The problem is people who play purely for causing grief to players. They ask demands that they know aren't reasonable, but are still within the rules, they bring an amount of firepower that no convoy, even with escorts, could fight off without the death of transports, and they don't give anyone time to roleplay, they just demand a large amount of credits, give a very short amount of time to pay, and then kill everyone.
This causes a never-ending cycle:
New player starts trading. New player gets pirated constantly, before he can gather up the credits to afford a real ship or to pay off pirates.
New player gets sick of being pirated.
New player makes a pirate character and goes around demanding large amounts of credits, because it's easier than trying to trade in a small freighter.
New player causes other traders to get sick of being pirated with large demands and no RP.
Other traders make pirates to demand large credits and don't bother to RP.
It's a never-ending cycle, and it just gets worse.
Especially, I might point out, people with names like "uninstall_baddie". They're clearly showing that their objective is to grief the traders that they stop. They don't roleplay, they just /1 and kill.
I try to help this situation, but it is too much for me to handle alone. I help new players all the time. First I get them a rhino, I show them a short route, then I get them a Camara, show them a slightly longer route, then I buy them a transport, and start showing them more profitable, longer, routes. Or, if they want to mine, I give them credits for a mining ship, armor, equipment, etc, and we go to mine. Unfortunately, they are always stopped and asked completely ridiculous demands by pirates. Pirates who ask for more than their ships are even worth when they have empty cargoes. They get so sick of it, because they are hardly ever even able to complete a trade route. Usually half of them either leave or start pirating, and the other half stays to trade and mine but they try as hard as possible to avoid player interaction so that they don't lose everything.
I do this about once every couple of weeks; I buy mammoths for 3-8 new players, and show them a bunch of different routes. We always have very poor encounters with pirates who make unreasonable demands and kill them all. They know they're new players, they target all of the new ones before me, just because they want the satisfaction of the blue messages.
Helping new players helps some, but the biggest problem is pirates who are after credits and pews, with no RP whatsoever. Especially indies who use capital ships to kill everyone without even making any demands at all. I could submit a report every single day about my encounters with these sorts of people, but it takes a good amount of time to prepare a report, and I would hardly ever even get to play the game. Besides, none of the lolwut pirate reports ever go through, anyway.
