I've been playing around with NPC piracy for a couple days now. It's quite enjoyable! Unfortunately, it doesn't particularly pay very well.
In the last three days, I've done about 8 hours of piracy, and have in that time acquired roughly the following(with their ideal prices in parentheses):
- 150 rare commodities (30k)
- 200 gold (60k)
- 75 beryllium (10k)
- 200 rebel transmissions(100k)
- 12 ltds(600k)
- 40 military plans(50k)
- 100 expensive goods(AI relics, jewels, etc)(200k)
This means I've made a total of about 70m in the past eight hours, or approximately 9m/hour.
There are two important caveats to this; this is only true if I am able to find and sell at the ideal state combinations, which a player without a FC cannot do. Rebel Transmissions, for example, sell at most stations for about 20k each.
Secondly, this is BEFORE the 25% price penalty at black markets.
This means that the average player will probably be able to make about 2m/hour doing npc piracy, and let me tell you, it's FAR more dangerous and difficult than something like mining, which can make upwards of 150m/hour. It's even more difficult than combat, in my opinion, as killing an enemy is much less difficult than handling the police while trying to hatch-break a trader. But combat also pays upwards of 100m/hour.
Are there any plans in the works to improve the results of npc piracy? Right now, by any reasonable measure, it's clearly not worth bothering.
