Crime & Punishment

How feasible is it to be a pirate in low sec and keep your sec status above 2?

I ask on behalf of my main who has recently wandered into low sec and fought against a couple of pirates, it was good fun and you seem to be able to get 1v1 fights (as long as you target the pirates who are more honourable than the WCS fitted everybody else).

Now my main character, being my main does everything, including going out to high sec to replenish ships etc and my two other account alts have too low a SP level to be of much use, plus not sure if I am ready to trash my +5 to -10 just yet.

My definition of pirate are people like Stay Frosty or The Tuskers. I've heard very good things about them

Was unaware of the ruling, Apologies Noragen. This is Nicola's main, or Nicola is this mains account alt, whichever you prefer :)

I like this guy. It's a player enforced guideline. See this is why this thread needs a sticky. Reckon that is asking too much after getting it unlocked

Hah agreed but it would be difficult to maintain whilst podding like a mad man.

Super easy with tags these days.In the old days every time i went to -10 it was a PAIN to get it back up but these days just kill it all and tag-it-up again.

I'd still like to know what you are considering piracy. When I think of pirates, I think stealing, I think ransoming, I think ways to make someone else's things yours.

Roaming around looking for fights isn't piracy. Not saying that's what you do... But that's what most "pirates" claim to do.

Indeed, this is my take on it. I am happy not to pod (am I bad?) just looking for good fights. My limited experience doing this is that most of the good fights will come from the pilots in pirate corps themselves as they tend to fit for combat rather than farming plexes. Null sec is OK but 1 v 1 are rarer than several rare things that don't want to be found.

OK, that is a fair enough description, I think the reason that I thought of the term pirates is that by attacking the people you do, how often you do then your sec status will take a battering pretty quickly, especially if you are able to pod the other player. The people that are there to farm plex and such will often run away from combat where possible, and even when they are in combat they will rarely initiate it and therefore not get the sec hit anyway.

Too late to rephrase the initial question but barring the term pirates it was still valid, ie how easy is it to maintain a certain sec status if you are active in finding and initiating fights in low sec. From what I gather if I don't pod, occasionally rat and use tags I should be able to maintain a sec status that allows me into high sec (kill rights notwithstanding)

So, I'm not sure if I would call myself a pirate, but I am in faction warfare and I also frequently find myself shooting neutrals in lowsec.

I split my time between low and highsec as like you this is my main character and I don't want to nuke his standings. You can fix your standings with tags, but frankly there are better ways, especially if you need to PvE to make ISK.

Killing NPC pirates counts as law enforcement actions which raise your security status; if you do PvE like level 4 missions in highsec or combat anomalies in low/nullsec, you will see your sec status rise fairly quickly. I've recently been running alot of Sisters of Eve missions and find myself with nearly a 5.0 security status. If you already spend time in highsec, running some lvl 4's is a good way to make some cash while also keeping your sec status where it needs to be.

The other part of this equation is that I don't go out of my way to shoot neutral pods. In fact, I simply don't shoot neutral pods at all. If I had reason to suspect the pod was shiny, I would make an exception - but otherwise there's no point contending with kill rights and massive status hits because you're killing empty or cheap pods.

Most of the pods worth killing outside of highsec, will be either faction warfare targets, suspect/criminal flagged, or low enough sec status to be freely attackable. And their owners will also be pretty good at getting them out. Blapping empty neutral pods left and right is generally more trouble than it's worth.

Piracy for profit (not sure there's another kind) is not dead, it's just hard. And that is partially due to the fact that almost no one honors ransoms, thus almost no one will pay them. If you want to make ISK off loot though you're going to need friends to help you catch and kill the fat targets. Honestly, gatecamping a highsec/lowsec connection with a gang is the best way to actually make ISK - inevitably some idiot will try to jump through in a faction fit T3 and you will get paid. Or conversely you can bait and murder other pirates gatecamping in needlessly blinged out ships. Piracy in highsec requires a little more finesse but it's still very possible - you just have to be patient instead of relying on game mechanics (and ignorance thereof) to grant you an automatic kill. If you are interested in learning one of the more amusing strains of highsec piracy, that can be done whilst keeping a positive sec status...there's a fellow named Omar around here that you might speak with.

To successfully yarr it up in lowsec, make friends, and learn to think creatively to catch targets rather than just expecting them to always sit still for the blob. Bait is your friend (non-stereotypical bait ships preferred). If you want to keep highsec open, take a day every few weeks and go find some empty null to blitz anoms in an Ishtar, or run a bunch of lvl 4's for a faction with non-terrible LP. You'll buff your wallet and your sec status nicely. And don't shoot neutral pods. It's not worth the hassle of kill rights. Unless of course you pod your alts...that can be abused for hilarious profit.

To re-iterate, I shoot neutral ships quite often, and commit other suspect level offenses like removing abandoned tractor units in highsec with blaster fire. But I also rat and run missions, not even that often, and my sec status is almost perfect.

It really is the pod killing that nukes your sec status, and in most cases it's an empty pod. You can shoot neutrals all day long while suffering no repercussions just by refraining from shooting pods unless you have good reason to think it's got a bunch of implants. And the people most likely to have expensive faction implants and hardwires will 1) rarely get caught by anything short of an instalocker or smartbomber and 2) will probably already have such a low sec status that they're kill on sight anyway.