Begin your Pirate career from day one
Begin your Pirate career from day one
I cannot tell you how often do I find noobs glorifying pirates. They just can’t wait to have enough skills to become one…but when is enough skills? I believe that it’s not what you train that enables you to become effective, but it’s skill.
Your main focus early on is going to be ship / gunnery skills. You need to create a character that can do at least lvl 2 frigate ships…and can shoot at least lvl 2 in their race’s guns. Sure you will be lacking effective gunnery skills you get later on…but do not worry about that at this time. Remember, piracy is preying on the weak…regardless of the ship size. It is also about making isk out of your prey, have fun but make sure it paid off your cost.
Your next task is training up skills to use a Warp Scrambler (VERY IMPORTANT)!!! If you are unable to hold your targets down, you will not likely kill them, unless they are really retarded.
You should be able to acquire these skills in 1 day…at the most 1.5 days. Once you have, now get ready for some fun.
One thing great about piracy, is that you find all sorts of people. Some are smart, some are stupid. Some are just think headed and big headed about themselves. These are the targets you want. For starters, they are full of themselves, and they need a good beating anyway. In my second day, I managed to kill in a rifter solo, 2 battlecruisers, an assortment of frigates, 1 thorax cruiser, and a maller. Not because I out gunned them, but because I used their weaknesses against them.
Now, take your new shiny frigate out into the belts…preferrably around a heavily populated area…like Jita……Oh I love Jita…hehe. Anyway, you want to find those people mining into a can. We are about to use the can flag trick. It’s perfectly legitimate…and so much fun.
You do have one advantage, and thats the targets your going after look at you as a one day old character…a noob. Someone to not even worry about. Because of this, you are likely to get plenty of people to shoot at you, or take their cans back after you stole it from them.
Now, once you have found a target, click their ship and do Show Info. Check out the character flying it. How old are they, and what is their corporation like. If you are targetting a character 3 months or younger, and in a noob corp, or a small populated corp…begin working your way towards their can. Make sure you have something throwaway in your cargo, you will need it.
Once you have reached their can, drop your trash loot next to them, and open up you can you just dropped. Now, while keeping it open, open their can. Drag the contents of their can (ore, items, etc.) into your can. Presto, you just stole their goods. They now have 15 minutes to react. If they steal it back, you will know because they will be flashing red. If they do not flash red, just wait around a bit. They have 15 minutes to react. Shoot at your can a bit to tempt them to take it back. At the end of the 15 minutes…if they still will not take it, warp out for a minute and come back. Someone is bound to steal it…just keep a sharp eye out for flashy red ships.
Now, thats just a basic understanding of what you will be doing. Lets look a bit more into WHO you want to target. Lets say you stumble upon a prophecy mining (God Forbid). Right click it and look at it a bit. See what it has equipped. Learn to know the difference between small, medium, and heavy turrets. If the prophecy has medium turrets….there is a good chance that it is either baiting, or it really is mining and they really are using that ship incorrectly.
This is good if they are mining, as it means they are idiots, and they haven’t a clue about anything. Your advantage is that you are in a small ship..and their medium turrets are not going to hit you well if you orbit them at a close range…say 1k to 2k away. Your main threat will be if they have a webber on, and if they have drones.
At this statge of the game, I would avoid all drone ships really, unless they are using drones to mine with, then you are safe.
If you stumble upon a frigate mining, then by all means steal from them..as they probable have no other gun slots available.
It it unlikely that you will find a battleship pilot mining that will steal back from you. It’s possible, but not likely. Use the same strategy from above on the prophecy on a turret based battleship.
If you stumble upon a ferox battler cruiser mining…rest assured it will have some launchers. If it has heavy launchers, thats good for you assuming you can keep a very good speed orbiting the ship. If not, I wouldn’t test it.
Destroyers out mining are a great target to pirate. If you stumble upon any of them, and you see 2 to 4+ miner lasers on one, you can bet they do not have any other room for any turrets. But a simple “look” will prove that theory.
The object is not to kill these targets, but to ransom them. You want to kill their ships down to 50% of their structure…then stop and convo them up. Ask them for 80% of their ships worth. Do not waste time of frigates. Just pop those ships…and scoop up their loot. Remember that in the end its all about making eve online isk. If you just continue buying isk and throw them into the field over and over without start making some. You’ll see yourself getting screwed up real soon.
Piracy is all about skill, and sizing the prey up. You need to get to know your ship..what it can take, and what it cannot take. By following the guide above for a 1st day pirate, you should have plenty of success. As time goes on, you will learn more trips, and become even more confident…a trait that has won a many of battles.