The problem with human piracy - A traders perspective

[Half Giant]

Excellent post. And spot on in my opinion. The only people who would argue with this will be the pirates, players who already have millions of credits, so are not actually role-playing a needy pirate.

Neither you or the original poster make any suggestion. What do you propose? Is it just venting or do you want to get rid or piracy?

Despite what others have said there is no piracy yet. At least not in any real sense anyway. FD have announced and proposed the feature. So it will happen. So let's wait for it and then talk about it. I probably won't take part in piracy but I want to play in a complex galaxy where these things happen. I won't do much more than opportunistic bounty hunting but that profession relies on piracy to some extent.

Most games rely on conflicting goals. If you don't want to face player pirates then maybe play solo. Or suggest something?

 

[beelbeebub]

Why human pirates are neccesary

First assumption, human to human interactions will always be more complex and nuanced than human to AI interaction. I assume everyone agrees with this. Note that I don't necessarily mean polite, pleasant or civil. I just mean that dealing with another human will give a more varied range of responses and outcomes, some of which could never have been predicted.

At it's core ED is about flying a space craft.

The next question is what to do with our shiny new space ships? After all just flying around a skybox all day would get old sooner or later.

So a trading mechanism is introduced. This gives a reason for all the flying about and allows for competition between players on a trading front. It drives the faux economy and helps move people around the galaxy to marvel at it's wonders.

But a basic trading game needs some risk to balance the reward, some darkness in the light.

So pirates are needed to prey on the traders. And human pirates will be more interesting than AI pirates.

When we were kids there was always an argument over who got to play the cowboy/batman/optimum prime and who had to be the Indian/joker/megatron. In order to be a hero, you need an adversary.

Human pirates are filling that role. They are the kids who are saying 'ok I'll be the joker'. Of course, now we're adults, sometimes being the 'baddie' is fun, I'm not assuming pirate players are doing this of of the goodness of their own hearts.

By being player pirates, players are providing one element of the ED ecosystem, because without pirates there can be no bounty hunters.

As an aside there are two threads going about be possibilities provided by adding high speed courier and 'duty free' smuggler to the mix.

TLDR

ED needs a varied group or roles to be played such as trader, miner, pirate, explorer, bounty hunter. These roles will be more interesting if played by human players than if all filled with AIs

 

[DaHunn]

live is hard get used to it.
I have no problem against piracy.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Excellent post. And spot on in my opinion. The only people who would argue with this will be the pirates, players who already have millions of credits, so are not actually role-playing a needy pirate.

We are not speaking about status quo, we are talking about finished game, where currently hacked/easily traded millions will come with sweat and tears.

 

[spookytooth]

Simple answer to counter piracy - the price for being caught = death. No insurance policies, no further opportunities for that particular pirate commander. Yes it's very harsh, but those wishing to pursue the career of a pirate often infer how dangerous space is. After all it's the fate that threaten(s)ed real pirates. Surely shouldn't that be central to the role of the wannabe pirate along with the actual acts of piracy?

 

[Adept]

As a counter point, any trader that wants to enjoy the game for more than 20 minutes will realize that the game has to be built around a risk reward system..
---
Each to their own but I for one will be playing in the Iron Man All group as I want this to be Elite Dangerous. I do not want this to be a truck driver in space simulation.

Truck and train sims are very popular actually. I certainly hope people can play as peaceful traders and passenger liner captains, and never be bothered. If such reality sim people also find what they want in Elite, the game prospers and we all benefit.

Just trading or flying passengers around the core worlds should be very peaceful, and one can just enjoy flying the space ships.

 

[pantbash]

Traders should probably have some influence over how harsh the punishment is for piracy. After all, the traders are law abiding citizens, paying taxes, and in the democracies are voting for the government. Said governments are likely to listen to their tax paying electorate. They certainly wouldn't be listening to the pirates.

Yes, yes and yes again.

Cargo loss insurance, optional payment you can make.
It does not give you your cargo or cash back (as that may break economy) but if you are pirated it places a fine of x% of cargo worth onto the Pirate that killed you.

100% of insured value in high-sec (SOL/Achenar)
50% medium sec (Lave etc)
10% in low sec
0% in pirate/anarchy systems.


Trader would still lose out as they do now, but would at least have some happiness that the pirate is now lumbered with at least some costs.
Especially if they are doing their pirating in the core worlds.
Adds an currently lacking element of risk to the Pirates career.


***The above applies to BEta as it is now, the PB1 crime/punishment changes may work perfectly. We shall see.



To answer an previously made point.
ED should (optionally) be a truck simulator, if you want to ferry goods between say Sol/Barnards star. Then you can do so at v-little risk for not so much reward. That is not an invalid playstyle if someone so wishes.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Truck and train sims are very popular actually. I certainly hope people can play as peaceful traders and passenger liner captains, and never be bothered. If such reality sim people also find what they want in Elite, the game prospers and we all benefit.

Just trading or flying passengers around the core worlds should be very peaceful, and one can just enjoy flying the space ships.

Not very peaceful, attacks will happen in safe systems. You will just have a change to escape, and your attacker will suffer wrath of police. But attacks still will happen. They happened in previous games too.

And no, this is not Euro truck simulator 2014.

 

[hunvagy]

Not very peaceful, attacks will happen in safe systems. You will just have a change to escape, and your attacker will suffer wrath of police. But attacks still will happen. They happened in previous games too.

And no, this is not Euro truck simulator 2014.

Which brings up a thing I have been wondering ever since reading the currently available passenger ferry proposal. If a pirate boils your passenger liner, will it get multiple murder charges, for every single person on board? That might be a pretty good deterrent on its own, without any artifical "nanny" situation. At least imo.

 

[Solsbeary]

pVp is it's own reward in this respect, maybe it should be opt in....


This I really do agree with. I think FD are in a great position to innovate in the online gaming space, and am quite excited to be part of it.

pvp opt-in is hardly an innovation... but im glad you're excited to be a part of it, andI hope you get to experience everything which includes human space-pirate clans

 

[Stoopyface]

Which brings up a thing I have been wondering ever since reading the currently available passenger ferry proposal. If a pirate boils your passenger liner, will it get multiple murder charges, for every single person on board? That might be a pretty good deterrent on its own, without any artifical "nanny" situation. At least imo.

I never thought of this, but I find it a pretty interesting question. I would expect though that pirates wouldn't really go for passenger ships. I mean maybe they could be jettisoned and sold as slaves somewhere, but I expect most pirates would target traders carrying commodities.

That said, maybe having each dead passenger count as a murder would encourage pirates not to attack them. This might cause passenger transports to become less dangerous than commodity trading and skew the balance, but if a transport loses the passengers then they would likewise suffer some penalty. After all those lives were the responsibility of the captain.

This line from the most recent DDF topic on passengers supports that line of thinking:

• If passengers are on board the players ship when it is destroyed they are killed
  • The player will lose a large amount of passenger delivery reputation if passengers are killed while on their ship

 

[hunvagy]

I never thought of this, but I find it a pretty interesting question. I would expect though that pirates wouldn't really go for passenger ships. I mean maybe they could be jettisoned and sold as slaves somewhere, but I expect most pirates would target traders carrying commodities.

That said, maybe having each dead passenger count as a murder would encourage pirates not to attack them. This might cause passenger transports to become less dangerous than commodity trading and skew the balance, but if a transport loses the passengers then they would likewise suffer some penalty. After all those lives were the responsibility of the captain.

This line from the most recent DDF topic on passengers supports that line of thinking:

Yes, that makes perfect sense. You have to be on time, not sell them as slaves (well at least not always ) and try not to get them killed. And even though it might be less dangerous if the deterrent of a hefty bounty lingers, you have to take into account that more luxurious cabins will cost you quite a bit, which if I recall are the prerequisites to get the biggest boon of being a passenger liner: missions from the passangers. Which then can lead you into the middle of a warzone, putting you in more danger then Dread Pirate Robins trying to liberate you of your passangers.

 

[John Fearns]

Human traders [...] do not really accept [that] piracy by humans [is] an acceptable gaming mechanism.

Incorrect. I am a human trader, and I fully accept, and actively desire, piracy by humans and a game mechanic to support it. You may not have foreseen my opinion, and you may not understand it, but please don't speak for me .

 

[Zarkon]

The OP doesn't suggest making any changes. There's actually nothing in his post that indicates that he has been pirated, or griefed, or that he has even played the game at all yet. Nor does he ask to make changes to the current or future versions of the game in any way. He gave an honest view of how carebear traders feel about PvP pirates, who would single them out as targets simple because they are humans and not NPCs. I offer no suggestions as there are none to be had at this time. I am just showing my support for a very well thought out post. Honestly I didn't bother reading any of the other replies beyond the first few because most have become repetitively predictable, whenever any one posts anything negative about pirating, the same forum users post the same replies over and over again, on every thread, every time:

"It's just testing, get over it"
"It's not piracy cause it's not in the game"
"NPC pirates will be way tougher"
"Oh great, another whiner thread"
"Someone's been butt hurt, boo hoo"

So my comment was for the OP and there's really nothing to explain or debate. Once the game is finished, then people's opinions on piracy will be of value, but since this topic has nothing to do with changing anything, most of the other comments on this thread, however intelligent and well presented they may have been, are just a rehash of all the other pro/anti pirate topics that have come before. Sorry for going OT, but some forumites seem to really care what I think (can't imagine why).

 

[Sage Stark]

Two solutions:-
(1) Give traders a ship, shield and weapon system capable of withstanding an attack of, say, ten pirates.

(2) Allow traders to hire escorts.

 

[Meritz]

Two solutions:-
(1) Give traders a ship, shield and weapon system capable of withstanding an attack of, say, ten pirates.

(2) Allow traders to hire escorts.

Presumably some players will jump at the opportunity to play escorts to traders.

To the OP, if you're roleplaying a trader, you're also roleplaying a potential victim of piracy. That's a part of being a trader. I assume that in the finished game, with a fully functional crime response mechanism, a trader who wants to play it safe will be able to stick to secure systems where pirates will rarely go, at the expense of profits.

I also think that players choosing to play it offline should not be allowed to transfer between offline and online mode. Online commanders should stick to online only. Basically, "live with the consequences of your choices" should be the baseline for the online play. Not sure that the game is heading that way though, with private groups and whatnot, which may prove to be the first design mistake I saw thus far.

You can't have a persistent online world which can be totally ignored on demand. It just doesn't work, at all.

 

[beelbeebub]

Two solutions:-
(1) Give traders a ship, shield and weapon system capable of withstanding an attack of, say, ten pirates.

(2) Allow traders to hire escorts.

Remember, if you make pirating too hard, it becomes unattractive. If that happens no pirates (hooray, everyone shouts), but then no bounty hunters, no escorts, no reason not to go to anarchy systems.

The ED universe should be like an ecosystem with various 'types' interacting and preying on each other, or acting symbiotically.

Take away the annoying insects (hooray, no more bites), great, hey where have all the bats and birds gone?

 

[Megalon]

npc pirates are bigger ***** than human ones in my experience.

 

[Aewarin Jameson]

Two solutions:-
(1) Give traders a ship, shield and weapon system capable of withstanding an attack of, say, ten pirates.

(2) Allow traders to hire escorts.

(1) Allow FD to balance the equipment first (it's still Beta) and once done learn the intricacies of your ship and/or how to run when needed.

(2) is coming .. part of feature set yet to be implemented

 

[hunvagy]

Remember, if you make pirating too hard, it becomes unattractive. If that happens no pirates (hooray, everyone shouts), but then no bounty hunters, no escorts, no reason not to go to anarchy systems.

The ED universe should be like an ecosystem with various 'types' interacting and preying on each other, or acting symbiotically.

Take away the annoying insects (hooray, no more bites), great, hey where have all the bats and birds gone?

This would be true if there were only players. But just because humans don't pirate, it doesn't mean there's no NPCs that do. Which means that the lack of human pirates doesn't necessary make player bounty hunters or escorts extinct. The ED univesre is an ecosystem as far as I understood, whether the PCs are around or not.