Crime & Punishment

qft

As regards those who don't honoUr ransoms, all it means is that you need to discount your ransom payments, as opposed to never pay them. If it's a rare thing that ransoms are honoured, that means pirates need to be asking for much less ISK than they otherwise would.

There is no value in a ransom you don't get paid.

The whole ransom "system" is broke richard.


The game needs a "parley" system - a way to signal an attacker that you request parley or surrender or something like that. I've seen enough camps to wonder how in the heck anyone even manages to communicate in those mad houses.

There is also a lot of rage from the more serious pirates regarding the killmail addictions and the kill anything that moves smacktalking crowd. The later being the reason for lowsec having a low population, fewer outsiders taking risks, and players turtled up in highsec. Many arguments abound for and against such ideas.

There should be two kinds of pirate. Those that honor ransoms, and those that don't - and they should be flagged as such, if requested. An ISK transfer should come with an option to flag it as "ransom" with a timer - if you lose a ship to the target of the ISK transfer (not just the individual, cause I know how a gamesman thinks) the status of the honourless (or is that honor?) should be such that even other pirates who do honor (?) ransoms should not suffer a security status penalty for killing them outright (even perhaps a bonus?).

Until then, there will not be any difference between someone who honors a ransom and someone who does not, and no reason to treat them differently.

My advice if you got a Pirate ransom request:

A good rule for you if you are asked for a ransom is to say nothing, not pay 1 isk to the pirate and be prepared to loose your ship and try to get away with your pod.
If corp mates are around of course talk with him a lot, try to get your team mates into system, but still dont pay nothing.
If he is still able to catch your pod and ransom you again, just say nothing and be prepared to wake up in your wakeup Station and immediately upgrade your clone.

Just ignore them, get a new ship, get new implants (better do not buy the most expensive ones) and continue the game and learn how to not get caught the next time.

If you undock in your new setup, just be prepared to loose it all again, do not fly what you cannot afford to loose.

If everybody is doing it that way, it will probably reduce the ransoms, it probably will also reduce the fun to kill people somehow.

Of course there are some pirates who honor ransom, its your decision to pay. But i already prepared myself to loose everything when i undocked the last time so i really dont care. I never pay ransoms, but on the other side until now i was never in bad situations to get caught by pirates and i am playing eve now for many years.

I personally don´t like people who kill others. When i am in need to kill hostiles i just want them to go away, including pod, so i am personally not interested in ransoms at all because i am trying to make a living in eve with other incomes then griefing people.

I tell you it really sucks if you loose your ship, loose your pod and implants and loose isk you paid to pirates who give a sh|t about honour.

As an Ex-prat who use used ransoms quite frequently a few years ago I'd say base your ransom on the value of the hull and realize that exorbitant prices (whether honored or not) only serve to anger those you ransom. BC hull, 15-20 mill or so, HAC 50 mill, CS 80 mill. Like mentioned take into account char age and corp. Industrial players tend to pay up more than another PvP'er

Pods are a different story. Depends on what ship they were flying, if you could notice any obvious implant effects and age of character.

I always honored my ransoms however I will never pay a ransom because I know there are many people who don't honour them. Your better to lose your ship like a man than risk paying someone who will probably pop you just for kicks and more loot/isk. There are certainly times I would have risked paying 50-150 mill for my pod but often the times when you would like to be ransomed your popped :/

If your ransomed and the ransom is under 10% of your total potential isk loss I'd say go for it (taking the prats don't know you have a lot more to lose)

You sound an awful lot like someone who does a lot of PVE and resents the PVP aspect of the game.

Our standard procedure is to ransom really big, expensive stuff. Orcas, tengus, CNRs, sometimes hulks even. Expensive ships for usually around 300 million; they generally pay up, and then they generally instapop.

Give them 15 seconds, wait for them to pay, then blow them up for being late in paying; that works too.

- Generally speaking.... when my corp pirates, and we go down to low sec every so often and spend a week or two going -10 (and recently spent a month or so in Oulley ganking people and demanding monocles), we always honor ransoms. We use the ransom money to SRP any ships we lose on the trip. Not honoring them would be foolish because we often got repeat customers and they would hardly choose to pay a second time if they got podded the first....

- As for what we ask for... that is a harder question. Realistically I assume you mean ransoming pods. We never ransom ships. We are there for the kill mails not for the money. We are more than happy enough just to rack up pod kill mails when people say no to a ransom offer. That happens about 95% of the time. About 4% of the time people discuss it and then say no. About 1% of the time someone agrees and pays. Asking for more money than the persons implants are going to cost them will result in a no (or more likely a F U). We generally look at the players age and standings which you can see by clicking on the player. If he has high mission running standings then you can assume he is a bear and will have good implants. A 1 month old bear isnt going to have +5 implants in. A 3 year old bear likely will have +4 or +5s. Asking for the same price as a full set will also likely get you a no. Generally we ask for bout half of what we expect a full set of +4s or +5s depending on the age of the character. If player is far younger then we may assume +2 or +3s and adjust the ransom for that.

- Realistically if you are hoping to make fantastic amounts of money from ransoming pods you will be disappointed. Most people arent going to pay more than a couple hundred million to save thier implants. Unless you get very lucky and catch someone with Slaves or Crystals or something in their head they would probably not consider paying much more than that. Most players will not have implants worth even that much.

^This.
Forget about ransoms. Its not worth even thinking about it. I like your post, because with this post you confirm my theory. Thank You that you make it clear.
And to answer your post, no, i am not doing PVE, i am playing eve different, making profit with sharing profit and helping noobs ingame.
I probably make more isk every month then you are able to kill. And its ok, because someone needs to buy new ships. My business is only profitable because you blow up ships.

Well, i am not. Quite impressing number, 15 bn /month. ccp must love you.