Forums » General
Here's my take on it:
in 3.4 I got fed up with all the happy traders running along unchallenged. There was a touch of PK'ing and general havoc around still, but overall, traders were lenient, some even flew their Centaurs without weapons in their holds, since they had good standings everywhere, and noone would attack them anyhow.
Therefore, I decided it was time to wreck some havoc. To not make theese fat geese with golden eggs too unsportable, I signed them up for a "drop your cargo or DIE" practice. Many died. A few realized that I'm actually bribable. Its less work to cash in 10-50k than to fire missiles, and gather the cargo.
With me so far?
Add to this a habit of writing down the names of those who run, or those who fire...
it worked nicely in the close-knit community where people knew me. People also knew icarus, well enough to -never- be in his vicinity. You new folks have yet to learn, and piracy will change. My tacts aren't employable anymore with the in-system jumps. Too easy to get away.
Count on more icarusian behaviour.
in 3.4 I got fed up with all the happy traders running along unchallenged. There was a touch of PK'ing and general havoc around still, but overall, traders were lenient, some even flew their Centaurs without weapons in their holds, since they had good standings everywhere, and noone would attack them anyhow.
Therefore, I decided it was time to wreck some havoc. To not make theese fat geese with golden eggs too unsportable, I signed them up for a "drop your cargo or DIE" practice. Many died. A few realized that I'm actually bribable. Its less work to cash in 10-50k than to fire missiles, and gather the cargo.
With me so far?
Add to this a habit of writing down the names of those who run, or those who fire...
it worked nicely in the close-knit community where people knew me. People also knew icarus, well enough to -never- be in his vicinity. You new folks have yet to learn, and piracy will change. My tacts aren't employable anymore with the in-system jumps. Too easy to get away.
Count on more icarusian behaviour.
I won't lie to you.
But pirating is the most profitable way to make cash in the game.
But pirating is the most profitable way to make cash in the game.
-It's an honor thing. Not really what I expect people to understand, but it was accepted practice for a while. Later on the "shoot everything that moves and hope it has cargo" school of thought came about.
Not many people know this, but for a while I had a secret pirate character to figure out how the strategies work. I was nice. I never pirated anyone who couldn't afford it. I always made sure to go after the multi-millionaires. That and I never hit the same person twice. I tried to be as lenient as possible. My strategy was generally to shoot the trader down to about 20% to 30%, then hit my "drop your cargo" bind.
[quote]in 3.4 I got fed up with all the happy traders running along unchallenged. [/quote]
See, I got fed up with the veteran pirates with good standing being able to shoot at newbie traders with the traders being unable to shoot back.
I'm thinking the most respectful way to pirate is, when you run into a victim, tell them to "Jettison your cargo and I'll spare your life.". If the victin fails to comply, you could simply shoot him down.
Or has anyone done some "Pay or Die" method yet?
Like, Pay 10k or you will die.
Or has anyone done some "Pay or Die" method yet?
Like, Pay 10k or you will die.
Tilt, no you can't. As soon as that person hears you demand the cargo, they turn on their afterburner and the pirate loses. You have to make the kill basically within the first five-ten seconds after contact or you lose it. So why should I warn them?
Big cargo ships can't be out run by a small pirate fighting ship? Is this true?
Here's how it works:
Note: A pirate is someone who is trying to make a profit by attacking traders and taking their cargo. I'm assuming they both have the fast/heavy combo, because in a few weeks all dedicated players will and therefore any argument predicated on a lesser setup is ignoring the problem.
Let's assume a good situation for the pirate - other guy is in a Centaur, the pirate is in a tri-flare Valkryie. They both have the Fast/Heavy combo.
The pirate sees the Centaur flying toward a wormhole or a station. Again, let's give the pirate a break and say that the Centaur pilot does not see him. The Centaur will still be traveling at anywhere from 180-200m/s, in a straight line.
One more break for the pirate - he actually has a chance to intercept the Centaur. That is, he's able to somehow cut across the Centaur's line of flight and is able to line it up perfectly. (If he is "behind" the Centaur he cannot catch it, period)
He now has one chance to destroy the Centaur. ONE chance - that he unloads enough sunflares to totally disorient and surprise the centaur pilot, and destroy the centaur before the pilot opens up the nav screen and jumps to an empty sector.
If he tells the trader to drop and waits for a response, he misses his oppurtunity. All the trader has to do is keep going and if the pirate hesitates he loses.
This makes it impossible for an "honorable" pirate kill. The only options left are station and wormhole camping. Should a pirate want to give chase, all the trader has to do is start hopping around the empty sectors until the pirate loses track of him, and he's free. So the pirate has to sit in the wormhole and wait for someone to come by, or sit by a station with no defbots and wait for someone to come by.
Both tactics bring cries of "Cheap! No Honor! Griefer!" Since they are the only two viable tactics avaialable, this makes for an extremely anti-pirate environment. In both situations, demanding a cargo drop just increases an already difficult kill to the near-impossible level, because time is never on the pirates side. They have to make the kill quick or the trader docks, jumps, or otherwise gets away.
Note: A pirate is someone who is trying to make a profit by attacking traders and taking their cargo. I'm assuming they both have the fast/heavy combo, because in a few weeks all dedicated players will and therefore any argument predicated on a lesser setup is ignoring the problem.
Let's assume a good situation for the pirate - other guy is in a Centaur, the pirate is in a tri-flare Valkryie. They both have the Fast/Heavy combo.
The pirate sees the Centaur flying toward a wormhole or a station. Again, let's give the pirate a break and say that the Centaur pilot does not see him. The Centaur will still be traveling at anywhere from 180-200m/s, in a straight line.
One more break for the pirate - he actually has a chance to intercept the Centaur. That is, he's able to somehow cut across the Centaur's line of flight and is able to line it up perfectly. (If he is "behind" the Centaur he cannot catch it, period)
He now has one chance to destroy the Centaur. ONE chance - that he unloads enough sunflares to totally disorient and surprise the centaur pilot, and destroy the centaur before the pilot opens up the nav screen and jumps to an empty sector.
If he tells the trader to drop and waits for a response, he misses his oppurtunity. All the trader has to do is keep going and if the pirate hesitates he loses.
This makes it impossible for an "honorable" pirate kill. The only options left are station and wormhole camping. Should a pirate want to give chase, all the trader has to do is start hopping around the empty sectors until the pirate loses track of him, and he's free. So the pirate has to sit in the wormhole and wait for someone to come by, or sit by a station with no defbots and wait for someone to come by.
Both tactics bring cries of "Cheap! No Honor! Griefer!" Since they are the only two viable tactics avaialable, this makes for an extremely anti-pirate environment. In both situations, demanding a cargo drop just increases an already difficult kill to the near-impossible level, because time is never on the pirates side. They have to make the kill quick or the trader docks, jumps, or otherwise gets away.
<Big cargo ships can't be out run by a small pirate fighting ship? Is this true?>
The game as it is now, if the ship has a decent distance between you it can get away, but that's an imbalance.
In the past, no it was certainly not true. A vulture or a valkyrie could catch any tradeship. They may have had slight problems with the marauder if the trader was talented, but that's it. The complaints about traders being able to run too easily were usually rendered by, no offense, bad pirates.
Look at Grim Battol/Archon. He was able to do well as a pirate despite warnings. Same goes for my pirate char. which had additional self-imposed restrictions on it.
Piracy, currently doesn't work whether you sneak up on them or not. Piracy in the past was just fine though quite unprofitable. (Piracy itself was always unprofitable. Phoenix made most of his money by running a protection racket as I recall.)
The game as it is now, if the ship has a decent distance between you it can get away, but that's an imbalance.
In the past, no it was certainly not true. A vulture or a valkyrie could catch any tradeship. They may have had slight problems with the marauder if the trader was talented, but that's it. The complaints about traders being able to run too easily were usually rendered by, no offense, bad pirates.
Look at Grim Battol/Archon. He was able to do well as a pirate despite warnings. Same goes for my pirate char. which had additional self-imposed restrictions on it.
Piracy, currently doesn't work whether you sneak up on them or not. Piracy in the past was just fine though quite unprofitable. (Piracy itself was always unprofitable. Phoenix made most of his money by running a protection racket as I recall.)
I'm gonna look at it this way... if a pirate is honorable enough to ask for my cargo, and I can afford it, I'll probably be nice enough to drop it and pick up half. He gets half, I get half, and life is ok.
If he decides to just blow me out of the... um... space... well, I'll have absolutely no problem with hopping into a capable fighter and hunting him down until one of our lives is miserable. :o)
If he decides to just blow me out of the... um... space... well, I'll have absolutely no problem with hopping into a capable fighter and hunting him down until one of our lives is miserable. :o)
Magus, pirating is and always has been highly profitable as long as you are good enough to pull it off ie. kill alot more trade ships than you lose. I have made millions from pirating!
theluckyone, if I ever run into you, it looks like your going to have a longstanding vendetta on your hands, unless your true to your name... ;-)
theluckyone, if I ever run into you, it looks like your going to have a longstanding vendetta on your hands, unless your true to your name... ;-)
Wow. Been a long time since I was here, and I decided to reply to this thread since most of the other (and possibly more relevant threads) were preemptively locked. I'm not sure if that means the mods are too strict or if the users have too little self control.
I think the last time I played we'd just gone from the old 14 sectors (+secrets) to the new nav system. I was totally lost after that.
This is, I'm sure, going to be my last post. I've been waiting something like two or three -dozen- months for the game to come out so I could buy it, only to find that this is no longer the game I found such joy in testing. I see so few names now that I recognize from the early 3.x days and nearly no one from the 2.x days.
From the start, I loved vendetta for the potential it had to be different from every other MMORPG I've ever played. But now, it -is- every other RPG I've ever played. I'm not talking about how difficult it is to even warp from sector to sector, or how custom binds make you 1337 (and are necessary just for mere survival), or the +5 vorpal rockets, though those are issues in and of themselves.
The community is what I had the most hope for, and nearly every one of my posts on this board reiterated my hope and belief that the community was what could really set this game apart, as much if not more than the groundbreaking game engine we all watched take shape.
Piracy and its ilk, represented, for example. by the previous poster, is only the straw that broke this camel's back. That kind of gameplay having any place in something I'm supposed to pay out money for simply shows me that a -type- of player is allowed to participate who gets enjoyment out of the game by removing the enjoyment of the game from others. However implied (and in some cases, blatantly overt) the acceptance of that kind of player may be from TPTB, it fosters a tacit approval of those tactics and that kind of personality, which then both encourages some players to employ those tactics, and discourages other players from participating at all.
I'd hoped a happy medium could be achieved.
I suppose, though, that such high hopes were in direct conflict with the bottom line. I always thought that more money could be made by discouraging the participation of the few players there were that negatively impacted gameplay for so many others. I mean no disrespect by saying that - I hope Guild makes a long term and large profit from Vendetta. You certainly deserve it for all the years of hard work and personal expense.
I think I'll go pop open a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti in your honor. Congrats on getting Vendetta out the door and into the world!
I just wish I could be there to enjoy it.
XhaLe, Flanged, Beelzibubba, Serco Monk #3
I think the last time I played we'd just gone from the old 14 sectors (+secrets) to the new nav system. I was totally lost after that.
This is, I'm sure, going to be my last post. I've been waiting something like two or three -dozen- months for the game to come out so I could buy it, only to find that this is no longer the game I found such joy in testing. I see so few names now that I recognize from the early 3.x days and nearly no one from the 2.x days.
From the start, I loved vendetta for the potential it had to be different from every other MMORPG I've ever played. But now, it -is- every other RPG I've ever played. I'm not talking about how difficult it is to even warp from sector to sector, or how custom binds make you 1337 (and are necessary just for mere survival), or the +5 vorpal rockets, though those are issues in and of themselves.
The community is what I had the most hope for, and nearly every one of my posts on this board reiterated my hope and belief that the community was what could really set this game apart, as much if not more than the groundbreaking game engine we all watched take shape.
Piracy and its ilk, represented, for example. by the previous poster, is only the straw that broke this camel's back. That kind of gameplay having any place in something I'm supposed to pay out money for simply shows me that a -type- of player is allowed to participate who gets enjoyment out of the game by removing the enjoyment of the game from others. However implied (and in some cases, blatantly overt) the acceptance of that kind of player may be from TPTB, it fosters a tacit approval of those tactics and that kind of personality, which then both encourages some players to employ those tactics, and discourages other players from participating at all.
I'd hoped a happy medium could be achieved.
I suppose, though, that such high hopes were in direct conflict with the bottom line. I always thought that more money could be made by discouraging the participation of the few players there were that negatively impacted gameplay for so many others. I mean no disrespect by saying that - I hope Guild makes a long term and large profit from Vendetta. You certainly deserve it for all the years of hard work and personal expense.
I think I'll go pop open a bottle of Martini & Rossi Asti in your honor. Congrats on getting Vendetta out the door and into the world!
I just wish I could be there to enjoy it.
XhaLe, Flanged, Beelzibubba, Serco Monk #3
Xochiluvr, I'm not sure i understand your concerns, Vendetta has always had a combat element to it, (heck you were around in late 2.x and early 3.x when combat WAS vendetta).
Non-Consentual PVP is a part of the game, It has always been a part of the game. Incarnate has never ever been anything less than open about the fact that he felt that no part of space should be TOTALLY safe.
As to the "i'll enjoy myself by removing the fun for others" mentality, I agree with you to a point, however i feel that with some tweaking of the engine, (that IS why we are beta testing) such activities will be limited to the grey sectors of space, When the mission system comes into effect it will create another massive rebalance of how the PVP situation works because we will have added another requirement for getting our equipment.
Non-Consentual PVP is a part of the game, It has always been a part of the game. Incarnate has never ever been anything less than open about the fact that he felt that no part of space should be TOTALLY safe.
As to the "i'll enjoy myself by removing the fun for others" mentality, I agree with you to a point, however i feel that with some tweaking of the engine, (that IS why we are beta testing) such activities will be limited to the grey sectors of space, When the mission system comes into effect it will create another massive rebalance of how the PVP situation works because we will have added another requirement for getting our equipment.
getting killed over and over again actually -was- the most fun I've had in vendetta (when I could afford it, it wasn't too upsetting after the 17th death...)
...? ....??
Does it seem to anyone else that xochiluvr is basing his opinion soley on old forum posts (the current one having last been posted to 2 weeks before he posted) and perhaps hasn't played recently?
" I'm not sure if that means the mods are too strict or if the users have too little self control."
The locked threads are still there for anyone to see and decide for themselves if it's either of the reasons he cites, or if the threads had just wandered too far off-topic or had burst irretrievably into flames (which is the same as off-topicness in my book).
Anyway, sorry to see him go. I agree with Spellcast: with a few server-side tweaks piracy will be relegated to the grey regions.
Does it seem to anyone else that xochiluvr is basing his opinion soley on old forum posts (the current one having last been posted to 2 weeks before he posted) and perhaps hasn't played recently?
" I'm not sure if that means the mods are too strict or if the users have too little self control."
The locked threads are still there for anyone to see and decide for themselves if it's either of the reasons he cites, or if the threads had just wandered too far off-topic or had burst irretrievably into flames (which is the same as off-topicness in my book).
Anyway, sorry to see him go. I agree with Spellcast: with a few server-side tweaks piracy will be relegated to the grey regions.