DBoy if you can make 150 mil an hour, you are either speed modding or something more sinister ... Hope thats
not the case ...
My trading charcter is part of a my roleplay, not just a feeder for new characters. And as with Marauder, once
they are set up, they are totally on their own, unless they are part of the trading scenario.
Its been a while since I was pirated, and normally two million is a light get off for a trader, thinking in terms of
RP, it would cost you far more to replace a ship if destroyed.
The current pirates want it a little to easy now, just sitting on the usual routes trying to catch people, traders
will use a lot of tricks to avoid paying up, so work a bit harder if thats your chosen profession, pirates ...
Capping the amount is a good idea, would stop the trend of people asking ludicrously high amounts, because
they don't actually want you to pay, so they can blow you up.
I think the offered one and two million asking prices is a good place to start ...
Hoodlum
Some say he is a proud member of: "The most paranoid group of people in the Community."
Yeah, people used to pirate before.. Now all traders do is run, regardless of loss of commodities. They don't care how much they lose, as long as the pirates don't get the money. Its the kind of reaction you get from traders not willing to act like they would die if destroyed. I used to pirate, GC and Blood Dragon. Until every other trader was a Luxury liner with cruiser shield, and the others refused to pay, even when at half a bar of hull with the shield down, and not being able to touch me.
THEY DON'T CARE. They refuse to RP-trade. I know only a select few who are willing to do so.
' Wrote:THEY DON'T CARE. They refuse to RP-trade. I know only a select few who are willing to do so.
Yap... which incentive should they have to cooperate? The ones that run or fight are indeed the more correct ones. You know... they just need to say: "ok, I gonna paying, wait a minute", F1ing and if the pirate is not fast enough to get what's going on he's safe; since 10 sec. are not a very long span of time. Maybe we should increse the FLhook timing to 30 sec.
And... the majority of traders never RP... it's not only a pirate problem: they don't even stop to be scanned by lawfull police or military charachters.
Anyway... I've already spent quite a bit of time trading and I've never met a pirate. If a trader is not greedy he can run many "medium earning" routes that PC pirates never patrol.
Instead of restricting pirates I guess we should give them more freedom. We could grant them more freedom on a set of definite routes; the most profitable, at least. More profits shoud match also more risks...
Lump Lorry on behalf of the Lorry Family
_______________________________________________________________________________
(Former chars on Disco 4.82)-- The old Lorry Family --
Lump Lorry freelancer trader. chief of the Lorrys | Manta Lorry freelancer pilot | [HF] Cesare Lorry fighter pilot, HF member | sso|Ace Wolverine Lorry bounty hunter | [RM] M(anfred) Von Lorryhofen Rheinland Military pilot | [AEGIS] GB 303 Ticonderoga AEGIS artificial intelligence gunboat | (secret
member) In charge of keeping the family's secrets
Well, I've been on this server what, barely a month or something?
I've almost exclusively been trading and so far all I've had to dodge was a terrorist, ONCE!!! And since it was a terrorist, all I could do was run and the outcome was that Universal Shipping had to pay up for a new ship and cargo.
I'm not into trading to make a profit but for the fun of it. Trading can be fun, if you do a bit of RP and if you're not doing it alone.
As for the rule about limiting the pirates demands. The limit of 2-3mil sounds a bit low if you're in a transport or larger. Besides, how would it be implemented/enforced?
No, I'd say it'd have to be harder for traders to get away (not that I've experienced how hard it can be) to make it more profitable.
@Jono, You might be singing a different tune if you got pirated more regularly:D
I like the idea.... it would mean pirates don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, that is stripping traders clean so that they go and basecamp for the next 3 hours or w/e. Would also mean traders are more willing to give it up than be blown up, which believe me is not cool when your a trader.
OTOH I can see how it disadvantages pirates a wee bit.
I mean it all comes down to YAFI (yet another freelancer imbalance).... if your gonna make a rule which caps piracy at $2m or w/e before shooting, then you need another rule which states traders *must* pay up if demanded by a pirate.
Why? Coz as everyone knows its too easy to do a runner in a trader.... CDs don't work and the shield is usually strong enough to see you through. That's why some pirates adopt the policy, shoot you to within a skeeters-dick of your life before you have a chance to react, then demand money.
$2m is probably a decent sum, coz you can't pirate in anything bigger than a gunboat anyway, so who needs $200m+ for a BS?
There is another motive behind pirating. Some pirate factions wish to disrupt commerce in addition to make a profit. Some factions, if only by putting themselves in the middle of a popular trade route, are disrupting commerce. This hurts lawful factions on both sides of the trade route. The disruption of commerce has a direct effect on many factions ability to arm their militaries, feed their populations etc. Though no one seems to appreciate the actions of TBF in Theta, their positioning at the end of the most lucrative trade route has effectively disrupted trading for the largest trading organisation on the server IND. IND are going elsewhere. Conversely, whenever TBF are active with their various pirate cronies, =BSG= must halt shipping operations to deploy combat ships to deal with the pirates. Some times all of the operating traders hault, other times one or two continue and the others get into their vipers.
A problem with this is that all the omega pirates have to fly in RH bombers to even have a chance at taking down a transport, but then again they rarely use CDs. Weaken the transports and it might balance out.
Well Onca, it IS a challenge to all you pirates out there..
And I can promise you all that as long as you're fair, I won't fret about getting pirated either.
All it takes to avoid basecamping is some kind of "pirates code of honor" (ie a rule) that states that you mustn't basecamp and conversely a "traders code" that states that a trader cannot do the same run over again. Being basecamped ain't cool in any game, but there has to be some equality.
It all comes down to having fun and letting others have fun as well.
I can agree that transports are a bit too tough, but that's not just down to PvP. I've said this in another thread already, but I think the MOD would do good by increasing the NPC skills a notch or two. This will make it a bit more challenging overall, as well as making it an advantage to make use of NPC-pirates you're allied with (or banding together with other players for traders). Hence making player pirates act more in the spirit of the game. But yes, I agree that the Transports are a bit tough. So perhaps a bit of both.
As OrrinDymas says though, there are other motives for piracy. I think this is more connected to player-factions than general roleplaying though. But it SHOULD be applied to NPC factions as well.
Ahem, being a pirate here I have noticed people always run and have liners and supe them up to be BS killers and fighter rapists. And I could't even kill a liner in a bomber it was impossible the thing was stronger than a cruiser. But not everyone uses a liner so that is not the issue. There needs to be EFFECTIVE CDs that work against trains because they don't currently do much to anything. CDs are almost worthless now because they simply cannot hit a thing.
Trading vessels like large trains have useless weapons which is good ad their shields are as they should be. Personally I think there should be more traders like the LT weak weapons and monsterous cargo. Which is a good combo and would add more RP as in you need an escort to protect you and save you from killing.
There should be no demanding limit but seriously no one is gonna give 10mil to ya. I like to pirate but it ain't no more fun because of the cowardly running and hiding. I learned a while back running is bad just pay the small sum and offer money to terrorists because they usually back down when given payment. So the end of the matter is how can we make pirating and trading more rp? Perhpas restricting traders and transports to certain IDs and tags?
ie...interspace commerce, cryer pharm, bowex, universal. And give them escorts and RP traders and a RP pattern they must follow in pirating situations for each ID and tag.