Thoughts on piracy

[estorie]

I was watching BoredGamer's video on griefing/piracy:
Link Here

And I had a few thoughts based on this conversation a few points seemed to be of interest to me:
Premise: I think people will choose not to pay ransoms/etc
Mechanic: Self destruct button, drop beacon/call friends, try to run away, ram into the pirate to cost them money as well, etc

What this will result in, is that as the game progresses more and more pirates will choose to just kill their targets rather than risk dealing with non-compliant players.

Can someone give me some insight why people will "play along" with pirates in the game when it comes out? It seems that from reading on spectrum and the /r/starcitizen sub that most people will never be willing to pay a pirate! How will this affect making money for this profession?

I defintely find the piracy profession interesting, but I am not sure how I could possibly make money doing it when it seems that everyone will just use mechanics to actively deprive the potential pirate of any loot (once caught) - this will then result in the pirate killing them and loosing alignment/becoming more and more wanted and just turning into becoming a griefer!

 

[Mich Angel]

Don't let your self get fooled by the glamorization from Hollywood movies a pirate in SC is not like Hollywood movies.
Flagging of that you're a pirate is like putting a bulls-eye on your back it will get you killed more time than you can afford.
It will involving UEE security, bounty hunters, and any other player that want to get a piece of ya.
That is including any other pirate to if your bounty is high enough, you won't be safe any where from any one with a high bounty on you.

BUT.... If you want to be a pirate and succeed there is only one way I know of.
First of you don't talk about it as in doing so raise the awareness toward you and that is not what you want.

A successful pirate people talk about, but no one really know who it is.

 

[stockish]

My life as a pirate in one gif.

 

[Vavrik]

This is a PVP game for one thing, so what constitutes griefing would have a narrow definition, but it's not undefinable. This game is set up to be self policing in a lot of ways, so a "pirate" that prefers to kill people is going to find themselves hunted by other pirates who don't want to drive trade ships out of the area. It can be as simple as that. Traders might also form convoys, and that is something I think most pirate groups would rather not contend with. But I've said before too, that if convoys do form, it opens up some opportunities for piracy as well -[edit] but for that to work, it's going to mean that pirates need to cooperate, and we haven't seen a whole lot of that in game so far.

 

[Zookajoe]

[
At the moment we do not know what the ramifications of player death is yet. Those that say they would go down guns blazing, see it through the focal lens of just popping back up at the last station they landed at. But what if the penalty was something more substantial? This was addressed in Star Citizen: Death of a Spaceman, which I have linked for convenience.

Normally when we are talking about pirates, we are talking about the taking of goods from another. Pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured; usually they would kill no one if the ship surrendered, because if it became known that pirates took no prisoners, their victims would fight to the last breath and make victory both very difficult and costly in lives. In contrast, ships would quickly surrender if they knew they would be spared. In one well-documented case 300 heavily armed soldiers on a ship attacked by Thomas Tew surrendered after a brief battle with none of Tew's 40-man crew being injured.

As for pirates simply killing their targets, it negates the whole purpose of piracy. Piracy is about making a profit. If you destroy the ship your attempting to pirate, taking considerable damage while doing so, as well as destroying most of if not all of said ships cargo, you are not making a profit. This type of behavior soon leads to you being unable to continue as a pirate as you no longer have the funds to keep your ships fueled and repaired. A successful pirate will not go this route.

Now, in Star Citizen, we have another way of paying off Pirates: jettisoning valuables. Unless a pirate is going after a target to hold ransom, they are not interested in the actual persons on a cargo ship. They want a slice of the cargo and to use the least amount of resources to acquire it. If a cargo vessel is being pursued by pirates and jettisons a portion of its cargo. Say 40 SCU or so, the smart pirate will tractor this into their hold and head back to the mother ship/station to unload it. They have gained in a monetary sense, without expending valuable resources, it is a win-win situation for them.

I believe that in time, when the game is fully implemented, that there will be a niche for those decide to lead the life of a pirate. Just remember, the life of a pirate, has never been an easy one.

 

[estorie]

Zookajoe,

Thanks for the link - I think that you are absolutely right, it seems that if the death mechanic results in a potential consequence for the pirated party then this may encourage some compliance such as dropping cargo or paying a ransom rather than simply going down guns blazing.

 

[Thraesh]

There is also one way certain pirates may go for and it sort of ties in to what @Vavrik mentioned in his above post. I have seen it in other games as well where pirate oriented players have formed essentially raiding parties. You could think of it like a splinter group in a larger pirate faction (or Org if there is one with piracy as one of its main goals) that essentially goes out in groups and targets larger shipping lines or known areas in space that will have more abundance of easier targets. These splinter groups go in with the intention of raiding and looting your ship and making off with your cargo, however there is one big difference, sometimes you don't get the cargo and have to blow the ship so this group brings salvagers with it to at least make up some profit on the run

 

[August]

AI is supposed to outnumber players 10:1. Pirates will have plenty of targets

 

[Gr33nh0use]

Can someone give me some insight why people will "play along" with pirates in the game when it comes out? It seems that from reading on spectrum and the /r/starcitizen sub that most people will never be willing to pay a pirate! How will this affect making money for this profession?

I would play along. If they managed to disable my ship and not kill me I'm not going to just quit, and if they let me live for a modest monetary price, So be it. But I still might try to escape, kill them, alert the authorities and all that jazz.

 

[August]

There has been a great deal of DRAMA about piracy on spectrum for a long time, with staunch camps of roleplayers, pure griefers, concerned citizens, and people who just want to do something a bit fun chiming in.

It all gets very heated and serious, people make emotional statements, and take firm philosophical stances about something which doesn’t exist in the game.

The most realistic answer about the numerous piracy questions is “nobody knows”. The black market economy will be a thing and AI will outnumber players. Everything else is speculation.

 

[DontTouchMyHoHos]

If there is zero fear of death or losing more, piracy will boil down to simply pvp and people dying.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Couple things. . .

First off, UEE ships do not have a self destruct. Only Vanduul ships have that, and the reason they have it is so players don't load up on free ships on a daily basis. If you want to steal ships and not have the hassles of outlaw status, there will be a small selection, as of yet unnamed; but probably including slavers outside the UEE (Ashana: Null V?), outlaws like pirates, and The Outsiders. No details on this yet but CIG has said there will be lawful targets.

Secondly, CIG has pondered long over how to make death inconvenient enough that people will play out the victim role against pirates. We are all going to dread pirates (pun intended.) They mentioned making respawns take horribly long, and they mentioned limiting the number of times one can respawn before you have to choose another name/character. They noted you can bequeath your belongings to your replacement and they have to allow that since people often pay for the stuff they have, but I think they think a notoriety will arise from names that are legacy names, and they want to provide some sort of social plus benefits for longevity in game, such that players don't want to allow themsleves to be killed. Recall the plan way back was for permadeath, and it took some convincing for CR to give that notion up. They will certainly make it to each player's great advantage to not die--enough that players will be willing to dump their cargo and run. BTW, that means there will be an additional benefit to exterior cargo haulers like the Hull series, and I'll bet they'll explain the planned dynamic better when the Hull C comes out in December.

 

[Mich Angel]

Couple things. . .

First off, UEE ships do not have a self destruct. Only Vanduul ships have that, and the reason they have it is so players don't load up on free ships on a daily basis. If you want to steal ships and not have the hassles of outlaw status, there will be a small selection, as of yet unnamed; but probably including slavers outside the UEE (Ashana: Null V?), outlaws like pirates, and The Outsiders. No details on this yet but CIG has said there will be lawful targets.

Secondly, CIG has pondered long over how to make death inconvenient enough that people will play out the victim role against pirates. We are all going to dread pirates (pun intended.) They mentioned making respawns take horribly long, and they mentioned limiting the number of times one can respawn before you have to choose another name/character. They noted you can bequeath your belongings to your replacement and they have to allow that since people often pay for the stuff they have, but I think they think a notoriety will arise from names that are legacy names, and they want to provide some sort of social plus benefits for longevity in game, such that players don't want to allow themsleves to be killed. Recall the plan way back was for permadeath, and it took some convincing for CR to give that notion up. They will certainly make it to each player's great advantage to not die--enough that players will be willing to dump their cargo and run. BTW, that means there will be an additional benefit to exterior cargo haulers like the Hull series, and I'll bet they'll explain the planned dynamic better when the Hull C comes out in December.

Well this is not exactly how it said to work.
Permadeath is a thing and will be a thing I am not gonna go in deep detail of the process here it's all in this link. Death of a Spaceman

When your character finally die which he will, you're ( so called next of kind ) a new younger family member which how ever you keep your name or not is not yet talked about or decided.
But how it will work is this new character inherit all what your previous avatar/character had.
( since it is your's not the character you play with ).
The new character also inherit part off the rep your previous had.

Which mean if you had a crime stat and bad rep your new will get some of that rubbed of on him since it's same family and the new character will have a harder time to go clean.
If that is the way you want the new character to go.

As a next of kind to someone that had a great rep and many trusted that new character will have a easy time to get going.
if you chose to take this new character from a previous good rep down the crime path his rep will deteriorate fast.

This is all we know about this and this have not been change or said to be change at any time.

Any other version of this is just wishful theory crafting and rumors from peps, how they would want it to work.
That don't make it so!

Fun fact: reddit is not the best place to get accurate fact about Star Citizen.

CHEERS!

 

[Crymsan]

They have made ships that are industrial or have considerable cargo vulnerable to "pirating". I cannot see the pirate taking the loot and letting you sail away as happening in game at all. The issue will be evidence. If you survive you can and will report them if your dead you cannot. (listening posts not with standing). The way this game is set up there will be lots of calls of being griefed when you aren't really and there will be real griefing too but I suspect there will be many more instances of the former than later. What I cannot see is why anyone is going to keep logging in to be a victim even if its not actual griefing. Bounty hunter missions do not seem very viable to keep this in check, reward 2000 credits say loss of ship cost?????

Having guard ships will just mean they attack when they can win. With ship costs as they are in game relative to mission rewards loosing a ship seems to expensive for pirates and bounty hunters alike. You can get insurance but then the insurance companies are bankrupt.

 

[Mich Angel]

They have made ships that are industrial or have considerable cargo vulnerable to "pirating". I cannot see the pirate taking the loot and letting you sail away as happening in game at all. The issue will be evidence. If you survive you can and will report them if your dead you cannot. (listening posts not with standing). The way this game is set up there will be lots of calls of being griefed when you aren't really and there will be real griefing too but I suspect there will be many more instances of the former than later. What I cannot see is why anyone is going to keep logging in to be a victim even if its not actual griefing. Bounty hunter missions do not seem very viable to keep this in check, reward 2000 credits say loss of ship cost?????

Having guard ships will just mean they attack when they can win. With ship costs as they are in game relative to mission rewards loosing a ship seems to expensive for pirates and bounty hunters alike. You can get insurance but then the insurance companies are bankrupt.

What ?????
How the crime stat work in protected UEE space and how you get this is not by someone report a crime, it's sensed automatically from monitoring of satellites how players act.
And how things work now is not all how it is going to work, what we have now for crime-stat and all that is just place-holder so there is some punishment for doing bad things.
A place-holder as in temporary installment in the "not a game yet" until the real logic is fully coded and geting ready for testing which is not in any way close to be fleshed out how it will work.
They have a basic fair idea how they want it but not fully worked out all the kinks and trinkets about crime, piracy etc...

And for how player-pirate act or not going to act is impossible to know before you have all the fact of what punishment it will bring doing so.
Sure there be smart, dumb, idiotic, illogical, good, bad etc.. player behavior, every game have that it's nothing new it's as old as computer gaming.

CHEERS!

 

[Crymsan]

I really do not believe there will be any meaniful "punishment for bad things" even if its a stated aim. What games have got this right ?

You can switch of the listening devices as well there is a mission for that. Plus of course UEE space.....We have one system...... Maybe two come launch....

 

[Deroth]

I suspect most talk about piracy is more bravado than anything, that once it is in place the only successful pirates will be large close knit groups with a variety of ships that includes both Vultures and at least one Reclaimer.
Due to the size they're likely going to not waste their time with solo Auroras, but will seek out lightly protected convoys that'd give serious consideration to ejecting a percentage of cargo over losing millions.

 

[Crymsan]

That's just it though, if they can take the convoy why would you take a percentage rather than get the whole prize?

 

[Bruttle]

This has been a huge point of controversy in any game that has these mechanics. Whether they are called pirates or not, any game that allows players to kill other players for profit has this issue. The problem is economic balance vs abuse of the system. It is undeniable that "pirate" gameplay allows for a risk vs reward that is good for the system. It is also undeniable that people will seek to abuse these mechanics on both sides.

If you make piracy too easy/risk free, the game will simply turn mostly pirate. Players will find ways to circumvent the rules (usually with multiple accounts) and nobody will want to engage in legitimate trade. This lack of legal trade will leave most pirates bored and bored pirates turn to griefing. The only people that will engage in legitimate trade at that point will either be orgs large enough to deal with the pirates, or pirate groups on alts.

If they make legal trade too easy/risk free, the game will turn casual. The economy will be thrown out of balance by large cargo ships on free farm. Any time a shred of profit can be made, a player (or players) with massive Hull series ships will drive that profit back down. The player base will quickly degrade to "have" and "have not" players. The gap between these players will only widen over time and drive a wedge in the population. This is made even worse with the economics of the massive capitol ships. Their overpowered status is counteracted by their cost to operate. So free farm mechanics can have a huge impact on gameplay.

Then you have solo play. All of this needs to be designed to still allow for fun solo or small group play. The checks and balances need to work for both massive groups and small scale. Otherwise the players will simply amass into super large orgs and passively create an entry barrier for new players. This would create a player base in which you either join a large org or die. This would also be very bad for the game.

So you want piracy, but not too much. You want free trade, but not too free. You want PVP to be profitable, but not griefing. You want group play to be incentivized, but not required. The whole thing plays out in this incredibly delicate sliding scale that needs to be constantly tweaked and adjusted. It's not near as simple as a handful of hard and fast rules. The good thing is that CIG is generating quite a few things that could help them preserve balance. So I'm sure they saw this issue on day 1 and are still trying to figure it out. Lets face it. If they pull this off, they will be the first player based economy to do it. Because the bottom line is that if there is a loophole, players will abuse the shit out of it until the game crashes.

TLDR: Piracy is just the tip of the proverbial ice burg. It is an integral part of a much larger and infinitely complex issue. It is not about rules, but balance.

 

[Mich Angel]

I really do not believe there will be any meaniful "punishment for bad things" even if its a stated aim. What games have got this right ?

You can switch of the listening devices as well there is a mission for that. Plus of course UEE space.....We have one system...... Maybe two come launch....

Trust me there will be consequence for any action and this is not another shooter like all the rest it is another world different from anything ever been made, so can't see how it's relevant how any other game is they didn't make this other games. Yeah you can turn them off/on there is mission for both always been since they where introduced and ass I said they are place-holder for what is coming and as they work now they do not stay off that long anyways. How it will work as final state we don't know and we can theory craft all we want and have any opinion we want, still wont make it so. That there will be those who abuse it if they can sure but we can not make assumption that this is how it will be cause we really do not know.

And as this is UEE space we are talking about we have no clue how many system will be at release or what rules going to be in them I do know there will be unsecure space as in no rules apply.
Sure if you visit such part of space you're on your own grace of what ever protection you brought with you, you are at risk of getting both pirated and killed and that is all as designed.
I say the eventuality of permanent death of your character is sever consequence and this risk is on both end both for the attacker and the attacked.
It's up to each one of use where you want to travel and trust me there will be consequence for each one action good or bad a solid balance.
Will it be easy to do, it might be easy cause they have a good idea how to do it, then it might not be easy and a lot of trial and error before it works satisfactory...
But we do not know how at this time, how it will be or not it is all guessing and assumptions.

Fun fact: reddit is not the best place to get accurate fact about Star Citizen.

CHEERS!