I look at it in organized crime terms. If Im shaking down a gas station owner for money and he pays me what good does it do for me to shoot him? The next guy guy I shake down probably isn't going to pay if he hears about the first. If your in a location in low sec long enough your reputation proceeds you, especially with repeat vic...er customers.

For me I enjoy low sec around FW areas because there is almost always instant pvp as soon as I log in. I don't gank people in plexes to be a deuche. I do it because Im looking for a fight. There have been several times I've talked with my victims after and the polite ones usually end up getting ships, isk and adivce on things from fittings to tactics. Im not alone one of my corp mates fit and gave away an incursus to a guy he had just killed who had only played for a week.

Finding that the person who murdered you can be friendly and helpful and willing to give advice is actually quite common in both highsec and lowsec piracy. It's just that people are often too busy calling you a sociopath in order to take advantage of it.

When you grow up

Gotcha, and fully understood. It's the "pirate honor" concept that is lost on me.

I can completely get the business perspective.

You do not know my age. It is easily possible that I'm older than you.

Anyway, that all depends on your outlook of being a pirate. Mine is more geared towards tear extraction. Killing someone after they pay up usually provides fresh tears.

Some people want a KM more than they want ISK, so they won't honour a ransom. Of course, if they could also make some ISK out of the situation... why not both?

People get annoyed at the non-honour pirates because it affects the general view. Today, more than ever before, I'd say the general consensus is ransoms should never be paid, and that once a pirate has got you nothing is going to stop it short of a Titan missclick. Capsuleers adopt the "no negotiation" policy, and honoured ransoms are very rare.
People who try to make money out of ransoms are obviously going to be pissed when nobody believes them and never pay up...

edit: Tara you are my hero!

Lowsec piracy is in a bad way at the moment unless you pick one of a small number of systems where it is effective. Doing this might involve dislodging an entity that are already there.

Jump freighters in particular, and ore compression to a lesser extent, drastically reduce the amount of vulnerable slow ships travelling through lowsec. Exploration changes in Odyssey partially improved this, but they don't encourage people to fly expensive ships in lowsec. Whilst you will occasionally catch someone with valuable cargo, it's not that often.

Highsec piracy is better as there is just much more prey.


As for smartbombs - ask one of the experts in Rancer local. Make sure to enter via Crilere (sp) so you live long enough to ask.