Currently, Pirates will try to loot valuable cargo from your ship if it has a high enough value. That value floor is pretty low, with responses from holding certain low value items along the lines of, "You're not worth my time", and responses from holding only Limpets being the same as responses saying that you have no cargo at all.
So limpets are an ignored cargo item. An NPC attempted to pirate me recently, and asked for a certain tonnage of cargo. I ran, of course, and it began to shoot me. It kept asking for cargo, I decided to act smart and dropped 25 tons of Limpets to see how it would react. The story went something like this:
Not only are Limpets ignored in cargo scans, but they are also ignored when ejected from cargo racks, as if I didn't drop anything at all. I thought this was pretty interesting, but seeing how cargo scans are handled by Pirate NPCs, it shouldn't have surprised me. Yet it did, given that they do respond to lacking cargo drops when they ask for credit values. I haven't tested to see if they respond to Limpet drops when asking for credit values, but I suspect it'll go the same as when asking for tonnage.
So I propose a small addition to Pirate NPC dialog. Let them react to you dropping Limpets instead of valuable cargo. Let them say something like, "Stop messing around and drop some real cargo!", or, "I'm not that stupid, Commander. Drop something worthwhile or I'll fill your ship full of holes!". Having Limpets be ignored completely doesn't feel quite right, especially if I'm a miner trying to get away from NPCs in a Haz Res.
Bonus points if lone Sidewinder Pirates begrudgingly accept Limpets as valid cargo to pirate from Commanders. "You're lucky the boys back home aren't with me this time, Commander.", or, "And they told me piracy was profitable, it'll be forever before I'm out of this flying pile of scrap!"
So limpets are an ignored cargo item. An NPC attempted to pirate me recently, and asked for a certain tonnage of cargo. I ran, of course, and it began to shoot me. It kept asking for cargo, I decided to act smart and dropped 25 tons of Limpets to see how it would react. The story went something like this:
Not only are Limpets ignored in cargo scans, but they are also ignored when ejected from cargo racks, as if I didn't drop anything at all. I thought this was pretty interesting, but seeing how cargo scans are handled by Pirate NPCs, it shouldn't have surprised me. Yet it did, given that they do respond to lacking cargo drops when they ask for credit values. I haven't tested to see if they respond to Limpet drops when asking for credit values, but I suspect it'll go the same as when asking for tonnage.
So I propose a small addition to Pirate NPC dialog. Let them react to you dropping Limpets instead of valuable cargo. Let them say something like, "Stop messing around and drop some real cargo!", or, "I'm not that stupid, Commander. Drop something worthwhile or I'll fill your ship full of holes!". Having Limpets be ignored completely doesn't feel quite right, especially if I'm a miner trying to get away from NPCs in a Haz Res.
Bonus points if lone Sidewinder Pirates begrudgingly accept Limpets as valid cargo to pirate from Commanders. "You're lucky the boys back home aren't with me this time, Commander.", or, "And they told me piracy was profitable, it'll be forever before I'm out of this flying pile of scrap!"