Seeking rules clarification

[Baltar]

He was perfectly in his rights to attack you when you undocked. The re-engagement rule applies to to the person who has fled not coming back and starting a new fight, this is simply done to reflect the amount of time it takes to get a ship repaired etc.

He could stay there as long as he wanted demanding credits from you and then attack you when you undocked as you had run away not him.

He was both within the RP and PVP rules, which do actualy support one another.

So in short, yes you fled, and yes he could re-engage you. However if he had run away then he wouldn't be allowed to attack you unless you attacked him.

One problem here ... a transport is not a combat configured ship. A pirate is likely to only run if military or police show up with bigger guns. At that point, the pirate cannot engage the military or police that chased him away. But the Trader ID'd character is still open season.

Traders are not built for combat and thus are not intended for PVP. To use a trade vessel in a PVP situation is OORP. A trader firing their guns at a pirate does not make it PVP. It is self defense. And the guns a transport can mount are not capable of defeating much of anything except small NPC fighters. Oh ... and their good for mining operations as well. Other than that ... a trader's guns aren't worth much and you could not possibly win a PVP match ever.

Folks ... a pirate attacking a trader is completely different than two combat vessels in the heat of combat.

Now ... if you wanna apply these PVP rules to traders, then a trader that does not pay the tax and flees, dies, docks or whatever to avoid being pirated ... you'd have to not return to the system you got pirated for 4 hours or receive a sanction (which typically equates to all your credits and is kinda more expensive than paying the pirate). And since pirates tend to chase these traders all the way to the base they intend to sell their goods ... it would mean the trader would no longer be able to use that route for 4 hours. So bye bye diamond run. Oh yeah ... and if you hire mercs or bounty hunters ... if they engage the pirate while you escape ... you are still running and thus lost the right to trade for 4 hours.

So ... go ahead and push for applying a PVP rule to a piracy event. You won't get freedom to trade simply because you lost out (which a trader HAS to dock to sell his goods anyway). Problem is ... traders won't follow the 4 hour rule when they have a high paying route. I'd think a trader would rather pay 500k to a pirate when his average profit is upwards of 5-9 million credits. Come on man ... 500k is pennies to what you'd get on your daily take.

What you are actually trying to loophole here is for pirates to leave you alone so you can make billions of credits without any danger. Your argument is not based on role play. Your argument is to be able to make money without having to interact with anyone. Like most traders ... they would rather make their money free and clear without having to mess with those pesky pirates so the trader can buy that big shiny battle cruiser to hunt the pirate with.

I've got example after example of traders that will do anything to keep people from pirating them. Many of them are quoting rules that don't exist and complaining/whining about pirates taking their money. One of the most common is when they see me login, the immediately swap out of their trade vessels and pop into their capship (which seems to always come to Sigma 13 to hunt me down).

I'm a bit tired of these traders constantly loopholing the piracy role play. The house systems are extremely difficult to pirate in ... which is why I do everything I can to avoid pirating in house systems. Pirates should have the advantage in independent and rim systems ... but for some reason I see independent military/police in Liberty, Rheinland and Kusari vessels (with Military or Police IDs from those houses) flying about Sigmas. Role play is for everyone ... not just the house militaries, police, bounty hunters and mercenaries.

Do me a favor mazdamack ... if you're gonna trade in a transport ... role play a trader ... NOT a combat vessel.