Peoples mentality about Piracy demands baffles me..

[sindroms]

Yo, Discoverians. Discordians...Discovians...Discopeeps.


Anyway, here's a nice little thread for your monday and it involves (gasp) PIRACY!
Yes, ingame piracy for both money and cargo.



Before I start, again, I ask for replies to be constructive, more or less civil and, for the sake of the examples I will give below- I use the term TRADERS as players who buy goods from NPC bases and sell them on NPC bases. POB supplies, ore trade and npc piracy does not count here.


Recently we have had a few discussions popping up again regarding the fairplay involved in piracy demands. How much is too much, what constitutes a PVP abuse and how much should you demand from the traders in groups and how demands are influenced by the pirate's shiptype.

I wanted to actually post this in one of those threads, but I decided that it would be a bit more safer for me to run a little test beforehand. And so I did.




First of all, if you are a pirate, I am sure that at least once in your life you had a trader go all

//just blow me up, this stuff only cost 500 000 to buy.


Now lately with our rule changes regarding pvp death consequences for traders, this is not really so much of an issue anymore. If the trader refuses to pay you, you can simply get a blue message and enjoy the fact that he cannot re-enter the system without getting banhammered.

But does this really make sense? I am not talking about the people, who deliberately do not want to interact with pirates out of spite, allowing themselves to be killed.

I am talking about people, who use that mentality and who are not angry when they are blown up, after being asked 2 million credits. And there is where my question comes in:


How come this mentality applies to cargo piracy?


For the sake of this example, let us imagine that you are a trader with a 5ker. It costs 500k to load up your transport and your profit is 12,5million credits, so your clean profit is 12 million credits.



How would you feel, when you are asked to drop all of your cargo? Np, you lose only 500k, just fly empty and chose a different route.

But....

How would you feel if you were asked to pay 12 million credits? WHY do people go ballistic about that?


In both cases you lose 100% of your profit. Even more, you lose more from cargo piracy, because you lose the 500k you used to buy cargo in the first place.








I swear, I just cannot grasp this situation as a mostly pirate player. How can people go ballistic if you even ask 6 million credits from a 5ker. And at the same time they are all npnp when you ask to drop their cargo?

Even more so, if they drop the cargo, they can return to the system, since they did not die. Same with paying the 100% of their cargo value directly to the pirate.

The only difference in those two situations is that you gain nothing by, in the case of the first example- not having cargo, and in the case of cash piracy- getting the 12mil back by selling your intact cargo.






So this boils down to the last few threads about demands. Everyone is raging about money value demanded by the pirate, that it should not exceed half or 1/3 or whatever is the magic value everyone likes. Nobody seems to even mention that you actually LOSE money if you get cargo pirated.


Just. Wat.
Wat.

I don't get this. Even more so, you LOSE money either way. You lose the income/min you would get from that trip. You lose time. Just. Why. What. How.



Someone explain.






EDIT: The only reason I can see how this works is that in the case of money piracy, the player might encounter another pirate. So let us just say that these players were pirated one lane away from their sellpoint.

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[Knjaz]

<...>
How would you feel, when you are asked to drop all of your cargo? Np, you lose only 500k, just fly empty and chose a different route.

But....

How would you feel if you were asked to pay 12 million credits? WHY do people go ballistic about that?

<...>

EDIT: The only reason I can see how this works is that in the case of money piracy, the player might encounter another pirate. So let us just say that these players were pirated one lane away from their sellpoint.

Not just that. Time factors in here as well. If you ask for full cargo close to sell point - it's almost same as asking for the cost of that cargo.

If you're asking for full cargo close to starting point, it's totally different. I.e., if the trip lasts 15 minutes, and you ask for full cargo at 2nd minute, it's much easier for the guy to drop that cargo and go suicide himself, getting back to the start.
(Or relog into combat char, call friends and go hunting that pesky pirate for being a d.... )

And then there're other pirates that you mentioned about.

[Huhuh]

"How would you feel if you were asked to pay 12 million credits? WHY do people go ballistic about that?"

Hurr durr because that's all the profit.

If you lose all the cargo, you lose 500k, not 12 million.

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[Pancakes]

Because when you pay a pirate 12m, nothing promises you that you won't lose the cargo next on.

When you let him have it - you're losing it all. Also, it depends on how close the pirate is to the sell point of said goods like mentioned before.

And even if the spot is neither close nor far (lets say halfway out of a 30min trip, makes it 15m), the trader might be better off letting the cargo to the pirate, buying new cargo on a station nearby and getting a new route. It would probably pay-out better for him

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BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD

[Narcotic]

When you fly a pirate, 90% of the traders you'll encounter will at first try to escape silently.
When you fly a trader, 90% of the pirates you'll encounter will just go "2milordai".

Myself, when flying a Rogue, I often like to make use of the /dice or /coin, whether the trader have to pay and how much. However, most of them blow up because they don't roleplay since "time is money".

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[jammi]

"How would you feel if you were asked to pay 12 million credits? WHY do people go ballistic about that?"

Hurr durr because that's all the profit.

If you lose all the cargo, you lose 500k, not 12 million.

But the result is the same. If you pay, you continue to the destination and sell the cargo and break even. If you have your cargo stolen, you lose the cost of cargo.

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[Anaximander]

Well sometimes you have to say "2milordai" because simple questions such as "How much is your life/cargo worth to you" baffle a lot of traders. "2milordai" is ALWAYS my opening line, for the sake of simplicity and declaring my intentions clearly.

What bothers me though are those traders that refuse to pay out of principle, because that forces me as a pirate to either do douchy things (such as blowing up the insolent trader) or suspend all roleplay and let the guy go out of my good (player) heart.

As for the 12 million and full cargo in the original post; yeah a trader isn't likely to pay 12 million based on just his expectation of profit when he reaches his destination - what if another pirate is waiting in the next system asking for another 12 million?

[Murcielago]

I think the trader is always thinking the cargo price is 12M never what he actually pay at first place for it..soo when you ask for cargo or 12M is same..allways 12M.
Ah and you have pirat(s) in many sistems on your rout as trader so if every pirat asks for 12M that realy hurts..where is the profit than if you met more then one pirat?

I actually think it is easyer to ask someone who supply the base for more money than the real trader..the real trader is working to get money, second one have money and is just supplying the base.

Murcielago
don`t run donate

[Highland Laddie]

So, a curiosity then...Jammi, in your opinion, is it "better" to pay up as long as the credit demand doesn't exceed the total profit of the cargo minus the transit time already spent and the purchasing cost? Or, would it be better to just lose the cargo (or some of it) and have the freedom to continue the run? Or....is it simply a matter of where along your route you are stopped?

[Tachyon]

People are too dumb to realize. That's my explanation.

<3 you for this, spazz.

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