I see the goal of ideal piracy encounters to be situations where the trader fights because they feel they have a reasonable chance of victory, or pays a demand that earns the pirate net profit against the cost of death, but still has a significant profit margin so they don't feel oppressed by the unlawful. Preferably, with an RP text experience which is fun and immersion building.
If a transport feels like it has no other option than to run, and that the pirate is screwing them over, that's probably (not necessarily) the Pirate's fault. I have seen effective escorts work before.
Get an armoured five K, have a fighter near it? If VHF piracy is occuring, the VHF is going to have a really hard job killing the transport whilst being shot by transport turrets and a snub at the same time. If a bomber, it has better odds of getting the transport, but the transport has better odds of getting functional revenge by the dead pirate in turn taking a profit cut/being cut off for 2 hours from their chokepoint of choice, thus decreasing the net worth.
Escorts against pirates do work. They work extremely well. They bide the transport enough time to get away, make CD'ing more difficult, etc. The escort can be significantly less capable than the pirate but they are a huge force-multiplier for a transport. Take it from someone who pirates recreationally.
(04-08-2018, 06:14 PM)Antonio Wrote: I see no way that this encourages encounters, except by purging useless systems and creating choke points that traders are forced to pass through which brings in pirates who draw lawfuls on them.
I also agree with @Antonio on this. I might not agree with the system culling (nobody can agree on what is 'useless'), as content culling is conceptually insane from both a new player's perspective and a 'Discovery' perspective, it's effectively a vet-only answer which will only lead to player abandonment of the server, but creating logical trade chokepoints? That makes sense.
Edit: Escorts are super-useful during smuggling, as well. The ability to CD the guy who wants to jam a siege cruiser into the buttcrack of your unlawful battletransports can never be overrated. But if that siege cruiser gets in range, and I don't hit the regens fast enough? He should be able to snipe me.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)