Where have all the bad men gone?

[RAVEN.myst]

So, after a loooong break (about a year?) from Rebirth (including 2 hardware failures and various other activities), a while back I was happy to see that 4.1 had been released some time prior to that (last I kept up, it was in development), so I updated it, fired it up, and decided (after reading in the patch notes about a particular bug-fix) to try a particular game strategy/plan/approach (more about that in a separate post once I've actually had a chance to test the proposition - a day or two, perhaps.) However, so far I have discovered something odd, which I am not sure is a new bug or a new "feature".

I am playing a Home of Light game-start on Very Hard difficulty, and have been so far doing nothing but MORTing with my starting container Nyanae, plus a pair of energy Gigurums, a bulk Gigurum, and a Liquid Gigurum, in preparation for a station that is about to go up. OK, that's the scene set - now for the actual problem (some may not consider it such, but for me it definitely is, especially in light of the chosen game difficulty!) - since the start, I've seen an EXTREME dearth of pirate activity. At 12 hours into the game, I had seen nothing more than a single pirate courier Rahanas (I think around 4 or 5 hours into the game) - nothing before or since. What's up with this? It has been boringly easy. I'm hoping that at least once my stations start going up, this will draw the "interest" of them reds...

Any thoughts?

[Nanook]

The level of pirate activity generally depends on where you are. Since you started out in HoL, you probably won't see much unless you visit those red zones in the West sector. Home of Light is generally a safe place to start out. If you want bad guys, try an Albion start, such as Free Play, or for a real challenge with three small freighters, the Teladi Outpost start.

[RAVEN.myst]

Thanks. Strange thing is, in previous games, when visiting HoL (granted, I didn't START there in any of those games) I was seeing considerable Atlas Pirates activity right there by the ring-road, including the occasion pirate Arawn accompanied by some other ship (a freighter, perhaps? Or a Titurel? I forget) Maybe they work their way in later...? I guess time will tell...

(ASIDE: The Teladi Outpost start is my favourite non-plot start (I generally like to the structured challenges of the plot, but it really forces a particular style) - keeping those little M-freighters alive there with the Cartel and Uguras can indeed be quite tricky - and with the low highway density, those sub-capital freighters are a little out of their depth, hehehe. I tend to flog them off ASAP... )