Player Features and Ideas Discussion

I am sure that before the 19th century, maybe before the 20th century even, running into pirates at sea no doubt meant trouble. Lots of it. It should be the same in EVE.

They are not very strong. Gawd knows what fits they are using so that they can be annihilated by a single T3 cruiser or BS. They don't even run away when the fight is going against them. Pirates should instill some sort of fear for-f****s*sake!

Suggestions:
1: They should warp away when losing. If within the same system, some sort of personal beacon appears to the capsuleer engaging them to allow pursuit. Pursuit should even be possible across multiple systems.
2: Quality over quantity! Fewer pirate ships with much improved fits and tactics. Bounties bumped correspondingly.
3: Pirates are NPC CAPSULERS! They have names. If CCP can give names to thousands of agents, then can name thousands of pirates.
4: They should be tough as nails and dangerous. And use drones for gawd's sake. Especially Serpentis and Guristas.
5: If reinforcements can arrive to beacons in FW plexes, why can't a pirate call for aid as well?
6: They should absolutely attempt to disengage if the fight is going poorly. Make capusuleers fit a warp disruptor if they want that bounty!
7: Pirates may appear on d-scan with named ships. They may chill occasionally at safe spots of their own and have to be scanned down.

I thought most pirates were NOT capsuleers? Some, like the ones you get the DNA off of, or the officers, are, but by no means all of them.

Other than that, anything to make ratting more interesting is good. Unfortunately, CCP seem to hate things that make ratting more interesting. (See: blaster ratting)

I'm a bit fuzzy on this also.

I mean, they fly ships identical to what we fly. We even buy ships from them. Aren't capsules required to pilot them?

Where's one of dem lore neckbearders when you need them? This requires an in-depth explanation.

Edit: However, I have to admit that all of them being capsuleers helps satisfy the logistics of their piratey ways... Each faction would have to be recruiting tens of thousands of pilots every day and training them to replace their losses if the NPC pilots didn't pop back into a medical clone and re-ship like we do.

Can someone explain to me why they shouldn't have access to capsuleer technologies? By that, I mean in the context of New Eden. No one ever could have smuggled that tech out to them over the last hundred years? Why does Anire Scarlett always reappear? She's a pirate.

Quality over quantity! Fewer, stronger rats. Fewer pirtes==less lag==more procesor power for drones. Heck pirates that should also fly their own faction ships every now and then. A named, Guristas Pirate outlaw (capsuleer) flying a Gila would make one think twice before engaging.

The term you are looking for is rats.

they're not identical though. their machs often have launchers or 8 guns. their barghests are rail fit. just about every frig has long ranged 90% webs. their domi's have 8 guns and no drones etc etc.

the ships we buy off them may be special issue/rare upgraded variants of what they fly.

Even a noob capsular has a significant tactical edge over a non capsular pilot. That's why they are weak. Still though I wouldn't mind tougher rats.

This is not miner hating but I think they should be a significant threat to a mining barge in 0.5 space.

If you want better content then CCP can provide you'll have to make your own

I've often had mixed feelings about rats as they stand now.

I've often wished they were harder, more dynamic, and took brains as well as sheer brawn (fitting) to beat. However there are a few issues:

1. Repetitiveness. Ratting is something thousands and thousands of people do. It is what fuels much of the economy, it buys ships for pvp, industry, exploration. It buys ammo and drones. It buys implants, drugs, and blueprints. Many individuals rat billions of isk on their own for their expenses. This is an activity that many will engage in for tens of hours over a month. If you make it "harder" with no other considerations, all you really do is nerf income, because you've made it more tedious and involved than before. Which brings me to my next point:

2. Payoff. Simply it has to be worth it. I'm not adverse to losing a ship in pvp. If I do, either I was stupid or my enemy was better. gfs in local. However I haven't tolerated the idea of losing a ship to ratting since I ran my first lvl 4, in a T1 armor fit domi, years ago, and got put in structure from right hand of zazzmatazz. To this day the only ship I've lost in pve was because I thought a mission was over, afk'd, forgot about it, and a single BS spawn appeared and killed me. I have never afk'd while ratting since.

So what am I getting at? Well you want pirates to be something we might fear a bit. Maybe even need to bring friends to run sites. Fine, sounds awesome to me. But if I am looking at losing 200m ship ( Fitted BS/Ishtar hull) at the least, if there is a serious chance of that happening, then the payoffs need to be huge for the time put in. If a current nullsec ratter makes 25m/tick, or a mission runner not blitzing manages roughly the same 75m/hour, it takes a little over 2 hours to replace their ratting ship, at the least. We then claim we want ratting to be so difficult or fearful that we want friends to be necessary. For all that trouble, you'd need to buff ratting to the point that after all your proposed ships warping off, safespots, beacons in different systems, and so on, a group of 4-5 pilots could manage 30m or so a tick -each-. and then finally:

3. This still won't be fun. All it does is take a necessary thing, make it difficult, make it tedious, make it require others, and at best will provide marginal rewards compared to the system we had previously. No real improvement has been made, instead you've taken a tedious, boring, and overly repetitive system and made it a tedious, dangerous, headache.

Trust me, I'd love ratting to be fun, but none of the suggestions I've ever heard really accomplish that goal. I don't know what will accomplish that goal either. But in the end after all the proposals I've ever heard, in two weeks after release everyone will still farm it, eventually find a way to do it in 100% safety, and we will have ended up right where we started.