Well, I never knew this. Could explain a lot about pirating...

[Adam Lusardi]

6..it's definitely 6...and smells like wet burlap.

Hessian /ˈhɛsi.ən/, or burlap in the U.S. and Canada.........

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I was interdicted by an NPC in a Federal Dropship (with no shields... yeah.... that's a good idea, pal!). He tried to pirate me. I meant to target his powerplant but managed instead to target the cargo hatch before I had to stop pressing Y over-and-over and fly the damned ship. Something odd happened. He started to drop cargo. I was hitting (presumably) the cargo hatch with multicannon and free stuff was dropping out!

I never knew that happened. I thought you needed to use hatch breakers for this (which is the whole point of having them in the game!).

This opens up a whole new approach for Pirates, of course, rather than offer an ultimatum to the other pilot you can simply blast the cargo hatch, without the need to completely destroy the vessel, turning a "Murder" into a "Robbery with Violence". OF course it'll be marked as "illicit cargo", which is less nice than the other person abandoning it so it isn't, but....

I did not know that happened. Did anyone else?

When I started out I tried my hand at PvE pirating. Game was just released and the AI had some funny quirks.

Targeted an AI without shields, hatchbreaker at the ready, interdicting, 'nice he's fighting it, that means increased cooldown period'. Pulled him out, lined up for the hatchbreaker and "Frameshift drive detected", and he was gone. Went on the forum, and yeah ... AI FSD cooldown doesn't work.

But while bounty hunting I noticed that if you shoot at the AI, it'll not jump out, but stay and fight. OK, new plan. T-7, interdiction, fire off a couple of shots and sure enough he turns around to engage me. Cool, target the cargo hatch and goods start pouring out. Start to scoop, but the T-7 has made a u-turn and is going for me. Damnit, have to scare him off. Got his hull down to 2% and he's still predicting my remains will be assigned to the void. So I have to kill him. 6200 bounty for some clothes and food.

 

[Lucifer Hate]

They will never be able to have it where you can steal a ship to keep it. It would open real money sellers to selling ships that way. It is a major reason they had to institute the 1M cap on bounties as it was being used for credit selling

 

[DNA-Decay]

What colour is Betty's stolen Anaconda?

It's still gold.
But now it has Pirate Decals.

 

[xxThe_Dice_manxx]

Greetings

That's an interesting thought wbout the SRV being dropped as cargo, but where would you sell it if you scooped it?

Can you sell limpets in the black market? if so then I can't see why SRV's couldn't be stolen and sold, might actually make piracy worth while

 

[Elriuhilu]

You could always try to damage the cargo hatch and it would eventually malfunction and start ejecting cargo. The limpets were introduced later to make the process easier, but with the drawback that they take up cargo and module space. Sort of like the docking computer of cargo hatch opening.

As for the SRVs falling out when the hatch is damaged, it seems to me that they are kept in a different compartment to the cargo, so logically they shouldn't be able to fall out if the cargo hatch malfunctions. In the sneak peek videos it looks like the opening where the buggy goes is not the cargo hatch.

 

[Quineloe]

Hatch breakers also play a cool warning voice sound

 

[Noddie]

I don't know about "Ship Stealing", really. I think they're too valuable (well, big ones are) to let people steal. You should have to work for them. I'd imagine that having your shop stolen would be insured, just as having it destroyed is, so it makes little difference to the player long term, provide they have the rebuy to hand. Can't see it being implemented, it's not that kind of game.