one can tax an empty vessel, but one cannot pirate it. the point is - when you tax someone, you usually give him the "right" to roam through your space for a certain time. there are people that charge a trader large amounts, saying that "they make a tenfold" of that amount in the meantime.
then there are those that tax a trader each time they see him, but only a smaller amount based on the current cargohold they have.
the difference is, that the earlier are pirates that do not care for what cargo they have, but tax players on an abstract base of whats possible on this specific route. - the later are true pirates that do "on the spot business".
both ideas of taxing are legal, - but the later one is more appropriate in a way. - the first method allows you to tax an empty vessel though, - mind, the trader may not be willing to pay much, cause firstly, he makes no profit on that run ( and will not suffer a lock out time ) and secondly - you aren t even sure if he ll return on that route at all.
so, you CAN try to tax an empty trader - unless your faction demands you to be a true pirate ( xenos for example )
edit: you can pirate in a starflier if you like. - you can also seriously trying to attack a battleship in a starflier. - but it won t make sense and will be a waste of time. - but of course you can pirate in a VHF or something that has the chance to take down a transport. - if you stick to faction RP weapons, not many factions have a chance to take a heavy transport down though. - only factions with access to heavy shield busters and decent hull busters may do so ( xenos may have problems, as they don t have access to shield busters, or do they? )
As far as the OPG are concerned, we tax half your cargo, if you have cargo, if you don't have any cargo, we tax you 2 mill or 1 mill depending on the size of your ship.
But as jinx said, it depends on the pirate, but to answer your question, yes you can 'pirate' an empty ship, but usually best to ask for a smaller amount.
If any trading ship is flying empty then the captain has either not learned or forgotten the first law of trading, never fly empty, if you do you're wasting time and losing profits.
As for this discussion, if the traders are exempt from the 4-hour-death rule then they're fair game each and every time they fly past.
Doesn't matter to me if they refuse and die each time either, they decided to refuse, they decided to fly past me again and they decided to refuse my demand after finding out what happens the first time.
' Wrote:If any trading ship is flying empty then the captain has either not learned or forgotten the first law of trading, never fly empty, if you do you're wasting time and losing profits.
Or he's new, doesn't know all the routes yet and/or is exploring?
for what its worth, pirating someone doesn t happen cause you want to spoil the traders fun, - on the very contrary you want to add something to his gameplay. - if anything you do affects the other person in a very negative way, one should stop it.
its not worth insisting on taxing when there is stimply no reason to tax someone. - if someone is flying empty with no intent to harm my pirates faction in any way - i would put me and my ship into danger by attempting to tax that person - which would be ooRP for my person. - i d only work if there is a good profit opportunity, - and traders that fly empty usually do not present a good profit opportunity - so i d only attack him, if i was after a kill - which as a consequence is ooC.
i wouldn t tax everything that moves, cause its mindless. - pirates have a responsibility, too. switching the brain off is no fun for anyone around the pirate. - every target should be considered individually. - so i would of course stop a trader, - but on clover i let quite enough trader simply pass if they do not offer enough profit for the efford.
I meant that can you pirate a player flying fighter and not have the trader ID? I'd distinct between pirating and taxing like Jinx has said.
You can tax everybody, but pirate only traders.
I think I'll start a new topic on faction principle on taxing/pirating if they have one. Should make it a bit clearer to everybody involved what to expect. Pirates in the faction as well as their victims.
:$A pirate trying to tax / engaging a military / Police craft is just plain RP stupidity
:)RP Pirating Logically a pirate on seeing a military / Police craft entering the area should make haste for the nearest safe system.
:crazy:Yes of course if the military / Police craft entered a system controlled by pirate faction, then the pilot of said craft life insurance would soon be paying out to a loved one.