The current state of pirating and... PIRATING is not GRIEFING Today I felt like doing some more pirating because I lost all of my 200k aUEC to a bug which left my caterpillar in deep space with all my cargo. So i decided to scrape my way back with a bit of pirating. Now when I pirate I get the same issues every time and today was no exception which went as follows: Pirate: All three ships landed at jumptown, pay me 2000 credits each or your lives are forfeit. No Reply, one cutlass attempts to run and is promptly destroyed by my Glaive's dual size 5 plasma canons. Pirate: One down, the rest of you wanna try running? If you dont pay the protection fee, you will get hurt. Trader: To the griefer you might want to reconsider that line of thought, there might be org members on this server who are bigger and more powerful than you. Pirate: lmao carebear bro. I'm asking for 2000 credits I'm not griefing I'm pirating. I'm one of the guys who asks for cash instead of just blowing you up. Trader: Also pirating would require you making money from you protecting it... you're just being a pain in the ass. Trader 2: starts calling me edgy, etc Pirate: Do you understand how racketeering works?? Trader: There's noone trading on your benalf... This continues for a while longer with back and forth calling me a griefer before the other two ships attempt to leave without payment and are destroyed. Why do all traders expect to be able to do their illegal jump town run without running into some nefarious characters. And as soon as you destroy them they cry griefer.I'm literally asking for 2,000 aUEC which is a tiny portion of the ~17k profit a cutlass makes from that run. I've never had anyone pay me yet they either run or try to fight. At this point in the game thats ok with me because it's at least more interesting than shooting the bugged stationary AI ships in combat missions...Perhaps in the future i should identify myself as a member of the Stanton security forces and the drug runners can either pay a fine, or are under arrest with the use of deadly force if they attempt to flee... Future of pirating? I wonder what quality of life improvements we can expect for pirates going forwards. Currently the only way to do such things is to get a beacon for payment which requires me to use my mobiglass to find/accept which makes me vulnerable to them either running or shooting me. Right now typing on your keyboard is annoying too, especially when the player may be trying to run away! Imagine me trying to type my script while the trader is initiating a quantum jump... There needs to be faster ways to contact players and if possible hail them with voice chat. I'm not sure if this is possible at the current time but a quick way of doing it for your current target is needed i think. Along with a quick way to demand ransom perhaps, i dont know. But i'm interested to see any future plans from CIG on this style of gameplay. It should be some kind of in game thing not related to text chat because how do i do it to NPC ships? they dont understand my voice chat or direct messages. If anyone wants to see the full pirate / trader interaction you can watch it here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/343816625?t=01m42s (just mute the video because i forgot my mic was on and the keyboard makes a lotta noise.) Edit: To everyone saying what i'm doing is griefing, I really hope for your sakes that CIG doesn't add griefing npcs to the game (read: pirates) I'm not a guy who just shows up and kills your ship, i actually interact with you and give you a choice. And it's not even an unreasonable choice. I'm asking for 2000 uec when a cutlass makes about 15-17k PROFIT from a single drug run. Definition of piracy 1: an act of robbery on the high seas (space) Read more on Griefing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer Racketeering is the only option right now besides shipjacking which isn't difficult but also deprives the trader any profit. I don't want to stop the trader from having fun and making money, so stealing his ship, flying it elsewhere to blow it up so that i can pick up the scraps isn't good. I want to give them the choice of paying me a small fee to trade on my turf or face the consequences.