I see gunboats as a warships. And warships wage war, not pirate poor traders for 2 000 000 credits, which in rp hardly enought to maintain a warship with all crew, fuel and supplies. Just a tought
The problem is not with gunboats, but with the density of them in areas. Any big transport with sufficient armour can thrust away from most gunboats. However, when faced against three tridentes, any transport doesn't really stand much of a chance. Remove gunboats from piracy, and you'll just face three Pirate Transports instead. Don't see that as much of an improvement - they'll profit more from your death.
I don't think there's a way to stop increased numbers of pirates (of all sorts) without really harming the profession. You can lessen the impact by simply waiting next to that base, waiting for a trader to come by and follow. Safety in numbers, after all. If there are freelancers / mercenaries flying about, send some credits their way and get them to fly ahead of you and scout a safe path. There are other ways to avoid overwhelming piracy, try some things you may think will work (except F1ing and jump hole back-and-forth flying).
The best thing to do is not to whine or complain so much on the forums. Really, many problems including these are exacerbated by other members and problems are made out to be much worse than what's really happening in game. Go ingame and focus on the good experiences - most "bad situations" are negative because the victims make them so.
' Wrote:I've been thinking about this for a little while now. Piracy is, quite easily, the most popular thing in the game. Majority of the players in this server are, or have unlawfuls, of multiple kinds. Obviously, there are metagamers out the arse recently, pirating for 'profit.' There are some fair players who do it too, but who's gunna pass up 500k for not dieing? you also get a nice conversation about it.
My main issue with this is that there are WAY too many pirates at times, to the point that trading can become far less profitable, and even unprofitable to attempt.
There's been some very heavy talk about 'fairness' in the game, much of which is by Jihad Joe. I completely agree, that the game should be able to be made fun for others, both through combat and means of RP.
My issue is with fairness dealing with Piracy/Policing. Piracy is getting used to make money, and is sapping it from other people unfairly to do so. People are even going OORP to get a few bucks. This pisses me off, badly. I don't want to lose half the money I make in a run just because -you- want a new armor upgrade, or a new gun, I really don't care. The aspect of the game is leeching away from other's work to fulfill themselves.
Policing, though, is sort of an iffy subject to me. Police intercept a drug smuggler, and, obviously it would be RP to force the drop of cargo and fine them. What if you just made them drop half the cargo and 'Rped' that all of the detected drugs were dropped? Or if a Xeno catches an importer, they -have- to make them drop it all?
1. I have the unfortunate displeasure to say that I have run into certain unnamed Junkers who were caught undocking from a Council Base. Whom I gave the opportunity to bribe me away from reporting to other Royalists that they had been caught suspected of aiding the Council. It was a mere 100k tax. They refused.
2. This topic is a double-edged sword so to speak. On one side, you have Lawfuls who are sick of all the powersmugglers (especially those who pass Alaska as a Shortcut), -always- carrying full loads of contraband using the biggest, most identifiable ship as a smuggler, a pirate train.... So whenever they're caught, they're ordered to drop all of it. If you want to RP that only -some- of the contraband was found. Get smugglers to use the Firefly, a ship who's RP is that it has a hidden cache.
Alot of these smugglers, avoid RP wherever possible, staying silent as the cruise-ram the mooring fixture, even if caught.
On the other side, you have Pirates who are sick of traders taking routes that lead them through, to, or past one of their other-wise hidden bases. You also have traders who are equally sick of always being pirated when they're just trying to earn a little money for some RP they're wanting to do.
3. My points in 2 lead into this point, and is the only reason i list it here. Generally, people -only- trade in order to fund the RP of other ships in their possession.
Very few people actually want to take weeks to earn 100m through the RP of a trader.
The Trade changes that came with 4.85, while some were necessary, does nothing but force people to powertrade more and longer. In addition, now, not even Smuggling will net you more than 10k per second Note: The numbers I list as ## Per Second are whats listed in FLCompanion for a 5000 cargo ship.
On my Gallic Bounty Hunter (Gallic Lawful, possible player faction in the making), I'v also been known to pirate. And as part of being fair in respect to roleplay I generally go by this:
Quote:Gallic Corp:
40-50 : 50k
50-60 : 125k
60-70 : 500k
70+ : 1m
If attacked during piracy, force it into surrender and increase tax by 50%
Junker:
40-50 : 100k
50-60 : 250k
60-70 : 1m
70+ : 2m
If attacked during piracy, force it into surrender and double the tax
Sirian:
40-50 : 200k
50-60 : 500k
60-70 : 2m
70+ : 4-5m
If attacked during piracy, force it into decompression
Why the different rates for different groups?
Gallic Corporations are for better or worse, Gallic Citizens(/roleplayers) this means they should be hit the least by lawful piracy.
Junkers, while they are Gallia's spies. A number of them are Sirian-Born and ""don't know where there place is within Gallia"", so they are given a medium-rated tax.
Sirians, quite obviously, get the harshest treatment of the three groups. Being that Gallics despise Sirians for their betrayal in Sol, hatred that has carried from generation to generation. For one to be allowed to pass a Gallic Lawful (who -would- allow them to pass, since Navy won't take bribes that leaves GRP aligned as who can be paid for passage) it'd be a pretty hefty price. One worth the risk of being caught allowing said Sirian to travel Gallic Space, but also one that would tell the Sirian they are not welcome
' Wrote:The best thing to do is not to whine or complain so much on the forums. Really, many problems including these are exacerbated by other members and problems are made out to be much worse than what's really happening in game. Go ingame and focus on the good experiences - most "bad situations" are negative because the victims make them so.
This couldn't possibly be any more right. People blow things out of proportion, then everyone suddenly feels the overexaggerated problem is worse than it really is.
I won't lie, I only read to page 2 and only skimmed the last page, but I want to say my piece.
Piracy is not the easiest thing on the server. Real piracy is hard to do. Traders don't have to try this hard at all to make a believable Roleplay, yet, most of the ones I see don't even have a defined Roleplay for that character. Is there something wrong with this? It's a double standard more than any other on the server and people seem to just pass it over.
What do Pirates need to do to have "acceptable" Roleplay? Stop the trader, write a novel as to why he's taking money, politely ask for a meaningless amount that the trader doesn't bat an eyelash at, and let the trader say no and leave.
What do Traders need to do to have "acceptable" Roleplay? Hit Shift+W (Default for Cruise).
That's what I continually see. Maybe it's just the very few number of people who actually try and Roleplay on their traders. Maybe it's just my luck. Somehow, I doubt that a statistical test would say it's the latter, and this is just the way it is. Is this right? I don't think so. But what do we all do? Accept it as "the way it is."
' Wrote:I don't play a pirate but I can see how this is an extremely one-sided and mostly self-serving (for traders) presentation. It also subtly implies that pirates are lesser RPers and not as important as traders.
Tinkerbell here is right. That is all this is. That is all any trader asking "Pirates should ask for less!" ever is. I can make forty (40) million credits in one night trading absolutely awful commodities such as Copper, Silver, Terraforming Gases, Fertilizers, and Luxury Consumer Goods, I think I can afford to be pirated for 5 million once in the night. I think those of us that trade the high-yield routes can really afford to get pirated every so often too.
Really, I'm sorry if you don't like getting pirated, wait, no I'm not. Pirating is part of the game and you should accept it in any form it comes in. Robert is right. Stop complaining and play the game. If you don't like being pirated, find some other routes that make money (Which means that the buying place buys for more than the selling place, it doesn't have to be 150 cr/s) to some other systems and avoid pirates. And here is a tip on how to get away from pirates: If you get caught, don't run, engage the pirate in Roleplay, and then call for the Police (in private). With all the "nice" pirates we've bred in the past version, you'll get away every time. It's easier than you think. Really, it is.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
I just pirated someone, for a lot of credits (over triple the amount people complain about), and it was great. We talked for like 20 minutes back and forth, proposals, counter proposals, character development, talking about our various factions. It was so good that it made up for all the Universal ID'd whales hauling synth pot speed docking Kishiro bases that I also saw. All it takes is a little talking, and everyone leaves happy. I even wanted to give the guy his money back afterwards.
On that note, I get annoyed by traders on my pirates SO MUCH MORE than I get annoyed by pirates on my traders.
I don't think people have quite grasped the point here. It's not that there's anything wrong with piracy - it's just that how it is done influences development of the game, in tandem with a whole load of other aspects of the game.
So long as the making of credits remains an unimaginative grind, an ordeal to be undergone in order to get at the bigger ships (because somewhere along the way it was decided that they should cost more - although they can be disappointing) people will treat trading with the disdain it deserves. They will do silly stuff to avoid piracy, because there is always the feeling with trading that it is merely a stepping-stone to something more fun. Few people do it for a reason other than to earn money. Conversely, so long as people use piracy as a convenient and more fun way to earn money, then piracy will be treated by many (not all) players as a kind of "powertrading with extortion". It's a kind of vicious cycle - to make big creds you need a big ship. To effectively stop a big ship, you need something big and/or dangerous. As a result, the beautiful new line of smaller ships get forgotten about.
Sure they are fun to fly, but if you want to do anything else in Discovery you need heaps of money. Enter your "trader character". Buy low at A, sell high at B. The turnover in players is large enough to make any interaction in piracy a short, sharp shock - usually unpleasant for the trader. So why not be the pirate?
Telling people to shut up because they don't like something about the game isn't entirely fair. There's always room to improve and develop the game. Freelancer always had a trading system that was far less developed than most other sci-fi games. If the game is to develop, we need a little imagination. Trade and piracy could be developed - in fact I think they have to be.
What about a completely dynamic pirate economy? Link seized goods with prices for smuggled commodities? Alternatively, with goods available at lawful bases fetching huge prices on unlawful bases (and vice versa) and making the huge transports linked to faction ID's you could do some extremely lucrative smuggling (trading between lawful and unlawful bases) in those smaller freighters and have cargo theft an altogether more attractive possibility for hardened members of the organised criminal groups.
On top of that, maybe special pirate-only disruptors, mounted on massive cargo ships with plenty of firepower but only used by pirates. The kind that makes sure traders can't run and outlaw the demanding of credits (which has never struck me as a rp reality anyway - I mean who carries that much money?)
Alternatively put a cargo hold of 2000 on a bomber.
Not all of these suggestions are serious, obviously.
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