So, being as how I don't trade...and if anyone ever droppd their cargo I would let them go if they didn't try to take it back, but I also randomly attack people without an reason, does that make me a griefer or pirate?

I've always drawn a distinction between Serial killers and pirates. A greifer is someone who goes out of his way to cause greif, ie. trying to make people hate the game and leave. They do this by cornering newbies, deliberately trying to bankrupt them, cheating and exploiting, etc.
A pirate takes cargo for money by whatever means he/she finds necessary.
A person who randomly attacks people for shits and giggles would probably qualify as a sociopath.

Brainwashed, all of you. Have you not gained any new information? Shame...

=(

Ahhh well, back to "griefing" then. Wheeeee.

<Arolte> "Pirate is not interchangeable with the term griefer. Bad, RelayeR. Bad boy!!"

Arolte...you called me a "bad BOY"? BOY?

I do not know of ANY pirates that just pirate. Every one of them, griefs. If I'm wrong, give me names.

UncleDave was fairly nice when he was a pirate, I don't recall him griefing. Soy Bomb asks for cargo first and only takes a vulture/valk full, that's kind of nice. I think there are not many real pirates because the fair ones either go broke from not cheating or get tired of being called griefers. If I'm not mistaken Arolte has kept some enemy combatant cargo from time to time. He's not a griefer... It's all about self control maybe?

OK my list isn't long but it still refutes your capital letters 'ANY'.

edit: oh yeah, feared pirate n00b has never griefed that I've seen either!

None of the syndicate crew grief.
All one of them...

Okay, reading ONLY the original post here:

From the SDF and the majority of Serconian's view, piracy and greifing often go hand in hand.

In my personal opinion as a defender of trade craft and the original proposer of the Centuar B-Class Armed Hauler, I can say this; if someone is trying to kill you, motivation is out the window until one of you is dead. No point in trying to find it out why he's crapshooting your tail.

And in the majority of cases nowadays, pirates often guise themeselves as innoncent craft in order to close to an effective lethal range for their weaponry. And many never announce intent until AFTER you are dead and your cargo is safe and secure in their holds.

"From the SDF and the majority of Serconian's view, piracy and greifing often go hand in hand."

-I'm not sure you have any authority to speak for the majority of Sercos.

Magus, I speak only from expierence, I've flown with these guys for an exceptionally long time (comming up on one year now, in June) and as you know, you dont fly with guys for a year and don't know what they think about the Galactic Situation.

But, to cover my own tail. From my expierence the SDF and the majority of Serconian's view, piracy and greifing often go hand in hand

{{double post}}

Hoax and genka....UncleDave, n00b, Arolte and [SYN] have never pirated me. I know Arolte is a self-proclaimed pirate but, I've never seen it. I have no knowledge about the other three's activities in these two areas so I can't say they are pirates or griefers. My assertion still stands. _I_ don't know of _ANY_ pirates that do not grief.

I have only been asked _once_ to drop my cargo...from Phoenix, of all people (when he was Itani). I was so impressed with him that I wrote an article for the Vendetta Chronicle. Roguelazer has not published it yet, though.

Asking for a cargo drop is pretty damn stupid. All it does is give your intended victim time to flee. It's hard enough as it is to chase down a medium skilled pilot without giving him a 30second head start while you wait to see if he's going to jettison or not.

In my brief pirating career, I tried using this (or basically this) bind: "Jettison your cargo. 4 widgets will be taken, the rest may be reclaimed. Comply or be destroyed."

Half the time, the target would turn and start shooting. The other 99% of the time, the target would boost away instantly. Someone actually jettisoned, once. ONCE.

If you people want pirates to be "honorable" then you have to make it so that a pirate can be honorable and still get cargo. If you expect a pirate to just give you a head start to be nice you're an idiot.

I prefer to jump the cargo ship, shoot them down to under 15%, then scream in sector chat (to get their attention): "DROP YOUR CARGO OR BE DESTROYED." I've already proved I'm capable of it, and only the foolish or principled pilots refuse to. That was when people bothered to pirate.

Yeh, I did that, too (when I pirated, that is). It's quite effective.

Out of sight, out of mind. Just because you see it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Keep that in mind, RelayeR.

=)

Arolte, mindless killing isn't pirating.

This just in, roleplaying in an MMORPG is now considered mindless. For someone who only has 500,000 credits to spend, don't you suppose I have to get money out of somewhere after a long battle? Certainly not through trading in a Warthog. Please, people, keep the ignorance to a minimum level. If you must know, I pirated an Itani trader (Centaur) and a Neutral trader (Marauder) today in sector 10. About 150,000 credits was gained from those attacks. The Itani trader was unharmed when he returned in a bus. The Neutral player, Sir Trollo, attempted to seek vengeance with a Warthog, in which he was killed an additional two times for his efforts. Not like I'm expecting anyone to care, but that's pretty much a rundown of what happens almost everyday.

He's right. To be most profitable, pirates would not kill their targets. Therefore, those who kill first are not primarily interested in profit, and are therefore not pirates.

*IF* I were a pirate, I would use a 2x railgun/sunflare marauder with a med/fast config.

If the target is slower than the marauder I would sneak up on, and then railgun it. Boost in and sunflare it 2 or 3 times before railgunning it again. This would leave it within an inch of its life. I would then quickly press a "drop your cargo or I finish the job" bind.

If the target was faster, I would run in and sunflare it a couple of times, railgun it once and then push my piracy bind.

That way, I would be able to pirate and actually make a profit.



But profit would not be able to stop the guilt.

Now, Some of you say that I can drop my cargo and I will not be harmed by the pirate. Sometimes I doubt that or they would demand my cargo before killing me. I like keeping a ship and a few 50k of cargo is nothing I would gladly drop it. (not saying I wont fight for it) but for those of you who destroy people for no reason what-so-ever that is just stupidity.
If you keep killing newbs this game will be one big waste of time, because when some one says "hey dude I got an awesome game called Vendetta" and the other one (a newb contuinuously griefed) says " dont waste your money. Send it back. That game is very boring. You always die no matter what you do" The devs or who ever will not make any profit and will be forced to eradicate the game. Now that wont be any fun now will it.