Foreword:
Solutions:
This thread is my attempt to succinctly outline the issues with piracy as an activity. This post primarily addresses PvE content, although balance of PvP is acknowledged. I'm creating this post as I consider piracy to be in a 'non-functional' state, as in, it doesn't scale much at all to ships larger than the Cobra Mk III, and I will provide my suggestions to fix this part of the game below. I sincerely hope that Frontier can address or acknowledge the issues I present, based on my experience having played the game since it's Beta.
Issues:The primary issue with piracy is that isn't currently possible to collect enough cargo in a reasonably straightforward way in larger ships; Collector limpets allow for greater collection speeds, but the tools to 'liberate' or siphon cargo do not scale, as hatch breaker limpets offer the same performance against single targets regardless of the class of the controller module. More importantly, regardless of siphon rate, the inability to disable a target and bring it to a stop means cargo becomes strewn across a large area of space, hampering collection. Cargo can exit sensor range, collection range, and decay.
Here (LINK) is an example of a piracy mission aimed at Medium-sized ships and above, as indicated by the amount of cargo required for mission completion. This mission is effectively impossible without a good degree of luck; Technically, given a large amount of time, a lawless system, and a target flying a lightly-armed, slow ship, I could disable it's thrusters, bump into it until it's somewhat close to being stopped, and then siphon and collect cargo. With explosive (and the target having a tough-enough hull), I could disable the weapons, too. However, in practice, this method is very unreliable, and depends upon factors outside of player control - whether the target ship is strong enough to disable without accidentally killing it, and whether the target ship will hopelessly blast away at you, while it should know that it could be killed at any moment.
Solutions:
First, and absolutely the most important solution, is to provide players the ability to stop a ship. This should require a specific module, with a specific method of use, requiring investment and skill in order to use it properly; This is to prevent easy ganking in PvP. My idea:
- 'Inertia' Limpet Controller. Attaches to target ships, and only functions as long as thrusters are disabled. Introduces deceleration to the target; Deceleration rate based on Grade? Only available in Class 1 size, or as part of the operations multi-limpet controllers. Optionally, Recon limpet controllers could be incorporated as part of hatch breaker limpets to reduce the total amount of available controllers.
Second (and less importantly), change the functionality of Class 3 and above Hatch Breaker Limpet Controllers. Some years ago, hatch breaker limpets were improved; They now fly at 500 m/s (as opposed to 300 m/s), and pass through shields. This is a very nice bonus, but mostly complements a hit-and-run type of playstyle, which does not fit larger ships looking for larger amounts of cargo. I would relegate this bonus to the class 1 Hatch Breaker Limpet Controller, and return higher class controllers to their previous incarnation, having 300 m/s speed (or less) and no shield penetration. I would counter this nerf with increased siphon rate, exponentially, based on class. Here are my suggested numbers, based on an the same powers of 2 used by cargo racks, applied to hatch breakers with the current minimum cargo canister siphon amounts.
Class 1 | Class 3 | Class 5 | Class 4 | |
Grade E | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
Grade D | 2 | 4 | 8 | 16 |
Grade C | 3 | 6 | 12 | 24 |
Grade B | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 |
Grade A | 5 | 10 | 20 | 40 |
Ideally, the siphon speed (the rate at which cargo is ejected from the target ship) should increase proportionally by class; It could utilize the target ship's own jettison mechanism, dropping 2-4 canisters at a time as opposed to one.
Lastly, a change which may be necessary should the above suggestions be accepted, - increase or remove the cap on cargo canisters in open-space, or deep-space instances - hopefully to roughly 256 canisters, the maximum the majority of pirate ships can actually carry at a time. This may be necessary should a pirate use the best hatch breaker limpet controller, which could siphon cargo faster than the best collectors could scoop it. It shouldn't pose too problematic for newer computers, especially being away from graphically-intense entities such as stations, rings, installations, and so on. This may also be an indirect buff to PvP piracy, although without any experience in this capacity for the past few years, I can't speak as to how important this is.
Thank you for reading. I love this game, it's the best, and piracy is my favorite feature. I would very much like to support my chosen anarchic minor faction, too (not telling you which 
), and the above changes would allow me to take these missions, and generally do piracy. I'd like to end off by saying that personally, I don't think any other changes to piracy besides the above are necessary; The background features this game has, between the bounty system and BGS, means that pirates are forced to really look at where they're going, what they're doing, and carefully consider their choices, and that makes this game way more compelling than any other activity - in my opinion. I also might be in a small minority here, but I'd like more punishment, too! Give me bigger bounties, and send more bounty hunters after me!
), and the above changes would allow me to take these missions, and generally do piracy. I'd like to end off by saying that personally, I don't think any other changes to piracy besides the above are necessary; The background features this game has, between the bounty system and BGS, means that pirates are forced to really look at where they're going, what they're doing, and carefully consider their choices, and that makes this game way more compelling than any other activity - in my opinion. I also might be in a small minority here, but I'd like more punishment, too! Give me bigger bounties, and send more bounty hunters after me!
EDIT: Might've given the faction away. Lol.
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