I'm a strict supporter of profitable pirating. The smart shall exploit the dumb and the lazy. Also, I believe that the rise of profitable pirates can decrease the amount of griefers more than anything else. Players tend to go for rewards, and if there is a clear way to get ISK while doing PvP, most will do so and only the most obnoxious persons (opposed to characters) would keep going for "tears".
In EVE it's hard to be a profitable pirate. The act of piracy is a strongly negative sum action. The destroyed ship loses its hull, and you can salvage back about 30% or something via salvaging, if you happen to have a salvager ship around. The modules and the cargo has about 50% chance to drop. If we assume that the fittings and cargo costs as much as the ship (which is a good rule of thumb) the pirate gains 40% of the value the target loses.
Of course there is a system to increase the pie: ransoms. The pirate demands ransom and let the target go. If the target worth 100M and he demands 70M, he gets 30M more than by destroying the ship and the target loses 30M less than he would if his ship would be destroyed. Win-win.
Except there is absolutely no reason for the pirate to honor his promise. The optimal action is to take the ransom and destroy the ship. Due to this, the optimal action of the target is not paying ransom, therefore we got a nice game theory trap where everyone does what is optimal for him, providing the worst global outcome (largest loss to target, smallest gain to pirate).
Behold my idea, the inverse ransom, which solves this situation and makes pirating much more profitable: the pirate tackles the ship and initiate communication, both via direct chat and on local with something like "Yarr, this is pirate X, talk to me landlubber or feel my wrath!". Roleplaying text is always recommended since it distances people from the game. The more likely the target views the situation ingame rather than "that person tries to defeat my person", the more likely he'll cooperate.
The pirate then makes his offer: "Yarr, the mighty pirate captain has caught another mouse! You have two options little mouse, fight/self destruct and lose your ship AND your pod OR make some ISK to recover your losses. Interested or want to die?" The target will most probably tells that he is interested.
Then the pirate presents his offer: "I pay you up front 66% of the value of your hull! Yes, I, the mighty pirate pay you little mouse! In return you leave your ship and run away with your capsule. If you destroy your ship instead of leaving it, I'll kill your pod and put your name on the list of bad mice and from now on me and my mates will kill and podkill you when we can. What will you say?"
If the target has more than one brain cells, he says yes, and the pirate pays him. There is a chance that he won't leave his ship, but it's small as the pirate already shown him reason and goodwill (as far as a pirate can go) and also he doesn't want to lose his implants. Probably he'll just drop ship and runs away with his capsule.
Assuming that the target worth 50M in hull and 50M in fits+cargo, the pirate pays 33.3M and gains 100M, which is 23.3M profit over the kill loot, while the target lost "only" 66.6M instead of 100.
Insurance can mess it up, as the target may be better off taking the insurance payout than the pirates money. In most cases however the difference between the payout and the pirate money isn't enough to cover the losses of the implants, and probably most targets won't even think of insurance when tackled by a pirate. Also, if someone is dumb enough to be captured in lowsec, he is dumb enough to not being insured.
Another interesting case can be when the target is a hauler where the value of the hull is nothing compared to the value of the hold. That value cannot be insured and totally lost to the player, while 50% is lost to the pirate. So this case the pirate can offer 25% of the cargo. Also the chance of either party scamming the other can be decreased by trading in turns, for example with a dumb T1 pilot who went to lowsec with 1B cargo:
I think this idea can give a rise to "honorable" pirate corps that are known to not podkill anyone leaving his ship, decreasing griefing significantly while increasing the amount of players involved in PvP. That's really a win-win.
Business report: 3.92B (0.4B gifts) Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations and soon group activities on the "goblinworks" channel.
In EVE it's hard to be a profitable pirate. The act of piracy is a strongly negative sum action. The destroyed ship loses its hull, and you can salvage back about 30% or something via salvaging, if you happen to have a salvager ship around. The modules and the cargo has about 50% chance to drop. If we assume that the fittings and cargo costs as much as the ship (which is a good rule of thumb) the pirate gains 40% of the value the target loses.
Of course there is a system to increase the pie: ransoms. The pirate demands ransom and let the target go. If the target worth 100M and he demands 70M, he gets 30M more than by destroying the ship and the target loses 30M less than he would if his ship would be destroyed. Win-win.
Except there is absolutely no reason for the pirate to honor his promise. The optimal action is to take the ransom and destroy the ship. Due to this, the optimal action of the target is not paying ransom, therefore we got a nice game theory trap where everyone does what is optimal for him, providing the worst global outcome (largest loss to target, smallest gain to pirate).
Behold my idea, the inverse ransom, which solves this situation and makes pirating much more profitable: the pirate tackles the ship and initiate communication, both via direct chat and on local with something like "Yarr, this is pirate X, talk to me landlubber or feel my wrath!". Roleplaying text is always recommended since it distances people from the game. The more likely the target views the situation ingame rather than "that person tries to defeat my person", the more likely he'll cooperate.
The pirate then makes his offer: "Yarr, the mighty pirate captain has caught another mouse! You have two options little mouse, fight/self destruct and lose your ship AND your pod OR make some ISK to recover your losses. Interested or want to die?" The target will most probably tells that he is interested.
Then the pirate presents his offer: "I pay you up front 66% of the value of your hull! Yes, I, the mighty pirate pay you little mouse! In return you leave your ship and run away with your capsule. If you destroy your ship instead of leaving it, I'll kill your pod and put your name on the list of bad mice and from now on me and my mates will kill and podkill you when we can. What will you say?"
If the target has more than one brain cells, he says yes, and the pirate pays him. There is a chance that he won't leave his ship, but it's small as the pirate already shown him reason and goodwill (as far as a pirate can go) and also he doesn't want to lose his implants. Probably he'll just drop ship and runs away with his capsule.
Assuming that the target worth 50M in hull and 50M in fits+cargo, the pirate pays 33.3M and gains 100M, which is 23.3M profit over the kill loot, while the target lost "only" 66.6M instead of 100.
Insurance can mess it up, as the target may be better off taking the insurance payout than the pirates money. In most cases however the difference between the payout and the pirate money isn't enough to cover the losses of the implants, and probably most targets won't even think of insurance when tackled by a pirate. Also, if someone is dumb enough to be captured in lowsec, he is dumb enough to not being insured.
Another interesting case can be when the target is a hauler where the value of the hull is nothing compared to the value of the hold. That value cannot be insured and totally lost to the player, while 50% is lost to the pirate. So this case the pirate can offer 25% of the cargo. Also the chance of either party scamming the other can be decreased by trading in turns, for example with a dumb T1 pilot who went to lowsec with 1B cargo:
- The pirate gives him 50M and demands him to jettison 200M worth cargo
- The pirate gives him 100M and demands jettisoning 400M worth cargo
- The pirate gives him 100M and demands jettisoning the rest of the cargo
- The pirate gives him 66% hull cost and demands leaving the ship
I think this idea can give a rise to "honorable" pirate corps that are known to not podkill anyone leaving his ship, decreasing griefing significantly while increasing the amount of players involved in PvP. That's really a win-win.
Business report: 3.92B (0.4B gifts) Remember that you can participate in our EVE conversations and soon group activities on the "goblinworks" channel.
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