Thoughts on piracy

[Shadow Reaper]

. . .Whether they are called pirates or not, any game that allows players to kill other players for profit has this issue.

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.

SC is pointing toward the best solution to this problem I've ever seen, which is bounty hunting. If you want to earn cash for killing players, you want a job as a bounty hunter. From what they're describing of how they want the game to play, it is going to be HUGELY inconvenient to hold outlaw status, specifically because all the PVP players are gonna have your number and cart blanche to capture or kill you on sight. Capture is in some ways worse, since it can prolong the time you can't play your game your way. This is another part of the piracy dynamic that we haven't considered until now, but apparently you can't just "rip skins" and off yourself once the game goes beta. If you play an outlaw, and you're captured by another player, you should expect that to be all manner of inconvenience and pain in the ass. And so is incarceration in the real world.

What I wonder about is how they'll make the consequences of capture different based upon whether you're an outlaw. If players can capture anyone and hold them indefinitely, they certainly will, so CIG needs a limitation on how prisoners are kept out of gameplay, and I think they will.

 

[maynard]

most players are really risk-averse

very few will want to transport goods through pirate infested space

so piracy will be mostly vs. NPCs

a lot will depend on how well it pays

good pay, lots of pirates

lots of pirates, lots of opportunity for bounty hunters

et cetera

 

[Mich Angel]

SC is pointing toward the best solution to this problem I've ever seen, which is bounty hunting. If you want to earn cash for killing players, you want a job as a bounty hunter. From what they're describing of how they want the game to play, it is going to be HUGELY inconvenient to hold outlaw status, specifically because all the PVP players are gonna have your number and cart blanche to capture or kill you on sight. Capture is in some ways worse, since it can prolong the time you can't play your game your way. This is another part of the piracy dynamic that we haven't considered until now, but apparently you can't just "rip skins" and off yourself once the game goes beta. If you play an outlaw, and you're captured by another player, you should expect that to be all manner of inconvenience and pain in the ass. And so is incarceration in the real world.

What I wonder about is how they'll make the consequences of capture different based upon whether you're an outlaw. If players can capture anyone and hold them indefinitely, they certainly will, so CIG needs a limitation on how prisoners are kept out of gameplay, and I think they will.

They've described this as a player is not going to dictate how long it is incarcerated or hold, as for example some one chose to capture a pirate/criminal with the hawk/Cutty blue for example.
One suggestion they have is there is a time limit set buy them how long it can take for him to be delivered to UEE security or the capture is going to be automatically transported there as in "beem me up scotty" kind of mechanics. So that a player will not be able to capture and then hold him in cell as long as they see fit but there will be a incarcerated and a fee to pay to get out of this predicament and this is dictated by CIG.

As in once capture the mission is over for the bounty hunter player, he get payed and go his marry way for the next bounty.

You get a lot a good info here how they plan to do this, and some more.
But as with all at this point, nothing is written in stone so there might be changes down the line to make it balanced.

Calling All Devs - Crime Stats <---- Here is how current system came in to place and why and a bit how they plan it to work in the future.
Calling All Devs - Piracy vs. Griefing <---- This is self explanatory
Calling All Devs - Death of a Spaceman <---- This one give a good idea how and why you will be trying to avoid getting killed to often.

Here is a lot a fresh new updated information about game play and a lot a other stuff about Star Citizen.
Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Full playlist
Calling All Devs - Practical Behaviors
etc...

On Star Citizen Youtube <--- you can find any video they ever published officially.

As in straight from the horses mouth in black and white, what is what and how they want to do it.

CHEERS!

 

[Will C.]

One thing I know for sure is the most vocal people that are anti piracy on spectrum will prob get hit the most but they brought it upon themselves

 

[Shadow Reaper]

The remedy for pirates is certainly escorts. No matter what you're hauling cargo in, a handful of escorts is a huge deterrent. Certainly if I were flying a Star G I'd want a handful of Tana's flying escort. Even though they don't dogfight well, any NPC can launch missiles and since they updated the Tana to S2 missiles, and those missiles use the same AI no matter who is firing them, the Tana looks very attractive to me. Flying off the StarG they have unlimited range, so best to have escorts. Now if we find any dogfighter can refuel off the StarG, a Gladiator with 8 S2s and 4 S5s is a nice choice since it needs half as many NPCs. I'd think twice about any target with a pair of them on escort.

 

[Deroth]

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

Risk vs reward.

If they attack some ships will get away, some of their own ships will get damaged or destroyed, some of the cargo will be damaged or destroyed, and salvaging will take time increasing the risk of security or retaliation forces showing up.

Sure, there'll be some that attack without warning, but I suspect that over time many will prefer the easy payday. Remember, there's ship scanning so they'll be able to check whether they're getting the choice or scrap cargo.

 

[DontTouchMyHoHos]

most players are really risk-averse

very few will want to transport goods through pirate infested space

so piracy will be mostly vs. NPCs

a lot will depend on how well it pays

good pay, lots of pirates

lots of pirates, lots of opportunity for bounty hunters

et cetera

I dont think you have played enough PvP games. Most players in an environment where they are free to kill each other are not risk-averse, they just modify what they bring into the content and work with less and dont care about dying at all. When you create an environment where people can freely kill each other. If the risk is too high, they modify what they lose and increase their numbers to mitigate this so death is meaningless. Priacy, pvpers, and griefers will always do one thing. Find a way to come out on top and they will abuse and misuse the system without exploiting skirting the line in order to achieve their goal. Taking your shit without losing theirs. Death has to have an impact over a lot more than losing just your ship and mods, because people will create throw away ships that they dont care about. This speaking of pirates, so it really doesnt matter how risk averse anyone is, it has to affect the person conducting it the most to stop it, but at the same time. If you do not affect the person being affected by pirates then they simply just attack and dont care, because there is no risk.

Being as this is a video game the vast majority of people are not risk averse unless it is a huge loss and even so, people would rather go down fighting then give their shit up, because the cost of losing that said cargo is worth it. You can see the lack of risk aversion in fps games where people are constantly putting themselves in suicidal tendencies in order to one, push the envelope, or two, they simply don't care about dying.

A lot of people talk about Piracy and only about how to affect Piracy in order to avert Piracy and prevent it from a straight slaughter feast in every encounter. There are two sides to Pirates, the Pirate them self and the one getting their cargo taken. Piracy only works if the person relinquishes their cargo and they themselves really need to feel the risk just as much as pirates. If people fear losing the cargo then you will see the rise of bounty hunter economy and protection guilds offering runs through sectors of lawlessness. Without the fear, you simply cannot create a proper economy for Bounty Hunting and Protection/Escorting. There has to be fear and that is the hardest thing to induce in a video game.

 

[Mich Angel]

There will be consequence for any action good or bad and this is not another shooter or mmo like all the rest this is in another world different from anything ever been made.
And How players, player-pirate will act or not going to act is impossible to know, before you have all the fact of what punishment/reward it will bring doing either side.

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.
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.

We do not know how at this time, how it will be or not it is all guessing and assumptions and that is fact.

You get a lot a better understanding what they are trying to do from the info to in this links to there videos discussing just this.
How they plan to do it, and some ideas in which way they are heading.
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...

Calling All Devs - Crime Stats <---- Here is how current system came in to place and why and a bit how they plan it to work in the future.
Calling All Devs - Piracy vs. Griefing <---- This is self explanatory
Calling All Devs - Death of a Spaceman <---- This one give a good idea how and why you will be trying to avoid getting killed to often.

And there are a lot more info on the Star Citizen youtube channel (<--That's a link to their page), not counting all the info also avail on RSI homepage and in spectrum.

CHEERS!

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

 

[Bambooza]

The remedy for pirates is certainly escorts

Well, escorts and beer. Pirates are easily distracted by booty.

 

[maynard]

I dont think you have played enough PvP games...

If people fear losing the cargo then you will see the rise of bounty hunter economy and protection guilds offering runs through sectors of lawlessness. Without the fear, you simply cannot create a proper economy for Bounty Hunting and Protection/Escorting...

I don't think you've played enough sandbox games... 80% of the players are gonna be carebears who just want to get rich in-game. To hire escorts they will have to pay at least as well as running missions does. This will cut into their profit margins so heavily that they will prefer to compete for trade in safe space. You cannot reduce your risk without reducing your reward.

For bounty hunting to be a viable career choice the pirates have to be easy to track down and kill/capture. If the game mechanics allow this then the risk/reward ratio for piracy as a career gets unattractive in a hurry.

The minority of players that want to PVP will find each other, and compete in cheap ships they can afford to replace with a minimum amount of mission grinding or carebearing. Players who PVP profitably will be rare as hens' teeth.

 

[DontTouchMyHoHos]

I don't think you've played enough sandbox games... 80% of the players are gonna be carebears who just want to get rich in-game. To hire escorts they will have to pay at least as well as running missions does. This will cut into their profit margins so heavily that they will prefer to compete for trade in safe space. You cannot reduce your risk without reducing your reward.

For bounty hunting to be a viable career choice the pirates have to be easy to track down and kill/capture. If the game mechanics allow this then the risk/reward ratio for piracy as a career gets unattractive in a hurry.

The minority of players that want to PVP will find each other, and compete in cheap ships they can afford to replace with a minimum amount of mission grinding or carebearing. Players who PVP profitably will be rare as hens' teeth.

Correct, but the topic is on piracy, not carebears and trading in security space. If you make it easy to track pirates, the mechanic becomes pointless. You have to benefit the gameplay enough to not hinder it making pirates easily trackable will ruin the gameplay and force people to find better means, thus when you encounter someone of this nature. Instead of finding, "pirates" as in people who just want your cargo, you find people just looking to kill you for your cargo, because the gameplay isnt engaging enough and fair enough to the pirate themselves to warrant getting money off taking it from people without killing them. The, "roleplayers" will see piracy as a useless mechanic with unfair advantages heavily favored to everyone else but them, so all you are left is with pvpers. I've also played a boat load of sandboxes and am very well aware of the carebears.

 

[Mich Angel]

 

[maynard]

Correct, but the topic is on piracy, not carebears and trading in security space...

right, the OP asks,

"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?"

and my original answer was that they won't play along. Risk-averse carebears won't give pirates the opportunity to rob them, so pirates will be left with NPCs to victimise.

pirates have to have someone to rob, so discussing carebears and how they choose to play is totally relevant

 

[Zookajoe]

A trader is not normally a person that goes looking for a risky environment to travel through, he is out to minimize risk and maximize profit. Unless there is a substantial increase of profit by taking a high risk route, a smart trader will not take it. It has nothing to do with whether they are a carebear or not, risking profit for no real reason is just not good business.

So, yes, pirates will probably be left with NPCs to victimize.

 

[Wolfy]

Holy fuck this again.

 

[littlej0e]

There will be consequence for any action good or bad and this is not another shooter or mmo like all the rest this is in another world different from anything ever been made.
And How players, player-pirate will act or not going to act is impossible to know, before you have all the fact of what punishment/reward it will bring doing either side.

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.
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.

We do not know how at this time, how it will be or not it is all guessing and assumptions and that is fact.

You get a lot a better understanding what they are trying to do from the info to in this links to there videos discussing just this.
How they plan to do it, and some ideas in which way they are heading.
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...

Calling All Devs - Crime Stats <---- Here is how current system came in to place and why and a bit how they plan it to work in the future.
Calling All Devs - Piracy vs. Griefing <---- This is self explanatory
Calling All Devs - Death of a Spaceman <---- This one give a good idea how and why you will be trying to avoid getting killed to often.

And there are a lot more info on the Star Citizen youtube channel (<--That's a link to their page), not counting all the info also avail on RSI homepage and in spectrum.

CHEERS!

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

Really appreciate the accurate information. Getting SO hard to find these days.

 

[Mich Angel]

Really appreciate the accurate information. Getting SO hard to find these days.

You're welcome I try to do as good research I can and to avoid mixing personal opinion but if I do mix it with personal opinion I state it as such as clear as I can.
Most just tent not to read all in a post before posting and color it with personal opinion as if it was fact, hence the true information get a bit blurred and harder to get to.

CHEERS!