Piracy advice please

It’s not my thing but …

https://novakaneinc.blogspot.com/

…Is a good read anyway, Had some cat and mouse tussels with him in Eifer/Gusandall., he was pretty relentless. Guys like this and FlashFresh should be in an Eve hall of fame somewhere.

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There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about re: being a pirate. Historically speaking, pirates’ main interest being loot, they tended to spare ships that didn’t fight back and just handed over the cargo the pirates were after. I think it would be nice if there was a way to make that kind of piracy more viable, especially since the robbers get the cargo without risking its destruction and the robbed gets to keep their ship.

The problem with this was pointed out to me after a pirate in nullsec ambushed my Heron at a star and I asked him why he did it. We had a short conversation in local about piracy and how guys like him might be able to get their loot without blowing up a ship, whereupon he explained that that cargo scanners require a valuable mid slot and fitting one would make him easier to kill.

This got me thinking about ways to make robbing people a viable alternative to killing them and looting whatever wasn’t destroyed in the blast. I thought about giving certain types of ships - pirate faction ships, covert ops frigates, combat/force recon cruisers, marauders, black ops, they all could fit the role pretty well from a lore perspective - a special mid slot that could only fit a ship or cargo scanner and made them less power+CPU-intensive, as well as communication jammer modules that would prevent someone calling for help in-game.

I also thought of ways for individuals or gangs to do PvE piracy by hunting and interdicting NPC haulers like this, or even take privateering contracts from the empires and other “legit” factions to hit the supply lines of their enemies and the pirate factions!

Obviously, it’s too much to expect that EvE pirates would adopt this type of play even if it’s made more viable, but I think it would be nice to at least have the option.

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Well you need to factor in the fact that most players probably wont hand it over on principle anyway.

Another space game has exactly this mechanic, including a way to force open the hold of an unco-operative ship, but guess what, blasting folk is much less hassle, and most traders refuse to drop when asked nicely.

Kind of reminds me of submarine warfare in the first world war. At first they were dubbed “pirates” because shooting from a concealed position was seen as unsporting and poor show. So they had rules that a submarine or U-Boat had to surface, fire a warning shot and demand the crew evacuate the ship. Once this was done, they had to radio the position of the lifeboats to their enemy, then sink the ship while surfaced. They even had to pick up survivors if there wasnt enough lifeboats (which is damn difficult for an operational U-Boat).

However, then they invented Q-Ships, cargo ships with concealed weapons, and so when the U-Boat surfaced to fire the warning shot, the cargo ship sank them. So in turn, U-Boat captains declared THAT unsporting and started using torpedoes from submerged. This led to the sinking of the Lusitania (Oh and you could only sink a ship that you could prove carried munitions, which the Germans neglected to do before sinking that ship, they had a suspicion, which later proved correct.) and drawing the US into the war. That escalated pretty hard.

In short; the rules flew out the window very quickly when human nature showed its true colours.

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The Royal Navy regularly employ the Jolly Roger on their submarines, initially to piss off the First Sea Lord Sir Arthur Wilson, the guy that called submariners pirates; now they do it because it’s tradition.

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Elite: Dangerous? Yeah, I play that game too, and hatchbreaker limpets are a major PITA. As I said, it’s not guaranteed to get people to adopt the playstyle, but I like the idea of it being a viable option.

More options are better. ED even gives the option to play a Multiplayer game solo or with just your alliance mates as well. Which combined with other factors makes Piracy a thing to do for fun rather than profit, so no one does it for muns.

Tbh the worst thing they introduced was Engineers, second worst AX weapons, third Power Play weapons, which pretty much makes PvP very unsatisfying unless you spend a very long time grinding to be at least slightly competitive.

Reach out to me in game and I will be happy to lend any advice.

I am the original owner of Cannibal Kane before I sold the char.

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@ Commander Kane

Would Corp/Alliance Wardecking be considered piracy?
Like, I wouldn’t consider Code as pirates anymore than the Npcs who give out those pirate missions and then start calling myself a pirate.

Are you able to lend any advice on becoming a real New Eden Pirate? Or just the Snuggly Code kind wanna be pirate?

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Your post deserves a proper answer. I will reply tonight give you my opinion on what I consider to be piracy and things like ganking or wardecs in someways might also lend itself to piracy as well.

I mean people called me the terrorist of hisec which I really did not agree with since I made more friends with my wardens in eve (from those corps) than enemies. Most of my detractors are people I never really dealt with or was able to engage (forum warriors).

I will pop a mail tonight. :slight_smile:

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When it came from your peers it was a compliment, your tactics and reputation allowed you to punch way out of your weight class and you often managed to suppress the activities of groups far larger than yourself.

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2004 pirate here.

Piracy in general, has always been about making ISK, just like any other legit profession in the game. It was never about how much ISK you destroyed. This is mostly because while kill mails existed back in the early ages of EVE, most pilots did not upload their kills or their deaths in efforts to hide their builds and their locations.

The question you should be asking is: How can I make ISK through PvP?

For most, the simplest answer is just to be a PvP pilot that engages in PvP with other pilots for the sake of destroying their opponents ships and selling the loot. If you use this new pilot, Cannibal Kane as example. You can see was averaging 3 - 5 solo kills a day. Sometimes popping 300+ million ships, sometimes popping 3+ million ships.

For reference: https://zkillboard.com/kill/38135246/

This poor carebear likely never knew what hit him. 1.7b destroyed, but only a grand total of 21 million ISK worth of loot dropped for Mr. Kane to sell. The Centus A-Type Large Armor Repairer unfortunately did not drop, worth over 500 million ISK.

However, maybe the money for Mr. Kane was in the peace negotiations of these mostly bad high-sec pilots to get him to stop killing their defenseless mining barges in high-sec. Yet, it makes you wonder why he even sold his/her character to begin with for 45 billion ISK if he/she was truly a killing machine making real ISK from his trade? :roll_eyes:

Regardless, here are some things to consider:

Ransoming is still possible in the game. You can still camp gates, still find carebears running DED sites, relic sites, and so forth where you can interject into their experience, disable the target, and then ransom them for ISK.

The reason you don’t see this as much is because most pilots care more about their kill board ISK destruction rather than liquid ISK in their pockets. There has also been a number of mechanics introduced into the game that has made this difficult to achieve such as hot dropping, removal of 10K gates, web stacking changes, and overall ship hull HP increases (sniping debuff).

But, nothing is stopping you from jumping on grid with a hunter, BLOPing targets, and then ransoming them in one example. Nothing is stopping you from taking a combat recon with bait to a site, waiting for targets, and then ransoming them as they are disabled completely. And nothing is stopping you from going out to null-sec into player controlled empires, and terrorizing their PvE operatives either.

Just takes a little more planning, execution, and precision that unfortunately most pilots in New Eden are not willing to take.

Hope that helps!

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He sold it to raise money for Plex for Good IIRC; possibly the Nepal Earthquake charity campaign.

The reputation attached to the character commanded a decent price.

CCP thought they had fixed that by dumping the loot in the cargo hold. I found out they were wrong. :skull_and_crossbones:

You are correct. I remember them.

I got isk from them to stop the war. They engaged with a Rokh on the undock in JITA when the Vargur and Destroyer undocked after I engaged. The Rohk and Algos was there to hold me down while Vargur would apply DPS. They thought those ships would do the trick to teach me lesson. I just managed my range so the two big ships did nothing, and the neuts on the algos did not matter… HAM Legion.

I sold my char because I have done what I wanted to with him and I had to focus on real-life.tm a bit. I will always have that char hanging over my head and I recently came back to EVE to start fresh and see how naughty you can still be. :slight_smile: My new char has more SP now than Cannibal Kane ever did so its cool. :slight_smile:

Still checking out some stuff before I decide what I will focus on.

I see piracy as something that makes you isk while engaging people for any reason. This could be ganking, this could be wardecs or just your low/null wolf that catches somebody and offers him a chance to get away for a small fee.

In my broad sweep view of Piracy if your nefarious activities in EVE makes you isk… it a form of Piracy.

  • Ganking for isk is piracy. With traditional ganking you know what is being carried by your target and you are hoping that expensive loot drops.
  • Wardecs now to shoot down structures and people can be piracy depending on your goal. If somebody paying you to wardec somebody then sure “merc work”. But if you pay the 100mil fee to wardec that 1 raitaru in low power mode to shoot it and salvage it. That will pay for the next 4 wars in salvage. That can be piracy.
  • Last and for sure not least. The hunters in low and null that catch people and ransom them.

There are many more but those are the ones I normally engaged in. Even shaking people down to pay you to avoid any attacks is Piracy. Ahem… Wardec immunity as long as you pay lol.

Even before I left because the traditional Idea around Piracy started dying as ransoming people that you catch or wardecced started becoming a lot harder., due to people ransoming targets and then just killing them after they paid. This is turn meant that the target either logs off during wars or ignores your ransom attempts. During that time people just want the target to cry and send angry emails which is kinda sad. More than likely it is even worse now.

If there was one thing a target could be certain off in dealing with me, if they offered a ransom I kept my word, always. Even allowed them to continue with their normal activies while flashing red next to me when I would sit on gates waiting for another target to come through as their war started winding down.

I am a romantic when it comes to Piracy and I would like to think it comes with a certain amount of pride and honor in the work you do and the ship that you use. Each time I logged on and saw my Legion ready for me to undock I had this happy feeling.

As Famine mentioned, nothing stop you from jumping into low with a simple double M-ANC Merlin and just going at people to learn what you need to learn before you start fitting larger ships. I am always happy to give fitting advice as well.

It is early morning, I just rambled way to much and need coffee now. No doubt I will most likely edit it when I read it again lol.

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Why so salty, bro? What did you lose?

I think we had once visited this question before and the answer is still the same.

Jimmy got ganked outside.

Come to Rancer, for all your booty needs.

Sometimes I stream my adventures at Jita undock.

Hope it helps

Best advice,

  1. Gank everything you can lock,

  2. Scoop loot

  3. Profit.

eg: made 500mill in 2 mins.

Kane is a great teacher, one of the best. And a really nice gentleman. Also very mysterious like hacker elite spy assassin style.

Kane can I be so bold to ask if you did move to Europe?

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