play as a pirate ?

[darnock]

I can't really find any guides on how to play as a pirate. I've played the game for about 5 hours so far. I really enjoy it.. So much to learn. I really enjoy taking over ships by killing engines and then looting everything.

I was working of the Cadar I think, but then some faction had a trade block on us and I think it was steel something ended up hating me really bad. So I'm not really sure on what to do.

SO if you could give me some tips on how to play as I pirate that would be great!

Thank you very much

[Zer0Winds]

Steel Song Clan.

Anyway, to answer your question, I can see about finding an old thread somewhere. Anything specific you need help with?

[darnock]

thank you so much!!

[darnock]

just really on what to do as a pirate, what are my goals and whats a a good faction to start with

[resistor]

You can look for rumors about Merchants in deep space if you are looking for some cargo to loot.
Exploiting Trade Wars will help. A Trade War is a conflict between factions that will award you reputation for destroying their enemies' Merchants.
The Pirate class gets double reputation for participating in trade wars.

I haven't really played a Pirate so I can't give better advice.

Oh, and Steel Song Clan is way cooler than Cadar.

[poryg]

This is a sandbox game, so there are no goals.
Also, this game has one unique feature.. . It doesn't matter what profession you have, you can build your character any way you like. Truth is, I don't play as a pirate, instead I use Spy for everything - gunnery, piracy, board builds, torping,... Because the records boost gives me a nice boost to my money, while the pirate doesn't really have any interesting features. I don't need double reputation for trade wars, because it also doubles losses. The discount buying weapons is just 10% (and you don't get any advantage from selling weapons) and the fact that they don't lose morale fighting independents doesn't bother me, I have been watching my morale carefully and morale decline from fighting independents never really happened to me (also, from fighting pirates you actually gain morale). 

So it's not about what you should do with your character... But what you want to do. Especially if you have a Captain designer IAP.
If you want to obey the profession's description, you can just get some good reputation through spy and solar wars and then just loot any merchants and smugglers you can find...
However, it's really up to you. My favorite is alien hunting, but I wouldn't recommend it to rookies, because it's quite challenging, especially on impossible difficulty. 

[muk]

Oct 16, 2016 17:18:30 GMT -5 darnock said:

I can't really find any guides on how to play as a pirate.

I agree- someone please help with this.  The game guide says prey on the "best shipping lanes."  What does that mean?!  Zer0Winds did you find an old thread by any chance?

I usually play on Crazy difficulty as a Merchant, Explorer, or Smuggler, so I know that part of the game.  But I can't figure out being a successful pirate for the life of me- the loot is never good enough to live on.  Help!!! Please?

[Cory Trese]

Being massively negative Reputation with at least one Faction is almost unavoidable, don't worry about that part. They're scared of you, because you're a fearsome pirate.

[poryg]

There is only one time when massively negative reputation is ever so close to unavoidable. That is when you are doing the blackheart achievement.
The best shipping lanes are basically places with high density of ships (according to slayernz one is in the upper left Quadrant between the two Thulun planets) and places with merchant rumors.
But I would say, in order to be successful you have to attack and loot every ship type, not just weak merchants and fast smugglers. Warships have loads of good cargo.
When you can, participate in spy and solar wars to boost your reputation. It's also another good source of money (about $50,000 per load of records with a decent ship hold). Also, if you have necessary edicts (rank for blockade and death warrant for surveillance, you receive a nice xp boost). 

[muk]

thanks for the help guys! so its basically exploiting politics... I've only been a merchant/explorer/smuggler so far, so I have a learning curve here... 

[poryg]

Not really exploiting politics. Just participating in conflicts
I am not really into politics. I just simplified the game system as much as I could for myself, which lets me build captains quite comfortably even on impossible difficulty.