tl;dr included at bottom
Some people use the terms pirates and griefers interchangeably. These people are flat out wrong. But whether you love us or hate us, there's certainly a good amount of fear, misunderstanding, and misinformation about why pirates do what they do. Lets look at the facts: CR wants piracy to be an actual profession. Pirates are meant to be in star citizen. Pirates are an intended part of the economic exchange, so much so that whether you turn that PVP slider down to minimum or maximum, you're still going to run into us.
"But", you might ask, "why would any sane, reasonable, empathetic person engage in piracy?". The short answer is obvious: money. That, and this is just a game nerd. Most pirates are nice people too. I know it seems hard to believe from your bubble of friendship and magic, but it's true.
The long answer is a bit more complex. It's absolutely true that a part of the reason people enjoy piracy is seeing the tears of the carebear they just nuked. However, calling that the main reason we do it would be absurd. At a basic level, PVP is fun, whether you engage in an honorable duel with a buddy, fight in a big fleet action for your org, or happen to prey on juicy merchant ships guarded by hornets. Sure, some people don't like it, but lets be honest here: they usually aren't the type to win fights. Many of us, pirate or otherwise, subscribe to the belief that the reason to earn money in SC is to pay for PVP stuff. Time spent outside PVP is a necessary evil to fund the fun times. So, it should be logical that an occupation that allows us to minimize time spent "grinding" and maximize time spent doing what we love would be optimal.
"Ahah", you might say, "Then why not become a bounty hunter or escort?". Again, we go back to money. Why in the world would I want to be an escort, making chump change protecting some fattened hauler, when I could myself take everything in that hauler? Pirates will pay no more than the cost of bullets for massive amounts of valuable cargo. They then sell that cargo, all the while getting the maximum dose (outside hopping into arena commander) of that PVP they crave. We aren't psychopaths. We aren't griefers. We're people who want to fly big ships with big guns, and actually get to use those big ships with big guns on targets that matter. That's not so hard to understand, is it?
But beyond that, lets look at what pirates do for an ecosystem. Pirates make prices higher. Sure, a pirate could massively undercut conventional traders, but they won't. Why would I sell this cargo I have for less than it's worth? I think it reasonable to assume that the buying and selling system will be somewhat similar to EVE online, where sell prices are not the only thing on the market: automated buy orders will be there too. Whether NPC or player, those buy orders will be the most likely thing for us pirates to funnel our ill-gotten cargo into for rapid profit. If they're too low, no one will put items into them, and they'll be replaced by higher ones as pirates and traders alike simply put up sell orders more in line with the normal price of the goods.
By the nature of what we do, stuff is gonna get blown up. We will more than likely destroy much more cargo than we actually manage to capture. But... there is an upside. This will have little to no effect on the prices of items produced in the system you're in, but what it does do is increase the prices of items produced outside. What that means, is that in order to get the best price possible on something, you'll have to go where it is produced. Again, pirates will have little effect on the prices of goods produced in-system. However, when you start heading out into the stars, going to other systems where the buy prices are higher, pirates will cause those prices to rise. People become more desperate for items. Most won't have time to fly around the universe grabbing stuff from the lowest bidder, they want those items now in the same system they're in. As demand grows and scarcity of distant items increases, prices go up and up and up. More pirates will come, because, duh, the items we steal sell for more on the market. Rarity will increase further. Until, finally, the UEE steps in and does a serious sweep of the area, effectively resetting the price counter and normalizing prices by making it nigh-on impossible for those with negative security status to operate. But... the UEE is supposed to model a real world government. And, like a real world government, its resources are limited. It cannot fully defend every system all the time. And when they are inevitably forced to pull back... the pirates will flood in again.
As a trader, knowing when to sell and knowing when to hoard items will be a huge part of making money. Timing it just right, so that you sell your items as close to the inevitable UEE crackdown as possible for the highest price will drastically increase profits. Of course, the presence of pirates obviously benefits escorts and bounty hunters, but that goes without saying.
tl;dr
Pirates aren't psychopaths or pure leaches. Sometimes we'll really screw you over. The vast majority of the time though, you'll fly by unharassed. In a ship like a hull E... what's one lost cargo run, when you could potentially make 10 more at a 50% higher profit than normal? Pirates will feed that profit by increasing the scarcity of items, just as they will occasionally take it away by popping your space jpegs.
wew that was the first non-shitpost I've made in years. Time to go shit up chat some more.
Some people use the terms pirates and griefers interchangeably. These people are flat out wrong. But whether you love us or hate us, there's certainly a good amount of fear, misunderstanding, and misinformation about why pirates do what they do. Lets look at the facts: CR wants piracy to be an actual profession. Pirates are meant to be in star citizen. Pirates are an intended part of the economic exchange, so much so that whether you turn that PVP slider down to minimum or maximum, you're still going to run into us.
"But", you might ask, "why would any sane, reasonable, empathetic person engage in piracy?". The short answer is obvious: money. That, and this is just a game nerd. Most pirates are nice people too. I know it seems hard to believe from your bubble of friendship and magic, but it's true.
The long answer is a bit more complex. It's absolutely true that a part of the reason people enjoy piracy is seeing the tears of the carebear they just nuked. However, calling that the main reason we do it would be absurd. At a basic level, PVP is fun, whether you engage in an honorable duel with a buddy, fight in a big fleet action for your org, or happen to prey on juicy merchant ships guarded by hornets. Sure, some people don't like it, but lets be honest here: they usually aren't the type to win fights. Many of us, pirate or otherwise, subscribe to the belief that the reason to earn money in SC is to pay for PVP stuff. Time spent outside PVP is a necessary evil to fund the fun times. So, it should be logical that an occupation that allows us to minimize time spent "grinding" and maximize time spent doing what we love would be optimal.
"Ahah", you might say, "Then why not become a bounty hunter or escort?". Again, we go back to money. Why in the world would I want to be an escort, making chump change protecting some fattened hauler, when I could myself take everything in that hauler? Pirates will pay no more than the cost of bullets for massive amounts of valuable cargo. They then sell that cargo, all the while getting the maximum dose (outside hopping into arena commander) of that PVP they crave. We aren't psychopaths. We aren't griefers. We're people who want to fly big ships with big guns, and actually get to use those big ships with big guns on targets that matter. That's not so hard to understand, is it?
But beyond that, lets look at what pirates do for an ecosystem. Pirates make prices higher. Sure, a pirate could massively undercut conventional traders, but they won't. Why would I sell this cargo I have for less than it's worth? I think it reasonable to assume that the buying and selling system will be somewhat similar to EVE online, where sell prices are not the only thing on the market: automated buy orders will be there too. Whether NPC or player, those buy orders will be the most likely thing for us pirates to funnel our ill-gotten cargo into for rapid profit. If they're too low, no one will put items into them, and they'll be replaced by higher ones as pirates and traders alike simply put up sell orders more in line with the normal price of the goods.
By the nature of what we do, stuff is gonna get blown up. We will more than likely destroy much more cargo than we actually manage to capture. But... there is an upside. This will have little to no effect on the prices of items produced in the system you're in, but what it does do is increase the prices of items produced outside. What that means, is that in order to get the best price possible on something, you'll have to go where it is produced. Again, pirates will have little effect on the prices of goods produced in-system. However, when you start heading out into the stars, going to other systems where the buy prices are higher, pirates will cause those prices to rise. People become more desperate for items. Most won't have time to fly around the universe grabbing stuff from the lowest bidder, they want those items now in the same system they're in. As demand grows and scarcity of distant items increases, prices go up and up and up. More pirates will come, because, duh, the items we steal sell for more on the market. Rarity will increase further. Until, finally, the UEE steps in and does a serious sweep of the area, effectively resetting the price counter and normalizing prices by making it nigh-on impossible for those with negative security status to operate. But... the UEE is supposed to model a real world government. And, like a real world government, its resources are limited. It cannot fully defend every system all the time. And when they are inevitably forced to pull back... the pirates will flood in again.
As a trader, knowing when to sell and knowing when to hoard items will be a huge part of making money. Timing it just right, so that you sell your items as close to the inevitable UEE crackdown as possible for the highest price will drastically increase profits. Of course, the presence of pirates obviously benefits escorts and bounty hunters, but that goes without saying.
tl;dr
Pirates aren't psychopaths or pure leaches. Sometimes we'll really screw you over. The vast majority of the time though, you'll fly by unharassed. In a ship like a hull E... what's one lost cargo run, when you could potentially make 10 more at a 50% higher profit than normal? Pirates will feed that profit by increasing the scarcity of items, just as they will occasionally take it away by popping your space jpegs.
wew that was the first non-shitpost I've made in years. Time to go shit up chat some more.
