Piracy in 3.6.2

[Mastersan]

I've been reading a lengthy and somewhat heated discussion in global chat today, while doing some bounties and just wandering around (maybe other TESTies also have been reading it).
The short version is that someone has been grinding trade and when they have been running a large cargo load, around 1 mil aUEC, their ship was blown up by another player, a "pirate" who has been monitoring the "trader". The "pirate" said that they are making money this way. Then there was the lengthy discussion around knowing your surroundings, get escorts, piracy and griefing.

As far as I know in 3.6.2 the piracy is pretty much limited to contraband, everything else would be missions, e.g. Ruto, etc.

In the past, before locks were common, pirates used to sneak into the ship and hide, then when a player was out of armistice zone, they would kill the player and take the ship to a place where they can sell the goods, in which case profits went to a "pirate".

Does anyone know how can you make money by blowing up other players' ships when they have lots of cargo? Can you somehow transfer the cargo? I think that is in the plans, but not yet implemented.

Also, what other ways Piracy works in the current version of the game?

 

[Printimus]

I've been reading a lengthy and somewhat heated discussion in global chat today, while doing some bounties and just wandering around (maybe other TESTies also have been reading it).
The short version is that someone has been grinding trade and when they have been running a large cargo load, around 1 mil aUEC, their ship was blown up by another player, a "pirate" who has been monitoring the "trader". The "pirate" said that they are making money this way. Then there was the lengthy discussion around knowing your surroundings, get escorts, piracy and griefing.

As far as I know in 3.6.2 the piracy is pretty much limited to contraband, everything else would be missions, e.g. Ruto, etc.

In the past, before locks were common, pirates used to sneak into the ship and hide, then when a player was out of armistice zone, they would kill the player and take the ship to a place where they can sell the goods, in which case profits went to a "pirate".

Does anyone know how can you make money by blowing up other players' ships when they have lots of cargo? Can you somehow transfer the cargo? I think that is in the plans, but not yet implemented.

Also, what other ways Piracy works in the current version of the game?

If they are using a kiosk to buy cargo, there is no way for the pirate to sell this cargo for money, yet. If they player is finding random crates to hand-carry from an underground bunker, then sure, the pirate can loot for profit those boxes. If the player doing trading is running boxes via missions on the mobiglass, again the pirate cannot profit from these boxes. This is the current layout for what you can and cannot do regarding piracy in the PU right now. I'm sure as development progresses, we will see these mechanics be expanded upon.

 

[O-Lefty]

Piracy
pi·ra·cy /ˈpīrəsē/
noun: the practice of attacking and robbing ships at sea.

Of course we're actually playing in space, not the sea, but the only way to do piracy that I am aware of right now is actually shipjacking. Blowing someone up doesn't spew out cargo like it used to. And even if you do steal their ship you can't sell their cargo. The one exception being if you shipjack someone that did the Twitch mission and had a load of moveable drugs you could steal, but you still have to transport them to your ship to sell.

Purchasing, transporting, and selling illicit cargo is smuggling. Totally different crime and play style.

Honestly, spectrum general chat is full of misconceptions.

o7
O-Lefty

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

As far as I am aware the argument on Piracy vs Greifing is there is no benefit to the greifer other than for their own perverse pleasure. The pirate takes the spoils and profits, the griefer takes a near-sexual thrill in ruining someones day.

Any griefer will of course claim they are making a legitimate piracy profit because there is no way for anyone to prove otherwise at present - it would be up to the griefer to then prove they are getting some kind of pirates bonus with a screenshot etc.

If they don't supply proof, it's a greifer who rather than admit to being a disgusting pervert getting their thrills by screwing over other players (which they think about later on the toilet), instead claim they are getting bank from their dirty deeds which throws the mob off long enough for them to log off and start touching themselves inappropriately.

EDIT - I imagine thats what Greifers do, there can be no other explanation for their actions.

EDIT - EDIT - Mrs 'BobFace disproves of my graphic vernacular in this message.

EDIT - EDIT - EDIT - Baby 'BobFace says "Urrrrght" as she has not learned to say "Goo Goo" yet.

 

[Thalstan]

People still try to get on your ship and kill you.

Thing is, Test is a large org. Since there are no identifiers, how can you tell that you are not targeting another Test member?

I don’t play with non-Test members outside the PTU. I’ve learned the hard way that people asking to be crew have a 50/50 chance of shooting you in the head as soon as you exit the armistice zone. Half of the remaining wait until they are out of comms range before shooting you in the back of the head.

Of the remaining, half of those start shooting everything in sight as soon as their turret becomes active, tagging your vehicle as a pirate.

With the ease of clearing your crimestat these days, it’s really hard to tell pirates from non piratical players.

Unfortunately, the regular Joe/Jane can’t just shoot the stowaways. There needs to be a way to earn/flag those on a ship that they are criminals if they don’t depart while at a port or landing zone, there also needs to be a way of forcing those that don’t want to leave off your ship while you are in an armistice zone, (they are arrested and subjected to the full United 3411 treatment)

To prevent trolling, this should only be able to be accomplished while at a port and in the ground, there should be a timer that gives enough time for a person to depart. (More time for bigger ships). People that belong to the same party should be excluded from the stow-away tag, and people outside the party can be manually excluded from being flagged. You should not be able to declair a stowaway while in flight,

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Unfortunately, the regular Joe/Jane can’t just shoot the stowaways. There needs to be a way to earn/flag those on a ship that they are criminals if they don’t depart while at a port or landing zone, there also needs to be a way of forcing those that don’t want to leave off your ship while you are in an armistice zone, (they are arrested and subjected to the full United 3411 treatment)

To prevent trolling, this should only be able to be accomplished while at a port and in the ground, there should be a timer that gives enough time for a person to depart. (More time for bigger ships). People that belong to the same party should be excluded from the stow-away tag, and people outside the party can be manually excluded from being flagged. You should not be able to declair a stowaway while in flight,

Well said.

 

[O-Lefty]

People still try to get on your ship and kill you.

Thing is, Test is a large org. Since there are no identifiers, how can you tell that you are not targeting another Test member?

I don’t play with non-Test members outside the PTU. I’ve learned the hard way that people asking to be crew have a 50/50 chance of shooting you in the head as soon as you exit the armistice zone. Half of the remaining wait until they are out of comms range before shooting you in the back of the head.

Of the remaining, half of those start shooting everything in sight as soon as their turret becomes active, tagging your vehicle as a pirate.

With the ease of clearing your crimestat these days, it’s really hard to tell pirates from non piratical players.

Unfortunately, the regular Joe/Jane can’t just shoot the stowaways. There needs to be a way to earn/flag those on a ship that they are criminals if they don’t depart while at a port or landing zone, there also needs to be a way of forcing those that don’t want to leave off your ship while you are in an armistice zone, (they are arrested and subjected to the full United 3411 treatment)

To prevent trolling, this should only be able to be accomplished while at a port and in the ground, there should be a timer that gives enough time for a person to depart. (More time for bigger ships). People that belong to the same party should be excluded from the stow-away tag, and people outside the party can be manually excluded from being flagged. You should not be able to declair a stowaway while in flight,

There's a Dev talk about how they intend on rolling in some security for people's ships. It includes making your ship party only and starting a timer before those persons not in the party are either removed or you can "remove" them yourself.

 

[SoloFlyer]

There's a Dev talk about how they intend on rolling in some security for people's ships. It includes making your ship party only and starting a timer before those persons not in the party are either removed or you can "remove" them yourself.

I'd hope they were removed for you but if not, I could see how it would be important to train on sweeping ships with your party. There are a lot of places to hide in an 890J could spend a lot of your play time just checking for stowaways everytime you lift off.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Question - When you join a ship now you join the local Comms circuit for that ship. Would this be a quick easy way to discover if there is a stow-away? Do uninvited guests join the circuit and show on it?

Sounds like the ideal detection system, their name and a direct link to them to say "I know you are here. You have two options, one you cooperate with, one you have forced on you. Make your choice."

 

[O-Lefty]

Question - When you join a ship now you join the local Comms circuit for that ship. Would this be a quick easy way to discover if there is a stow-away? Do uninvited guests join the circuit and show on it?

Sounds like the ideal detection system, their name and a direct link to them to say "I know you are here. You have two options, one you cooperate with, one you have forced on you. Make your choice."

We already do this. It's not 100% accurate since the game has plenty VoIP bugs, but we encourage everyone to do this.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

We already do this. It's not 100% accurate since the game has plenty VoIP bugs, but we encourage everyone to do this.

Awesome, many thanks i'll be doing this from now on :)

 

[August]

Back to the original question, I don't think there's a reliable way to pirate.
Sadly.
Because we're sure looking forward to hugging hitting those wonderful terrible entrepreneurs pirates.

 

[Bambooza]

As far as I am aware the argument on Piracy vs Greifing is there is no benefit to the greifer other than for their own perverse pleasure. The pirate takes the spoils and profits, the griefer takes a near-sexual thrill in ruining someones day.

Any griefer will of course claim they are making a legitimate piracy profit because there is no way for anyone to prove otherwise at present - it would be up to the griefer to then prove they are getting some kind of pirates bonus with a screenshot etc.

If they don't supply proof, it's a greifer who rather than admit to being a disgusting pervert getting their thrills by screwing over other players (which they think about later on the toilet), instead claim they are getting bank from their dirty deeds which throws the mob off long enough for them to log off and start touching themselves inappropriately.

EDIT - I imagine thats what Greifers do, there can be no other explanation for their actions.

EDIT - EDIT - Mrs 'BobFace disproves of my graphic vernacular in this message.

EDIT - EDIT - EDIT - Baby 'BobFace says "Urrrrght" as she has not learned to say "Goo Goo" yet.

Not sure if you are saying this is a bad thing and I should refrain from shooting first then justifying the satisfaction of a kill as some sort of honorable killing to increase my worldly wealth. But honestly, there is no profitability yet in-game for piracy outside of accepted unlawful missions.

So yes it sucks to have your ship blown up with a million aUEC in it but at the same time, you are going to lose those credits every quarter anyways so why cry about it. I just have this feeling that as the game starts to unfold with more activities a lot of the currently bored gamer turned hunter of other players will diminish. But I still feel these traders are going to cry every time they go out with their hauler and no escorts and get jumped.

 

[Vavrik]

But I still feel these traders are going to cry every time they go out with their hauler and no escorts and get jumped.

I wish that wasn't such a broad brush stroke there, but I totally get where the sentiment comes from.

 

[Bambooza]

I wish that wasn't such a broad brush stroke there, but I totally get where the sentiment comes from.

It was and you are right. There is this subgroup within the Spectrum forums that seem to be fearful of PVP and any gameplay where they can be targeted by other players and are very vocal towards anything they perceive as being hostile to them that is not an NPC. And so at times, I read what they express what they wish to accomplish and wonder why they are even wanting to play in a clearly expressed PVP multiplayer game.

 

[Vavrik]

It was and you are right. There is this subgroup within the Spectrum forums that seem to be fearful of PVP and any gameplay where they can be targeted by other players and are very vocal towards anything they perceive as being hostile to them that is not an NPC. And so at times, I read what they express what they wish to accomplish and wonder why they are even wanting to play in a clearly expressed PVP multiplayer game.

It was just a comment, not a criticism. I notice them too.
But I also notice the "ever so brave" souls that hang out at the PO exit from Daymar. I used one of these fellas, who had fired two missiles at me at near point blank and missed... to work out how to use a Prospector mining laser to destroy a Hornet in 3.4. Unfortunately I haven't spent a lot of time dealing with them since I learned how to use a different route to get to PO since.

 

[Bambooza]

It was just a comment, not a criticism. I notice them too.
But I also notice the "ever so brave" souls that hang out at the PO exit from Daymar. I used one of these fellas, who had fired two missiles at me at near point blank and missed... to work out how to use a Prospector mining laser to destroy a Hornet in 3.4. Unfortunately I haven't spent a lot of time dealing with them since I learned how to use a different route to get to PO since.

Ah yes, those braves souls are fun to hunt. They either attempt to run back to PO or fly at top speed as some sort of javelin contest.

 

[SoloFlyer]

It was and you are right. There is this subgroup within the Spectrum forums that seem to be fearful of PVP and any gameplay where they can be targeted by other players and are very vocal towards anything they perceive as being hostile to them that is not an NPC. And so at times, I read what they express what they wish to accomplish and wonder why they are even wanting to play in a clearly expressed PVP multiplayer game.

I dunno, I can see that point of view they have but for myself, I'm probably just going to do my best to stick to doing stuff in safe space. Nothing wrong with letting the people who want to PvP have lawless space just give the rest of us activities to do elsewhere. I wouldn't say I'm fearful of PvP but I for one am going to do my best to avoid it unless I'm playing with backup, like an org event or maybe once I see how shared missions shape up. When I first got interested in the game the pitch was that you could limit how often you ran across other players in combat situations, now they have the law system instead, so I'll use it to try to play the way I want to. The reason I'm going to be logging in is because i'm looking for a social space sim and I've always leaned more towards cooperative than competitive in games.

 

[Vavrik]

The reason I'm going to be logging in is because i'm looking for a social space sim and I've always leaned more towards cooperative than competitive in games.

I don't think SC will be overly competitive, but there will be plenty of opportunity for a lot of game play style. I just think that in SC, any player who strays out of their comfort zone needs to be aware of, and accepting of the risks and rewards. At the same time, any player who doesn't want to take risk, needs to accept the lack of some opportunities. That's all there is to it, and I think that's all that was ever intended.

 

[sovapid]

Also, what other ways Piracy works in the current version of the game?

Find someone who just loaded up their ship at an outpost, preferably one without an armistice zone. Tell them in chat if they don't put out an escort beacon for whatever amount you think is fair that their ship and cargo will be destroyed.

And go from there......