Crime & Punishment

I always honour ransoms.

Ransomed a pod for 500m recently actually (wish I'd asked for a bill, he wouldn't tell me what was in it).

I try to honor ransoms, there has only been one occasion where I didn't and "accidentally" shot the pod after being paid, but really I don't like being called names when I'm trying to be nice about taking someones money... *Shrugs*

That's why you need to be dealing with professionals like us where alliance policy is to honor ransoms and the alliance will reimburse you at the expense of the alliance and the offender if they break it.

If I'm personally not prepared to let you go I will say so, for example soloing an AF in a T1 frig once I was offered 40 mil to let him go, I told him I can't buy 50 points on battleclinic so he'd have to make the deal REALLY sweet if I was going to let him go. Had he been prepared to pay me 200 mil or something I would have let him go.

Just because I'm aggressive and violent doesn't mean I will automatically break my word too. It's why I give my word so rarely, but you can rest assured that a ransom from me is me giving you my word to let you leave, your pass is good until you jump out or re-ship. I even refunded the 500 mil ransom I got once on a Fleet Issue Tempest because the rats killed him before he could warp out, I had taken my point off and so that ship loss after payment was only mostly my fault. I might have been able to get away with keeping both the ransom and the kill but my reputation and my alliance reputation demanded I return the ISK.

I wouldn't say "a lot". Those of us in low sec that make some money (I made a 2-bil ransom from a Proteus pilot a few days ago, for example) will generally honor our ransom requests (read: ransom demands) because it's in our best interest to do so. People like to fall back on, "But EVE is a harsh and cruel world! Harden the **** up!" and act like that explains why they can be absolute pricks to everyone around them.

CCP likes to claim there's a "butterfly effect" in everything on does in EVE. It cascades exponentially until eventually, it reaches a plateau and can no longer grow. If one person does not honor a ransom (be it in a high security war dec or low security ship/pod ransom), then it cascades. People lose faith in the game. You need some semblance of honor to succeed in this game, and you need to foster some type of trust in the community at large. Pirates like myself make a living off of ransoms, as I said before. Hell, I had a reputation for the longest time around Dodixie for honoring all 1v1s that I offered. Sure, I had logistics on field, but they only came into play when the person decided to break it first (via their RR, or reshipping, or docking). It took months to cultivate such a reputation, and when I joined Rebirth. I lost it overnight because they didn't honor 1v1s. My word is only as good as those I surround myself with, and the fact that no matter what I did if there was a juicy kill, the CEO would demand to be allowed to get involved because he needed to pad his killboard.

Anyways, people like this hurt everyone. If there's no trust, then I don't make money. And I am not going to sit in L4s all day to fix that problem.

What about your ship? As I said I made a two-bil ransom off a Proteus last week. Some ships you just never want to lose.

I tend to fly expensive ships. In general, I have found that if I fly one, I am more selective and smarter about what engagements I decide to pounce on, because it will take a lot of kills to balance it out if I lose it. I've found that even though I'm not the best PvPer around, I am smarter when I think like that. It's not so much risk aversion, really, because I am putting a ton of ISK on the line if I make a mistake. Generally, it's just me, or a small gang too. No fleet, no cyno. I want good fights!

Not honouring ransoms is - stupid.
Because if you payed the ransom why shouldnt you pay next week again?

Saying this: Sell your killrights ;-)

Because kill rights on pirates are useful?

Not to mention bounty does not mean people will actually come after you.

I got a bill bounty on me. It has not convinced my targets to actually try.

Thanks for sharing, if I ever meet that person he shall be podded on sight.

Dishonoring ransoms is not acceptable and makes it so much harder to make an honest living in low-sec.