Currently, the game rewards piracy and terrorism while shitting on every other type of gameplay... Someone convinced me this statement was not a fair assessment, so instead: Most gameplay loops provide rewards that are somewhat proportional to the risk involved. Meanwhile, piracy is the only low risk / high reward activity... It's not surprising piracy is the current gameplay meta. Piracy / Terrorism Variable Effort & Low Risk / High reward Camp any trade route with nothing but a gun and/or appropriate ship... almost no time/UEC investment needed. Shoot a player in the back or soft-death their ship (because escape is unlikely anyway). If you fail, just try again. No loss other than a bit of camping time. Worst case, you spend 20 minutes in Klescher with the option of resetting your reputation. Stolen loot sells for only slightly less than market value. Compare with other common activities... Mercenary High Effort & Low Risk / Low reward Grind for weeks just to get decent contracts - wasting time on failed missions with glitched NPCs. Strip down countless NPCs and laboriously sell the loot one piece at a time for cut-rate prices. Bounty Hunting High Effort & Low Risk / Low reward Pay to spend hours chasing down a bounty only to have them log out in GH. If you do manage to kill them, the reward for it is a pittance. Bounty Hunting NPCs High Effort & Mid Risk / Mid reward Fly to hazardous areas completing missions that barely pay for repairs / restocking. Therefore, try to soft-kill a ship and hope for decent loot, then risk being pirated while trying to sell said loot. Industrial High Effort & Risk / Mid reward Risk all the hazards of space + server glitches + pirates + murder hobos just to make a moderate profit. Hours of work can be erased in an instant. It's so common, that every SC player has a personal story about it. If pirate gameplay isn't counter-balanced by higher risk, just go ahead and rename this game to Star Pirates.