Pirate: Profitable or just Trader Torture?

[Hone]

So wait, was the question

"Is piracy a good source of income"

or was it

"Is piracy a source of income on par with trading and mining"


Because if it is the later, then it was a rather stupid question to begin with.

Read the OP. The question is "is it profitable?" the answer is clearly yes.

Not really. "Pirating earns less than mining/trading" maybe. But you said:

Don't play a pirate if your goal is to make money.

It simply doesn't work that way. Pirating often costs money in the end,

Yah....I would say that all of the ammo and bot rebuys over the course of the years vs the money I've made would probably about equal out.

I also wasn't really concerned about making money, so I've never asked for more than 2 million. I think I may have asked for 5 on a few gold haulers, but it wasn't often.

Had I been asking for 10-15 mills, which is entirely justifiable for ore haulers, then I probably would come out on top.

I wasn't doing it for the money though. It was fun to be a bad guy, especially considering my true nature is about as opposite as you can get from that (or I think so anyways).

Maybe I'm just too nice to be a successful pie-rat. Who knows....

I cannot believe your ammo/regens cost so much, but maybe it is cos you ask small amounts, I generally ask half the cargos value.

Personally, pirating is often easier than mining, trading or doing missions because I generally enjoy playing as a pirate so it's more convenient for me.

Quite.

---

User was banned for: Griefing others
Time left: (Permanent)

[Bootsiuv]

Read the OP. The question is "is it profitable?" the answer is clearly yes.

Ok. Fair enough. It is profitable, especially if you asked for more than I do.

It's just never something I saw as a money making endeavor. I did it because, like I said, it was fun to be a bad guy for a change.

If you are doing it to make money, then changing your name frequently is probably not a bad idea.

Even so, if your end goal is to make money, then your wasting your time, as the time is far more efficiently spent on mining/trading.

That was really my point....muddled as it may seem (I blame pot).

---

[sindroms]

To each their own.

---

--------------
PSA: If you have been having stutter/FPS lag on Disco where it does not run as smoothly as other games, please look at the fix here: https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2306502
----------

[Hone]

Im about halfway between spaz and boot.

I pirate for fun AND profit, I see no reason to exclude one for the other. I dont change my name, for the cred, the sense of character, the thrill and cos it makes my hardcore chars easier to keep track of. But I do try to squeeze as many credits out of victims as I can.

---

User was banned for: Griefing others
Time left: (Permanent)

[Bootsiuv]

So...I think a good answer for the op is.

Yes, it can be profitable, but it DOESN'T have to be to still enjoy yourself. Sometimes you just wanna kill something (I blame marriage).

Before an uprowr of raeg ensues...the last line was a joke. Have fun. It's what I do.

---

[KaiserDietz]

Pirating is downright more exciting than trading, imo. And pirating as a group is even more fun. There are more RP opportunities than the passing hello, and its more rewarding to catch or chase your prey rather than Pick it up from a commodity dealer.

---

[DarthBindo]

Getting ganked all the time sort of blows after a while, especially when your goal is to rp with some traders, and maybe blow up a few for ish and giggs.

Piracy is not just sitting at a lane and waiting for something to pop on the scanner. It is about moving around, checking for danger, tracking possible targets, tracking possible threats, making sure you stay as anonymous as possible while you do it. At some point in the video I actually mention how I am surprised people tend to say how ''well known'' their pirates are, because that is the direct opposite you want, when you pirate for the sake of money.

I keep my name for the street cred. When people see me in the lane they will know who I am and that if the ***** with me they end up dead. .

To each their own.

It's funny, beacuse despite having led two trading factions (including the most powertrader one of them all) I've always hated trading, except in large groups.
All of the multiple billions of credits i've made over the course of my discovery career have been siphoned off the ore miners of Dublin and Omega-7.
If you want to make any sort of real credit with piracy, it has to happen on ore miners and ore haulers. Other traders, even with the best trade routes, simply don't make the margins to pay more than two or three million credits, especially if they might have to pay it twice or more along a long trade route.
I've found that anywhere from 5 to ten million credits for a full 5k of ore is a pretty good bound on your piracy demands, minimizing the runners while still turning a tidy profit on each one.
Obviously ore piracy is a bit dependent on the relative balance between miners and pirates, so it does suffer in relability. You can't pirate for five hours and expect to make a steady profit, but you can usually have a half hour raid pull in 60 mil credits.
You can totally make money with piracy, but it is skill-based rather than the simple, repetitive point, click, pull up Freelancer Companion, point, click that is trading.
If you type slowly and spell poorly, and perform only the rote requirements for piracy, you will end up performing quite a bit more poorly than someone who goes above and beyond.

---

gone four years, first day back: Zoners still getting shot in Theta :|

[hungry-bank]

It can be profitable but depends on which type of traders you end up.
For example, I around Liberty had 1/4th of the traders suicidal, they were like take me my life, I don`t care I won`t pay you 100,000 credits or the silent guys.
Maybe if the prices would increase, traders would learn to apreciate their life and not be so... I don`t know how to call them

[Core_One]

Well, I'm pirating Ore traders in Tau-31. If they don't pay, I kill them and sell ore on Harris. Just profit everytime.

---

[Wraga]

Personally I prefer the "bad boy side" and as I realised it could be profitable if you play it well.
Since there are a lot of traders, miners who works for their new toys, you can make 50-100 mios / day, but you need to be online a lot.

Btw, I play the "bad boy side" for fun, not for money, and since I was lucky enough to play with the Joker and meet sometimes with Phate and others I know how to enjoy the "dark side" of this game.

You can keep alive your chars by piracy but since there are many other options to get fast money, just focus on the roleplay and to enjoy your time on the server.

---