Pirates do not unite.

OlFart

O
Pirates do not unite. They really don't. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but when pirates organise to form a united front and claim territory, they become a faction (albeit an illegitimate and violent one) and are pirates no more.

It's fun to organise though; I've been known to do so from time to time myself. A proper space battle is as good a reason as any to leave the space station on a Saturday afternoon. Let's just agree not to call it piracy, yes?

There's many things people pass for piracy these days:
  • Smuggling (Nope. This is just trading for people with brass balls. There's money to be had though, so... respect.)
  • Extortion / Protection racket (Nope. This is good old fashioned organised crime. "Nice store. Shame if anything happened to it." Sounds familiar? Still, there may at least be a few credits in it.)
  • Shooting cops (No, this is just a fun Friday night. Where's the money though?)
  • Shooting everyone (Now you are just a sociopath. Show me the money!)
  • Shooting traders (A cowardly sociopath, and I gotta be curious about this: how, pray tell, do you expect to make money by destroying the cargo along with the ship?)
  • Fleet combat / territorial control (A fool proof plan to lose money. This is definitely not piracy.)

So... with all of that out of the way, I present a pirate manifesto that makes a little bit more sense.




Take what you can, give nothing back!

  1. It's all about the credits. This shouldn't have to be in the manifesto at all, but some people seem to forget. If there's no easy credits to be had, you are barking up the wrong tree matey.

  2. Dead traders carry no gold. If there's no cargo of value in the merchant ship, or the bloody cargo hatch won't open, let it go - and maybe it'll carry battle weapons on the return trip. Destroying a ship out of spite kills your meal ticket.

  3. Avoid bounties (on yourself that is.) If you become a wanted man, the long arm of the law will reach out for you. Worse, you may be hounded by bounty hunters and opportunists if the bounty grows large enough. You may even want to pay it off.

  4. It's a good idea to have friends, partners even. Just watch the shifty scallywags closely; they are after all associating with a known pirate and may just stab you in the back over a few tons of gold.

  5. It's counterproductive for pirates to fight each other. No one likes a pirate, so why make more enemies? There's honor among thieves, as long as there's cargo aplenty. Of course this only holds true to a certain degree; if the salvage is rare and shiny enough, all bets are off.

  6. Don't fight the police. Combat is only justified if you can make a credit out of it. Cops are notorious for never carrying gold. Besides, it'll increase your bounty (refer to p.3 above.) and paying it off cuts into your profit margin!

  7. Always aim for the cargo port, unless the ship's empty in which case you shouldn't be shooting it in the first place. You are better off vacating the location, with a quickness. (Exceptions in reference to p.5 above.)

  8. Retreat is a valid option, especially if your cargo hold is half-full of rich salvage. Honor is for poor people.

Cmdr OlFart
 

Titus Balls

Titus Balls
+1 When Frontier give us the tools to do this, I'm totally up for this.

Edit: There are certainly plenty ways to do some of this in the current beta, however they are inconsistent, buggy or just down right frustrating. In the meantime - traders, use Freeport! Some groups and individuals will protect you, some won't (and sadly there is no way to tell at the moment).

In the end it's only pixels on a screen.
 
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OlFart

O
Titus Balls said:
+1 When Frontier give us the tools to do this, I'm totally up for this.
Click to expand...

Indeed, the tools are a bit lacking at the moment, though interdiction will help once it arrives.

In the meantime I find myself mostly confined to the nav beacons, hunting NPCs for rich salvage. But... this too is an exercise in frustration.

There's just so many cops and pirates! Give a trader a little fright and you have to fight through anything from 2 to 8 pirates and cops before you get a chance to scoop any of it. I like a challenge and all, but as long as there's just one player at the beacon, perhaps the numbers could be scaled down just a touch...

This of course is assuming all the cargo doesn't turn to junk from toxic or radioactive waste, or the gold canisters end up deleted by the ship dumping 75 units of fish after the gold. Oh my.
 

EAGLE 5

EAGLE 5
Now I'm not for Piracy.. bit of a bounty hunter / vigilante / freelance policeman myself but I do hear what you're saying.

People have the concept of piracy all wrong, it's like they start with piracy and it degenerates into some crazy notion of bounty hunting or mass murder. Sure in the golden days of piracy in the high seas people walked the plank and slept by Davy Jones' Locker but there was profit to be made first or else there was no point to it.
 

Jexter

Jexter
OlFart said:
[*]Shooting traders (A cowardly sociopath, and I gotta be curious about this: how, pray tell, do you expect to make money by destroying the cargo along with the ship?)
Click to expand...

Your above bullet point is likely how piracy in E:D will be conducted, for the following reasons:

1) Ships drop some cargo when they explode.
2) Most people love shooting at things, especially lesser armed ships.
3) A trader will never, at least if it's someone with my mindset, ever freely give a pirate a single ton of anything regardless of how much they (I) stand to loose.

This will spiral of course; as long as most pirates behave without any 'courtesy' or common ruleset the traders are going to assume all pirates lack scruples, and conversely pirates everywhere will have to assume a trader is sooner to blow themselves up than part with even an ounce of grain - it'll probably be a matter of destroying them as fast as possible before they either escape of self destruct.

Hope I'm wrong though :) I can be slightly synical sometimes heh
 
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Cmdr Fremen

Cmdr Fremen
Jexter said:
3) A trader will never, at least if it's someone with my mindset, ever freely give a pirate a single ton of anything regardless of how much Ithey (I)stand to loose.
Click to expand...

A player I've bombarded yesterday gave me 1 can of bauxite. "That will do it" - I've said and spared his life.

(I think I've got ripped off :))
 

Zvanya

Z
Jexter said:
1) Ships drop some cargo when they explode.
2) Most people love shooting at things, especially lesser armed ships.
3) A trader will never, at least if it's someone with my mindset, ever freely give a pirate a single ton of anything regardless of how much they (I) stand to loose.

This will spiral of course; as long as most pirates behave without any 'courtesy' or common ruleset the traders are going to assume all pirates lack scruples, and conversely pirates everywhere will have to assume a trader is sooner to blow themselves up than part with even an ounce of grain - it'll probably be a matter of destroying them as fast as possible before they either escape of self destruct.
Click to expand...

This is my prediction as well, and the way it should be. I already assume that pirates don't have scruples and "courteous pirate"? Get real. Pirates are murdering scum. Treat them as such. Run or fight - never willing give them anything.
 

OlFart

O
Jexter said:
Your above bullet point is likely how piracy in E:D will be conducted, for the following reasons:

1) Ships drop some cargo when they explode.
2) Most people love shooting at things, especially lesser armed ships.
3) A trader will never, at least if it's someone with my mindset, ever freely give a pirate a single ton of anything regardless of how much they (I) stand to loose.

This will spiral of course; as long as most pirates behave without any 'courtesy' or common ruleset the traders are going to assume all pirates lack scruples, and conversely pirates everywhere will have to assume a trader is sooner to blow themselves up than part with even an ounce of grain - it'll probably be a matter of destroying them as fast as possible before they either escape of self destruct.

Hope I'm wrong though :) I can be slightly synical sometimes heh
Click to expand...

It's possible it may be so, but.... not necessarily. Remember the cargo hatch. FD have the option to provide balance here. Let's say:

1) Killing a ship makes it drop 10% of the cargo intact, and with a 70% risk of dumping radioactives along with it, contaminating everything.
2) Shooting the hatch out will make the ship eject 20% of the cargo, but no radioactives.

What's the good choice for a pirate then? Shoot the hatch! Also, this would effectively let the trader keep 80% of the cargo.

This is just an example of course, but yes, this type of problem can possibly be mitigated to a large degree. Assuming people are in it for the credits rather than "for the lulz", that is.

EDIT:
This of course assumes the hatch is something you can hit. Currently, gimbals aren't accurate enough so you need a bit of skill and uh... (cough cough nudge nudge) FD will have to make sure the subsystem targeting boxes are actually showing the right locations on the ship. Currently, they are very misleading. On the type-9 for example, the cargo hatch is nowhere near where the targeting system says it is... whoops.
 
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XANi

X
OlFart said:
It's possible it may be so, but.... not necessarily. 1) 1)Killing a ship makes it drop 10% of the cargo intact, and with a 70% risk of dumping radioactives along with it, contaminating everything.
2) Shooting the hatch out will make the ship eject 20% of the cargo, but no radioactives.

What's the good choice for a pirate then? Shoot the hatch! Also, this would effectively let the trader keep 80% of the cargo.
Click to expand...

And it wouldn't work. Why ? Because pirate would radio target and "give me all stuff (or w/e fit in cargo hold) or you will die". Which is always better option for pirate, as if target does not surrender they can always fall back to other options. And almost always only option for trader if other option is "lose your cargo and your ship"

As long as that option is here other options become irrelevant, because it becomes "100% or some % of loot" for pirate and "loot lost or ship and loot lost" for trader.

So instead of fussing around with trying to target hatch for pirate it would be easier to just bring target to 5% hull and demand ransom
 

OlFart

O
XANi said:
And it wouldn't work. Why ? Because pirate would radio target and "give me all stuff (or w/e fit in cargo hold) or you will die". Which is always better option for pirate, as if target does not surrender they can always fall back to other options. And almost always only option for trader if other option is "lose your cargo and your ship"

As long as that option is here other options become irrelevant, because it becomes "100% or some % of loot" for pirate and "loot lost or ship and loot lost" for trader.

So instead of fussing around with trying to target hatch for pirate it would be easier to just bring target to 5% hull and demand ransom
Click to expand...

That sort of DOES solve the problem as well though, doesn't it? The point of the cargo hatch idea is to give pirates a bigger reward for not destroying a ship than they would get for destroying it. Radioing a demand for cargo is also a better option. It means the trader gets to leave with his ship, and a portion of his cargo depending on the pirate's capacity.
 

Stoopyface

S
I've found it much harder to damage cargo hatches (or any subsystem in fact) in the standard beta compared to the premium beta. This has led me more towards a mentality of killing anyone that doesn't jettison cargo, because it's more or less impossible to force it from them in combat. It's odd actually that I've killed far more traders in this beta than in previous ones, even though now we don't get any cargo for destroying a ship.
 

ToadMan

T
Jexter said:
3) A trader will never, at least if it's someone with my mindset, ever freely give a pirate a single ton of anything regardless of how much they (I) stand to loose.
Click to expand...

Assuming the mechanics in this beta hold, your choice here is largely irrelevant.

Pirates drop the shields and target the cargo hatch. It's not the traders choice, the cargo flows once sufficient damage is done. If one chooses to fight after the cargo vents, then one is of course fighting a pirate combat oriented ship, in a trader - not combat oriented...

So the choice (all else being equal) is whether to lose cargo and ship, or just cargo.

Personally I just shoot - the chit chat just wastes time until the trader can jump. I figure if they wish to drop cargo they can, but I'll still try to pop the cargo hatch. Most won't wish to lose anything of course, so my goal is to force the issue before they jump to sc.

Toad.
 

Adept

Adept
Excellent writeup Olfart. I hope Frontier tighten things so that exploding ships practically never drop anything, and that drives are impossible to completely disable, and only get damaged. Being able to kill drives encourages pirates to leave marks floating helplessly, and that is an experience that makes anybody seriously consider private groups and solo mode.

Pop he hatch, or get the target to eject stuff I say. Huge bounties for pirates who blow the mark up anyway.
 

Reidquat

R
Viper interdicts and declares piracy: you drop 16 tons of your cargo and hit supercruise. why pay for repairs and risk losing even more cargo than that?
 

Pro Gamer

P
Adept said:
Excellent writeup Olfart. I hope Frontier tighten things so that exploding ships practically never drop anything, and that drives are impossible to completely disable, and only get damaged. Being able to kill drives encourages pirates to leave marks floating helplessly, and that is an experience that makes anybody seriously consider private groups and solo mode.

Pop he hatch, or get the target to eject stuff I say. Huge bounties for pirates who blow the mark up anyway.
Click to expand...

Drives can never be destroyed? That's a horrible idea. If your drive is destroyed, you still have your distress beacon. Braben has talked about this before and has made up his mind. Exploding ships will always drop as least something whether it's cargo, or the actual ship wreckage to salvage.
 
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