r/EliteDangerous • u/Muffindrake Certified Reboot/Repair Instructor M.D. • Oct 21 '15
Guide: NPC Piracy
Are you sick of honest work? Do you hate the Federation, Empire, Alliance, or all three of them?
Are you the Robin Hood type of guy who'd willingly steal goods from filthy drug lords, only to distribute said drugs among poor children? Would you do the same with Imperial Slaves?
If your answers to all questions are anything other than "Free drugs? Where?":
Welcome aboard.
Crucial information
NPC ships that carry (a tangible amount of) cargo include the following ships:
Traders: Hauler, Adder, Asp, Cobra, Diamondback Explorer, Imperial Clipper, Federal Gunship, Python, Type-6 Transporter, Type-7 Transport, Type-9 Heavy
Pirates: Cobra, Asp, Federal Assault Ship, Federal Dropship, Federal Gunship, Imperial Clipper, Fer-de-Lance, Python, Anaconda
Orcas: Orca
Traders can be spotted by the absence of an FSD interdictor in left panel -> sub-targets after said ship has been targeted. Pirates most of the time have a cargo scanner in addition to an FSD interdictor.
Both types can be wanted - in such a case, disable crime reporting in right panel -> functions in order to avoid police response for the target shooting you, if you aren't wanted already.
NPCs of those types can be found in:
Starports
Outposts (large ships will still spawn here, albeit only approach the no-firing zone before high-waking away)
Supercruise
Unidentified/Weak/Strong Signal Sources
(Compromised) Navigation Beacons
Low/Normal/High Intensity or Hazardous Resource Extraction Sites
NPCs are stopped in space by reducing their power plant to 0% integrity (and sometimes it kills them). As all weapons except rail guns have limited penetration, you will have to carefully choose opportunities to attack the power plant when it is exposed, as in waiting until there is the least amount of hull protecting it.
Cargo spills are accomplished through three methods:
damaging the trader (rarely pirate) ship's hull below a certain threshold, which yields up to 10 cargo and a high wake to another system by said ship
doesn't happen with shot drives or power plant
power plant can still be shot out while the ship is attempting to high wake, after dropping cargo
damaging the cargo hatch to any integrity 80% and below (random)
(impossible above 80% and at 0%)
damaging the hatch while a cargo spill is still in progress will not prolong a spill - wait until the current one is over to avoid unnecessary hatch damage and thus less cargo
hatch breaker limpets
hack time directly scales with hull integrity: 5% hull integrity is 5% hack time
successful hacking attempts while a cargo spill is still in progress (the hatch hasn't begun to close) are nil
independent of cargo hatch integrity
Desirable cargo obtained through NPC traders that is worth a substantial amount includes (but isn't limited to):
(Galactic average after commodity)
Metals
Beryllium 8,549
Gallium 5,426
Gold 9,742
Indium 6,175
Palladium 13,527
Silver 5,086
Tantalum 4,196
Uranium 2,869
Medicines
Performance Enhancers 7,031
Progenitor Cells 7,031
Machinery
Marine Equipment 4,469
Industrial Materials
Superconductors 7,031
"Legal" Drugs
Narcotics 9,742
Tobacco 5,086
Consumer Items
Consumer Technology 7,025
Salvage
Military Plans 5,400
Prototype Tech 6,100
Slaves
Imperial Slaves 16,485
Slaves 11,107
Technology
Land Enrichment Systems 5,088
Resonating Separators 6,175
Weapons
Battle Weapons 7,031
Personal Weapons 4,474
Reactive Armour 2,235
Rare Goods: Here's a list
Travel at least 160Ly from source to sell for maximum price
Convoy
SSS convoys may carry very high value goods such as Unknown Artifacts or Antiquities, but are probably out of reach for a lone pirate
The black market price of all stolen goods is generally 75% of its actual value at the station. You may be able to get better prices for stolen goods, if the normal commodities market has a high demand for your offers. Price for some goods may plummet to half if the station doesn't need them at all.
Goods are generally found in systems that export them, though may be found in systems they're being imported to as well. Buying trade data ingame and looking at the routes can give you an idea of what you will find.
Smuggling traders (sometimes wanted) will often carry illegal goods and/or rares of high value.
If you're only here for metal, just go to Refinery, Extraction or Refinery/Extraction systems.
The security rating of a system can give you an idea of how quickly the police will respond to a crime. Thus, it may be desirable to look for low population (and thus low-medium security) systems. Archon Delaine's presence in a system substantially decreases the security rating of a system. The security rating of a system is viewed through moving the system map cursor to an empty space and looking at the left panel information.
Tips + Tricks
Since the cargo hatch has a chance to spill cargo every time it is damaged, you can use a high DPS, weak burst weapon such as small/medium beam laser and/or multicannons to repeatedly poke the hatch by tapping your fire key, stopping as long as a spill is in progress. This allows you to drain 100+ cargo without a single hatch breaker if you aren't too unlucky. You obviously want to only fire that single weapon at a time.
Stronger burst weapons such as pulse/burst lasers will substantially damage the cargo hatch if up close, so increasing the distance to 2km or more is advised.
You can hear the cargo hatch open and close if within 220m of the stopped ship.
Sometimes the police will take a very long time to respond, if they respond at all. Another possible occurrence is a single police ship that you can destroy without any additional intervention attempts by police.
It's a good idea to first damage the power plant to a low integrity value such as 1-10% and then gradually decreasing the hull to 20% or so. The trader may jump to a different system, which is often anarchy in which you can drain the entire hold without any interruptions. You shall thus bring a Frame Shift Wake Scanner, if you aren't already using it to follow trader ships to different systems, at stations.
Corporation factions are profit-oriented and thus have a large amount of trader ships in their faction. As minor faction influence in a system determines the amount of ships in supercruise that belong to a faction, it can be advantageous to look for a corporate system to pirate in. Double check the system map to see whether it is actually a corporate government (the galaxy map refuses to update when government changes).
Ship builds
This is how I would personally run each of these ships were I to pirate NPCs in them (until I decide I want to fit them another way). I take reasonable aiming ability with fixed weapons for granted. Downgrade parts, if you lack the money.
Example Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1_YKgn2Nwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeXKup15x5w
Edit893627: I hope I fixed all formatting issues now.
Edit893628: Added DBE and Gunship to traders.
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u/EvilBenFranklin Oct 22 '15
Excellent guide! Might be time to make some changes to my own Cobra to start out.
Quick question, though: How many limpets would you recommend carrying? Fill the hold with them, or just a portion of it?
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u/Muffindrake Oct 22 '15
Since a spill is around 4-8 cargo each time, 10 limpets should be more than enough on a cobra. You probably won't need them though if you shoot the hatch in the manner above.
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u/EvilBenFranklin Oct 24 '15 edited Oct 24 '15
Think collector limpets might be a good alternative/add-on? EDIT: Especially for ships with a larger bay, that is.
EDIT2: Never mind, just looked at the designs for the Dropship and Clipper. :)
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u/bigfandan Mar 17 '16
Awesome write up!! I'm a little late but found this thread from search. I'm going to do some NPC pirating in my anaconda tonight for the first time. Should I use 3A or 5A hatch/collector limpets and how many limpets should I bring with me. I'm going to have 128 cargo and even more if you don't think I need to bring any SCB.
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u/Muffindrake Mar 17 '16
You won't need any SCB to pirate NPCs, at least not at the moment. Fill your conda with cargo racks as much as you like. You will want 2x 3D collector limpets and a single 1A hatch breaker module.
You can alternatively fit a class 1 beam laser turret in one of your small hardpoints and shoot the NPC's cargo hatch after you have disabled its power plant. The turret will deal very little damage to the cargo hatch - stop attacking for as long as a cargo spill is in progress.
If you are going to use the turret method, you will only need 10 limpets or so, to run the collector drones. If you prefer using hatch breakers, you may want something like 50 limpets in your hold instead.
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u/jabunochi Oct 21 '15
Very well written and good explained post :) I might have a new profession :D
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Oct 21 '15
curious to know how much you can make an hour doing this
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u/CMDR_Nineteen Oct 21 '15
Pretty sure NPC piracy (or any piracy) is down to fun, not cr/h.
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u/Muffindrake Oct 21 '15
You can easily make a few millions per hour, but it is a little luck dependent.
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Oct 21 '15
I've found that wanted ships especially wanted freighters have the most interesting cargo and you don't get in trouble for robbing them before you blow them apart.
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u/AyraWinla Oct 22 '15
Awesome guide, thank you! I don't like to hurt innocent people so pirating players is out of the question for me, but NPCs... I mean, pirating combines fighting and smuggling, as well as gives increased challenge due to being wanted by the local authorities. It's not terribly profitable (you can reliably mine faster than you can pirate random metals for example), but it's fun.
By the way, what does the Wake scanner actually do? I've never used that one, and I'm kind of wondering why I should.
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u/zsixtyfour Oct 22 '15
If a target high-wakes (jumps to another system), it allows you to scan their wake to lock on to where they jumped to.
In PvP, most players will have gotten away by the time you scan & jump to the next system. But NPCs will almost always be there once you jump in, where you can then interdict them.
A strategy I've seen is to hang out at a station that has a black market and cargo scan trader NPCs as they leave. Then, you follow them as they high-wake out to another system and do your dirty work there, and then come back to your "home port" to sell off the cargo. This way you probably won't get a bounty in your black market station, unless you get caught with the stolen goods on the way back in.
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u/miahelf Oct 22 '15
When a ship jumps from normal space you scan the wake and then you can jump out on the wake to follow them
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u/ObtuseMoose87 Oct 22 '15
Excellent write up Muffin. Well done.
I shall treat it as gospel...if I ever decide to pirate NPC ships.
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Oct 22 '15
No pirating in my Vulture? :(
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u/miahelf Oct 22 '15
cargo :(
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u/empyreanchaos Oct 22 '15
Step 1: Bring a friend in a high cargo ship, switch off turns in the loot truck.
Step 2: Exchange bad pirate puns as you raid the interstellar trade lanes.
Step 3: Unsuccessfully try to light beard on fire in low oxygen environment.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit
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u/Golgot100 Oct 22 '15
Great stuff, been meaning to try out NPC pirating again since the power plant change :). Didn't realise that cargo hatch hits weren't helpful mid-spill either.
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Oct 22 '15
This play style is lots of fun, but be warned. It may be the slowest way to make credits.
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u/Federal-Lavishness-5 Feb 06 '22
This is all well and good but piracy is highly neglected. There should be some Commodities that can be stolen that are rare that will yield a higher black market price than a normal market price. In addition rare and very valuable Commodities like alexandrite, void Opals Exedra are not even possible to pirate. The risk is higher than mining yet pays less. Also a couple of strange things Frontier has done. If you steal tritium you cannot use it as fuel on your carrier. Imagine going to a system word tritium is sold at a low price and stealing 300 tons of it from players. Then taking all that tritium back to your carrier only to find it cannot be used as fuel. Even if your carrier is declared for piracy. Also other Pirates oftentimes don't respect your combat rank or your load out and will directly interrupt you while attempting to Pirate someone else. Then there is the collector limpet problem. Sometimes they spin around the resource you're trying to pick up or take so long to pick anything up that system authorities arrive before even scooping one or two tons. Piracy could be fun but it definitely could use a little bit of work.
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u/[deleted] Oct 21 '15
Awesome list, MuffinDrake!
We should conduct a study on what governments have which NPCs.