Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
[EDIT:]
After a bit more testing I tried again with Class 4 hatch breaker and collector drone launchers. The hatch breakers worked wonderfully almost with no fault or failure irrespective of target ship size, the collector launcher, already at Class 4 can only launch 2 drones at the same time. The recent change to allow up to 100 cannisters out in the void is irrelevant when faced with the current bottleneck of low cannister shelf life and slow cannister collection mechanics.
The overall piracy yield on NPC´s with class 4 launchers remains very low anyways (~100,000 - 150,000 CR per hour) and it can not still compete by far with any of the other usual professions such as bounty hunting or trading. This is compounded with the additional requirements from pirates to actively find suitable locations/targets (as opposed to bounty hunting obvious hunting grounds) and smuggling in order to sell. The main issues being very slow collection capacity due to limited collector drones operating at the same time, and too low shelf life of cannisters.
The thing is that piracy is fun because it requires a lot of thinking through, right system, right targets, lots of coordination to weaken targets then use limpets to collect before police arrives etc etc, but it just doesnt yield much Cr. for the effort. If it was made more efficient it would really create a whole new real profession for the game, even in Solo.
I would still suggest the following changes (and in that priority) are considered for testing if FDEV wants to make piracy a more competitive activity that people can actively engage and consider as a viable option:
- Double amount of collector drones capable to operate simultaneously per launcher class
- Double collector drone action range
- Increase collector drone speed by 1.5
- Double cannister shelf life when free in space
- Increase by 1.5 the hatch breaker cannister siphon yield, or make it increase by class. At the moment the most a hatch breaker extracts is 10-12 cannisters and apparently irrespective of the class. [/EDIT]
Apologies if this or something similar has been posted before, but given the new updated game mechanic whereby, other than around stations, we can now have up 100 cannisters floating around, I have been spending some time trying to find ways to make direct piracy of NPC´s (i.e. outside bulletin board missions) be somewhat competitive with other sources of revenue in terms of Cr. / hour but it would seem at this time piracy alone may not be even at par with mining. Here is a short summary of the findings:
I went with a Clipper with a 160 tonnes cargo space and armed with a cargo scanner and "A" rated cargo hatch breaker and collector drones. I then set out to attack NPC ships in order to steal their cargo and then return to a nearby black market to sell all the proceeds.
My victims were always NPC ships which were carrying 30+ canisters of cargo.
- Cargo hatch breaker limpets: Using A rating limpet launchers my personal experience is that a single limpet will not suck out more than 8-12 canisters from your prey at a time. After 8-12 canisters have been sucked out the drone will just stop working and/or auto-destroy (in some cases they auto-destroy even before starting to suck canisters out). This forces you to launch multiple drones sequentially which really takes a significant time if you want to aim to retrieve several tenths of canisters to maximize the use of the new 100 canister allowance mechanic.
- Collector drones: Using A rated limpets maximizes the time they work for you but it seems there can only be 1 functioning at any given time. The collection process is quite slow, especially when we need to collect tenths of canisters just stolen. The amount of time used to collect canisters with just one drone is a killer.
- Canisters "shelf life": Once canisters are out there in the void they self destruct and explode after a few minutes only. And coupled with the above slow process with both cargo hatch breaker and collector drones makes them disappear way before one has a chance to collect them and fully defeats the purpose of the new 100 canister mechanic. At any given time I wasnt able to retrieve more than 10-15 canisters tops irrespective of how many I had managed to extract.
So, not only the time required to do all this is a killer, but also the canister shelf life seems to be way too short to allow taking advantage from the 100 canister mechanic. Bottom line is around 100,000p-150,000 Cr per hour tops in a good day.
In order to improve these shortcomings here are a couple suggestions:
- Increase the number of canisters a cargo hatch breaker drone can siphon out, from the current 8-12 to say 25-30.
- significantly increase shelf life of canisters in the void, say to at least 20-30 minutes.
- Allow for multiple collector drones to operate at the same time. Probably up to 5.
After a bit more testing I tried again with Class 4 hatch breaker and collector drone launchers. The hatch breakers worked wonderfully almost with no fault or failure irrespective of target ship size, the collector launcher, already at Class 4 can only launch 2 drones at the same time. The recent change to allow up to 100 cannisters out in the void is irrelevant when faced with the current bottleneck of low cannister shelf life and slow cannister collection mechanics.
The overall piracy yield on NPC´s with class 4 launchers remains very low anyways (~100,000 - 150,000 CR per hour) and it can not still compete by far with any of the other usual professions such as bounty hunting or trading. This is compounded with the additional requirements from pirates to actively find suitable locations/targets (as opposed to bounty hunting obvious hunting grounds) and smuggling in order to sell. The main issues being very slow collection capacity due to limited collector drones operating at the same time, and too low shelf life of cannisters.
The thing is that piracy is fun because it requires a lot of thinking through, right system, right targets, lots of coordination to weaken targets then use limpets to collect before police arrives etc etc, but it just doesnt yield much Cr. for the effort. If it was made more efficient it would really create a whole new real profession for the game, even in Solo.
I would still suggest the following changes (and in that priority) are considered for testing if FDEV wants to make piracy a more competitive activity that people can actively engage and consider as a viable option:
- Double amount of collector drones capable to operate simultaneously per launcher class
- Double collector drone action range
- Increase collector drone speed by 1.5
- Double cannister shelf life when free in space
- Increase by 1.5 the hatch breaker cannister siphon yield, or make it increase by class. At the moment the most a hatch breaker extracts is 10-12 cannisters and apparently irrespective of the class. [/EDIT]
Apologies if this or something similar has been posted before, but given the new updated game mechanic whereby, other than around stations, we can now have up 100 cannisters floating around, I have been spending some time trying to find ways to make direct piracy of NPC´s (i.e. outside bulletin board missions) be somewhat competitive with other sources of revenue in terms of Cr. / hour but it would seem at this time piracy alone may not be even at par with mining. Here is a short summary of the findings:
I went with a Clipper with a 160 tonnes cargo space and armed with a cargo scanner and "A" rated cargo hatch breaker and collector drones. I then set out to attack NPC ships in order to steal their cargo and then return to a nearby black market to sell all the proceeds.
My victims were always NPC ships which were carrying 30+ canisters of cargo.
- Cargo hatch breaker limpets: Using A rating limpet launchers my personal experience is that a single limpet will not suck out more than 8-12 canisters from your prey at a time. After 8-12 canisters have been sucked out the drone will just stop working and/or auto-destroy (in some cases they auto-destroy even before starting to suck canisters out). This forces you to launch multiple drones sequentially which really takes a significant time if you want to aim to retrieve several tenths of canisters to maximize the use of the new 100 canister allowance mechanic.
- Collector drones: Using A rated limpets maximizes the time they work for you but it seems there can only be 1 functioning at any given time. The collection process is quite slow, especially when we need to collect tenths of canisters just stolen. The amount of time used to collect canisters with just one drone is a killer.
- Canisters "shelf life": Once canisters are out there in the void they self destruct and explode after a few minutes only. And coupled with the above slow process with both cargo hatch breaker and collector drones makes them disappear way before one has a chance to collect them and fully defeats the purpose of the new 100 canister mechanic. At any given time I wasnt able to retrieve more than 10-15 canisters tops irrespective of how many I had managed to extract.
So, not only the time required to do all this is a killer, but also the canister shelf life seems to be way too short to allow taking advantage from the 100 canister mechanic. Bottom line is around 100,000p-150,000 Cr per hour tops in a good day.
In order to improve these shortcomings here are a couple suggestions:
- Increase the number of canisters a cargo hatch breaker drone can siphon out, from the current 8-12 to say 25-30.
- significantly increase shelf life of canisters in the void, say to at least 20-30 minutes.
- Allow for multiple collector drones to operate at the same time. Probably up to 5.
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