Fair enough, but tell me, what, to the victim, is the difference between self-destruction and being blown out of space by a pirate? If the former is to lead to bankruptcy then so must the latter. So are you not arguing that pirates should be given a carte-blanche to take what they want and nobody is allowed to resist unless they want to end up in a sidewinder with 100cr?
Sorry for this long post. Maybe this is not really the right thread for this discussion.
I'm not saying you would start over in a Sidewinder because of being killed by a pirate, only that traders who commonly get blown up by pirates (or self-destruct rather than surrender) should very rapidly find themselves out of money. I think this is rather natural! If you dare to venture away from home waters, your resolve will be tested, and as long as you keep failing that test, you will not proceed further. If you intend to become anything other in trade than the space-equivalent of a pizza delivery man or a container ship, then you will have to defend yourself from the dangers of space trading, and this includes pirates! If you are destroyed or destroy yourself, then that is a failure, and this failure needs to be so harsh that it can not be adopted as a routine method by a trader.
If a miner crashes into an asteroid and destroys themselves every other mining run, they're not very likely to make any profit. If a combateer manages to take out four or five enemies in combat zone and then get destroyed, they're not very likely to make any profit. If a pirate only gets a few cans now and then, and keep getting destroyed by system security and/or bounty hunters, they're not very likely to make any profit. I do not see why a trader who keeps getting destroyed by pirates should make any profit.
Assuming that you are a trader that wants to stay afloat. What should traders do to avoid being bankrupted by pirates?
- They could stay in factional core systems and significant population centers, where things should be a lot better policed (security right now is weak and slow to respond, that needs to change in high-security systems.) Here, they can do milkruns and earn a small amount of money trading bulk goods.
- They could use trickery and skill to avoid piracy through use of the sensor mechanics, stealth etc. (which never made it into the game, and only would apply if Sc wasn't was Sc is right now)
- They could hire people to help protect them!
What a novel idea! None of that silly money-out-of-nowhere though, you would of course pay your escorters.
- If they're a new player in a Sidewinder or similar small ship, then bounties and trouble with the police should make piracy in lawful systems not worth it for the pirates.
- If they are heading to the more dangerous systems, they should consider using a ship that isn't a pure trader. A Cobra or Python would fit better for trading in dangerous places.
If our trader still finds themselves unable to profit from trading, what happens then?
They will do something else, but this changes things in the galaxy. One trader less in the galaxy means slightly fewer targets for the pirates. A few murder bounties more means a more juicy life for bounty hunters. Finally, the loss of a trader means slightly less movement of goods in the galaxy, which in turn means that the price differences on the market will become a tiny bit higher, which in turn means a slightly larger amount of profit for the traders that are left, the ones that have managed to defend themselves, and the ones that are just starting out, too insignificant to be a good target for piracy.
There's been for a long time a lot of calls on this forum to ''balance the professions'' and a lot has been done, bounties increased, etc. However, I really think this is hopeless in the end.
Now, I'm not some kind of elite game designer, but in my limited experience, ''Balancing the professions'' is like trying to evenly compress the hydrogen plasma in a tokamak reactor by the way of electromagnets
(this is the more nerdy variant of the analogy ''It's like trying to evenly compress a baloon'', no matter how hard you squeeze, some bit where you squeezed a bit less is going to stick out).
I think that if we ever are going to have balance, the system needs to be self-balancing ang dynamically changing. The good part is that we already have the foundation for this! If only the dynamic economy and everything surrounding it actually would work properly, we have all that is necessary.
I think that I'm not really answering your question, maybe I'm ranty, maybe I try to make some kind of suggestion, or maybe I'm just discussing this with thin air. I hope that I've made my opinion clear, though.
