Yes PVP is unfair.

[Sandmann]

Clap trap. Modern independent driver/operators do exactly that. They own trucks, and trailers, take on opportunities as they come. Around the world there are boat owners that certainly do what you assert they don;t. There are large organizations that hire drivers and pilots (in the maritime sense) but, the independents still survive.

I believe his contention was that drivers/owners of the transport companies - be they independent or corporate - don't BUY and SELL the goods and profit by that, rather they are simply contracted to MOVE the goods. Yes in the real world that's true and it's a huge step away from reality to have independent transporters also acting as merchants... but a few hundred years ago sailing ships DID ply the oceans buying and selling so there IS a historical precedent for it, and without this steap away from what we consider "normality", there'd be no significant risk with trading since insurance would cover the ship's cost and the good's owner would bear the loss of the cargo, not the transport owner. Cmdr Jukelo is correct "what matters is skill/risk compared to reward", but he fails to take into account the risk of losing the value of the goods plus the waste of time taken to earn them vs the reward of profit. Not ALL risk comes in the form of projectiles and energy weapons.

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In Elite Lore, Piracy is meant to be a lucrative activity. Why do you think so many NPCs are pirates, despite the massive risk to life?

"Real life" arguments are subjective and irrelevant. In todays economy the only ones who make "fun" levels of profit are large corporate entities.

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By your argument Bounty Hunters are bottom feeders off bottom feeders, should they earn less than pirates?

Yes both bounty hunting and piracy SHOULD be lucrative, but NOT as lucrative as "normal" professions. Both of these trades are jobs one does as much for the "lifestyle" as for the payday whereas trading etc one does for the regular paycheck. Paydays in BOTH these professions are irregular and unpredictable - unlike the "normal" professions. Yes piracy should be lucrative... occasionally. One does it because one WANTS to, not because it's "easy money".

 

[Sandmann]

The thing holding piracy back isn't the 25% markdown on black market goods, it's that the profit margins on goods are too high.

When profit margins are 20% or more, the idea of piracy being viable is laughable, because its always easier to simply trade 5x as much of the good as pirate it.

This because we don't have a real, market driven BGS, and because we have "Monty Hall" players (google it if you don't get the reference) who want it all and want it now and don't want to spend a lot of time playing just to get a bigger ship.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Yes both bounty hunting and piracy SHOULD be lucrative, but NOT as lucrative as "normal" professions. Both of these trades are jobs one does as much for the "lifestyle" as for the payday whereas trading etc one does for the regular paycheck. Paydays in BOTH these professions are irregular and unpredictable - unlike the "normal" professions. Yes piracy should be lucrative... occasionally. One does it because one WANTS to, not because it's "easy money".

Well we're a long way off that to start, but I completely disagree with your premise. Who decides what is "normal" and what isn't? IMO the riskier and more difficult professions should pay more.

That not even starting on how bounty hunting currently earns as much or more than trading in many cases and no-one seems to mind...

 

[Sandmann]

Well we're a long way off that to start, but I completely disagree with your premise. Who decides what is "normal" and what isn't? IMO the riskier and more difficult professions should pay more.

That not even starting on how bounty hunting currently earns as much or more than trading in many cases and no-one seems to mind...

Who risks more, the immortal pirate who can't die with a ship that's replaced by insurance, or the trader who stands to lose millions of credits cargo and hours or days of time? One man's tedium is another man's risk, and ALL risk deserves a reward. The only difference is that the pirate's reward SHOULD be occasional and unpredictable (though large, one hopes), while the trader's is small but constant.

Re losing the "stolen" tag... when the trader buys at 1000 and sells at 1100 he only gets to keep the 100 (minus costs), when the pirate sells to the black market at 20% he gets to keep 200... same as the trader. Yes that 20% figure could probably use review, but stolen goods should sell for less than legal ones... UNLESS they are also contraband in the place of sale in which case they should sell for significantly higher than they do in the areas they're legal (which the BGS doesn't co right now). EG: Alcohol should be worth significantly more (stolen or not) in a system where alcohol's banned.

[edit] My use of the word "normal" referred to imply the more "legal" professions: trading, mining, exploring as versus the illegal and "almost-illegal-but-not-quite" professions of piracy, bounty hunter, and soldier of fortune. Wasn't implying that one was less "valid" a form of gameplay.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Who risks more, the immortal pirate who can't die with a ship that's replaced by insurance, or the trader who stands to lose millions of credits cargo and hours or days of time? One man's tedium is another man's risk, and ALL risk deserves a reward. The only difference is that the pirate's reward SHOULD be occasional and unpredictable (though large, one hopes), while the trader's is small but constant.

A trader can earn back their rebuy and cargo typically in around 2 hours. What's more the trader will face life-threatening situations on a much lower basis.

As it stands, at the slave trading CG (possibly the best location for piracy, and one that only pops up every few months), I was able to earn 500k an hour in a ship with a 3.5 million rebuy. That's 6 hours work per rebuy, making it 3x worse even if you assume that the trader and pirate face equal hazard.

In 6 hours I would expect to face 5-10 rebuy threatening PvP situations, such as interdiction by bounty hunters, griefers, armed traders, PP enemies, thirsty PvPers, and salty foes I've previously defeated, and that's not even counting NPCs.

A trader on the other hand can easily go dozens of hours without being in any remotely dangerous situations.

Risking 6 hours of work multiple times an hour is infinitely more of a deterrent than risking 2 hours of work once every week or so

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Re losing the "stolen" tag... when the trader buys at 1000 and sells at 1100 he only gets to keep the 100 (minus costs), when the pirate sells to the black market at 20% he gets to keep 200... same as the trader. Yes that 20% figure could probably use review, but stolen goods should sell for less than legal ones... UNLESS they are also contraband in the place of sale in which case they should sell for significantly higher than they do in the areas they're legal (which the BGS doesn't co right now). EG: Alcohol should be worth significantly more (stolen or not) in a system where alcohol's banned.

You're assuming that piracy is as easy and quick as buying goods at a commodity market. You are very very very wrong.

Black market sells for 75% not 20%. The issue is commodity prices and profit margins, not black markets.

Go and try piracy before you suggest "fixing" it

 

[Sandmann]

A trader can earn back their rebuy and cargo typically in around 2 hours. What's more the trader will face life-threatening situations on a much lower basis.

As it stands, at the slave trading CG (possibly the best location for piracy, and one that only pops up every few months), I was able to earn 500k an hour in a ship with a 3.5 million rebuy. That's 6 hours work per rebuy, making it 3x worse even if you assume that the trader and pirate face equal hazard.

In 6 hours I would expect to face 5-10 rebuy threatening PvP situations, such as interdiction by bounty hunters, griefers, armed traders, PP enemies, thirsty PvPers, and salty foes I've previously defeated, and that's not even counting NPCs.

A trader on the other hand can easily go dozens of hours without being in any remotely dangerous situations.

Risking 6 hours of work multiple times an hour is infinitely more of a deterrent than risking 2 hours of work once every week or so

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You're assuming that piracy is as easy and quick as buying goods at a commodity market. You are very very very wrong.

Go and try piracy before you suggest "fixing" it

No, I'm not assuming ANYTHING, and you avoided the whole point. It doesn't matter if it takes 2 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 years for the trader to recover, or whether he faces a challenge every other minute or every other month... the point is that the trader DOES face a risk of loss that the pirate does NOT. Any discussion that uses a mathematical value to to compare is meaningless because any loss compared to zero loss is infinitely large.

Fact: the trader/explorer/miner faces a risk that the pirate doesn't. Any risk (as you mentioned) MUST earn a reward.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

That would kill piracy almost instantly. Who would trade for 1-5% profit? No traders, no piracy.

Traders look at cr/hour, not profit margin. If commodity prices increased and profits remained constant, players would still trade

The problem isn't profit margins. If anything the profit margins for trading are way to low to support piracy.
In the so called golden age of piracy in the Caribbean the profit margins for a trading round trip (Europe-Africa-Caribbean) where absurdly high.

The problem is, that there is no reason for a CMDR to become a pirate. In the real world there are reasons why somebody became/becomes a pirate and being a pirate is/was something very undesirable.

Making piracy viable (good cr/h ratio) isn't going to make piracy work in this game. If the cr/h ratio gets to close to what traders earn there is no reason to be a trader, but if the cr/h ratio is to low there is no reason to be a pirate. Big problem. Not solvable by credits/hour.

Since ED is a game and nobody has to play it a lot of things get complicated quickly as in-game logic doesn't work as a way to get player to do something..

There is reason to be trader, it's infinitely easier and less risky. You can't netflix and pirate. Why does trading have to be the easiest, least risky AND most profitable?

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No, I'm not assuming ANYTHING, and you avoided the question. It doesn't matter if it takes 2 minutes, 2 hours, or 2 years for the trader to recover, or whether he faces a challenge every other minute or every other month... the point is that the trader DOES face a risk of loss that the pirate does NOT. Any discussion that uses a mathematical value to to compare is meaningless because any loss compared to zero loss is infinitely large.

Fact: the trader/explorer/miner faces a risk that the pirate doesn't. Any risk (as you mentioned) MUST earn a reward.

What? The risk is monetary. Rebuy is monetary. You can't seperate loss from cargo from loss from rebuy, the impact is all credits.

Also pirates do face cargo loss, I am often attacked by BHers when transporting stolen loot

 

[Sandmann]

What? The risk is monetary. Rebuy is monetary. You can't seperate loss from cargo from loss from rebuy, the impact is all credits.

Rebuy is also irrelevant to the argument as it applies equally to traders and pirates. When both sides of an equation are equal they cancel each other. From a monetary sense you're only left with the cost of cargo.

Also pirates do face cargo loss, I am often attacked by BHers when transporting stolen loot

STOLEN means it's not cargo, it's booty. Losing something you didn't own in the first place is not a "loss" in a financial sense. It's only a failure to gain.

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Rebuy is also irrelevant to the argument as it applies equally to traders and pirates. When both sides of an equation are equal they cancel each other. From a monetary sense you're only left with the cost of cargo.

Pirate rebuys are higher due to needing to be combat fit/run armour etc

STOLEN means it's not cargo, it's booty. Losing something you didn't own in the first place is not a "loss".

Irrelevant. Still results in loss of income, same as for the trader.

Everything is credits. You can't say some credits are special or different, a credit is a credit is a credit. And the fact is, that the expenses for pirates due to ship destruction is higher

 

[Sandmann]

Pirate rebuys are higher due to needing to be combat fit/run armour etc

And how often to pirates suffer rebuys compared to the traders/explorers/miners they attack? One in five? One in ten? We won't even get into the they whole argument of them initiating the attack unprovoked, we'll keep it mathematical. There's NO WAY that the pirate spends more on his own rebuys than he forces his accumulated victims to pay out unless he's completely incompetent.

Irrelevant. Still results in loss of income, same as for the trader.

No it's not irrelevant because the trader loses the original purchase price AS WELL AS the expected profit, while the pirate ONLY loses the expected profit. The two profit losses cancel each other other, leaving the purchase price (which is 95% share of the total amount) as loss the trader suffers the pirate doesn't.

Sorry, but as much as I feel that piracy NEEDS love, there's no way you can win a mathematical argument claiming the trader faces less or even the same risk as the pirate.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

Traders look at cr/hour, not profit margin. If commodity prices increased and profits remained constant, players would still trade

The increase of commodity price while reducing the profit margin would make things even worse.

Example: commodity good X can be bought for 10 kcr./t and selling it in an other station results in a 1 kcr/t profit. That's roughly a 10% profit margin.
Changing this to 1% profit margin while keeping the profit the same X would have to cost 100 kcr/t.

The trader now has to invest 10x more credits and losing the cargo will result in 10x more loss. Instead of having to invest 1 Mcr for a cargo hold full of X, the trader is now at 10 Mcr for the cargo hold. It will take 10x longer to recover form the loss of cargo or ship.

The risk is simply not worth the effort.

There is reason to be trader, it's infinitely easier and less risky. You can't netflix and pirate.

The trader has a higher risk. The pirate risks the ship re-buy, the trader risks the ship re-buy and the cargo. It's easier to trade.

Why does trading have to be the easiest, least risky AND most profitable?
…

There needs to be more traders than pirates, much more traders than pirates.

 

[Jukelo]

And how often to pirates suffer rebuys compared to the traders/explorers/miners they attack? One in five? One in ten? We won't even get into the they whole argument of them initiating the attack unprovoked, we'll keep it mathematical. There's NO WAY that the pirate spends more on his own rebuys than he forces his accumulated victims to pay out unless he's completely incompetent.

What you're arguing is that there's no danger to piracy. Atm it's true, NPC police is not a threat. And that's what needs to change. But obviously, if the threat increases, profit needs to go up as well, if you're ready to take the heat. That's what piracy should be about: a high risk high reward profession. Inversely, traders should receive more protection from NPCs when they need it, but of course they need to pay for that protection. Higher taxes (lower profit margin) need to be implemented in high security systems along with the higher efficiency of the police, to take into account the fact trading would become a lower skill / risk profession.

 

[excalibus]

agreed about the setup, but you can't have the cops have different response by comparing the pilot ranks. You could maybe have them send additional help if below a certain rank but anything past the first ranks it becomes pretty irrelevant. Its a measure of time spent, not competence. In many circumstances you'd actually be punishing the higher ranked player lol

i disagree on rank just being time spent... to rank up to elite even doing PVE requires fighting higher and higher ranked ships... that involves different tactics and knowing how to fly and shoot and aim etc... so if there is a large disparity between 2 players, at the near extremes, one harmless, one rank up from the start level, and one deadly, one rank down from elite then I would think that the deadly ranked player would more than likely be better at combat due to the time spent raising their combat level.

Then it comes to the ships power rating as sandro mentioned they already use this for NPC interactions... so here you are in your adder or hauler and here I am in my Python or FDL... again a large disparity in firepower and defensive power between the 2 ships...


of course it could be the other way too, the harmless pilot in the FDL and the deadly pilot in the Adder, who knows that might 'even it out'

 

[Deadspin]

i disagree on rank just being time spent... to rank up to elite even doing PVE requires fighting higher and higher ranked ships... that involves different tactics and knowing how to fly and shoot and aim etc... so if there is a large disparity between 2 players, at the near extremes, one harmless, one rank up from the start level, and one deadly, one rank down from elite then I would think that the deadly ranked player would more than likely be better at combat due to the time spent raising their combat level.

Then it comes to the ships power rating as sandro mentioned they already use this for NPC interactions... so here you are in your adder or hauler and here I am in my Python or FDL... again a large disparity in firepower and defensive power between the 2 ships...


of course it could be the other way too, the harmless pilot in the FDL and the deadly pilot in the Adder, who knows that might 'even it out'

The pilot skill alone will even out most engagements. I take a pilot's rank with a grain of salt, namely because enough time spent res hunting will lead to an "Elite" ranking for a player but that means little in the way of PvP. You can be Elite all day but fighting an NPC and fighting a player are two entirely different things.

During some friendly sparring a couple of nights ago I was challenged by two pilots who both flew Vultures with relatively similar fits (They only differed in weapon choice but the concepts were identical). One of them was a well versed PvP pilot and he put up quite a fight that lasted for a little over 10 minutes before we called it a draw. The second was less skilled and I was able to kill him within minutes because he had less practice balancing control of Silent Running, evasion techniques and HS launches to keep his heat down and ultimately ended up flustered, which led to bad decisions and his death. Both pilots had an Elite ranking in combat. I see the same thin with pilots I engage or who engage me out in space at random.

TL;DR - Take another players rank with a grain of salt. It really represents more of a "how long have I been doing this" than a "I'm just so good I can be Elite" thing.

I did notice a suggestion awhile back where the idea was to take the combat rank and make it something you have to sustain rather than something you can earn through tireless res hunting that never needs any maintenance again after that. I'd support that.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

TL;DR - Take another players rank with a grain of salt. It really represents more of a "how long have I been doing this" than a "I'm just so good I can be Elite" thing.

Indeed. According to the game I'm Deadly ... (or Expert, don't really know or care). I possibly could expertly bore another CMDR to death, but in most shooting matches I'd be the one running for a High Wake.

I did notice a suggestion awhile back where the idea was to take the combat rank and make it something you have to sustain rather than something you can earn through tireless res hunting that never needs any maintenance again after that. I'd support that.

That's an excellent suggestion actually. But keep the path to Elite as it is (it's grindy enough as it is, don't want to increase that if I take a break from Space Invaders to go exploring), but for interaction there could be a time factor included.

 

[Sandmann]

What you're arguing is that there's no danger to piracy. Atm it's true, NPC police is not a threat.
[...]
if the threat increases, profit needs to go up as well, if you're ready to take the heat.

Firstly I wasn't actually arguing that there was no risk to pirates, only that it was less than the risk pirates pose to traders/etc. Secondly, from a purely mathematical point of view, it aint necessarily so (if you'll pardon my waxing lyrical) that pirate profits must go up if they introduce consequences. Your argument presupposes that the income vs risk for pirates is presently balanced however as you note they currently face NO significant risk, thus mathematically they should also at the moment be receiving no significant income if it were balanced. HOWEVER that's a mathematical argument only and not a philosophical one. Piracy must remain a viable choice, so to keep/improve piracy's viability as a profession I agree that it needs more income to be AVAILABLE, assuming the pirate does the work to earn it. That income however doesn't come from FDev artificially increasing what the black market pays.

As CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost just wrote:

There needs to be more traders than pirates, much more traders than pirates.

Traders etc work not only on credits per hour but also likelyhood of successful profit, and piracy and other "accidents" have to be figured into those numbers as "costs of doing business", the same as bribes are in some parts of the world today. It's great to say "OK I can expect a 15% profit on the average trade" but if you're a ship losing every fifth run that suddenly drops the overall profit margin a LOT. (I'm not saying you WILL lose them that often, it's just a mathematical example.) Your ships MUST get through at least 19 times in twenty or traders will just go back to solo/group. So we need far many more traders than pirates/griefers/psychos etc or there's no overall reason to keep on trading. Thus the increase in availability of piracy wages needs to come from a corresponding increase of traders in open as it becomes a less hostile environment to all but PvPers. Simply raising the profit margins for stolen goods will only encourage MORE pirates without encouraging more traders and make the situation worse.

That's what piracy should be about: a high risk high reward profession.

Compared to what, it's current position where there's some profit and almost no risk?

Inversely, traders should receive more protection from NPCs when they need it, but of course they need to pay for that protection. Higher taxes (lower profit margin) need to be implemented in high security systems along with the higher efficiency of the police, to take into account the fact trading would become a lower skill / risk profession.

Yeah, agreed. Profits should ALWAYS be lower when they're safer. I was actually thinking that rather than messing with the markets they keep the highest value commodities, rares etc for the more dangerous areas as it'd be more interesting that way. Either of those or some other way though, there has to be an incentive for traders to go "off the beaten track" and face higher risk if we're gonna impose greater consequences for pirates to come to the "safer" places.

 

[Derath]

i disagree on rank just being time spent... to rank up to elite even doing PVE requires fighting higher and higher ranked ships... that involves different tactics and knowing how to fly and shoot and aim etc... so if there is a large disparity between 2 players, at the near extremes, one harmless, one rank up from the start level, and one deadly, one rank down from elite then I would think that the deadly ranked player would more than likely be better at combat due to the time spent raising their combat level.

Then it comes to the ships power rating as sandro mentioned they already use this for NPC interactions... so here you are in your adder or hauler and here I am in my Python or FDL... again a large disparity in firepower and defensive power between the 2 ships...


of course it could be the other way too, the harmless pilot in the FDL and the deadly pilot in the Adder, who knows that might 'even it out'

Higher ranked ships are worth more, but its a measure of time spent, you can get elite by flying a turreted conda in a CZ and cruising around without any input other than making sure imminent death isn't about to occur. I have a great deal of personal experience with this as i flew with many dedicated pirates, who all end up with a rank of ~ novice because they very rarely kill anything lol being in combat against people with deadly/dangerous/elite ranks who are almost always terrible because they reflect the skill of the average AI in the farmzones.

The ship differential might work, but in many cases I think the lighter ships often just have the chance to escape i'd prefer if they brought a more serious police response to say a T6 or T7 than to a cobra for example

 

[HecklerThrob]

(...) you can get elite by flying a turreted conda in a CZ and cruising around without any input other than making sure imminent death isn't about to occur. (...)

Seriously ? Good luck if you try it ....

 

[Alexander the Grape]

Firstly I wasn't actually arguing that there was no risk to pirates, only that it was less than the risk pirates pose to traders/etc. Secondly, from a purely mathematical point of view, it aint necessarily so (if you'll pardon my waxing lyrical) that pirate profits must go up if they introduce consequences. Your argument presupposes that the income vs risk for pirates is presently balanced however as you note they currently face NO significant risk, thus mathematically they should also at the moment be receiving no significant income if it were balanced. HOWEVER that's a mathematical argument only and not a philosophical one. Piracy must remain a viable choice, so to keep/improve piracy's viability as a profession I agree that it needs more income to be AVAILABLE, assuming the pirate does the work to earn it. That income however doesn't come from FDev artificially increasing what the black market pays.

As CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost just wrote:



Traders etc work not only on credits per hour but also likelyhood of successful profit, and piracy and other "accidents" have to be figured into those numbers as "costs of doing business", the same as bribes are in some parts of the world today. It's great to say "OK I can expect a 15% profit on the average trade" but if you're a ship losing every fifth run that suddenly drops the overall profit margin a LOT. (I'm not saying you WILL lose them that often, it's just a mathematical example.) Your ships MUST get through at least 19 times in twenty or traders will just go back to solo/group. So we need far many more traders than pirates/griefers/psychos etc or there's no overall reason to keep on trading. Thus the increase in availability of piracy wages needs to come from a corresponding increase of traders in open as it becomes a less hostile environment to all but PvPers. Simply raising the profit margins for stolen goods will only encourage MORE pirates without encouraging more traders and make the situation worse.



Compared to what, it's current position where there's some profit and almost no risk?



Yeah, agreed. Profits should ALWAYS be lower when they're safer. I was actually thinking that rather than messing with the markets they keep the highest value commodities, rares etc for the more dangerous areas as it'd be more interesting that way. Either of those or some other way though, there has to be an incentive for traders to go "off the beaten track" and face higher risk if we're gonna impose greater consequences for pirates to come to the "safer" places.

While I agree with your overall concept (the idea that an overall increase in commodity prices would require some risk to be offset, which I would argue could be best achieved through cargo insurance implementation), your suggestion that PvP pirates face less expense from risk than traders is simply mathematically untrue.

Let's define our concepts here: we should seperate out "risk" (IE the CHANCE that an adverse situation will occur) with "hazard" (the COST of the adverse situation).

Risk x hazard = losses. Losses are what matter, moreso than either on their own. Losing 1cr 1,000 times is nowhere near as bad as losing 10,000,000 once!

For a trader, let's define the HAZARD first. Assume an Anaconda trading Imperial Slaves. That's 450 x 16,000 = 7,200,000 cr cargo. A typical trader conda fit will have a rebuy of 8.5 million. This leads to a total HAZARD of ~15,000,000 cr.

The risk is harder to define, but in my hundreds of hours of trading in a max jump range anaconda in Open, I have never been killed by player or NPC.

Let's be pessimistic though, and say the trader is destroyed, on average, once every 20 hours. That's a hazard of 0.05

0.05 x 15,000,000 = 750,000 per hour

Meanwhile, the pirate with a similar asset level would fly a Python or similar. Their rebuy is likely on a similar level to the trader, leaving a HAZARD of 8,000,000 cr.

Meanwhile the RISK is far higher, I would put at 0.25 (1 death every 4 hours) or higher due to the prevalence of PvP bounty hunter, armed traders, etc etc etc. BTW this is not assuming that the pirate has any loot: in reality that is a very real possiblity

0.25 x 8,000,000 = 2,000,000 cr/ hr

So the pirate's total losses are far higher than the trader.

Not only that but given that the trader can earn 6-10 million per hour, and the pirate can struggle to break even even disregarding rebuys, the disparity is clear.

Now I agree: increase cargo prices by 5-10x then the trader's hazard becomes extremely high: However I would want these changes to come hand in hand with the introduction of cargo insurance of up to 90% of the destroyed/jettisoned cargo value

 

[Derath]

While I agree with all the balances changes your suggesting Alexander I don't think pirates face any threat other than the ones they choose to fight,

You'd be better of arguing that we suffer a constant opportunity cost of having to deal with irritations and moving area / finding targets, which of course all lower income.

Would love to see commodity values increased substantially though its always been the best fix for piracy earnings without impacting the rest of the game too much.