This thread really ought to be pinned for the newbs.

1) Mines.

2) Don't visit grey in an XC

3) Mines.

4) ???

5) Proifit!

If you fail at step 4, trade in a centaur.

If you really really fail at step 4, trade in an Atlas-X

If you still fail, you're not using enough mines.

If you fail at step 2, pay the pirate, and then /explode to teach yourself a lesson.

Personally, I trade in a BHMII with 2x prox mines and 1x conc mine. I can drop concs to deter newbies from making stupid mistakes in nation space, or prox to be more lethal to pirates. All three in a pinch, right before jumping.

The only time I've ever been killed by a pirate, I was in an XC in Pelatus. I kinda deserved that. You will too if you try it.

/me wonders how many actual pirates have been killed by mines?

The only thing mines are good for is making a pursuer cut the turbo to change direction.

A couple of oservations from 3 years of trading...

Re: 2) Don't visit grey in an XC

The dangers are vastly overrated. Establish a working realtionship with your friendly neighborhood pirate. Avoid the hangouts of known griefers, but don't get too upset about losing the occasional ship and cargo.

Re: Ryan's "/me wonders how many actual pirates have been killed by mines?"

None I'd imagine but then the goal is to get away. For me it usually doesn't work at least not if I'm in a moth, but YMMV...

Ricker

yo dawg, i put a trader in this pirate, so you can trade while you pirate!

Ricker... it was a rhetorical question, but answering it probably saves lives. I see so many traders who insist that running is always the answer. And I hear a lot of traders talk bout L mines and Prox Mines like they are all a trader needs to survive in Gray.

These traders are easy to recognize. They talk louder and longer than any other traders out there.
Their ships almost always have mines.
They will tell anyone and everyone within ear shot... "NEVAH PAY!".
They usually suffer from one or more hygiene issues.
They are the ones we see bits of floating through Gray space in a field of scrap metal, with a confused look on their faces.

I have a lot of mine kills, actually, but I'm a pirate... Traders desperately wanting their cargo back can get a little sloppy, though, so there might be a reason as to why I find it so easy.

I can confirm that a well-placed conc-mine would actually deal with a pirate if people could use them right... prox mines are fun but probably not as effective considering that they don't one-hit kill, they don't have enough conc force to disturb a pursuer's trajectory, and after getting hit by one most sensible pirates would catch on and pursue on a parallel instead of from directly behind. Now l-mines... those babies can really screw interceptors over. I only ever really use strategies with them that apply to scooping loot, however, as they are useless in a straight pursuit. For example, a snatch and swap maneuver: slow down like I'm picking up the loot (the interceptor will close the distance with blind range) and lay the l-mines right after grabbing the cargo as to camouflage them in the cargo ball of the previous victim.

Oh and wtf, nobody ever answered my ugnaught question.

Edit: I'd like to clarify, pirates do love good chases... if all we want is money we'd be traders. Vendetta, however, is a cost/benefit balance game people need to be ready to lose their high stakes bets without throwing a fit. For a player to always say that they will "NEVER PAY!" would ultimately make them frustrated with the game (believe me, I have seen some of the most amazing rage quits in person).

Players also need to learn to actually succeed at shaking a pursuer before they do it every. damn. time. in futile attempts that blatantly acknowledge VO's lack of immersion or any kind of death penalty... all for what they think is for the sake of "spitting in a pirate's face" when, in fact, it's more like tossing out the word "faggot" instead of "gg" at the end of a match in any other game. By all means, players should resist to learn, but it only humiliates a player when they're loud about their failures.

But again, keep in mind, it doesn't exactly bold well for anyone's immersion when nobody cares about dying.

Well said Shank.

I find the "never pay" crowd silly. Back before I was a pirate, I rarely paid, but that was because I spent most of my time in a fighter ship looking for a fight. If a pirate happened to catch me while I was in a transport ship hauling weapons to someplace more convenient, or while I was in the middle of a long mission or in a hurry or something, I often did pay. Sometimes it was because it was cheaper than rebuying a mothload of Gauss MkIII, but often it was just because I didn't feel like having to make the trip a second time (and of course, I would have had to take a detour or else put the trip on hold until later).

Also, I know they promote "never pay" as a way to try to make pirates give up and leave. I can't speak for other pirates, but it does nothing to dissuade me. Perhaps it's because I'm more of a Viking than a pirate, but I'm just as happy to kill them as to take their money, and if they leave loot behind, it's a bonus. If they try to sneer at me and pull the "nyah nyah, you'll never get me to pay, loser" routine, I just chuckle. They think they've accomplished something or perhaps annoyed me. They're the ones who just died, and I got to enjoy an explosion. If they managed to escape, I got to enjoy a chase. If they managed to defeat me, then I got to die in combat. In short, I win even when I lose.

Very few people have ever managed to annoy me in VO, and none of it was related to the act of piracy.

I once killed a VPR with prox mines, i was in a loaded moth and fleeing into a roid field, seemed he didnt see it coming.

/me grins : ]