If you have to ask that question, I recommend sticking to exploits and blatant thieving.
Why anyone want to be a pirate in Elite universe?
If you have to ask that question, I recommend sticking to exploits and blatant thieving.
NPC pirates might not be Pilots Federation, which really closes a lot of doors, so there might indeed be a shortage of "legit work" they're allowed to do.
(I'm not an expert on the canon, but my impression is that the roots of Pilots Federation are less a noble institution and more like a mafia racket that was accepted as the lesser evil and became legitimized because the alternatives were so much worse.)
As Pilots Federation members, the economic playing field is skewed heavily (and unjustly?) in our favor.
Last edited:
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
Piracy was borked the moment that the economy got so silly that it is not worth the players time to stop and scoop a few tons of even precious metals because you can earn 10 -100x more by doing a 1 jump delivery mission.
It can be fixed imo bit will need a total rethink of what missions pay in ED as well as the costs of hardware etc and not sure it is something FD want to do.
1) lower pay of missions accros the board to 10%
2) lower cost.of ships currently above say 1 million on an increasing scale so a conda is say 35 million (same with outfitting)
3) keep comodities same price
4) add in docking fees 3 tier price small, medium and large.
5) add in trade tax on purchasing which is reduced.based on rep with system and reduced more if you deliver items in demand at that station
6) implement more complex.supply and demand chains in BGS so need to do 4 or 5 loop runs but with good profits on all commodities possible not just the top few)
There you have it... Piracy worth while, because it does not matter what they drop, it will fetch proper money somewhere, and the relative costs of pure profit from piracy would make it a legitimate money earner.
A mission to deliver 10 tons.of goods no longer pays more than buying and delivering goods yourself
Bulk trade pays really well but running costs of large shipping business are a thing but can be rediced with good planning
And economy makes sense
Last edited:
Piracy can be a lot of fun especially if you do it in a small ship just watch three of nine or shippymcshipface on YouTube
Piracy could be improved with some missions just to bring back stolen goods that would increase the profits a bit plus some new modules that allow you to rob players more easily would be good
Piracy could be improved with some missions just to bring back stolen goods that would increase the profits a bit plus some new modules that allow you to rob players more easily would be good
Last edited:
The tricky thing with this is that, at the moment, a 180t Palladium mission pays 10 million.
If you reduce it to 1 million, then the Palladium has a base sale price of approximately 2.5 million depending on market. So you then have the problem that they can make more money by just running off with the goods.
But if you pay even 2.5 million for the mission, that's 13500/tonne profit, which is way more than you can get from conventional trading with the same cargo hold.
I think the only way you could balance these missions would be to require you to *purchase* the goods from the depot at market rate so it basically becomes a "fetch cargo" mission with a guaranteed supply.
It's silly we don't even have to pay for that cargo if we lose (or steal) it. Delivery missions pay way more than fetch missions and are much less hassle to do (no need to go back to the original station), this makes a great imbalance between the trade missions and delivering the goods ourselves.
"Thieves are not born, they are made."
You can take all that romantization of today and throw it overboard.
Pirates simply are a colourful lot of political enemies gone rogue,
exiled and placed on the blacklist to not destable the establishment.
Some are here for the quick buck, robbing a trader at gunpoint and
selling the loot for maximum profit.
Others are shady mercenary specialists, who simply wait for contracts
and then steal the designated items, or disable the target.
Then there are those who enjoy mayhem and murder,
or dabble in human trafficking pleasing tastes that are taboo
to most cultures.
The only things that form a united picture of pirates is this:
- be paid for eliminating them
- they make their own rules
You can take all that romantization of today and throw it overboard.
Pirates simply are a colourful lot of political enemies gone rogue,
exiled and placed on the blacklist to not destable the establishment.
Some are here for the quick buck, robbing a trader at gunpoint and
selling the loot for maximum profit.
Others are shady mercenary specialists, who simply wait for contracts
and then steal the designated items, or disable the target.
Then there are those who enjoy mayhem and murder,
or dabble in human trafficking pleasing tastes that are taboo
to most cultures.
The only things that form a united picture of pirates is this:
- be paid for eliminating them
- they make their own rules
Without a focus on "careers" instead of the generic "freelancer" mentality, none of this matters. You can talk about it until you're blue in the face... but until Frontier decides that it's important enough to focus on actual careers instead of simple activities... yeah, you may as well keep dreaming. Seriously.
We do have to pay for it. I had a 21 million credit bill because my girlfriend needed a lift into town, I had less than an hour to complete a bunch of mission that had been sitting in my cargo hold. Sure I could have just left the fine, but that screws things up at the local cargo hubs for that particular freighter.
Also fetch missions are currently the highest paid, just the 50 mill missions can only be found at certain ports when the system state is right. I had 100 million for 2 fetch mission not long ago (source was a few jumps away, just over 2000 tonnes.
I think commodities are pretty broken too, which doesn't help the situation. Whoever thought having commodities be measured by weight instead of volume wasn't really thinking.
I his ^^^. So much this.
Letters of marquee would also be an interesting addition to game play. Enough of the senseless killing in open play for Braben's sake.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
i dunno...... IF the game reacted properly i think stealing the stuff and selling for massive profit could be ok.... but you only get to do it a few times before you are deemed enemy of the state, the pilots federation could send those kick backside ships after you, and no one trusts you to do more missions until you pay off the fine that you should get for failing to deliver the goods (the fine being the amount the items are worth at the high end of the scale plus a percentage interest for failure).
this x 1000
Seriously, people keep talking about this as though there's simply going to be a magical "dev response", but in all reality they're being ignored because Frontier has chosen the path of least resistance and wishes to keep doing so. They're going to keep this game as flavorless (or flavourless) and generic as possible in order to cater to the lowest common denominator (LCD) in order to facilitate more sales instead of targeting those who wish for more depth and involvement, engagement and excitement.Wish in one hand, and $h** in the other, see which gets fuller first. Words of the wise.
I know about the fines, but last time it happened to me, the fines I got was well bellow the value of the cargo I still had in my holds (missed the mission deadline by 1 minute, took too long to find the darn place). If you fail multiple mission, yeah it can get quite expensive, but last time I checked the fines are bellow the value of the goods we transport.
Wish in one hand, and $h** in the other, see which gets fuller first. Words of the wise.
i dunno, like the new exploration mechanics or hate them, FD have shown they are prepared to replace what were imo very bare bones bits and replace them with more hands on features ..... i definitely think that chapter 4 is looking to add some more flavour
I think piracy doesn't really work well in ED because of the ship designs.
Big cargo ships should be heavy and slow, take forever to accelerate/decelerate and shouldn't be able to just easily fly off and highwake.
With traders using Pythons, Anacondas and Cutters that's not going to happen. Cargo racks should be very limited in size for multipurpose ships, and in order to efficiently trade you would have to use a big and slow space cow that can stack a huge number of cargo racks.
Big cargo ships should be heavy and slow, take forever to accelerate/decelerate and shouldn't be able to just easily fly off and highwake.
With traders using Pythons, Anacondas and Cutters that's not going to happen. Cargo racks should be very limited in size for multipurpose ships, and in order to efficiently trade you would have to use a big and slow space cow that can stack a huge number of cargo racks.
Goose4291
Banned
I genuinely think these new explorer and mining mechanics are a start of a movement in that direction.