' Wrote:Oh look, its this conversation again. I've been here a month and Ive already seen this enough to be sick of it. If its not worth it get blown up, you take a hit on profits. If its reasonable or in the range of reasonable, just freakin pay, even if it means you have to do one more run to make up for the lost cash.
Endless whining makes you the fool.
Yep, why whine if you get shot down for not paying a unreasonable price for your cheap cargo?
Reasonable demands .... we're not going to set a specific number. Because that's then taken by some people as gospel that they can then ask for that much money each and every time. Pirates need to be just as adaptable as the traders - and sometimes just give it up and let the guy go.
Blue messages ... you're there as a pirate to make money. You want to teach the guy a lesson, why are you killing him? Blow off some of his turrets if you can, so he has to replace them. If he gets away, don't worry about it or let it stress you. He comes along again, you can pirate him again and again.
Lower levels, though - remember, this is not EVE, or anyplace else like that. This is Disco, and we're NOT here to compete and to see who can get his name on the top of the status board - we're here to have fun. Levels are irrelevant, other than the toys you can buy.
And trust me on this - if I'm sitting in Penn or New York and I see someone abusing the heck out of the low levels, that'll be a quick trip for that person to Bastille or worse.
(11-21-2013, 12:53 PM)Jihadjoe Wrote: Oh god... The end of days... Agmen agreed with me.
Just today I was flying my Atlas, carrying 4100 Cobalt ore, that goes for around 44mil for a hours worth of work and a 20 minute delivery trip.
A Hegemon (Name will not be stated, I already arranged inRP for them to receive special attention), parked itself in FRONT of a gate so that it's not possible to dock The gate without ramming him.
Then he demanded I drop my entire cargo.
1) A Hegemon doesn't hold 4100 cargo
2) It holds even less with Armor
I didn't bother really RP'ing with them, as it was totally unreasonable, and unacceptable, I'd have to do that 1 hour worth of mining (which I must do with friends, can't do alone, as a mafic only holds 140 cargo with UAU8 armor) again, and then the delivery run. So I would have no loss if he blew me up.
So my response to his demand was "No", and because he wasn't positioned quite perfectly I used my thruster and scraped past (didn't quite hit him) him to the jumpgate.
I know this counts as a PvP death but I was only delivering cargo. (BTW, I didn't mine anymore because I was tired). But still, it was unreasonable.. 3 - 6 mil (about 560 ore) and I'd have RP'd with them... 10 mil and I'd think about the RP if their attitude was right. But you try to take it all, in a ship that can't even hold it, and my response will be screw you everytime.
P.S. Question? in this case is it ok to ram a ship out of the way of the gate? He purposely put his ship in they way? Was he expecting that the rules state intentional ramming is against the rules? or am I reading that rule wrong?
EDIT:
After reading a few other posts, I'd have to say that asking for more than I stated above could still earn RP, if the attitude is right, specially as in the case above I was being polite because i thought the hegemon was trying to dock the gate, so i sat still and stayed back for almost 2 full minutes until I got the demand to drop all my cargo. They had plenty of time to start out the RP with more than a short sentence.
Enjoying a game isn't always taking the easy route, sometimes you have to take chances and trust in luck, sometimes that luck takes a big bite out of your backside.
' Wrote:Couple of comments from the peanut gallery:
Reasonable demands .... we're not going to set a specific number. Because that's then taken by some people as gospel that they can then ask for that much money each and every time. Pirates need to be just as adaptable as the traders - and sometimes just give it up and let the guy go.
Blue messages ... you're there as a pirate to make money. You want to teach the guy a lesson, why are you killing him? Blow off some of his turrets if you can, so he has to replace them. If he gets away, don't worry about it or let it stress you. He comes along again, you can pirate him again and again.
Lower levels, though - remember, this is not EVE, or anyplace else like that. This is Disco, and we're NOT here to compete and to see who can get his name on the top of the status board - we're here to have fun. Levels are irrelevant, other than the toys you can buy.
And trust me on this - if I'm sitting in Penn or New York and I see someone abusing the heck out of the low levels, that'll be a quick trip for that person to Bastille or worse.
Morgan Byrd "Likes" this post.
I do have a question about the demands, though, and though I don't like being a rule lawyer (avoiding posting sanctions like the plague myself) I do think it would be wise to know if a pirate can be sanctioned for making unreasonable demands or not. I understand how defining what constitutes an unreasonable demand is a bad idea, and I agree that this should be left up to the presiding Administrator's discretion, but I really do think there should be something stopping the pirate hooligans from demanding the collective worth of the trader's entire ship or something like that.
Quote:Quick comment - we thought that Panzer was the Leader, Swift. -Agmen
' Wrote:P.S. Question? in this case is it ok to ram a ship out of the way of the gate? He purposely put his ship in they way? Was he expecting that the rules state intentional ramming is against the rules? or am I reading that rule wrong?
The ramming rule only applies to ramming capital ships. If a transport trys to block your way, ram the hell out of him.
I do have a question about the demands, though, and though I don't like being a rule lawyer (avoiding posting sanctions like the plague myself) I do think it would be wise to know if a pirate can be sanctioned for making unreasonable demands or not. I understand how defining what constitutes an unreasonable demand is a bad idea, and I agree that this should be left up to the presiding Administrator's discretion, but I really do think there should be something stopping the pirate hooligans from demanding the collective worth of the trader's entire ship or something like that.
I am pretty sure admins have said that if they feel a demand is unreasonable they will sanction the player for pvp abuse or under 0.0.
@ Anomander: I pirate in my Bactrian mostly (a freighter with 530 cargo space). Nearly got wasted by a Camara with some pretty beefy guns once. Somehow I don't feel much sympathy. Camara's and Dromedary's can mount some hard hitting weapons and sport decent shielding. A demand of 500k is not that much really. I normally only ask between 100k and 500k or some cargo from freighters. Then again I came across a Rhino with a Battleship License in her cargo hold. Um that's worth 250 million.
Well, I'm still rather new to the server, but nevertheless I traded my way from Rhino to a Mastodon by now. Took long enough.
Still, during all that time, I was blasted out of the sky by pirates exactly ONCE. And that was because I was trying to run, even after verbally submitting to them. Not the smartest or most honorable move, I know.
When flying Rhino&Camara, most pirates didn't bother to demand anything at all and just let me move along or did some small-time RPing with representative demands.
After stocking up to a Mammoth, I became a valid target, not a single pirate would let that slip. Simultaneously, I didn't mind that at all, as all encounters were covered in decent RP (fitting the circumstances). If the skies were clear and no danger of lawfuls to interfere, all pirates were open to some decent RP. While these encounters could take a good 5-15min, in the end the demanded price was more than reasonable. So I get good value RP and can leave with a reasonable "tax" paid. Worth every penny. Also, most pirates apply a variable tax rate in my experience. The more cooperative you are, the less you actually have to pay. Always firing up cruise engines? Tax increase. Being rude? Tax increase. Excessive and unplausible whining? Tax increase. Quick response to engine-halt-demand? Tax decrease. Quick acceptation of money demand? Tax decrease. Plausible reasons why demand is too high (No/Poor cargo, startup trader, whatever)? Tax decrease.
Only in cases where the pirates were already troubled by indie lawfuls they tended to be short on words and rather triggerhappy. Understandable.
I only had about two runs that were unprofitable because of this, but that was simply due to bad luck, being pirated multiple times along the route.
And to be honest, with some experience how to handle your vessel and how to spot lane pirates, you easily can get away from most of them. I like to select the next few lanes manually even while I'm being warped by them. Do I target a disrupted one, I immediatly put my finger on the shortcut to "Free Flight", and once I get a confirmation of a human player ahead in the next milliseconds I immediatly leave the lane and go to full reserve. Simple, yet effective. In worst cases I drop out at distances of about 4-5k of the pirates. Still allows for a comfortable turn-around and cruise-away.
Medium transports even pack quite a punch against average pirates, as already stated. Heavier ones (like the Mastodon) don't know what punch means, but can travel 30k under fire easily before their hull breaches (if AU is installed), simply because they have such ridiculous high armor points, allowing them to get away or in distance to a stations' defense systems or wait for the called lawful support.
Combine that with a good route preparation and you are safe in most cases. How is the current pirate activity? Can you get reports from traders that are already on that route? What does the "Ch(e)at-Window" have to say? If the route seems hot, just hire an escort. They are not expensive, considering that you easily generate 10 mil per good run and escorts usually are only paid partly in advance. So if they "fail" to protect you, your losses are even smaller. I usually let them scout ahead and if there are reports of trouble, I just stay clear. If he is able to finish them, I'll gladly pay them (usually even a bonus), if not, meh, bad luck, gotta take an alternative route.
Well, I write too much. In short: Piracy on Discovery is on an incredibly high standard. Of course there are some who shame the stand of the pirates, but gladly most of them are poor fighters too. "Good" pirates are confident enough to be open to quality RP and don't actually need the money.
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