The problem with pirating at the moment is the rewards are far less than any other aspect of the game. Where as it's also significantly harder than any other part.

For which there is a perfectly fine reason. Without traders there will be no pirates. But this correlation doesn't exist in the other way.

Which is one of the reasons why we can't make it to easy. Even if they add so called fun (but you all know my opinion, so im not voicing it again).

Besides awarding croocks/bandits for doing stuff like that? I don't think so...

Without a viable pirating track would be pirates turn to greifing.

By giving rewards for certain action and not others it allows the game to control what players do. Open up the possibility of dangerous trade routes that are more lucrative because player pirates are "hired" to stop people on those routes.

even with this so called pirating track, pirates might turn to griefing if they get tired of sticking to this pirate track.

Not to mention that griefing isn't solely for pirates but can be done by any fightinginclined person getting bored with what he/she/it is doing.

And in my view, rewards won't help in combatting griefing. Since most griefers don't even care about rewards, just about the act of griefing.

Not to mention if I do agree to your point of view (which I don't), then the addition of rewards will increase the number of pirates significantly equally dropping the number of traders and making sure of the emergance of a lack of traders on these routes. Which might eventually turn to griefing as well (for the same reasons as above).

So my view is:

1) Keep the pirates as some sort of 'elite' faction. Only the best of the 'worst' (= kos people) should do that, if necessary introduce a badge for it.

2) Make sure that the amount of pirates stays reasonable (getting hit 1-2 times a day while trading is more then enough for a casual player) due to the difference in price of the 2 vehicles (behemoth + cargo = 200k+, valk + weapons = 20k). And this is just purchasecost.

you don't have to loose your ship when you get hit, and a trader makes 100-200K per run. considering that running is a breeze you're not paying people either.

most traders can make a million or two on a relaxing evening. most pirates I know haven't made a million in a very good week from pirating. since pirates get 25-50K per act, you need to pirate 20-40 people successfully to make that happen. considering you manage to get one out of every, hm, 20 ships maybe, you're looking at 400-800 pirating attempts to make a million or two.

so, if we want pirates, make it worthwhile and make it so people want to run through "unsafe" areas to make an extra buck.

as for greifers, they don't care _why_ or how or whatever, so they're pretty irrelevant for this debate. they'll do what they do anyway. if they're not able to find prey in "unsafe" areas, they'll go the "safe" areas to get their kills. what you offer traders / pirates doesn't really matter.

Terjekv, the problem with what you are saying is that the pirates can easilly make as much money as the traders... they just need to get another pirate in a moth standing by to ship all the tradegoods from point x to y (which to make it easy is 1 sector away). And they do make the same profit (even more since they didn't have to pay for the goods).

Not to mention that I mad ethis argument, since everybody is talking about making it harder to run... And any casual player (which I was talking about), that also does other htings hten trading will make 1 mill on an evening(casual gamer = 2 - 4 hours). Some routes take +1 hour to do (if you are also going for standing...) and give like 300k.

I disagree Rene.

It would take 3-4 pirates to catch the moth, which means 3-4 pirates sitting around doing nothing, waiting for that one moth. Pirates get REALLY bored just sitting there. And flying around looking for a moth doesn't help much, since it spreads your forces.

Not to mention, that even a Moth full of luxgoods will only pay a strikeforce of pirates about 60k each. Not exactly good payment.

We DO have pirates with Moth's standing by. It still doesn't make it affordable.

Rene says : "the problem with what you are saying is that the pirates can easilly make as much money as the traders.."

LMAO!

Wait for it..........

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously : you want pirates? Make it worthwhile. Right now it is not worthwhile (just try it Rene, we'll forgive you). The pirates right now (i.e. BLAK), are doing it NOT FOR THE MONEY. Each of us have our reasons, but please, even a dolt can see we don't do it for money. And I know you are not a dolt, Rene.

[EDIT : Yes I am being condescending and bordeline flaming, but I get that when somebody tells me pirating can make as much money as trading. We make more money shooting NPC traders than actually trying to pirate a real player.]

Softy, please read my statement again.

people where talking to make pirating easier... On that note I explained that that might all be nice and dandy but if doing that that it should not be made to easy since in most cases pirating isn't done for the cash (since it will never be as profitable as trading) but for the honour/dishonour and the rush it gives these people of acting/being the big nasty person blowing my little tradership (reason why i came forward with making it elite and possibly giving a badge/faction). Since if it does favour will shift towards the pirates. And yes you will be able to make sufficient money pirating (to pay back your 20k ships opposed to the 200k investemnts of the trader). And as you know, if that happens then the total balance will be uprooted. Little pirates is sustainable, to many pirates ain't. While low traders is not sustainable, and many traders are. Reason being : no traders -> no pirates, no pirates != no traders.

So I would appreciate if you took out that condescending post of yours please. I was not commenting on the moth now or even on piratign now. Although im sure that the pirates can pirate any of the other tradeships properly... like the centaur, atlas, wraith and yes even the prom mk2 (fully loaded they are sloooowww).

While I do agree that pirating is neither easy nor profitable, I don't think it SHOULD be easy. A pirate's life should be a hard one, after all, they are preying on the rest of the community (well, mostly).

Profitable? that's entirely another matter. I suppose it can wait until the mission editor is finished, but it would be cool if people with high corvus standing could get pirating missions, in which they get a premium price over certain items, a tip on NPC routes for said items, and extra XPs for shooting up people with Trader badges. Though a "pirate" could simply buy the stuff and sell it to Corvus for a small profit, or just kill player traders for the XPs, the most rewarding would be to shoot the people and sell their cargo. This way people could stay "in the pirate way of life" just like BP right now is letting some live the "soldier way of life" without having forcibly to trade.

there aren't many pirates who want pirating to be easy, but most want it to be doable, and at least to provide a source of income that you can live off -- which it doesn't at all today. and since most pirates have killed off factions, they're not able to easily trade to make money even if they wanted to.

and please, whatever the ships costs, did you even bother reading my post? the trader makes up for a lost ship in one run, maybe two. a pirate doesn't make up for a lost ship in one or two pirating attempts. and it takes more time to pirate a ship than it does to run a trade route.

catching non-Moth ships is more doable, but if you think it's easy, you need to try. wraiths are n00bs only, so they often get off for free, Centaurs have pretty decent thrust and have a lot of mines on board, Atlas? the right Atlas is really hard to catch. mauds are nice to catch though, but you know what? I've seen _ONE_ Centaur doing trade in grey over the last months. all we see are moths. even if the moths become slower, we're not going to make up the cost of our ships as easy as a trader.

also, a trader can usually get off by paying 25-50K, which'll usually buy himself a free day to trade. if pirating doesn't become more feasable lets see what a pirate makes in a night. if a trader can make 1-2M without thinking (even casual players can do this, and do), a pirate should make 100-200K a night, pirating is a tenth as profitable as trading? that's okay

let us say you can catch one in ten traders you see while alone, which is highly unprobable in itself. you see maybe 4 traders (in reality you'll see one or two) an hour to attack, this means that to catch two traders you need 20 attacks, 4 per hour is then 5 hours of pirating to successfully pirate two people. you've done nothing but pirate and you've gotten two on your five hour shift. if I was the one doing this, I'd start charging 100-200K per attack or get the kill, since I can make tenfold the money in a fifth of the time. making pirating more feasable will make it a lot more rational to ask for 25-50K. when it's as hard as now you need to trade anyway to survive, so you might as well go for the "big" rewards (lots of cash) or the kill.

your reasons for being pirates is also off, most people I know don't do it to be evil, they don't do it to be though, they do it as a roleplaying element and to provide some exitement in grey.

yes, making trade require more effort and more of a gamble will make it easier for people to be morons and kill for the kill. in non-grey space the simple solution for that is to make strike forces better and faster to react to attacks, in grey, well, you're in grey. expect to be blown out of the sky by anyone for any reason. this is how grey is supposed to feel. heck, it's how I loved grey when I was starting out. I was petrified for going to Odia. today, people bring n00bs to Corvus stations with almost no risk at all.

Well not so much in the last few days. :)

"heck, it's how I loved grey when I was starting out. I was petrified for going to Odia. today, people bring n00bs to Corvus stations with almost no risk at all."

There were 4 or 5 really nasty guys in the grey at that time. Rather PKers than strictly pirates.

Yup as a n00b I couldnt even enter Odia, shape, tramshed and chewie killed me lots.
Ahhhh, good old times.

I was pirated and asked for money by all encounters I had in grey at the time I started. both tram and Yoda would attack me, but they'd ask for money. YMMV. the only time I've met people who didn't were some people who are SYN today.

still, be it PKers or pirates, people should fear grey. grey should be a place where you press 'u' habitually and 'x' even more often.

Yhe reason why we see so little centaurs is because the moth is a far better bulk trader and at the moment very good at getting out of harms way. My point was that if you get moths to the point where they are as easy (or hard) to kill as centaurs, maybe a little bit easier. Then the profit of the pirates will go up. And you know that this has been suggested in another thread which I backed up, provided there remaining a chance to get away without any help (even if it is small).

Once the moth will be more in line with the difficulty of the other ships, the profit of pirates will rise. And probably equal to the projected 200 - 400k.

And yes traders can get that money back in the next route, but not if that route gets pirated also. Reason why I stated getting pirated 2 times should be enough for a casual gamer. And most casual gamers do play only 2 - 3 hours (although I know some that don't even get 1 hour in). And like I said a decent route takes 1 hour of trading (ferrying back and forth and will make you like 300 - 400k). From which you will easilly lose 150-300k if you lose your ship in a pirateattempt. Meaning this casual gamer can lose 300 - 600k on 2 traderoutes and needs to spend 1-2 routes to catch up that loss, which is probably around 2 hours of gameplay. Add then the fun tha tpeople want to do beside trading and their casual gameplay is packed. If you increase pirating even beyond that level a casual player has no option of ever doing anything but trade.

And sorry to say, but if you roleplay a pirate, you are playing the evil person/bandit. A pirate is maybe charismatic, but taking away goods that don't belong to you from another person is not considered to be non evil or good. It is what you would expect of crooks etc. And the people involved in this are mostly always KOS people (since they are the equivalent of that according to the faction that considers them KOS). Ergo reason why I said evil people.

And come on, as if being known as a pirate (a good one) doesn't float your ego a bit, or at least gives you the name to be tough/skilled/good whatever. I'm sure that if anybody asks to have a pvp fight with any of the blak members that it is going to be tough. And im sure you guys also take account of that 'name'(cashing in on it) in your pirating... (if somebody who is known to pirate asks a newbie who has been warned for such ilk for money, im sure they will give it more readilly then if they never heared about him). They will especially do that once they get canned the first time after hearing that these guys are tough people. If somebody told me avoid icarus at all costs during my beginningperiod I was sure to avoid him due to his tough name (although that always failed anyway)

Excitement in grey is purely open to discussion. You consider it excitement, somebody else considers it harassment. You only consider it excitement since it floats your boat. But for somebody else it means having to spend more time on an item they maybe don't like doing just because you get off on it (getsd you excitted). I'm sure there are people that consider getting chased in their little tradeship filled with heavy wares not exciting while there are others that do find it excitting and will go out of their way to actually find pirates. But mostly these people are people that have stashed away a couple ten millions on the side and don't mind losing 300k. Since for any newbie even 25k is a looot of money...

PS: its nice and dandy to pay off pirates, but it all depends on the amount of pirates online. Soetimes I see 8 pirate on(meaning 2 traderoutes at max charge). For a casual player that is still a lot of money.

PS: I did read your post terjek, but I beleive that I know what a piratingship costs... and what a tradingship costs since I do trade and the loosing 1 piratingship is never as expesnive as loosing 1 cargoship with cargo. There is easilly a difference of 3 - 5 (maybe 3 - 8 for the behemoth) and depending on the cargo taken along. Not to mention that pirating a fuly loaded centuar is not easy ay, but it ain't that hard either. Probably a 1/1-2 successchance (so every 3 centaurs you kill one). But the lack of traders is not my error, nor the devs error... it is an error of a to big of an area for only a load of 30 people... from which maybe 6-10 will be trading in grey... And having them cross the exact same path as where you are waiting is such a low probability that it is not worth it. It is not only the reason for pirating being to difficult. But it also is because of the low probability to encounter a trader on the route. And yes spreading your forces thin will not work... but once we will have 400 - 600 people online (and 10% of pirates = 40 - 60 people), im sure spreading will be feasible to do and remain profittable.

Once more it has nothing to do with pirating being not rewardable enough (since it is), but there just being to many systems for such a low online population. (remember the 22 sector universe with at least 2 pirates on the path to the big money... lets just say that getting through was not all that easy and that for this there was a gigantic amount as a moneyreward). but the problem with this was that it became to easy to do with the pirates being offline... and made for insaner amounts then we have now. (500k for a 15 minute trip...)

And once again another thread has become Rene complaining that pirates ruin the planet for everyone.

Ugh, im not complaining... I don't mind pirates (although actually I do... but you all know the reason but im not even talking about that in here). And seeing that this thread is about pirates (check the title...). I'm highlighting that we might need more pirates, but that that alone won't solve the problem. What we really need is more people playing to populate this universe. And asking for more people to be a pirate is nonsense as well... since if you keep the same population, more pirates will mean even more waitingtime to actually find 1 trader to pirate, although it might be easier to pirate this 1 trader. But do you really think that if he gets pirated on every run that he will keep on trading? Although getting pîrated on every run is impossible anyway I guess.

Nowhere did I say that pirates ruin the planet... I'm just bringing points forward that need to be considered in stead of just requesting for more pirates... since that won't help a thing either.

And I was really convinced that my previous post explained everyhting decently :( without being to focussed in my own ways. Nowhere I statd that pirats ruin the game for everybody... or that they shouldn't be in.

What I did say in short wordings:

1) they roleplay the evil bastards in the game since they take MY cargo from my hands that payed for it. (even if I like their personality and have fun playing with them... but their job still defines them as being evil)
2) being known as a pirate (good one), is as much an honour for them as being known as a goody old chap is for a POS dude and it has its own set of advantages. And also influences ego.
3) excitement is open to discussion and depends on view and person
4) Population is the key to making pirating more effective due to the utter low probability of meeting anybody in grey. not because of lack of traders or pirates (although this has also got an influence, but far minor then general population).
5) the moth needs to be changed to make it a bit less impenetrable but not a coffin either (meaning there has to stay a chance to get away from a pirate in it).
6) the difference between an empty cargoship and a loaded one is to different in abilities making it hard to balance non extreme loads (aka empty with heaviest load).

Please tell me where I state in these points that pirates are th ebane of evrybody????

I think we can all agree here that BLAK contains some of the best PvPer and traders in the game (Most of us are ex-traders who have our own mass fortunes that finance our ops) now then we have seen both sides of the coin some thing I'm sure most of you arm chair guys can't say.

Now then I think we can also easily see that when a group such as BLAK who we have established is vary good at just about any thing says some thing is hard then is must be hard. I mean if it's hard for us elite pirates then it is vary hard for the average McOwen trying to make a living killing traders.

Now so with all this established I say we wait for the devs to fix things. Whining ain't fix'in a thing.

They do have some good fighters, but I'd have to give that title to SoR.

They've got UncleDave, Phoenix, Icarus, and Prince Slaanesh