pirate demands (again)

[Epo]

Back on topic...........

Last night, I was flying a base construction ship (full) and was pirated by an official faction member who demanded that I drop the whole lot. I tried to negotiate, but got killed. I was more than happy to pay, cos that's part and parcel, but I got the distinct impression that whoever it was did it purely to pee me off, cos of the time it takes to amass that cargo. After all, it's not worth that much.

I suppose there's a chance they wanted to build a base themselves, but I doubt it.

Not cool. Really not cool.

Just a tip: Move ur BCP to the destination place, but haul all the pob stuff in different ships. Then just ask someone you know to move it from transport to BCP. That's how we did it in the past. Usually if people see you wflying with full pob stuff, they will want the whole sheep, but I've met indie Hessians in the past and managed to leave just for 2mil after some RP Try to RP, try to talk, talk even if pirate doesn't want to talk. Talk him to death and he will demand lower amount of stuff if he isn't a troll.

And in reply for that:

You loss your cargo, you are better off telling them to just kill you, because it's faster then continuing on the route, that way you can pick up a fresh load instantly, don't bother to rp, just tell them to kill you or run into the nearest planet or ignore them until they kill you, they want to ruin your run and waste your time, also do this if they ask for the price that you would get for selling the cargo if you are not close to the dropoff point because it saves a bit of time.

The attitude that is killing the server is allowing pirates to be ****s to traders.
We didn't have this problem back in the day when there were strict demand limits, as soon as those were gotten rid of pirates started demanding 5 mil, 10 mil, often even more, since then all pirates have wanted is blue messages, before that they were great, they'd demand a few mil, you'd pay, and everyone would be happy because everyone got a few credits and no one had all their time wasted.

Whoa. I've been here for, like, twelve seconds, and I can tell you that you're playing the game wrong.

You can't win at Disco (just like my Uncle Bruce used to say about the seventies ). It's not like the person with the most credits at the end of the month gets a free t-shirt. (edit: I assume... even though that would be awesome)

Personally, I've been running the Gallic blockade of Leeds for three days, and literally no one has even tried to stop me. Profitable, but boring as all getout. So I guess all those poor refugees are going to be left stranded while I go look for some resistance to my making buckets of cash. It's just more fun that way.

I will quote that

If you think about it... The best solution would be adding:

"Can demand cargo of maximum amount equal his free cargo space or less"

to piracy based IDs

Why? Because asking to drop 5k while you own only a bomber makes no sense inRP.

if they're flying in group:

"... or equal total free cargo space of allied vessels up to 5k away from pirate"

Limiting max amount of credits that single pirate can demand to 8 or 10 m would be a heaven as well.

[nOmnomnOm]

Like I said before... telling someone to drop their cargo and have it destroyed is an act of terror and not a piracy attempt.
it is up to the player if they want to go that route or piracy to steal

You should not make rules to regulate this. This should rather be common sense. It is just too bad the community members sometimes lack it.

Ex:
-Lane hackers stopping an Ageria with some goods they want to be destroyed.
-Xenos stopping a non-liberty ship in liberty.
-Gaians stopping OSC , planetform, etc ship that are carrying things they do not like.

All of these examples would be instances that the "drop all your cargo" makes sense.

For a regular pirate to do that, they would have to be making some RP justification.
So if you really want to add a rule for this thing.... add that the dropping of cargo to be destroyed act needs to be justified in the player's RP.


Edit:
And not just having: "I dont like you drop cargo or die"

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[Reid]

Back on topic...........

Last night, I was flying a base construction ship (full) and was pirated by an official faction member who demanded that I drop the whole lot. I tried to negotiate, but got killed. I was more than happy to pay, cos that's part and parcel, but I got the distinct impression that whoever it was did it purely to pee me off, cos of the time it takes to amass that cargo. After all, it's not worth that much.

I suppose there's a chance they wanted to build a base themselves, but I doubt it.

Not cool. Really not cool.

Or, that official faction didn't want a base in heir area and wanted to stop you from building one

[Aeron Chavez]

^^ That makes sense cos if I where a pirate I would protect my ZOI and also not want random stations being built there.

[Croft]

I wouldn't be opposed to a set upper limit for demands, something to say "Look, if you go beyond this point you're just being a prat."

It'd be good if we could find a balance between whats in character and whats good for gameplay, asking too much from a trader will simply put people off trading which means no fun for pirates, its happened before and it sure as hell will happen again unless attitudes on both sides improve. I mean for goodness sake if folks are only trading when its low population couldn't that be a sign that things aren't working out?

Calling people names or outright dismissing them is just childish and gets us nowhere.

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Jimmy The Rat | Croft's Feedback | The Rat Pack

[Stabby_Dave]

Back on topic...........

Last night, I was flying a base construction ship (full) and was pirated by an official faction member who demanded that I drop the whole lot. I tried to negotiate, but got killed. I was more than happy to pay, cos that's part and parcel, but I got the distinct impression that whoever it was did it purely to pee me off, cos of the time it takes to amass that cargo. After all, it's not worth that much.

I suppose there's a chance they wanted to build a base themselves, but I doubt it.

Not cool. Really not cool.

Or, that official faction didn't want a base in heir area and wanted to stop you from building one

Nope. Definitely not that.

[Geebus]

Looks like what's at the heart of the issue is that neither side wants to feel like they're wasting their stick time in Sirius, and I get that. Getting pirated at the end of a run blows. But so does hanging out in a trade lane for an hour with nothing to show for it but a cloud of NPC tears. Some of us seem to have an issue with the status quo. Personally, I don't have much anecdotal evidence to support either side, so we'll just do a thought experiment:

Trader Jim has valuable cargo. Pirate Dave stops him and makes a demand, either the cargo itself or an amount of credits equal to or higher than the amount of profit to be gained on the run.

A) Trader Jim has a few options: run, give in, negotiate, or die
-Since to run most probably in this case means to die and to give in essentially comes with the same price tag, Trader Jim has two real options: negotiate or die.
--Trader Jim should reasonably try to negotiate for less than the total profit on the run, his interest to do so increases as the amount of the demand decreases.

B) Pirate Dave has issued his demand and the target did not run. Logically, Dave can now let the trader go, engage in negotiation, or go weapons free
-From an economic perspective, letting the target go is the least profitable, therefore the least likely.
--Again speaking financially, the upsides to shooting the trader and demanding cargo are essentially the same - a full cargo hold. This is the result of any encounter that ends with violence.
---The most profitable option seems to be a demand of credits in any amount higher than the value of a cargo hold full of whatever commodity is being traded.

In short, there is a range of values bounded at the maximum by the total profit on Trader Jim's trade run and at the minimum by the theoretical value of a full hold in Pirate Dave's ship where it is in both player's interest to seek an arrangement. Operating outside of these parameters increases the likelihood of meta-gaming as it places the player's motivations at odds with those of the character. For the rest of this discourse, I'll refer to this range of values as the Negotiation Range.

There is no lowering the minimum of the Negotiation Range since it's based on the size of a pirate vessel's cargo hold. Artificially suppressing the maximum by capping the amount pirates can demand has the effect of narrowing that range to the point where success may be more or less impossible -- leading to situations where both parties feel undue pressure to enforce their needs by any means necessary, be they in RP or OORP.

What might be possible is raising the maximum to create more breathing room in the Negotiation Range. However since the minimum of that range is itself a function of credits per unit of cargo space, raising the value of commodities would be self-defeating by proportionately raising both minimum and maximum. The solution is then perhaps one that raises the value of commodities for appropriately outfitted traders while keeping it at its current level for all others, similar to the way that an appropriate mining outfit allows for a higher drop rate. Alternatively, a system that reimburses traders a flat rate based on distance between buying and selling points might have a similar effect without unbalancing the commodities market. Or maybe a trade-based event?

Basically, encouraging trade by somehow increasing the average value of each successful trade run without necessarily increasing the value of each successful traffic stop for the pirate would theoretically encourage more trading, which in turn creates higher-quality pirating. Anything that broadens the Negotiation Range is probably a good thing.

Anyway, this is just a humble proposal from a newbie. I thought I would offer my perspective and see if anything resonated with the community.

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[Jayce]

Try not losing to the pirate. If you're in a small transport, you'll get away 98% of the time.

If you need the rules to protect you, you're doing it wrong.

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[Hannibal]

@Geebus there's one case you forgot to mention..the one that traders refuses to pay and instead pirates the pirate..the perks of flying a junker
so..sometimes i like to take the cargo from a pirate and sell it myself if that might be more profitable for me than just asking for credits
as for limiting how much one could ask,i'm against it since the pirate might have a friend or be in one of those skype groups made just for this cases

*base constructuion platforms will always be asked to drop their cargo because no pirate likes another pob to be shooting at him or for a trader to dock there quick enough to avoid him ; while this time the pob might be to his benefit he didnt knew that and this pob will actually promote cargo piracy..

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People want to believe that God has a plan for them.
They don't wanna believe that anyone else does..

[Stabby_Dave]

Another situation which seems to be happening increasingly, is pirates unwilling to negotiate, simply saying "give me all the cargo I ask for or I'll kill you and tractor it in anyway".

Getting a decent escort is a fine idea, but often not possible in reality.