29 July 2009

Mayor of Tortuga

Mynxee was musing about using wormhole space as a base of operations for pirates. Reading her post, I would have to say she makes a good argument that it may be impractical and more of a problem. It may be fun for hunting, but without the logistics to support the campaign, then it is too much of a hassle. And I just don't see piracy as being profitable enough in and of itself to pay for a POS and the logistics contract to keep it operational and staffed. For that manner, I would wager that a sizable number, if not a majority, of pirates don't make enough pirating to pay for piracy. I imagine they need to deal in GTCs or run missions for their agents to actually purchase ships and fit them.

I do see wormhole space as being something very profitable for large corporation and alliances. They would have logistical problems, too, when the wormholes only opened in hostile space. I'm not exactly sure how that works. On the whole, I'm not sure how beneficial it is to have an unpredictable base for combat operations, so I imagine large corporations and alliances would only use it for industrial purposes.

But I don't want to completely discount the idea of Pirates in Wormhole Space. I think it could work wonderfully well. I think a wormhole space system could be set aside as a pirate heaven: a New Eden Tortuga. A place where pirates could buy and sell, a place where they could explore new grounds, a roaming convention, a constant party in the space beyond space. Bookmarks to the current entrances could be passed around the pirate community. Pirates could come in to lay low and meet each other, safely away from non-pirate bounty hunters (are they really a threat), or large corps on anti-piracy campaigns.

The big benefit would simply be community. A place where pirates could go to network, to find back up or pick-up fleets. I really don't know how well the pirating community gets along. Is there any honor among thieves?

I don't think I could ever be a pirate. I have an underdeveloped sense of schadenfreude. But I have to admit, the idea of trying to organize a New Eden Tortuga, that sounds like fun. Trying to keep it stocked, trying to arrange to have loot moved to market, trying to get pirates to get along well enough to not bust the whole joint up, all sounds like fun in a perverse way.

Yes, I do engage in activities in New Eden that I would find entirely too painfully boring planetside.

5 comments:

  1. It'd be a lot easier to keep such a "pirate haven" at a station in lowsec. That way you don't have to run all over New Eden to get to an entrance. And maintaining the POS is not an issue then.

    Actually, there already are pirate havens. For example, in Minnie lowsec, there's Amamake.

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  2. I'm pretty sure that you can't anchor a station, and hence get a market in WM space... also, I suspect the pirates would just shoot eachother XD

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  3. Not sure if I'd consider Amamake a pirate haven so much as a pirate attractor given the traffic and number of targets in the system.

    I guess Evati could be considered a pirate haven just because of the well known pirate groups that call it home.

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  4. A developed sense of schadenfreude is not needed. SImply the desire to repossess other property and the desire to send them back to a clone vat...the quick way....that's all thats needed. Unlike you though I could nt be a pirate as I have too much 'walking the line' to be able to stray that far off of it :)

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  5. It's all about profit, Vol...we prefer to find ours on the hoof or left lying about for the taking. I happen to think a WH base will offer a lot of opportunities to reach out and touch areas where folks may have their guards down far more than they do in Evati. Places where there may be more unwary individuals than mission and plex in Evati these days. Places where things have been abandoned by others because they got trapped inside a WH w/no way out or lost their way back in...or in some quiet corner of null sec, someone forgot to fuel a POS and it's now offline--with a ship maintenance array just waiting to be shot to pieces so the ships inside will drop.

    Just...targets and plunder of opportunity.

    Never say never when it comes to embracing the yarr. That urge could strike you without notice :)

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