Basic Pirating Tutorial

Ship type and Pirating

Are you are a lone pirate, trying desperately to pick off some goods, before the fleet arrives. Or maybe are you a part of a much larger group, in which everyone has their own place, it is very important you choose and outfit a ship suitable for this task. The Tech Chart will aid you in picking the right weapon combination, depending on your faction and location, however, the loadout itself is fully up to you.

The ultimate pirating vessel has to be the Bombers, even if the Pirate Transport doesn't fall behind much with it's 3400 cargo hold and armour, which even gunboats have trouble getting through. However, there are people, who pirate in Very Heavy Fighters as well as Super Heavy Fighters and even Light Fighters if they are skilled enough, however, in many cases with the LFs it is disrupting the trader and giving him a choice to either pay up or fly through the system on their thrusters.

A usual choice is a bomber with a Train Cruise Disruptor and a Supernova Antimatter Cannon. If you are a part of a larger group, you may want to keep a fighter with all CP-m "Debilitator" Civilian Improved Mk I Pulse Cannons or Corsair "Tizona del Cid" Pulse Weapons, so that if the trader opens fire and tries to flee, the shield can be downed as soon as possible for the bomber.

Due to the transport weapon upgrade and changes in gunboat weapons, using a gunboat for pirating is inefficient.

Setting up your workspace

Due to the multitude of unlawfuls on the servers, it is your job as a pirate to give the traders a good role-play encounter every time you take their hard earned money as a fee. In order to do so, many things need to be taken into mind to benefit you throughout the the encounter.

First thing you must remember is that there is such thing as server lag. It is unwise to keep the lane ring down. There were many cases of transports simply flying past, the lane would come back online a few seconds after.

• Position your ship roughly in the middle of the lane.
• If it is not possible, keep on the far side of the ring.
• Down the lane only when the trader is on your scanner.
• Remember, due to lag the trader might "jump" forward and back in the lane, so be sure to take it out right as you see them on your scanner.
• Not keeping the lane down will save you a lot of NPC related headache, since if the lawfuls do come to the rescue, they will find you in a cloud of nanobots and shield batteries, which they can tractor all day long.
• Dropping random commodities next to the rings make it much harder for the traders to flee, makes their world spin. However, this is frowned upon as the pirate is exploiting the game mechanics.

Now all you need to do is wait.

The Pirating Encounter

So, as you see your first Adv. Train pop out the lane, you will notice that they are most likely trying to flee. In other cases they will instantly open fire. If the trader is trying to flee, simply disrupt him. The 5000 cargo transports rarely have countermeasures, so they are easy and fat prey for pirates.

Remember, before you can kill the trader, if he refuses to stop, you must give a in-RP demand.

'HALT!' IS NOT A DEMAND

• "Hey, fat guy! Put her down to zero clicks and pay a contribution of [Insert Amount Here] to the [Insert Pirate Faction Here] or else I will vent your tub full of holes!"
• "Hey, mind stopping and paying me a million for keeping those Xenos off your butt?" "What Xenos..." "Exactly..."

Make sure the trader is fully immobile, not crawling toward the lane ring with 10m/s and for the love of god make sure there are no NPCs around, who are taking the lane, that most probably is online by this time. If the trader presses the Formation button on them, he can be taken into the lane with them, even if he is 500 meters away from the NPCs.

Once you have made sure you can ask for money, do check on the trader's ship and rank. You may ask up to three million for traders, who are flying Adv. Trains or Zoner Whales, but the higher you ask, the less the chance, that they will pay. Remember you are not the only player who has pirated him in this run.

Pirating players under rank 50 is useless. They most probably have only two to three million, which is best for them to keep, if you will want to pirate them, when they will get their big trains.

The most common demand is a million, but some demand even less. The percentage of traders, who pay half a million to you is much larger, than for higher demands. In the long run, you will make more money by doing so and the traders themselves will not feel too upset and will probably pay again, if you happen to catch them on another day.

In conclusion, remember, that behind that trader is a player much like yourself. Do be mean and a total deuche, but only in roleplay. Some encounters should not be short, take your time to roleplay with the crew of their ship - even if it only involves how you plan to spend the money they are working hard to earn.