as they would go out of business very quickly. Realistically, this means that the stupid pirates you come across should struggle to amass the funds for even a sidewinder, and most of them would probably be operating out of a Taipan.