Piracy

[Janus]

I've had mixed results with pirates, my most annoying one entirely my own fault, forgetting I had a unmounted Disco scanner on board ofr another character and flying blissfully through Cali thinking the pirates weren't going to pay me any notice. I don't begrudge the LR- that took it at all, serves me right.

That said, I've had or witnessed some very positive results with pirates. My son's been pirated twice, once for as much cargo as the pirate could carry, which was about a 1/4 of my son's cargo as I recall.

Another time, he manage to convince a pirate to swap, as his was more valuable than the pirates. As my son is only 13, I was rather impressed by his negotiation.

I personally have two active traders. On is entirely RP and until earlier today was in a Camara. He's been pirated twice that I remember. Once was right after I bought the Camara, I had no credits left after getting as much boron on as I could afford (about 3/4 full). Couldn't pay the junkers outside Pittsburgh and got destroyed. I was hauling oxygen after that.

I got caught again today by a pair of rogues in Cali, one with a rather interesting ship choice. The iniitial demand was 2mil for each pirate. 4mil from a Camara pilot seems a bit rich to me, but it didn't end there. One of the pirates decided he wanted a bar of gold instead, the other I negotiated down to 400k. .

Was I annoyed after the junkers blew me up? Yes, it was bad timing and I really don't expect to get pirated outside Pittsburgh. Was I annoyed about getting caught in Cali today? Not at all. I fly through Cali knowing the risks, that's my choice. There are lots of other routes I could take, but my RP for that character is a Libery trader and a lot of his routes go through Cali then spread out from there.

Thinking about it, there was a 3rd time in the middle somewhere, a simple, reasonable cash demand. I paid it and moved on.

On the flip side, I have a Behemoth up in Dresden that hasn't been stopped once. It's on a pure power trading route for the express purpose of financing a Hogosha "pirate" and a smuggler. And it's desperately dull. As soon as I've made the 100mil I need, it'll get junked. Some people can powertrade, I've watched my boy run the same route over and over for hours on end. Me, I like my trading to be more interesting. If it takes longer to make money, so what? Sometimes I find myself wishing for pirates just to break up the monotony.