So, i have been trying to do some piracy here and there, a profession like any other, and i have found myself able to make it work a couple times. I spend quite a lot of time scouting for a target, i gear myself and my ship properly for the job and i finally manage to find people to attack. I always shoot with distortion weapons first, and always make clear that i mean no harm, just a small fee to get out of it alive; the main issue i'm encountering is that most people don't even open the chat. A lot of issues should be solved in 3.3 , but for the time being we have what we have. If you get attacked, open the chat, it might be a pirate asking for a ransom payment. To prevent being a victim, hire an escort / use a combat assist beacon instead of whining in chat after the attack, you can do it. Fleeing vs a combat ship in atmosphere is not a great choice either. Give that 1k fee and keep doing your business, you'll be ready next time. Always leave people alive, even if engines / ship might not stay in a good shape. And people, don't waste your time with us pirates, just pay up or hire an escort, don't whine, it's the job. Here is an example of what i mean : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYhv5Ya2vng EDIT: Just saying, me and a couple friends are currently running daily cargo runs with our money combined, we started with 30k on our own with a Cutlass as Cargo hauler, a Sabre and a Vanguard Hoplite as the escort and we ruled all outposts and made a lot of credits in a very short time. Do it like we did, use your Orgs to gather money and set huge cargo runs; they work and they are working now, use the tools we have to create some gameplay like we can where nowhere else! EDIT 2 : Just wanted to say to the people that thinks that Piracy is " easy " , risk free and stuff, blaming CIG that they are developing a game for pirates, that it is not CIG's fault if you fly alone a Starfarer / Caterpillar / etc when you should hire an escort or at least fully crew the ship to make it work as intended. Help into creating some gameplay for everyone, we have Cargo Runs, Escort, Mining, Piracy and Bounty Hunting, if we want to. I started with a couple friends cargo running with escort, we took all of our credits together and started huge cargo runs. We were always safe at all times. ORGs , put your aUECs together and start the huge cargo runs that we keep talking about, with all the profit shared between the Org, with internal escorts and stuff. If everything goes well, you played together for some time and made good credits for everyone. If it goes bad you engage into a space battle against pirates and fight your way out of it. EDIT 3 : What i want to make clear is that what i'm asking is for people to open the chat when shot, not to give me free credits. After you open the chat you create the chance to avoid the pirate attack and make it out alive, the pirate himself gives you the power to avoid it, or you can just outsmart him and avoid it on your own! You choose your path, if someone stops talking to you, maybe he's not such a dumbass as you might think, he started talking, let's hear what he has to say. At least he didn't blow you off yet. ( all fight mentions are related to a good fighter ship ( like the Vanguard ) vs a big slow ship, like the Reclaimer / Cat / Starfarer which are just huge flying rocks if not fully crewed / escorted). EDIT 4 : Sometimes this might happen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdC1aKh-E64 @CMDR_Graffiti can confirm that this happened before the post and that we don't know each other.