The old 'rats weren't very smart, which was frustrating considering all the cool things one could do with an actual group to work with. It's a blessing that they're gone, but if they ever decide to come back, I have some ideas to make the experience more enjoyable for pirate and traders alike. I've found that an excellent way to make my computer do what I want it to, is to communicate with it the way I would people in groups. Simply, yet fully, but most importantly with as little grey area as possible, so as not to expose their lack of judgement. So as you read this, go ahead and imagine I'm speaking about people who are unimaginative, and lazy so that they only do exactly as you told them.

Blockade -

There would be a group on either of the Odia WH's who's goal would be to chase down and kill anyone not flagged as "okay". This group could further be designated into in-sector chasers, and inter-system chasers. On the other side of the WH's, into Sedina and Bractus would be a group who's primary purpose is simply to receive intruders, friendly at first. They'd hail anyone entering the system not flagged as "okay" that if they want to pass through Odia, they'll pay in credits or blood. This group would shoot you in the back if you tried to jump without being "okay". With this method, if the welcomers are indisposed for whatever reason, noone gets through until things are organized again. The benefit of the doubt goes to the unrats killing everything that moves.

A similar setup could be used for Sedina and Bractus, but a group of designated chasers would need to be available in O-6 and B-14 respectively, since if the welcoming committee was unavailable for their chasing quick paced individuals around the universe, it would put an unnecessary wait on those wishing to politely fork over their belongings to pass through to Odia.

Hunting -

Another fun aspect about pirates is that like bears, they're scary and they want your honey. This idea is for a group that would actively seek out others for their cargo, and life, excepting of course those who are flagged as "okay" from the above blockade scenario. These fellows would shoot literally anything that moves. Since they're only interested in your ship's cargo, and not playing around, after hailing a message that explained their intentions, they'd open fire until your ship entered a range of velecity between 0m and 6m/s. Leaving the sector would make them mad and chase you. However, you could choose to buy them off, at which point you'd be "okay" until after you left the sector. (So two chance met raiding groups couldn't raid you both at once.)

Raiding -

The difference here is that the pirates know where they're going. Certain ships would tend to have certain priorities for certain targets. CorVults and CorvMauds would like to go after 'moths and the like, whereas Warthogs might head for the escorts first. This group would stick together, because everyone would say they're ready when they're 3000m away from any large object, and noone would jump until he heard everyone else say they were ready. Likewise, they wouldn't opt to start picking up cargo until it was deemed "time to go", which would only happen when any threat became too large, which could be judged by heavy losses, and detection of a large number of hostiles, or too little (no enemies). Such a collection of pirates might undock from a station upon hearing from another pirate that a large convoy of traders was headed that way. The beauty is that since certain ships have their certain favorite targets, the group launched could be intelligently determined from the types of ships in the convoy.

I think it should be linked to the voys, so voys would be sent to the blockade, and cargo could be easily picked up by an unrat moth and sold, the person joining the mission would get a chunk