Piracy

[Zayne Carrick]

Gee, transport vs transport? It sounds like the trader should slap some armor on and fight back. Or, if he picked a transport with only one gun on it.. hire escorts or deal with the consequences. If the ptrans is winning too easily against other heavily armed/battle transports, nerf it. This is not a problem that can't be balanced.

The thing is, there're many transports that can be used for piracy. And pirates are usually putting cau8 on themselves, when traders are using au8 mostly. And even cau8 battletransport can't stand against similar armored Ptrans because battletransport is 3 times bigger and 3 times less agile than Ptrans.

[Lythrilux]

If the ptrans is winning too easily against other heavily armed/battle transports, nerf it. This is not a problem that can't be balanced.

It's meant to win because it's more agile and can dodge the fire of more heaviliy armed transports. If anything, the heavier transports should get a nerf in terms of offensiveness in order to give bombers and easier time to destroy them.
If you want an increased cargo hold, you have to suffer penalties.

---

[Mímir]

well i am only pointing out what could be a likely consequence.

from my experience from playing assorted pirates most of the time and experimenting with all sorts of piracy, from LF annoyance to cloaked battleships, I can tell you that transport cargo piracy is the one thing that causes the most drama.

A lot of traders go haywire when they realize what they stand to lose, not just credits but also wasted time, and they feel frustrated by the lose-lose situation. The scenario changes radically when the pirate don't need you alive, you have less leverage as a trader.

How to counter: "Pay and I get rich or die and I get rich?" There is no way of bargaining your way out, and you are truly powerless.

And as pointed out, most traders fit their ships for profit whereas pirates fit their ships for combat. The traders you do see with heavy armored battletransports typically sports anti-snub loadouts to add to that. The average pirate transport pilot is more experienced in combat than the average trader that spent most of his time pressing "Go to" and "Dock". The pirate transport is specialized and only needs to focus on one thing: Bringing down other transports.

---

[Trogdor]

lol, the conversation is moving faster than my edits.

It sounds like the ptrans would need to be nerfed. Or other transports buffed. Or different id restrictions.

(I seem to recall transport primaries being fairly effective, though)

Like I said when I first opened this can of worms - a lot of things would need to be rebalanced.

@Mimir, I can think of one counter: "Accept less or I'll shoot the cargo myself and you get nothing."

The pirate transport is specialized and only needs to focus on one thing: Bringing down other transports.

Oh? He doesn't need to worry about the escort/police/enemypirate bomber that he can't hit with his 2.0's?

---

[Mímir]

or just accept 2 milordai as a great and civilized way to avoid inrp blodshed and oorp tears

---

[Zayne Carrick]

It sounds like the ptrans would need to be nerfed. Or other transports buffed. Or different id restrictions.

Don't forget about Behemoth, BWT, GAT, and a few other transports which will kill any other transport in combat.

or just accept 2 milordai as a great and civilized way to avoid inrp blodshed and oorp tears

This

[Lythrilux]

lol, the conversation is moving faster than my edits.

It sounds like the ptrans would need to be nerfed. Or other transports buffed. Or different id restrictions.

Don't nerf the Ptrans due to the incompetence of traders. They can't expect to worm out of every single encounter, especially when they've opted to go for a heavier transport with a bigger cargo hold.

If they want to avoid dying to the Ptrains they either need to:
A. Hire and escort or trade with a buddy. As long as they're not in single turret 5kers, two large transports with a number of turrets can be quite the hassle for the Ptrans or small transport pilot.
B. Trade in a smaller ship. Trying to pirate other small transports that actually know what they're doing can be a hassle.

---

[kuvacz]

About the subject I just quote something I've written years ago (2008).
As it seems nothing has really changed, and that's very sad.

Also that there still aren't "precise" rules about the ammount of cash a pirate is allowed to demand.

And finally, that there are still so many players lacking any sense for fairplay, as it seems.

Like asking "low level players" that obviously just have started their career, for serious ammounts of cash or just blowing them up b/c of not giving them the time to they need to get familiar with the ne situation, to react/respond properly.

Hi folks,

to me the whole pirate thing often is just an excuse for PVP keen players to eliminate a weak target
instead of setting RP at the very first position.

Also, pirating shouldn't be considered as a serious way to make cash, it should be used as
a way to initiate a good RP, but this means "talking" instead of just shooting or demanding
ridiculos ammounts of cash, only rp'ed by 2 or 3 lines like

" halt - 2 mill pls. - pay or die" that's rp at it's poorest!

But this is exactly how most pirates act like.

Also pirating players at low levels - makes me feel ashame when I see something like that.

On my pirate char (and all others as well of course) I allways set RP at the very first pos. and even a trader
of lvl. 90 wasn't asked for more then 1 mill, often even less - actually most of the time I demanded just 1 credit,
know what both of us (the trader and me) had fun, good rp talks and this is what it should be like:

Fun by rp'ing, not annoying others

by abusing the advantage of a ships power.

Another pretty annoying thing is that "drop cargo or die" (by lawfull forces) behaviour - it might be in
character, depending on the chars affiliation - but nonetheless it's often just annoying, and only very little
rp comes with it most of the time. In particular I'm talking about escapepods as you can imagine.

They player who's got them worked for them, often hard - and then a player not belonging to a
server-faction shows up and states he's military, police etc. and demands your precious cargo.

That's just bull. - the only thing that happens is that this guy pi**ed off another player, mostly there's
absolutely no RP and even if the one who's carrying those "contraband" considdered pods is trying to
RP and give a logical explanation why he's carrying thos pods - the other one gives a sh*t for it and just
keeps on demanding the stuff an threatens.

I'm ok with demanding pods if a lawfull carries lawfull pods without having an rp-like explanation for it,
but a lawfull carrying criminals should be left alone by "officials", same thing to unlawfulls just in an opposite way.

However, I try to seperate from most players (bad) behaviour and try to show that there's more than just
annoying others in one or the other way - and maybe sometimes I can convince a player to get rid
off his bad attitudes and find a new way to RP without acting like an a**.

(I only wish I was a native speaker - but I hope I could show my point and make it understandable.)

---

Guide & important links Datastorm (not only for beginners)

The laws of Sirius

[FynnMcScrap]

I accept 2milorday ... I usualy offer 2,5 , and I take 3,6 ( 1000 x cargo space at Serenity )

But I hate *gimme5milorday , you are filthy rich* !

Why should I transfer money to a bank only for levle cosmetics ?
Then take the scrap, shoo me for 2 hours... and take the bounty, too.

I have no qualms about setting a 10 -25 mil bounty on some arrogant indie brat who thinks his pew is better fun than my grind.

---

FynnMcScrap, Foreman of Tinkers Haven

[Lythrilux]

Piracy should not be nerfed, nor should there be any restrictions put in place. Traders are free to trade how they want: why shouldn't pirates be allowed to have the same treatment?

And lets not start calling pirates the cancer of the server or anything. Traders are equally guilty in that regard.

---