Something disturbing I have noticed during my pirate-trader interactions

[Trogdor]

Probably not, Lyth. If trade profit were buffed, traders would make money faster. There are pros and cons to this, and no easy answers.
On one hand, people may earn what they need to make that ship they want, and then stop trading. Traders disappear->pirates disappear->police and military disappear->server population dies.
On the other hand, if money came in more easily, maybe someone else would be motivated to keep trading longer, and make more ships than they would have otherwise. And paying the pirate a couple mil wouldn't be such a blow to one's sense of 'I am making good use of my time'. Maybe after an encounter with a pirate, one would not be so inclined to think their time would be better spent elsewhere. But again, there is also a strong argument to be made for 'too much money kills the server'.


I must admit I am guilty of much of what's in the OP. I simply hate losing in general. Ironically, the more even/fair the encounter is, the more likely I am to stop and roleplay, because I know doing so puts me at risk. If I'm a transport and my assailant is a cruiser, I'll give 'em a taste of the ol' filibuster (aka wild goose chase). I am also highly likely to do this if it's obvious someone is hunting me using the player list (Lately, a certain KuBC has a fixation with my junk...er.)

I vividly remember many occasions where I have gone out of my way to waste a pirate's time. The best ones involved 100k loops above the New London system, or jettisoning and shooting my cargo a moment before my ship explodes. When possible, I will avoid the encounter entirely, avoiding systems that may have pirates or switching to another trader/character.

I hate losing, and I especially hate losing badly. I can't take it in stride, I get pissed off. I'm sorry.

I am also bad at playing villains. I just can't make myself be a jerk to people, because now the power is in MY hands. Even on my new pirate character, his demand is something along the lines of "Pay me 2 million credits, or I will show you... MY JUNK!" This and other factors make for an interesting (if silly) gray-area pirate.


Some suggestions:
1) server-magic all sell prices server-wide to be much more profitable during the daytime when the server is full. Don't know if this is possible but I think it could do wonders for encouraging people to trade when pirates and escorts may be found.
2) Come up with some sort of piracy system that generates income for the pirates but does not drain income from the trader. The piracy is now purely in-roleplay. Come to think of it, this may not be a bad idea, because maybe you could set up some kind of flhook that would only let you pirate a person once per (t) time, encouraging pirates to wander around looking for different people to 'rob' (which could be as simple as demanding they stop for 5-10 seconds, you activate your piracy device, it pays you, and the trader goes on their way, not having lost anything oorp)

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