GUIDE TO PIRACY by CMDR Heliaxx
Do you want to try piracy but don't know where to start? Well, look no further. In this guide, I will tell you everything you need to know to start your new Pirate career
Lets get to it.WHAT SHIP SHOULD I CHOOSE?
Good pirate ship should have several key aspects that are needed for succesful piracy. Those are mainly:
1) Speed - Those pesky traders really like running. And if you aren't faster then them, then you can only enjoy your booty if they give it to you willingly. That happens, but it's quite rare, so my recommendation is to try and go for at least around 480 boost speed. With this speed you can expect to be able to without any problems catch basically all cargo ships except really lightweight Cutters.
2) Enough internals space - Of course, for piracy you ideally want to have quite a variety of different modules, most of which go into internal space. I will write more details about them later in this guide, but generally, you want to have as much internal space as possible, in order to comfortably fit not only the modules needed, but also your hard earned cargo
3) Maneuverablility - You want to be able to swiftly react to target's moves like evasive maneuvers, charging FSD, Boosting with FA off and all that kind of stuff. Of course, that's most easily done if your ship is decently maneuverable.
For these reasons, most popular pirate ships are medium ships with a lot of non-military restricted internal space like Python or Krait, or big, but really fast and maneuverable ship like Imperial Clipper.
WHAT WEAPONS AND MODULES DO I NEED FOR PIRACY?
1) Weapons - Here, it's pretty much to one's preferencies, however there are a few weapons that make piracy much easier. These are mainly weapons that let you interrupt your target's escape, whether it be keeping it from using it's FSD to escape back to supercruise or jump to another system, or just trying to get away from you with it's main drives.
What can help you with the former is Rocket Propelled FSD Disrupter (also often called Containment missile or Grom bomb), which is a powerplay weapon. As the name suggests, if you hit your target with it, you cause his FSD to reboot, effectively rendering it unoperable for a small time period, giving you time to destroy their main drives or perform any other action.
The latter, you can do with basically any weapon which can do external module damage, however what is extremely capable in this regard are the Packhound missiles, another Powerplay module. You could also use normal seeker missiles which require no unlock - and are very effective too! However if the target has one or more point defences equipped, these are a hard counter against regular missiles. Very effective against enemy's modules can also be regular gimballed Multicannons, as they can track subtargeted modules like drives very well, and have a high armor piercing rating.
Of course, many targets are also shielded, making lasers obvious choice. Here it's totally up to one's preference - you should keep in mind that power consuming weapons and their engineering like beam lasers and engineering Overcharged might not be the best choices in this occasion, as you will find yourself in situations where you need to have full pips in engines to be able to really keep up with your target, only leaving you 1 or 2 pips for offence.
2) Modules - Of course, you will need a cargo and collector limpets to be able to get your cargo. I recommend not to skimp too much on the collectors, as often times you want to be able to scoop up the cargo as soon as possible to go back to supercruise and pursuit another CMDR, or just get away from the NPC Elite Clipper Pirate who dropped into your instance and on whom you don't want to waste your ammo. For this reason, on medium ship I'd recommend having at least 5 active collector limpets.
Another obvious needed module is Frame shift drive interdictor to be able to even pull out your prey. Of course A rated, and expanded capture arc engineering. Trust me - there's nothing worse than not being able to get your target because of being a few degrees short. Size 1 is usually enough here.
Then there are 3 modules you don't neccesarily always need, but they are nice to have.
Two of these are scanners - Wake scanner, if you want to be able to pursue your target if they manage to succesfully high wake and Manifest scanner to be able to see what your target's carrying and if they aren't lying when they say they don't have any cargo
The last one is hatch breaker limpet controller Operations/Multi Limpet Controllers which both havee the hatchbreak option. This lets you forcefully open targeted ship's cargo rack and jettison some cargo out. This however leaves you with cargo that is marked as STOLEN and can only be sold at black market.
HOW TO FIND A PLACE WHERE TO PIRATE?
A good way to know where there will be players trading is checking INARA/EDDB trade routes: https://inara.cz/elite/market-traderoutes/ and https://eddb.io/trade/hops or looking around trading focused discords like Pilot's trade network: https://discord.gg/pyy9VWD8De
Of course, when there's a trading Community Goal going on, and the prices of the goods aren't absolute trash, that is an obvious choice, but prepare yourself for more likely PVP interactions with other Pirates who might not like you fishing in their pond, or just gankers and Bounty Hunters.