Piracy needs to be actually useful and have a real effect - high risk, high reward

[RealNC]

(TL;DR: Piracy needs to be much more risky, much more rewarding, and more difficult to get any good at it.)

Unfortunately, piracy in this game is very ineffective, that only very few people bother with it. Which is a shame. Piracy should generate much more income in the game than it currently does. Or at least way more than bounty hunting. Why on earth would I do piracy if I can farm anacondas.

I don't know if the devs intend to improve piracy. What they could do, is increase both the risks as well as the rewards for piracy. You should really need "cut-throat" skills to be a pirate, and if you're actually any good at it, then you should be getting a lot of booty.

As a start, the game could introduce top-tier, and maybe *illegal* cargo scanners (except in most Anarchy systems, as usual) that work while in SC and are also able to complete a scan much quicker than the normal, sanctioned scanners (so that there's less time for commanders to hide in a private instance prior to getting interdicted). Or the scanners could work while the tether is established, and if they find nothing of value, the pirate can abort the interdiction attempt (this would raise the skill cap required by a good pirate to do this, which is very good in my book; you *should* need skills in order to be a successful pirate.) Unless the victim submits first, of course. To balance this out, those scanners might have some negative side-effects on the vessel using them.

That way, pirates don't waste their time with poor people transporting gummybears. This would also mean that the risk of being interdicted by players while trading high-value items is also increased, while people transporting "small fries", or nothing at all, is decreased. People starting out and transporting cheap nonsense wouldn't get as much attention from pirates as the rich guys who have a cargo filled with gold and slaves.

Currently, pirating in the game is only done for role playing and immersion reasons, but otherwise it's not even remotely a profitable career path.

Of course one should also not go overboard with making pirating too powerful. But as it currently stands, it's way too inconsequential for everybody involved; both for the pirates as well as the victims.

PS:
I'm actually posting this suggestion because I *want* to be pirated much more than I currently am. I gave up on pirating myself because it pays next to nothing. Pirating is one of the best ways to have great moments in the game, and I truly believe there's not even remotely enough of it going on in the game currently. And before anyone mentions it: no, getting interdicted by NPCs doesn't count This always feels totally fake and you are never in any actual danger. What I want is for pirates to see my cargo full of rares gathered from several systems 170ly away and worth a million, telling me to drop it and me telling them "come and get it, big boy." That is truly great fun.

 

[Joe Spivey]

Unfortunately, piracy in this game is very ineffective, that only very few people bother with it. Which is a shame. Piracy should generate much more income in the game than it currently does. Or at least way more than bounty hunting. Why on earth would I do piracy if I can farm anacondas.

I don't know if the devs intend to improve piracy. What they could do, is increase both the risks as well as the rewards for piracy. You should really need "cut-throat" skills to be a pirate, and if you're actually any good at it, then you should be getting a lot of booty.

As a start, the game could introduce top-tier, and maybe *illegal* cargo scanners that work while in SC and are also complete a scan much quicker than the normal, sanctioned scanners (so that there's less time for commanders to hide in a private instance prior to getting interdicted). That way, pirates don't waste their time with poor people transporting gummybears. This would also mean that the risk of being interdicted by players while trading high-value items is also increased, while people transporting "small fries", or nothing at all, is decreased. People starting out and transporting cheap nonsense wouldn't get as much attention from pirates as the rich guys who have a cargo filled with gold and slaves.

Currently, pirating in the game is only done for role playing and immersion reasons, but otherwise it's not even remotely a profitable career path.

Of course one should also not go overboard with making pirating too powerful. But as it currently stands, it's way too inconsequential for everybody involved; both for the pirates as well as the victims.

You do realise that if you want to make money you can pirate NPCs right? I only ask because it seems from your post that you only pirate players despite all those yummy NPCs with holds full of all kinds of things.

 

[Halp]

Hello
First you mention cut-throat skills, and right after you go with the quick scan suggestion ? I find those 2 statements a bit contradictory.
I do agree about the rest of your post, though. Piracy should pay more. I heared haulers with bounties (again, accessible to bounty hunters) carry illegal goods (talking about slaves). So yeah, again Bounty Hunters win the credits because the vast majority of players are bounty hunters. Not sure why it has to be this way. Perhaps some jelly B.H runs around with a cargo scanner to check if pirates earn more than he does.. Anyway, that kind of hauler is rare enough to be insignificant as a source of profit for pirates.

I'm not into this business yet because I started playing this week, but I plan to be a pirate maybe. I will look for trade routes involving rare goods or something, or simply follow haulers using a FSD wake scanner to see if they're going into anarchy systems.
Anyway I vouch for a more profitable pirate life

 

[RealNC]

You do realise that if you want to make money you can pirate NPCs right? I only ask because it seems from your post that you only pirate players despite all those yummy NPCs with holds full of all kinds of things.

None of them pay much, unfortunately. You spend so much time interdicting NPCs that carry nothing of real value. You might just as well farm USSes and pick up what you find there, skipping the whole interdiction, hatch break, defend while scooping cycle.

You make much less money with piracy compared to bounty hunting, which is very strange. Piracy should be about making more money quicker; a shortcut to riches by ignoring the law.

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Hello
First you mention cut-throat skills, and right after you go with the quick scan suggestion ? I find those 2 statements a bit contradictory.

Yeah, now that I look at it, it would make it easier. Although the scan-while-in-tether scanner does sound more attractive, as it would raise the skill cap (try interdiction while also worrying about the scan, checking the cargo and any possible side-effects such a scanner might have on your interdiction attempt.)

 

[Halp]

Yeah, now that I look at it, it would make it easier. Although the scan-while-in-tether scanner does sound more attractive, as it would raise the skill cap (try interdiction while also worrying about the scan, checking the cargo and any possible side-effects such a scanner might have on your interdiction attempt.)

Think about 2 factors here: 1. playability - just piling up multiple actions during a short amount of time doesn't look like a decent answer for skill IMO
2. a pirate shouldn't look like an interdiction bot (feeling sorry for using this phrase given the finantial situation of players trying to profit through piracy) - meaning one should attempt to tackle his prey only when he knows there's potential profit to be had, if you think logically.
What I would do is remove bounties from haulers carrying illegal goods, and increae the spawninig frequency of such NPC's. Now we have bouty hunters killing our best prey and to me it looks like nobody thought about what this detail in the game look like when playing as a pirate.
On the other hand, maybe piracy as an activity shouldn't be a farming business at all. Not sure about how to make that huge extra profit which would make crime pay off, though.

 

[Nikolaus]

I don't think you're bringing the right equipment to pirate raids. See what you should do is bring a cargo scanner, and the thing that makes unshielded targets drop cargo. Once you pick a juicy target, and have them jettison cargo, then you can shoot at them until they jump or you kill them, whichever comes first. I say this because, judging from your OP, you're just shooting first and asking questions later, and that will earn you NO credits.. You see, piracy isn't about being an evil murderer. It's about being a dastardly thief.

 

[RealNC]

I don't think you're bringing the right equipment to pirate raids. See what you should do is bring a cargo scanner, and the thing that makes unshielded targets drop cargo. Once you pick a juicy target, and have them jettison cargo, then you can shoot at them until they jump or you kill them, whichever comes first. I say this because, judging from your OP, you're just shooting first and asking questions later, and that will earn you NO credits.. You see, piracy isn't about being an evil murderer. It's about being a dastardly thief.

You earn next to nothing doing that. So there never will be enough pirates. They do other things that earn them much more credits.

 

[Abbadon]

if we could salvage the destroyed ships... it would worth a lot more I personally, thinks it's a shame, that we cannot trade with fittable ship parts and weapons, while everybody spent days to collect the right outfit on his ship. It's a missed spot from the developers, and it would make the piracy a little bit more rewarding. For example you could find ships transporting 2.5 million worth beam lasers from A to B, and it only holds 1t of cargo space... Or an extremly rare freeze laser what could worth ten times the price what it actually cost, couse it is rare enough to find a wealty buyer for it. Then we can talk about trading between players.

So maybe here is a pattern:

No crafting, No salvaging, No outfitting trading----->No Player between Player Trading----> No actual Piracy


So it wont be that game or they should work a lot on it to be that game. I hope they will

 

[kepler84]

You earn next to nothing doing that. So there never will be enough pirates. They do other things that earn them much more credits.

Strongly disagree.

There's no such thing as "not enought pirates".

A single pirate needs a huge amount of haulers to do it's living.

It is like those ecosystem models that teach us that for a established predator population, you need about 100 times it's population in viable preys.

Now, you know what happens when there are too many predators? That the prey's population depletes and the ecosystem dies (= traders go play solo, and open mode ends up empty).

My whole point is, piracy should not be encouraged.

Piracy nowadays it's not very profitable, and this is fine since this way only players genuinely interested in the Player vs Player interaction will participate in this business.

A low piracy ratio is good for everyone.

 

[RealNC]

Strongly disagree.

There's no such thing as "not enought pirates".

My whole point is, piracy should not be encouraged.

Piracy nowadays it's not very profitable, and this is fine since this way only players genuinely interested in the Player vs Player interaction will participate in this business.

A low piracy ratio is good for everyone.

Strongly disagree. More pirates mean you can actually get interdicted by a player pirate, which isn't happening. Also, you make it sound as if the suggestion war to make the place swarming with pirates, which is not true at all. The suggestion is to make piracy worthwhile.

Also, the year 3301 is not "nowadays."

 

[kepler84]

Strongly disagree. More pirates mean you can actually get interdicted by a player pirate, which isn't happening. Also, you make it sound as if the suggestion war to make the place swarming with pirates, which is not true at all. The suggestion is to make piracy worthwhile.

Also, the year 3301 is not "nowadays."

You don't need to make the place swarming with pirates to make people leave from open play. That was the whole point of my argument.

 

[Aedil]

I feel that this game needs piracy to be more profitable and risky at same time, yes.

 

[gmatagmis]

+1 More profitable and risky.
More risky and more profitable then bounty hunt.

Atm it's more risky, yes, but less profitable.
Easy improvement is to make so clean trades to be carring only high-value goods and always to be accompanied by fighters who protect them.
For example over 5k/tonn always with 80-100% load and few tuned eagles/vipers protectors.
So even honest player will think twice, when check clean hauler carring goods for 200k ^^
And evil pirate will think twice also)

To go futher. Add some kind of anarchy-bounty revards for killing security vessels.

PS. Posted this idea here https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=83366

 

[gr4474]

We need to be able to park a ship with cargo in it!

How do you park your ship if a rare trader?? I'm doing my first rare route, and was gonna buy a viper and park it in Lave, but I would have to dump my rare cargo. The best option is to finish my route only selling, until I run out. Why not allow us to park a ship with cargo in it? Obviously I never had this problem on a regular trade route, since you dump everything at every station. By the way, I make more on my boring simple route. What do you rare traders do?

Oh and please stop the pirates from complaining! I think they've pirated this forum. Most threads get hijacked by this topic in some form.

EDIT: OOOPS sorry pirates. I thought this was the general improvements thread. LOL I hijacked you!