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Making piracy profitable?

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:23 am
by M@ni@c
I've always wanted to be a pirate :wink: but the risks don't seem to outweigh the rewards as far as I can see.

The profit gained from running Slaves or Ultimate yourself is bigger than that of any other trade item. However doing such cargo runs yourself is still much less profitable than accepting any other cargo mission.

The missions offered in pirate bases are equivalents of the standard missions (but against other enemies of course). But IIRC they don't offer more money as reward than standard missions.

Given that you make many enemies if you choose the path of a pirate and there doesn't seem to be any advantage to it, why would one ever want to be a pirate?


I was wondering, in order to make being a pirate a fun playstyle, would it be possible to:
1) increase the price of space salvage
2) if a merchant (Tarsus, Orion, Galaxy) blows up, let it create some Space Salvage representing its cargo, just like what happens when you blow up a Kamekh.

With such a change, you could play as a hit-and-run raider: attack merchants, tractor in their cargo, and run away asap when the cavalry/Confederacy arrives. :D

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:50 am
by z30
You also need a base, a cluster of safe systems which would serve as safe havens. The Militia faction also has to be broken up into several subfactions, so that pissing one off doesn't set the whole Gemini sector against you.

It's quite a coincidence you posted this, I was in the middle of setting up a pirate base in New Caledonia for Dilloh's & Chucks's pirate missions.

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 10:23 am
by Dilloh
There's also the possibility to let heavily damaged merchants dump cargo while they flee - capships already do this.

Besides that, the whole trading / money making system is out of balance. Like you said, running food legally from Helen to Achilles brings more money then running Ultimate to New Detroit. Unlogical.

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2007 11:48 am
by micheal_andreas_stahl
Well, to be i pirate you have to balance everything between shooting merchies and running drugs. It's hard but fun. Trust me.

Your loyal Pirate
MAS

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 4:40 am
by Kyle003p
Dilloh wrote:There's also the possibility to let heavily damaged merchants dump cargo while they flee - capships already do this.
I was under the impression that the merchants already do this... It just takes awhile b/c they drop one piece at a time. I've seen them do it a couple of times, and it happens right before they are about to explode

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2007 5:07 am
by z30
Kyle003p wrote:
Dilloh wrote:There's also the possibility to let heavily damaged merchants dump cargo while they flee - capships already do this.
I was under the impression that the merchants already do this... It just takes awhile b/c they drop one piece at a time. I've seen them do it a couple of times, and it happens right before they are about to explode
Far too close to the danger point, ship AI responses are triggered by how much damage shields & armor have sustained. Will look into this, merchants value their cargo but they should also value their ships more.

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 11:47 pm
by Melonhead
Changing the price for space salvage, or any cargo, is easy. Check out the wiki on "How to add new cargo." Basically, you change the multiplier in units.csv for a particular base type. No compiling required. Based on your post, I assume you're tractoring in your salvage, so you aren't worried about the purchase price.

The trick with balancing the trading system is that any base type only has one price for a given type of cargo. There is no variation in price. (Well, not yet. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that. I've found the code, but don't know how to change it.)

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 11:05 am
by MamiyaOtaru
There is variation in price, in the sense that the price isn't always the same. Of course, if you mean that the base price + variation is the same for any base of a given type then yeah, that's true. Wheat costs the same (plus or minus variance) on any ag planet, with some supply and demand effects (scarcity and all that).

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 1:36 pm
by micheal_andreas_stahl
MamiyaOtaru wrote:There is variation in price, in the sense that the price isn't always the same.
Yeah, 0.05 of a credit :wink: . Seriously PR is great but the prices NEED to be fixed.

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:30 pm
by chuck_starchaser
micheal_andreas_stahl wrote:
MamiyaOtaru wrote:There is variation in price, in the sense that the price isn't always the same.
Yeah, 0.05 of a credit :wink: . Seriously PR is great but the prices NEED to be fixed.
NEED to be "floated" you mean? :D Just kidding. ;-)

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 1:44 pm
by micheal_andreas_stahl
I laugh in spite of the fact, I don't get it. :oops:

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 4:54 pm
by chuck_starchaser
An Economics joke. "Price fixing" is what very centralized, authoritarian forms of governmet do, of telling everyone "this is the price you can charge for that" (well, there's other meanings to the term), whereas the opposite --i.e. letting prices of currencies or commodities assume their natural price as determined by offer and demand forces-- is often termed as "floating the price of..." said things or currencies. I knew you meant "fixing" in the sense of "repairing the code or data", but for a joke I took it to mean "freezing the prices".

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 1:38 pm
by micheal_andreas_stahl
Uhhh, yes, ummm. Plese don't think to badly of me. :oops: :oops:

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 3:08 pm
by chuck_starchaser
Not at all, MAS; it was stupid of me to post a joke that would be incomprehensible to many people for whom English is a second language.

Anyways, to sort of get back to the topic, there are stuff in the orginal Priv game that's not very intuitive, in regards to commodity prices, though I'm not sure what the solutions would be, so I'll just throw in what I found not too well done when I fist played the original game:

Stuff like wood, fur coats and foodstuffs being plentiful and cheap at agri bases makes perfect sense. But there are a lot of items that were never clear to me. Take arms (hand-weapons): They seemed to be always available at Perry; but I couldn't figure out if Perry were the producers, or consumers of such. If they are consumers, I thought, they should be available in small quantities, if at all. Eventually I figured out that New Detroit were the producers. This wasn't too hard.
But space salvage is something I never got my head around.
Consumer products should be cheaper at an industrial base like New Det, but some of them seemed to be cheaper at refineries.
Similarly, should pleasure bases be the producers, or the consumers of pleasure goods? :roll:
Etceteras.

I mean, eventually you come to know where to buy and sell what; but it would be better if it all somehow were made more intuitive.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:21 am
by micheal_andreas_stahl
Not at all, MAS; it was stupid of me to post a joke that would be incomprehensible to many people for whom English is a second language.
Well, that's where i'm ashamed. English is my first language.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 5:37 pm
by chuck_starchaser
micheal_andreas_stahl wrote:
Not at all, MAS; it was stupid of me to post a joke that would be incomprehensible to many people for whom English is a second language.
Well, that's where i'm ashamed. English is my first language.
Okay, maybe Economics is not your trade... :D
Don't worry; I'm always having to explain my jokes, in RL too. :-/