Discovery Gaming Community

Greetings Discovery.

I've been on this server now for over a week and I have played on this mod for a bit in the long ago past.

Now days, the game isn't as populated as it once was, and because of that opportunities are limited, at least in the case of Piracy.

For a trader and or miner, business is still booming. Most ardent faction players have separate characters for trading that are not necessarily aligned too there main faction.

For pirates, what opportunities do you really have? In order to make any where near the same kind of bank a trader is going to make you need to raid at least 10 people an hour and charge them 7 - 10 mill (those being fair numbers) Otherwise, what else can you do? In one week, I'm already making at least 65 - 70 an hour quite easily so long as the minerals are available or a player to mine them for me.

So what is the benefit of playing a pirate? Harder times to pirate due to lower population and then the time of day factors, the fact you need to hit other players in order to achieve any thing meaningful, and good luck stealing some ones ore.. Piracy atm is almost a one man show.. and then how are you going to sell off what you have stolen? You need to ask for cash.

As it goes, people want to play pirates also have to play traders to make up for that and then, where is the over all point? Sure the RP is fun but.. with most everyone trading, no ones pirating and so the whole thing is kind of pointless after a while.

There are ways that this can be amended. The best I think most feasible solution for the right now? Allow people to attack NPC trains, shoot off the pods and plunder the loot. In the past, at the right locations this makes some really decent bank and it keeps the RP interesting. In the right places you will also come across players. This kind of arrangement will also encourage traders to hire Mercs or at least give the House Police/Navies something to do with their time.

To add too this point.. A trader can buy materials from Location A which is always Static, does move doesn't run out and sell them at Location B, also static, does'n't move will always buy what your selling. Your target destinations DO NOT change. For a pirate, your target has dozens of ways of avoiding you.. from logging out, docking on a station, running away, hiring help and.. simply avoiding your location. For a Pirate.. The chase - time vs reward is not worth the effort. It might take you 1 hour to get 10 mill and the trader gets 60 - 75.

I hope this suggestion gets reviewed with fairness and wisdom and a solution can be found, the one I've proposed makes sense, it's fair.

Thank you for your time Discovery.

Or you camp a choke point like a Gate.

As a pirate who made 36 mil in an hour whilst flying an armorless Stargazer, I can say that piracy is not dead.

Pretty sure its already ok to shoot NPC trains, especially on a Pirate ID. Piracy is a sub sport within Freelancer that is usually not the easiest of occupations to be successful at. You have a few routine tactics usually best for piracy. Hang by a jump gate or jumphole, that's always the easiest. It can also be the most boring and not so well received by the other party. The best still to me would be to block a long lane (a good even distance from any bases or gates) at a bottleneck point in a trade route, or lurk near an active ore field and fly in on miners/traders while they mine. Or you can always just roam and try to get lucky in any one of those situations. I always figured it worked out best when you got a ship at a sweet spot furthest away from refuge. When escape is at its hardest, it best justifies getting paid.

But its not really for the money. If you can make some decent credits its great. But you wear out your welcome the harder and more frequently you pirate on the same ship. It gets harder over time to catch someone. Its for the sport of it, piracy remains a legit option to establish good RP and pvp experience. To get a high degree of payments successes though, you have to fly a lot!

I always wished piracy was only done by or on transports, and that bomber piracy be restricted to criminal factions. I believe you should pirate with the goal of securing some credits, not just to PVP. Its always fair game when you give your opponent ample opportunity to take the hit to their wallet first and foremost. Each small ding is a win, each fair kill is a win.

A trader to make 45millz (buy silver ores at o-7 for 15m sell at lyonnais for 60m) needs a 5ker (160m naked) and 28mins, he risks get pirated, and asked to drop all cargo or whatanot...

Hire Merc, good idea, but let me ask you something; you will fly 28 mins to receive 20millz? Keep in mund then the trader invested 160m and you and pirate 40m at max

Just saying, theres more than enough pirates in routes i fly.

Anyone pirating to actually make money is doing it wrong. Piracy has always been about the roleplay and the unique circumstances which arise during it.

(12-16-2017, 06:54 AM)Mattimo86 Wrote: [ -> ]*snip*stuff*snip*

For pirates, what opportunities do you really have? In order to make any where near the same kind of bank a trader is going to make you need to raid at least 10 people an hour and charge them 7 - 10 mill (those being fair numbers) Otherwise, what else can you do? In one week, I'm already making at least 65 - 70 an hour quite easily so long as the minerals are available or a player to mine them for me.

So what is the benefit of playing a pirate? Harder times to pirate due to lower population and then the time of day factors, the fact you need to hit other players in order to achieve any thing meaningful, and good luck stealing some ones ore.. Piracy atm is almost a one man show.. and then how are you going to sell off what you have stolen? You need to ask for cash.

*snip*stuff*snip*
There are ways that this can be amended. The best I think most feasible solution for the right now? Allow people to attack NPC trains, shoot off the pods and plunder the loot. In the past, at the right locations this makes some really decent bank and it keeps the RP interesting. In the right places you will also come across players. This kind of arrangement will also encourage traders to hire Mercs or at least give the House Police/Navies something to do with their time.

To add too this point.. A trader can buy materials from Location A which is always Static, does move doesn't run out and sell them at Location B, also static, does'n't move will always buy what your selling. Your target destinations DO NOT change. For a pirate, your target has dozens of ways of avoiding you.. from logging out, docking on a station, running away, hiring help and.. simply avoiding your location. For a Pirate.. The chase - time vs reward is not worth the effort. It might take you 1 hour to get 10 mill and the trader gets 60 - 75.

I hope this suggestion gets reviewed with fairness and wisdom and a solution can be found, the one I've proposed makes sense, it's fair.

Thank you for your time Discovery.

7-10 million is a fair number? Really?

For a trader who runs a Border World Transport, I'm currently lucky to make 13-14 million on a trade that can take up to 30 minutes one way (maybe 20 million in my Bison) and you plan on asking me for HALF or more of my projected profit?
The reaction is mostly going to be "NOPE!" at that point.

Hopefully you look at each situation and charge accordingly.

I don't mind people who are on the Pirate path and I *know* that being Pirated is part of the deal if you are a Trader, but Pirates who ask for too much, well, that makes it rough to enjoy the rest of the session and I usually end up switching to one of my other ships and taking out my grumpiness on poor old NPCs -or- just stopping for the day.

Playing while pissed off can easily lead to sanctions and that is never fun.

*note: may be edited at some point due to brain not really being in gear :p

Mattimo my friend I understand you completely. Piracy is unfortunately a lost cause on the server. And without pirates there are no bounty hunters to chase the pirates. And in this way a large part of the gameplay of Freelancer is lost as well.

(12-16-2017, 07:35 AM)Durandal Wrote: [ -> ]Anyone pirating to actually make money is doing it wrong. Piracy has always been about the roleplay and the unique circumstances which arise during it.

Sad.

The Example I used in my original post suggested making 60 mill + an hour, at those rates 10 mill pirating is reasonable.

Quote:
For a trader who runs a Border World Transport, I'm currently lucky to make 13-14 million on a trade that can take up to 30 minutes one way (maybe 20 million in my Bison) and you plan on asking me for HALF or more of my projected profit?
The reaction is mostly going to be "NOPE!" at that point.


2 million is probably fair.

Though I highly recommend you get into the transport of Ores etc.

(12-16-2017, 09:12 AM)Mattimo86 Wrote: [ -> ]Though I highly recommend you get into the transport of Ores etc.

Not everyone Trades to make money. I am one of those, so I don't transport Ores. I am lucky if I make 30-40 million in a 3 hour stint.

Fact is you have to rely on more luck than skill to pirate effectively, you might make some good bank out of players who don't pay attention to whats going on around them but everything being equal, piracy sucks currently.

There is both a player and NPC facet to trading, and both are very rewarding and in most cases both are a constant, static thing you can rely on every day of the week.

Piracy: Encourages all facets of game play and RP on the server, the more there is, the more entertaining the server becomes other wise it's just day in day out trading with the odd event here and occasional Connecticut there.

Right now you have all those facets of game play and rp, trading to get the stuff they want, because it's the only GOOD way to profit, the only constant way to profit, the only means of profit that isn't relying on what people are doing on the server, to that end YES you should be able to Loot cargo from NPC's because that encourages a pirate presence on the server and works with RP.

Sorry if I'm coming across as rude or obnoxious, I truly believe change here is needed.

Unforgiven: it is okay to hit npc trains, but you don't get any loot from them any more. I've tried several times, cargo pods can be shot off, but you don't get anything from them.