Oh right... and afaik, Blayke is one of the whiners that doesn't have a ship
of their own, either.

We need those NPC ships.. some pirates maybe around furn and some outter
regions of the contients and some navy boys around the ports with maybe a few
convoys of merchants and navys roaming about..

Then pirates have some thing cool to attack as do the navy boys and merchant
peeps can just be cool.
Then when some pirate come near a port they might have to take a bit of damage
or they can try and hide out on the land.. Except on furn where the shoe is on
the other foot!

I had an idea, which I think I posted some time ago, regarding a possible
change related to pirates. At the time, piracy wasn\'t reallly much of a
problem, however, since at least some people think that there might be a
problem, I will repost my idea.

My suggestion is that only certain ships should be worth attacking at all.
Perhaps only ships carrying a certain value or weight of cargo could be
legitimate targets, perhaps some other ship/crew related attributes would come
into play. If the value of attacking a ship was related to quantity of cargo,
it would be easy (and fair) to add something to a ships description that is
related to how much it is carrying.

The basic idea is that vessels used just for transporting individuals or
parties, especially small vessels, should not be worth attacking. It would
seem to make sense for pirates to not really be interested in empty ships.
What kind of reputation would a pirate actually have if they only ever
attacked/sunk little empty boats? Fearsome pirates might attack fairly
Indiscriminately, but, in my opinion, reputation is also related to how much
loot they have stolen.

This idea is really meant to go hand in hand with the introduction of trading
via ships. So, perhaps, any such changes might have to be held back until
ships start to carry real amounts of cargo. On the other hand, some players
may currently use ships to carry items collected for cash and I don\'t see
much harm in pirates having to wait for trading to be introduced before being
able to do much real piracy.

So, after a hard day of looting your cargo, lets say 300k worth of shit you
wanna flag your ship so pirates can hunt you down easier?

Well yes. That is implied by my basic idea. A ship used just to transport
yourself and your party should not be a good a prize as a ship loaded with
loot. Of course, I can see why a lot of players won\'t like the idea that
their loot filled ships can be identified as being full of loot.

I, for one, like the idea of there being some competition at sea, and I don\'t
really mind there being some risk of getting sunk during certain activities.
As far as I know, it is not that difficult to avoid being sunk if you are
careful with how you use your ship, this may involve only using a ship between
certain places and not being idle while you sail from place to place. I suspect
that being a successful pirate is difficult and, If piracy actually causes
problems with using ships just to transport players, some people may like to
see it become more difficult (i.e. making escape easier or adding npc
protection etc).

In my opinion, if pirates in Bat are meant to perform the kind of piracy that
actually occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries, lone trading vessels should
be pretty vulnerable. The risks for a pirate should be mainly being caught by
navy ships while en-route from place to place or moored up somewhere.

The opinion that I have some sympathy with, is that, regardless of how much of
a problem piracy actually is, as things stand, better equipped players are
just simply allowed to sink ships belonging to less well equipped players and
there\'s no opt out of this. If you want to use a ship you have to put up with
some risk of being sunk by someone whom you cannot compete with. This might not
be a big problem, this might actually fit in with the whole piracy idea, but it
does seem to go against the way that Batmud is played in general.

My idea is that the risk of being attacked should be related to the potential
gains of a trip. If you carry loot, then maybe you should have to be more
careful. Get an escort, try to avoid areas where pirates may be waiting etc.

If you carry nothing of value, it would be nice to be able to cruise to some
location away from tradelanes without having to take much care at all.

Does it matter if he has a ship or not. No. His ideas or statements sound
correct to me. I personally wont get a ship of my own partially becuase of
that reason. It is safer at thsi point to take the damn ferry system. Atleast
a pirate can't take out a ferry yet.

no offence to you guys but..ive been sunk once the whole time ive played
here..and thats because i left my ship outside an area without shields up..so
REALLY, you guys bitch and whine about pirates sinking you but hell..they dont
sink you 500000 times a day..i dont see what problem is..pirates add bit of
flavor to game if you ask me