First let me state I am not anti-pirate. It is a legit part of VO. However there are problems:

Noobs are being griefed inside nation space and even within NFZ areas with little real consequence.
Pirates lack the ability to work effectively and fairly because waiting for a payment allows players time to escape.This has created a shoot first enviroment.

My suggestions to balance all this out:
Create a Pay or No dialog to simplify payment and limit both player and pirate actions during the exchange. Turbo and weapons should be turned off for both parties and a short time limit setup to prevent abuse. Further reduce penalties for use of the dialog ie half standing losses if combat ensues. Perhaps the use of a piracy (tractor?) beam to hold both players together during the transaction would work. (While a boarding attempt is made?)

Increase station NFZ defenses by installing lethal turrents on each station. Attacking anything inside the NFZ should also result in severe faction penalties including loss of docking privledge for a week or so and a KOS for the sector. Also an exception should be made to allow for self defense.

Destruction of a noob in its own nation space should result in a nation-wide KOS for at least one hour issued by the nation goverment. One good defination for noob is combined levels below 10 or 15. (2/2/2/2/2 to 3/3/3/3/3)

Destruction of any unarmed ship should result in a sector wide KOS for an hour inside nation space.

Destruction of any ship without a prior hail/dialog inside nation space should cause loss of standing with all factions including corvus. Not even the mob tolerates indescriminite killers as they attract too much attention.

Faction standing increases might also be reduced/slowed for a few hours to simulate the distrust that such incidences create. It should take more then 15 minutes to repair the damage to a reputation of a pirate.

While I firmly agree with the "no place safe" policy, noobs are the lifeblood of any game and should be protected from excessive attacks for a short while. Those who openly prey on the weak are usually outcast in real life and should be in VO as well.

I forgot to mention acts of piracy should generate an anti-piracy mission to patrol the area and or a bounty hunt for the first to kill said pirate....

easy fix for the newb killings in UIT space PaKettle. Unbork the procurement missions. Twice unbork the faction system. And while we are at it (I know, not related) triple undo the FF issue...

As for the pay/shoot thingy, if you when you get hailed immediately press t and write k (for okay...) or really any indication that you wanna pay, we usually hold our fire.
However your own trade buddies (the I NEVAH PAY morons) fucks that option up sometimes and chooses to:
1. Shoot at the pirate at point blank
2. Time out
3. Explode.

When you have had a couple of those you tend to shoot first.
If you are not fast enough the pirate will often choose to tickle you a bit to speed things up. This is kinda the last warning.

If you do not want to pay, run (or fight) and expect no mercy

Azumi, proudly pirating for CLM in Hello Kitty Style since '07

which is why I suggested that here be a way to temp disable both sides so that there is a chance to have a conversation...I have been killed several time simply trying to surrender...it is borked on both sides

I have to say, I'm fine with pirates shooting first (I actually expect it). In fact, if a pirate offers me time to prepare myself to run or fight back, s/he deserves to get screwed over it.

I still think your suggestions are valid and might change the modus vivendi, so most of your suggestions (which are not taken care of by the faction system revamp and the friendly fire revamp) sound really good to me.

That said, what angers me more are people who expect me to fight 'fair' or 'honourably' (of course, by their own standards) just because they hailed me.

I should probably start writing in the past tense, though, since I haven't been playing for over half a year again. RL is Not A Nice Lady™.

Oh, I remembered. If you want to avoid getting boomed and can't hail back fast enough, STOP YOUR SHIP. That works pretty well too.

Tosh, it is a matter of surrendering somehow. And that needs this cooky kind of honour system where if the trader says s/he will pay, s/he actually does so. Otherwise that trader does not get pirated next time but griefed. And where is the fun in that?

Even if you are hailed you can always choose to ignore it and do whatever you want and no-one will hate you for it. You will probably not be hailed again though...

I have a solution for you Tosh.........try playing again:) VO life Is A Nice Lady

Anything that disables or interrupts/hampers control of a ship will be exploited. Please don't suggest anything of the kind again.

Pirates have been pirating for some time now, and they have a system. It works. I don't understand what needs to be fixed here.

Failing to equip armaments on your ship should provide you no extra protection.

While there should be no safe place, there should be a place that effectively equalizes the survivability of newbs, against even the most skilled and determined of newb killer. I would prefer changes to the combat model, such that half a dozen fighter types, be it either players or sf, chasing you in the station nfz should be reasonably effective.

Simple solution to the newb killing problem (if you actually think it's a problem)...

Combat 2 (or whatever) and under players are invulnerable to player fire. In return, fire from their ship will not damage any other player.

They can't be hurt by players and cannot hurt other players until they exceed that level no matter who shoots what at whom.

varonx: It's not a bad idea, but we also have to deal with "annoyance" cases.. people ramming other people, or jumping into the middle of some nation war or other event and being asses since no one can kill them. It basically only works if we restrict newbies to Capitol systems or some such. With system restriction it might be ok, though, and that is a part of the ongoing FF/Faction thing.

azumi: The procurement missions should be fixed as of last Friday. If they aren't, please let me know.

I am working on temp-KOS solutions (see the faction/FF RFC thread).

I can't kill standing with Corvus, leaving pirates nowhere to dock at all. I have no problem with limiting them to ONLY corvus, but they need to be able to dock somewhere, and have mechanics for standing recovery. Otherwise, people who accidentally kill some "unarmed" person or whatever else.. are essentially screwed.

I welcome further feedback on balanced no-safe-place ideas for helping protect newbies and letting them be nurtured/grow a little before having to run into all our evil-bastard Vets :).

I suppose you could make wormhole jumps require a certain amount of energy, and making it such that the starter power cells can't hold enough for a jump.

Perhaps an unaligned station where the worst of the worst can go? Perhaps with nothing but buses and a cargo mission for a faction or two? (too cruel?)

If nothing else the NFZ areas need massive upgrades in security. Killing anyone in the NFZ should usually result in the killers mandatory retirement....

Corvus is the place reserved for the worst of the worst. When you can't go anywhere else, you can still always go to Corvus. There are only 5 Corvus stations, all in grey space.

Can newbs really be reliably killed in station sectors with turrets? Starting sectors could have a patrolling TD or two or five if the turrets aren't enough. "Pirates" have Corvus and newbs have starting sectors. Beyond this though...

It was impressed upon me early on that traveling was dangerous. I adapted my behavior and my expectations to the game as it exists and now I expect all newbs to do the same. (Things work out for anyone who sticks around long enough and newbs should expect that they will have to learn how to play the game before they can compete.)

Punishing pvp in a game with an awesome combat model is... painful.

Let the newbs burn. Let them burn until they are either fireproof or dead and gone.

Of course I appreciate that most of you disagree with me on this.
/me shrugs

the issue is not so much newbs getting killed every once in a while or by wandering into grey. The problem is certain pirates make a point to hunt newbies and are griefing them inside NFZ areas at relatively secure locations. This is extremely frustrating to the beginner and needs to be controlled as it is very bad for VO's future. It would be nice to say the senior players behaved better but there is always one in every crowd that will insist on poor behavior.

The second part of the issue is the lack of an effective pirating system. The current model almost forces a shoot first method.

Would a tractor beam to temporarily hold ships work for the pirates (and yes it could create a new attack method). It could also allow extra ships to be towed around as well. Boarding and ransoming the ship might also become a possibility...

I understand that newbs are getting killed in nation space and think that the game is better off for it.

PaKettle: can you cite some of the "relatively secure locations" where newbies are being griefed? I recently reworked the nation defenses, to a point where (trade-mission bug notwithstanding), piracy inside of Capitol systems (Dau, Arta) should be challenging after a couple of kills. Now, outside of Dau and Arta, piracy is less challenging and more possible.. especially near minor-faction stations and the like. Right now I'm trying to make the capitol systems secure, and the rest of nation space is mostly just kind of "mildly secure", in that there are at least border defenses and the like.

I personally have been griefed in Nyrius (g-2 i think) by Inco with 4 kills in a row - only 1/2/2/3/3 (or so) at the time as I recall, He made it extremely difficult to leave the sector as I was homed there. I have also encountered and died by Inco in Dau system as well. In my first two days playing Inco killed me roughly 10 out of twelve times...I got over it but the experiance was more then frustrating. (I no longer home in either system)

I was pirated by Fusionburn literally in front of the launch bay at Verasi c-4 who boomed me while I was sorting out a control/lag issue and apparently his standing was such that after 3 more engagements he still had little trouble remaining in c-4. Additionally during this engagement I recieved a warning from Valent that Fusion was under valent protection and a strike force was dispatched for ME....This particular incident ended after I got fusion and left the sector before he could relaunch. I relocated to dau afterwards. Fusions behavior after the first boom was fine but his ability to remain at the station after he attacked me sitting dead and control-less 10 meters in front of the station exit clearly indicated that the defenses were no threat to him. I was 4/4/4/5/5 and admired by valent at the time. While I was not exactly a noob, it was pretty clear that Fusion could have simply prevented me from ever leaving If I was unable to kill him....

From the chatter I have heard I am not the only one But you may have to do some searching to find others who have not found this forum....

Did I mention installing a few turrents directly on the stations might help?

Inc.: I didn't use the procurement missions so I am the wrong person to tell you. Maybe yoda or Retractile can chip in here.

PaKettle:
What you have described is not piracy. That is griefing. A pirate gains nothing from station killing you UNLESS you have been an idiot and interfered with something in a very rude manner, been vocally abusive or the like. Newb killers will always be there and they WILL kill you inside the NFZ and everywhere outside of the capitol stations. If you have too many problems, voice them on 100, there are loads of players that will help out, some of them pirates as well.

Note that the function of the NFZ is to launch a strike force if it is violated, nothing else. Pirates routinely kill inside the NFZ when traders run for it to much happiness for all (mostly us I reckon). VO is supposed to be dangerous, especially in Grey and somewhat in UIT space. If you want to be completely secure, go trade in Itani space.

The current pirate system works very well. If you want to pay, state it. If you don't want to, take your chances. You can state it on 100 as well, we listen.

Pointsman: Yeah. I agree. It is supposed to be deadly, also inside nation space. But there has been an exploit that needs to be (and is now as of last friday hopefully) stopped. That way only the most dedicated pirates can use nation space to pirate and grey reclaims its status as THE dangerous place to be. What I would like to see is some means of moving around with fake ID and thus allow the odd pirate to pop some of those traders that are deep in nation space only. But that is for another thread.

Azumi, Pirating for CLM in Hello Kitty Style since '07

Homing in an unsafe place without adequate levels or experience was rather unfortunate.

The second time though you could have purchased a hog2 and escaped fairly easily.

Maybe we shouldn't allow new players to rehome to a non capitol system station until they have achieved combat four or something.

My homing choices were indeed poor but I was led there by various missions for Valent. Not allowing rehoming might help but noob killers dont have any real respect for those boundries.

All attempts to pay pirates have resulted in my death. At what point does piracy become nothing more then an excuse? Most pirates dont actually need the money and there is no current way for them to safely collect it anyway. Granted this is likely how it would be is actual space but the situation does result in a lot of hard feelings and most traders are going to simply shoot first rather then risk being destroyed out of hand by the pirate. I personally dont bother anymore as it is not worth it.