I have wandered around the threads and keep seeing this idea that "You wouldn't pirate X ship type because blah blah blah", usually the ship cargo is too large. I want to go over the point of piracy as many seem to not understand there is many types of pirating styles. I have played many years as a pirate in EvE both as a freelancer and under contract. Not everything lines up but I think the basic idea stays the same.
I will discuss pirating styles first. There are three main types which I refer to as "Profiteers", "Stowaways", and "Corsair".
-Profiteers, are the main type of pirate you will see, these guys are after one thing and that is money. These guys do not come in guns blazing and setting fire to everything. Profiteers want easy money, or if the target has a item of interest, than that item. Normally you scan the ship and see if it hauling anything you want and then try to guess a money amount of how much stuff they are hauling. So you see its a bunch of crap but its valuable crap worth a good deal of profit. You spring forward and get close to your target and begin to lock on and make it so they can't escape, YOU DO NOT FIRE. Simply open up the chat and demand an amount of money, this takes skill because ask too much and the person has nothing to lose and will fight, ask too little and you are not profiting your max amount. This gives the hauler 2 options instead of 1, they can fight and lose all their cargo+ship, or they can give you credits and keep a small profit and their ship You do not want to fight your prey, you will take damage cutting into your profits first of all. Then you might lose an item they were hauling that you wanted. Finally you do not have clean credits, you have a bunch of dirty items that you need to fence for a underwhelming amount, when you could have made more.
-Stowaways, these guys are sneaky and in EvE its usually a spy that simply leaks locations and steals stuff to drop off in space and for you to pick up. Its a very long ordeal and its risky, you get a better vantage in finding rare items though. In SC I see a new path for these people and that lies in stealth drop ship aka Espera Prowler. Stowaways are rather simple and straight forward, stealth board the ship, kill everybody on board and hijack the ship and contents. These guys need lots of skill and luck, but the profit margins are also the highest. You get all the cargo plus the ship itself. You still need a fence to sell it but still you have more items and a god damn ship.
-Corsairs, these are the ones that people talk about, they shoot things up and take what they can find. Corsairs are usually used when you are at war with someone and want to cause damage and take their stuff. Instead of targeting combat ships you target their logistics. You want to strike hard and fast, the target will have reinforcements nearby that you need to leave the site before they catch you. Corsairs make the least amount of profits but do most damage.
Lets talk about targets now. I base these of a few variations, Combat, Cargo, Exploration.
Combat ships: Low profits, high risk. Stay away unless you want to capture a ship, these guys don't have much but a bunch of guns and pissed off pilots.
Logistics: High Profits, variable risk. Miners, Cargo, Transport, Merchants ships all fit into this category. The can be by themselves or in a convoy. I see a large number of people saying "It's pointless to attack a mining ship, how are you going to move all that cargo". I refer you to the Profiteer type, its not about you taking their stuff, but how much they are willing to pay to save their stuff. Getting clean credits is better than dirty merchandise.
I want to tell you a story way back when I was a young battlecruiser pilots running Tech 2 everything thinking I was the shit. There was a lone cargo ship class, that was totally defenseless, I pulled up scan saw no other pilots in system and decided to jump to it and attack. The approach was a little off and I had to burn my engines to reach him, and began to blast my weapons overheating them. Suddenly I noticed the target locked onto me and starting to make it so I couldn't move or jump away. My weapons were barely doing damage and I attempted to escape, shortly some of his buddies from a few systems over came in and killed me. They had used a heavily armored cargo ship to bait me into attacking it. "Combat Carriers" are famous for baiting novice pilots into attacking it then snagging it and preventing it from moving while it destroys the pirate. Beware cargo ships, don't think of them as easy grabs all the time.
Exploration: Variable profits, usually low risk. I love these guys when I was pirating. They think they are so safe in their deep space wormholes collecting artifacts and rare items. They scurry around busily and work like little drones... to make me profits. Seriously exploration crews think noone is watching and they are safe, the carry anything from junk to high profit artifacts. They have thin hides that are easy to carve into and usually quickly give into demands. I organized exploration group though will run heavy escorts if they think they are onto something. Exploration pilots are also pretty... defense-full about their stuff. They will attack aggressively because they know what they have is rare and hard to find.
You guys have any notes or comments let me know and I will refine the topic more.
edit: cleaning up the post from typing errors.
I will discuss pirating styles first. There are three main types which I refer to as "Profiteers", "Stowaways", and "Corsair".
-Profiteers, are the main type of pirate you will see, these guys are after one thing and that is money. These guys do not come in guns blazing and setting fire to everything. Profiteers want easy money, or if the target has a item of interest, than that item. Normally you scan the ship and see if it hauling anything you want and then try to guess a money amount of how much stuff they are hauling. So you see its a bunch of crap but its valuable crap worth a good deal of profit. You spring forward and get close to your target and begin to lock on and make it so they can't escape, YOU DO NOT FIRE. Simply open up the chat and demand an amount of money, this takes skill because ask too much and the person has nothing to lose and will fight, ask too little and you are not profiting your max amount. This gives the hauler 2 options instead of 1, they can fight and lose all their cargo+ship, or they can give you credits and keep a small profit and their ship You do not want to fight your prey, you will take damage cutting into your profits first of all. Then you might lose an item they were hauling that you wanted. Finally you do not have clean credits, you have a bunch of dirty items that you need to fence for a underwhelming amount, when you could have made more.
-Stowaways, these guys are sneaky and in EvE its usually a spy that simply leaks locations and steals stuff to drop off in space and for you to pick up. Its a very long ordeal and its risky, you get a better vantage in finding rare items though. In SC I see a new path for these people and that lies in stealth drop ship aka Espera Prowler. Stowaways are rather simple and straight forward, stealth board the ship, kill everybody on board and hijack the ship and contents. These guys need lots of skill and luck, but the profit margins are also the highest. You get all the cargo plus the ship itself. You still need a fence to sell it but still you have more items and a god damn ship.
-Corsairs, these are the ones that people talk about, they shoot things up and take what they can find. Corsairs are usually used when you are at war with someone and want to cause damage and take their stuff. Instead of targeting combat ships you target their logistics. You want to strike hard and fast, the target will have reinforcements nearby that you need to leave the site before they catch you. Corsairs make the least amount of profits but do most damage.
Lets talk about targets now. I base these of a few variations, Combat, Cargo, Exploration.
Combat ships: Low profits, high risk. Stay away unless you want to capture a ship, these guys don't have much but a bunch of guns and pissed off pilots.
Logistics: High Profits, variable risk. Miners, Cargo, Transport, Merchants ships all fit into this category. The can be by themselves or in a convoy. I see a large number of people saying "It's pointless to attack a mining ship, how are you going to move all that cargo". I refer you to the Profiteer type, its not about you taking their stuff, but how much they are willing to pay to save their stuff. Getting clean credits is better than dirty merchandise.
I want to tell you a story way back when I was a young battlecruiser pilots running Tech 2 everything thinking I was the shit. There was a lone cargo ship class, that was totally defenseless, I pulled up scan saw no other pilots in system and decided to jump to it and attack. The approach was a little off and I had to burn my engines to reach him, and began to blast my weapons overheating them. Suddenly I noticed the target locked onto me and starting to make it so I couldn't move or jump away. My weapons were barely doing damage and I attempted to escape, shortly some of his buddies from a few systems over came in and killed me. They had used a heavily armored cargo ship to bait me into attacking it. "Combat Carriers" are famous for baiting novice pilots into attacking it then snagging it and preventing it from moving while it destroys the pirate. Beware cargo ships, don't think of them as easy grabs all the time.
Exploration: Variable profits, usually low risk. I love these guys when I was pirating. They think they are so safe in their deep space wormholes collecting artifacts and rare items. They scurry around busily and work like little drones... to make me profits. Seriously exploration crews think noone is watching and they are safe, the carry anything from junk to high profit artifacts. They have thin hides that are easy to carve into and usually quickly give into demands. I organized exploration group though will run heavy escorts if they think they are onto something. Exploration pilots are also pretty... defense-full about their stuff. They will attack aggressively because they know what they have is rare and hard to find.
You guys have any notes or comments let me know and I will refine the topic more.
edit: cleaning up the post from typing errors.
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