How to become friendly with pirates?

[Siigari]

Alright, so a lot of people have suggested that one of the best ways to make money in this game is to run missions for pirates. Any time I head over to Brennan's Triumph I usually solicit a massive band of pirates to start chasing me through multiple systems.

So what's the trick? I can't run missions with them chasing me, I can't shoot them because I'm trying to befriend them... that really leaves my options limited.

How am I supposed to achieve this?

[Kaunit]

Try to find a pirate base that is located in a border sector of a race other than the pirates themselves and do missions for them. Pirate sectors (at least in XRM) are everything from rather dangerous (the sectors around Spaceweed Grove) to downright anarchistic hellholes (sectors around Gaian Star).

However, if you can find a pirate base in a racial sector, the pirate raiding parties are usually occupied with fighting the local police forces, which gives you enough time to land at their base.

[Timsup2nothin]

I set up a CLS ship to buy cheap space fuel at a legal distillery in Argon space. Then when you spot a pirate base anywhere in race space that buys at max jump in a load for them. Like anyone else, they appreciate those who supply them with goods, plus the profits are nice. If you can find a pirate base fairly close to the source you can set a CLS pilot in an M5 to automatically run the goods continuously.

You can also find pirates at trading stations in race space that are looking for a space fuel delivery. If your buyer has enough product in the hold and you can make that delivery those missions are HUGE profit plus HUGE rep boosts.

[hisazul]

It would be best to mention that you are playing with an overhaul mod. Those mods tend to change more then just ships and weapons.

Anyhoo in vanilla you can never really be "friendly" with them, even if you get maximum reputation (1 mil) with them, pirate race will still spawn hostile ships which will harass your stations or ships from time to time. Granted it will not be as severe but it never really stops and there are very few options of avoiding it. And then one fine morning... one of your more combat oriented ships gets jumped by a hostile pirate and turns him into space garbage and his FF settings change... and then he starts shooting them on sight.... and you end up in the rep dumpster with them without ever realizing it.

Pirates are a horrible race to ever deal with. If you want race that deals with illegal wares and so forth go with Yaki... "most" of the benefits but none of the pirate b/s. Also mission rewards depend on mission type and correlated player rank as in if you are sitting on X-TREME some simple deliver 8 dudes to any station in the adjacent sector can pay 10m+ easily... while combat missions after tallying up can net 100+mil

That being said I don't have a slightest idea on how all that works in XRM.

[Siigari]

Oh wow, great advice from everyone. I totally didn't realize he guys wanting contraband in race space were pirates

So how do I determine what my standings are with them? Beyond using the universal trader thing (which I don't have, yet) is there any way to find out?

Further, I will place in my signature I am using XRM. It's a fun mod, and I didn't realize how little it was used. Am I spoiling the game by playing an overhaul?


Side question: I just stumbled across Perpetual Sin in my search for pirates.

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I'm wondering about this whole Nividium thing. It's not a renewable resource? I found what, like 2 or 3 asteroids? (Out at lunch, will check when I get home.) It'd be super awesome if I could have a semi-permanent mining operation set up here. It's also fairly desolate.

There was another system that also looked really good for colonizing, sans Nividium. It was just south of one of those systems in the east. But yeah, setting up near Paranid space seems kind of fun, for fun reasons (don't lose sight of fun!)

Oh another question. Is gaining status with the Paranid going to natively help my pirate rep gain? Or probably not? Ugh, I should probably just keep playing and experiencing things for myself. I just nabbed a Susanowa Raider and it's neat, but I think I'm going to sell it.

Thanks everyone for all your help Great community!

[fireanddream]

So the pirates shoot you on sight. That's bad. However, some commonwealth sectors (like, bad debt, two grand, etc.)have a pirate base, some of the mission givers in commonwealth stations would be pirates. It should only take a few to get your rep above 0. Alternatively, look up station hack missions on wiki but I highly doubt you want to spend 100k at this stage to neutralize a hostile station.

The yaki is my favorite friend, unlike pirates they never attack your station or randomly spawn. Once your rep with them is above 0 there won't be a single yaki hostile to you. Only two or three plot missions require you to fight them, too.

Yeah there will always be a few hostile pirates, usually a triad of M3/4/5s roaming from sector to sector, won't attack you unless you come real close. Occasionally some would attack your station, like once every 10 hrs real time, not a big deal really.

[RainerPrem]

Hi,

mining Nividium in excess of mission requirements is considered a cheat by some hardcore players.


In TC

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you can order an unlimited number of ships to eternally mine a single mini-asteroid you broke up. You can even do that in Kingdom End continuously buying cheap freighters, filling them with Niv and then selling them fro 20Mil each.

In AP

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that eternal stream is gone, but you can fill a single ship with Niv, and then use it to make unlimited money at the stock exchanges. It's even much faster than in TC.

cu
Rainer

[ancienthighway]

Make friends with the pirates (vanilla):

1. As you figured out, don't shoot their ships down. Brennen's Triumph is a pirate hunting ground.

2. It's possible to pick up missions that require Brennen's Triumph, but you have to be alert for the hostiles and make sure you don't get their attention. Nopileos Memorial and Hatikvah's Faith tend to be good for pirate missions.

3. Pick up some sunrise seeds, then set up a CLS2 mission to sell a handful to a pirate station, then buy them right back.

4. Set up an illegal ware complex in the NE corner of Hatikvah's Faith. It's off any normal pirate migration, but you'll still get an occasional raiding party. The rep gain from the contraband will offset the killing needed to be done on the raiders. I like Senator's Badlands for a contraband complex also. As a bonus, it brings in CW traders/smugglers and as losses to them mount due to Yaki action, CW warships. Salvage operations picking up the pieces is profitable. Not to mention a chance to capture CW ships with less rep loss. It's good to remain friendly with the Yaki.

The biggest rep gain comes from missions. The trades give steady low gains that help, not to mention bringing in the cash for the contraband.

As said earlier, XRM makes changes that vanilla players aren't familiar with. Maybe rep is so bad you can't get any missions and all pirates treat you as KOS. You'll have to determine what you can do and what you should avoid.

Nividium. It's an exploit only if you choose to exploit it. If you fly into a sector with the mobile mining going on, the rocks stop the rapid respawn ending the exploit. If you use the Prospector script, it stops the exploitable respawn. If you don't abuse the stock market, you aren't working the exploit. No matter what anyone says, it's your game, play it the way you want.

The only way to mine nividium is with mobile mining, pick up rocks in vanilla. The Prospector script changes that, as does Bulwinkle's mobile mining script. There is a script for a nividium mine, but that is too much for my game. There's actually around a dozen or so sectors that have clusters of nividum rocks. There's a post somewhere in this forum that lists them. Even non-explitive collection gives a substantial boost you your wealth/fleets. I can't say how substantial because I keep spending it. lol

[Jimmy C]

When you are looking for missions from pirates, you need to know which potraits are of pirates. Otherwise, you won't be able to tell if you're taking missions from pirates or legit members of a race. There's an old thread here with all the pirate potraits, try to find it.
Otherwise, use missions that request ilegal goods (spaceflies and slaves are the most certain, since they aren't legal in any race sectors) to assemble your own rogues gallery.
This is important because you can get pirate missions in race sectors and race missions in pirate sectors as well. If you can't tell them apart, you'll end up wasting your time.

Another thing to do is to hack pirate production stations, the PBG, IBL forges and the Rehab Facilties. Once hacked, these will never go hostile on you again, unless you shoot them, and that'll be your own fault. They'll serve as gateways for you to get more pirate missions as time goes by.
Also, look for mission to place stations in pirate sectors. Regardless of whether the mission was given by a pirate or not, new stations in pirate sectors means more opportunities for pirate missions.

If you can get pirates friendly to you, don't worry too much about them going hostile again. Even if you take missions against pirates constantly (like me) It's a random thing if they'll turn hostile to you. In the event they all go hostile to you again, just take 2-3 average or better pirate missions, and they'll be friendly again.

[krait_daoc]

As mentioned above the quickest way is by doing missions for pirates (eyepatches!)
I find that, after a few hacks of the stations, Loomanckstrats is the best place to raise pirate rep.
Start with multiple defend missions (the orbital weapons platform kill all the ships so no other rep losses) and then do build missions.
My pirate rep is always extremely high (need my kestrels and blastclaw prototypes!)

[Timsup2nothin]

Eyepatches, and/or bandoliers full of bullets are pirate trademark accessories. Pretty much all of them wear one or the other or both. There is one split who wears two bandoliers who is just a poseur.

[MarvinTheMartian]

Eyepatches, and/or bandoliers full of bullets are pirate trademark accessories. Pretty much all of them wear one or the other or both. There is one split who wears two bandoliers who is just a poseur.

There's also a Teladi dressed like a Terran for some reason
I recall the thread Jimmy C mentioned but I can't find it. Apart from one Split, or perhaps Paranid, they're pretty easy to spot.

Lasting Vengeance (which I think is an Unknown Sector in TC) south of Heaven's assertion is a good place to work from too. The "Duke's" ships and stations share reputation with Pirates and in my last TC game I'd built up about 10 or so stations in there from build missions and that was a great place to maintain Pirate rep.

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm thinkin' the Teladi dressed like a Terran has a bandolier too.

Hmmmm....where IS that thread...

EDIT: Ah, here it is.

[glenmcd]

The best vanilla non-glitch method of ranking up is to perform "very hard" missions, one at a time. Don't accept a second mission before completing the first.

A vanilla glitchy method of getting very quickly to very high rank is described below. You can use it for any race AFAIK.

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First, you need to make sure that your rank is VERY bad with the race. You don't want the very worst rank (by name), you want the second worse. So for Split this would be "Enemy of Rhonkar", for Paranid it would be "Enemy of Priest Duke" etc. As a guide, pirates, Split and Paranid are all suitable ranks (enemies) for you at start of dead-is-dead game start. So game start can be the best time to try this one.

With pirates, you don't get to see names or even know when rank changes. If you're not sure, they just go all out killing pirates, destroying their stations etc until you get them really cheesed off. Dropping rank can be quite slow, so make sure you go on a really big rampage. If you do go too far, no matter you can still work this glitch but you may have to do so more than once.

There are several things that you must get right at same time, otherwise this glitch won't work.
1. The first mission you accept must be "trivial" or "very difficult"
2. You must accept other missions before completing ANY mission. In other words, they must all be active in parallel. Don't have missions for any other race active during this. Don't have more than 19 missions active at any time. It's a game limit.
3. Once you complete one mission, you should complete them all without accepting any more. The more missions you accept in parallel, the higher you'll slingshot your rank. Best of all is to accept a dozen or more "trivial" missions. But they're rare. If your start rank with race is very close to worst, that will work best of all.
4. I've had this glitch work doing missions (apart from first) with various difficulties, but it seems to be best if you choose trivial, and then "very difficult" or even difficult.
5. I'm not sure whether you need to do missions quickly or not. Obviously don't fail any.

At a minimum (two missions in parallel only) your rank should go up to level 7 in the positive, which for Split is "Privileged Associate of Rhonkar". If you go all out you can reach top (positive) rank. At this level, as long as you don't go killing pirates they should be quite nice to you. There may be problems with pirates that witnessed your original slaughter of them, but not pirates born after this time. This glitch isn't 100% reliable and I am not aware of why this is the case. Enjoy.