Piracy is a joke.

[Binski]

Yes this has been a probelm for a while now. I've sat on lanes four hours only to have a ship fly by you, despite the fact you hit out the lane! Thats a lovely feeling.

The probelm is the same root problem as a few things, we're low on players. PVP piracy was always hard on some level though, you could hunt for a while and lose the only ship you carch sight of because you hit the wrong button or a glitch works against you, and the odd time things might work in your favor. used to love following a trader cloaked into a lane and pray for an NPC trade lane disruption. Then you could pop out behind them before going to cruise and get them.

This point has been driven home often enough here lately, but we could use some new activities. Ironically though it seems that although we players want activity, many dont want to BE that activity, and dont want risk doing more. If you wa t the server to get better, we need to be willing to be the change. You gotta let go and not care if you get pirated, etc, at least sometimes. Mining shouldnt always be instant, and heaven forbid if we had more consumable commodities we be willing to ship them! Remember that new things to do will also attract new players looking for real things to do (of value to other players) in a space sim world.

The big ticker is purpose. Without a higher goal in mind, there's less reason to log. Discovery has become more and more closed over the years, and its a combo of player attitiude and peer pressure it seems. People dont come here anymore to invest their time and effort because of a wall that went up. People are afraid to do anything to rock the boat. I remember it was always more fun when people were trying to build bases to block routes or claim territory, get in turf wars. Now the attitude is everything bold is toxic, when its the supression of opportunity that is toxic.

Factions should be working on goals, goals they can actually achieve. All during the war I never understood why the navy or military factions wernt trying to build bases to defend systms, or retake them. It gets frowned upon! That is exactly the type of thing factions should be working on all the time. It should almost be mandated for OF's, instead of letting things go stagnant. These projects are reasons to consume and organize as a group.

Long story short, fix our reasons to trade and consume, fix up the economy, end the unwritten taboos and players will get back at it more.

Also, you can indeed still pirate with a Freelancer IFF! That's Sirius bud! Watch out.

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The Further Exploits of Captain Antares (August 2015) │ (alt) JonasHudson
*Argo | Special Operative ID (Approved Request)* | Argo Compilation Video
################ *Proposed OF Challenge System* ################
############### The Book of Piracy (Piracy Tutorial) ###############
############### Binski Alamo (Youtube Channel) ###############

[Username removed]

As someone who mained pirate for years, I can teach you some tips and tricks to make piracy profitable, thrilling and fun. Of course, the "fun" part is dependent on the players you interact with as a pirate, the biggest problem I found was metagaming from the trader's part. I could make different pirate chars, and I always got good catches, but as soon as the name of the characters became known for being pirates, suddenly the system I was in, any system, became void of activity, or I was getting ganked by militaries.

As soon as I log my pirate, I could see trader chars log off and military or hostile unlawful factions log on and come gunning for me, so I /renameme and suddenly piracy went without a hitch again, until the traders learned the new name.

What disgusted me playing pirate were the following reactions that I started getting increasingly often from traders:

1. They would try to fight their way out or escape through any means <- I don't mind this one, since I'm getting some action out of it myself but sometimes traders would start crying or raging to me in private messages, sometimes this was comical, sometimes it was pathetic, sometimes it was just annoying.

2. They would just stand still and not talk at all, or stall <- When this happens, I found it is often because they are spamming lawful emergency chats in Discord (Or Skype back in the day) to get me ganked, this is against the rules, but I can't prove it so I just have to deal with it as it comes.

3. They would let me kill them then switch to a combat char and stalk me around Sirius <- against the rules, but hard to prove, so I just deal with it as it happens.

Through experience I devised ways to overcome all of that, and the best and most profitable piracy is done in groups. If you want to team up send me a private message and I'll teach you the ropes

[Kalhmera]

The sad fact is, the lack of piracy also then adds to the lack of need for police factions. Whats the point of "patrolling" your ZOI as a police unit, when theres nothing to really police?

You should really take a look at the LPI- message dumps. There is a lot to police. As we are the most active police faction in discovery. There is always something to do as an officer.

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Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to struggle against entropy. - V. Havel

Amenhotep SRP Thread | Amenhotep Captains Log | Jean Holiday Dossier & Logs | Vermont History

[Maltz]

There is a lot to police.

Chasing donuts and "coffee".