The /givemoney really needs to stay. As stated by CrippledPidgeon, it helps between friends/squad mates. Also some of us, when we see a "real n00b" will give 5 or 10 K. Trust me it helps retain them sometimes. It allows them to fill out their hold, afford a decent batt etc...

Now, as to the old "hire and escort" business. To those that just blurt that out as a knee jerk reaction to the ever and on going pirate discussions. Have you ever tried to hire one? Do you know just by looking at the on line player page, just who will drop everything to escort? No?? Hmm....

OK, here is what I would like to propose as an idea for a pilot to hire themselves out, and advertise it. We already have that news tab thingy right? OK, so what if you could say, thru the Martial NPC, you could add or remove your name to a posted list as an escort/merc similar to the way bounty hunting works now. Pilots could read the list, see who is available, then just /msg them and make the deal in private. When a player who has posted him self as an escort/merc logs for the day, his name simply drops off the list.

Cheers!
~GW
_____________________________
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders.
Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.

Just ask the pirate who's causing the problems to escort you. Worked for me when I was a peaceful trader. Sputnik even carried cargo for me. Black Lance may be pirates but they are still true to their words. (To the best of my knowledge anyway :P)

Little Red Haired Girl! I'm in love.... *sigh* Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love. :-(

Ok, gotta come up w/ something ontopic now. I agree w/ the original poster that I'd like to see pirates go after cargo more, but I'd say removing or restricting /givemoney would be a very bad solution. Really, it's not something that the devs can do anything about, it's totally up to the players who play as pirates. So I'd like to invite Martin & Shape & all the rest of our pirates to start flying ships w/ decent cargo space, and challenging players to either /givemoney 20000 or jettison the cargo, letting the target decide. And if the target decides to try to run while carrying cargo, and gets destroyed, the pirate will be able to grab some of the cargo & make money selling it.

Oops. I actually posted the one from Little Red Haired Girl. I was using my girlfriends computer at the time.

Two problems with that Beolach.

First is that traders will often be carrying rubbish, such as food or nothing at all. By the time you check to see what the cargo is they've gone.

Second is the length of the challenge. It has to be pretty short, to the point and as universal as possible. I can't spam a client with several lines detailing what it will take for me not to cease protecting them. By the time they've read it and made up their mind I'll have shot them.

Finally I have to ask, why? At the moment getting money isn't much of a problem. Pirates don't ask for much and it's a consistent way of dealing with "clients"

Should've know she'd be taken. I love Peanuts.

If they're carrying nothing, then it's no different than in you just demanded money - either they pay, or try to run. If they're carrying 'rubbish', then they're either pretty poor, or not very good traders. And it doesn't take all THAT long to check what it is, I know from people dropping decoy cargo in CtC.

What's so long about "Arrr! Surrender yer cargo or 20k credits, or I'll take it out of your hull!"?

As for why, for Role Playing of course. And even if their cargo is 'rubbish', if you have enough hold to cart to market, it is SOME profit. If you're flying something that doesn't have squat cargo space, then the one and only possible way to make money is if they pay. And if most traders really do carry 'rubbish', then change the demand to "cargo AND 20k credits".

Anyway, it's really not that big a deal, IMO, it's just that I would role-play a pirate rather differently than most of our current pirates.

I support the proposition (as probably expected :D)

Anyway, in my eyes you are a pirate if you take the CARGO or when you ask for a safetydeposit, but I never expect pirates to do all the effort of stopping the traders ship and then NOT taking the cargo. However, I do see bribing being used to not let them be stopped by a pirate, so to give them free passage in pirateterritory but you pay this money in advance. And probably in a station.

And you do this in advance, not in the heat of the moment...

And sorry to all the other people that have posted above and did not fully agree, but if you consider cargo worthles then you are not a pirate but just a PK-er. And your using the piratingname to try to make randomly killing people normal. Since that is all you want, you value the pk-kill higher then the cargo you received.

However, I do agree that the /givemoney command has got its benefits, and because of that I propose to keep it active in newbieterritory(so nationterritory). Since if I have to wait for a newbie to dock to give it 10k then that is going to take ages... And it will probably also be easy to make it possible in groups...

cheers

I would rather give money then cargo. This is due to the fact that I really only trade in grey space for: 1) Faction, in which I would rather pay 25k (or some times more when I'm feeling like ;) ) then lose my mission. 2) One one of my good trade routes too grey space. On this route I can make in a centa 50k per run, the 25k I may have to pay only cuts in to my money a little bit, but it's still cheaper then dumping my cargo. 3) I bringing ore outta grey space, in which I'll make almost 200k a run, now on this run when I see a pirate, I've alreay sent the money before he asked lol.

As a part time trader I can tell you I would much rather pay a little money then lose more money in the long run.

Borb and so you can, but you do it in advance or you offer it.

If you keep your word they know that they can get money from you, if you don't keep your word they will pirate you on any occasion they see you, but at least it is pirating and not an excuse for pk-ing.

However if I have to give 25k to every pirate I meet I would be flat out broke.

PS: not to mention that when they are flying a valk they can only take along x amount while you can pikc up th erest and still make off with more then your 25k invested.

There are no pirates in this game. Removing /givemoney will only punish the good players, those that use it for a valid purpose. The "pirates" are just excuses for griefers who don't want the cargo so much as they want the PK.

roguelazer,

if you remove it but keep it available in places like nationspace and in groups I don't see a problem for the good players.

Not to mention that it will show hopefully finally the difference between a 'pirate' and a pure pk-er or a griefer or a bully or however you want to call it.

cheers

Let me point out why I started asking for money. Since I actually don't remember anyone asking for anythin other than cargo before me:

1. Often, they're on a mission, if they give up their cargo, they lose standing. So they're just not going to. They would MUCH rather just give some money, and it becomes a cost of raising faction.

2. Ships with cargo holds just don't dogfight or run like ships with cargo holds. Mauds are nice, but the Corvus maud, the only one that I know of that breaks 200, only hits 220. If I'm flyin a ship with 60 drain, I want that sucker to hit 240.

3. An empty cargo hold for them, resulting in a Pk by me, still leaves them out of however much money that ship cost. In the case of a centaur this can be as much as 35k. I'd like to give them an opportunity to keep that ship.

I don't make much pirating, in fact, considering that I also fight a lot. I think I'm kinda scrapin by. And you want to make it even harder? Does anyone actually use it? Nobody actually pays. Though I do take the time to warn them.

notice the /givemoney command? no you don't, it doesn't exist for you anymore. Never underestimate the power of denial.

"You seem to think pirating is easy". So it's not? Suits me. I just think /givemoney is too easy.

Rene, but I don't know who is gonna be on my trade route. Why should I give out money if I don't even know if the pirates gonna be there.

You don't have to give 25k to ever pirate you see cuz you don't play. ;p

Heh, only a fool pirates in the new valks. lol But you do have a good point.

waleran, yes the /givemoney is easy, nice and easy for every one. Even if the pirate is out for a kill, 25k is less then you would spend on a heavy ship (most heavy ships cost 30k+ Hogs and fighters pimped right only 15ish k) regardless some times it's even cheaper to pay up then to lose the ship. 25k is vary cost effective.

I definately agree that it should be left in, though its sad that cargo isn't a viable option. Its just that for the trader the cargo is their entire reason for being there so they may as well die rather than give it up, and for the pirate the cargo means having to find somewhere to sell it and fly a slower ship to carry it.
If they could find some way to make the cargo more valuable for the pirates (maybe increase the buy AND sell prices of cargo everywhere) then players wouldn't have to rely on the givemoney command.

Whether they change it or not though, i'll never willingly give anything to a pirate! Partially because I am a proud Serco who would never try to buy off an attacker, but also because being shot at makes trading a helluva lot more interesting :D

That is exactly the reason Borb,

If you meet nobody during your tradingtime you pay nobody.

If you get blasted once during your tradingroute, you offer a bribe to the person of xk, so he leaves you alone. Or even during flight when yuou meet him you offer him the bribe. Its their prerogative to take it or not. However beiong able to wire such a big amount of money in the midst of the most dangerous place is foolish.

Imagine going into the slums and backalleyes of New York and getting out your banccard to transfer 25k for every possible pirate opr scallywag you meet.

Not to mention that know the traders have to rely completely on the goodness of the pirate, while in th eother case you either loose money or a ship since you are safe and back in a station with your cargo once you transfer the money. If you take advantag of the the goodness of the pirate, he will kill you anyway and make off with the cargo, so then it is the traders fault. But otherwise you give 25k, he blows you up and runs with the cargo. You might not pay anymore but its still semi easy to blow you up.

PS Borb 2, I was posting in retrospectus :D, and if I had given every pirate I met during beta even only 10k credits to let me pass I would have been poor. Even if I had stashed away like 20 mill (or wa sit more, I remember once having 1 bill :D) Now that was a fun time blowing myself up on icarus :D

Borb, and yes I know that only a fool pirates in a valk, it was however just a way to indicate if the persopn comes to me in a ship decked out for complete fightingpurpose and practical no hold, I will maybe consider dropping a couple. If he however comes to me in an atlas or a wraith, I will duke it out and that the best may win, unless I know that he can beat me square in it. Anyway I prefer losing a complete ship then giving one bloody pirate one dime of my hard-earned money. I only miss the fakecargo the contains a nuke :(. Drop all cargo and when he picks it up BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM one dead pirate :D

But anyway, 25k is to much to just hand out, in any trade 10k is more then enough (meaning 10 - 15% of your revenue). You will be foolish to give a pirate immediately like 40 - 50% of this trades revenue. This will especially become even worse once more and more people enter the game and we see more and more pirates surface(reference to the 25 sector game).

I'm just going to reiterate a point I made on the first page.

Take away /givemoney and you want get a warning. You'll be blown up just to see what you're carrying. /Givemoney actually makes my form of piracy more difficult because I have to hail them first and let them know that I'm in the sector chasing them.

martin,

a good trader knows that you are in the sector before you hail him. The times I press x just to scroll through the people around me are numbeous, or pressed u just to check where a certain dude was ihn the sector or if he was even in here.

Your hailing is just there to make sure that you get money in stead of cargo, since you know just as well as me that taking the cargo and delivering it back for the money takes time and patience and decreases your income. Which naturally means that you can't do a mission at the same time or any other sort of multitasking.

Like I state, if people go back to the shoot first ask questions later, then in my opinion it are not pirates but pk-ers.

Fine, we're Pk'ers. If you want to make a semantic argument, YAY.

Doesn't change that we'll kill you and take your cargo.

It does in fact do a lot, at least to me.

Since pirates have a room in the game, pk-ers don't. Since pk-ers always lead to grieving in one way or another. But that is only my opinion. And im just being vocal about it.

Nothing less nothing more.

Player killers have a place in this game. If they didnt you wouldnt be able to damage other players. Unless of course being able to damage others was a bug, but im fairly positive its intentional. Having such a wide selection of weapons and all.

If you want true pirating something will have to be done so it doesnt take a pirate a week to make what a trader pulls in in an hour.