EVE General Discussion

As a player who lived in lowsec and pirated for many years I will say that true lowsec piracy died years ago.

After faction warfare things just went downhill and the meta changed.

Where before there were a fair number of pirates spready between the many lowsecs and pipes there are now hundreds and hundreds of faction warfare runners.

You see less and less people willing to go into lowsec to bear or do risky isk making ventures which means less juicy ransoms and targets for the oldschool true pirates.

The fishing grounds are unsustainable.

All that is left is straight pvp these days which in itself is not bad, however this has resulted in the oldschool pirate meta practically not existing. There be no booty for the tooty as it where!

I use to make all my money from ransoms/people ejecting from theres hips in the old days.
I miss those days it will never be the same.

The thing with ransom is....you need time to negotiate ransom.

There are different situations where a honest scumbag can make some ISK out of ransom.
In High Sec I guess it is only possible if you catch someone you have wardecced....or someone who is stupid enough to pick up a suspect flag unintentionally.
While you probably have all the time in the world ransoming a single wartarget in high sec - ransoming a Suspect can be compromised by the next trigger happy pilot that flies by.

In Low Sec you can catch people in all kind of situations...gates, missions, plexes or belts, yet a negotiation for ransom is always under a lot of time pressure. As long as you are not in a group and try to ransom someone solo there are either gate guns which end you pretty fast if your target isn´t a pirate or aggressed you first (yeah I know right? that never ever happens) or rats that - if you are flying caldari low sec, tend to switch aggro and then jam the crap out of you (and you loose point). It is there fore less probable to even get offered a ransom when tackled by a single pirate in low.

SO while I could think of ways of making ransom a really profitable source of solo income in 0.0 and high sec, you basicly need to be in a group (aka >2 pilots to for example switch point at gates to reset the gate guns while ransoming) in low sec to make use of every "theatre".


tl.,dr.:
Solo Pirates can ransom victims in High Sec or 0,0 - Low sec plays a minor role due to environmental boundaries.
A group of people can ransom everywhere but also attract more attention.


Edit:
Regarding people that make huge income by ganking freighters with destroyers - its efficient and looks a lot like piracy to me. Different kind of pirates but I would call them that.
The mining permits CODE (is it still the mining thing?) gives out....I would not call that piracy...its more like a criminal organisation with mafia style.

The other day I tried killing some highsec mission runners. I got in a fight with a Ferox, but my crappy dps couldn't break his tank. He offered to pay me to let him go. I received 10 mil and warped off. So glad I didn't focus on PvE when I started playing this game 3 weeks ago. I probably would have quit by now.

Great guide...mind if I send you a message in-game?

I have been playing for a while, but have primarily been mining/industry (ie, no PvP, apart from tackling in CTAs). I started this character to actually learn PvP/less than reputable playing without destroying my mining/indy main's reputation in my current alliance.

I have no clue how to do it, but I want to learn pirating with this toon

They are all logged off due to a minor inconvenience with the servers being constantly shut off.

There is always ninja salv > ganking

empty pods is bullying

At least you're Law compliant.

As a CODE sympathizer, I will occasionally help enforce the New Halaima Code of Conduct.

However, SMERG has our own law we enforce that extends to lowsec.... the Plagioclaise Protection Act of YC113., that lists lowsec Plagioclaise as an endangered "species". Anyone caught mining it is subject to immediate destruction. There is no permit.

CODE is doing good work.

As for podding... I chose not to, based on my devout belief in militant Chribbaism. My sect of the faith allows me to destroy ships, but not pods. The Veldspar must flow.

Like the "pirate" I quoted said, we are not pirates. We are also not terrorists. we are the legitimate police force of the elected sovereign of Highsec our Supreme Protector and father of the New Order James 315.

Do to the mechanics in Highsec and our sec status, it is simply not practical to ransom a criminal miner. You could probably do it if you rep your sec status, but that would add a boring grind mechanic to the process and I try to avoid stuff like that.

On another note, I personally think that so called "lowsec pirates" are just afraid to lose their ship to CONCORD and that's why they opt for the easy-mode lowsec PvP. It's true that we do roams and gate camps as well, but just to chill out. In the end of the day we are looking for the real challenge which is the playground with the harshest rules for the aggressor, Highsec. This is just my personal opinion.