what needs to be defined is "what is piracy?" then. is piracy only collecting the cash from a trader? - is it the act of threatening the trader to shoot him down? or is it maybe only the act of shooting him down. does piracy start when the demand is made? or does it start once the trader has been stopped. are escorts part of piracy? are incoming units supporting the trader part of the piracy?
i do not think its about loopholes here. - its a suggestion/advice for those that plan to take part in a pirating event in something bigger than a gunboat. - it is in the eye of the beholder what is actually the act of piracy. - and when in doubt, i don t believe its the trader who ll take the blame, but the warship captain.
the point is. the warship captain will activly meddle with the event, - while the trader will passivly react. - the trader does not force the piracy event to progress - its the pirate who will initiate and keep the event running. if a cruiser interferes there, the cruiser captain will do it cause he chooses to. ( if escorts do actually attack the cruiser and take its shields down by 50% or more, the self defense rule applies ) - but if the cruiser itself remains untouched, he should not take part in the event.
while many of your said that "you don t mind" - you may allways meet a trader who does mind. and then, the rules will rahter punish the pirate cause - like i said, he activly chooses to interfere.
the trader and piracy rules are quite clear. - they state "no act of piracy in anything bigger than a gunboat" - loopholing is to try to make warships part of the piracy ( an utterly unnecessary wish as it is not needed for pirating )
we allready stated that warships are pretty precious - and when used for such a lowly act of simple piracy, they are wasted resources. - while the rules and the relative trader safety may be considered metagaming, the use of warships for piracy may be considered ooRP. ( and i yet have to see the hardes of BHGs rush towards the pirate to take it down )
i do not have a trader, btw. and i have a pirate ( bomber ). only once time i had a cruiser attack head up to me while i was pirating ( in leeds ) ... i retreated at that point. - thats what a pirate is supposed to do when facing such an overwhelming enemy. the gaians do not have the resources to deploy even a gunboat - sort of ( farmers don t have gunboats and the corsairs are quite reluctant to give one to the gaians ). i claim to be quite successful as a pirate - cause when i pirate, i pirate and i don t fight those that want to attack me ( or only if i am left no chance ) - i m not after pvp, - the most successful piracy is one that does not involve any weaponfire.
i really don t know where you allways get the dozens of warships chasing a fighter. - but my guess is somewhere in liberty, cause it never happened to me in bretonia.
ps.: the term "i believe.." means that i don t claim my opinion to be right. - it marks my opinion on this matter - and you can either be convinced by my arguments or not, - i don t really care much about what you decide on. but when i am the pirate, i will NOT tolerate a destroyer or bigger to interfere with my piracy. if you do, its your decission.