While my use for the command will be immediately obvious, in the interests streamlining requests, and making things easier for droid users, I would like to propose the following:

command: /requestmoney "player name" xxx

effect: recipient is prompted that "requester name has requested xxx credits. Type /givemoney accept or /givemoney decline." Additionally, when requestmoney event is active, user would have a button under the k menu which would complete the transfer. Upon either party leaving sector, the event would expire.

Obviously this is a low priority request, but plugins could be built around it to streamline player transactions. Thoughts?

Paying Your Pirate: so easy, even Alloh could do it.

Lazy pirates are lazy...

maybe the %target% sees a popup: Pay, Run, Fight or LAUGH...

Hey, I gave up asking people for money ages ago. Half the time people refuse to pay even when you're charging half or less of what their ship and cargo are worth, not to mention their time, and scoring a kill is a foregone conclusion... which is annoying, and done only because the game lacks an effective death penalty.

So, unless you're a trader I know and respect, I won't give you the option to pay for safe passage. I'll scan your ship, chase you down and pop you if it looks tasty, and loot your corpse. Easier for me, and apparently what most traders prefer to paying. Rougher on the noobs, of course, but whatever.

the name Jolly Roger comes from the French words joli rouge, meaning "pretty red" and referring to a plain red flag which was flown to indicate that the ship would fight to the death, with no quarter given or expected.

Pirates are not expect to negotiate, even less demands credits.

In this view of models, it was important for a prey ship to know that its assailant was a pirate, and not a privateer or government vessel, as the latter two generally had to abide by a rule that if a crew resisted, but then surrendered, it could not be executed:

An angry pirate therefore posed a greater danger to merchant ships than an angry Spanish coast guard or privateer vessel. Because of this, although, like pirate ships, Spanish coast guard vessels and privateers were almost always stronger than the merchant ships they attacked, merchant ships may have been more willing to attempt resisting these "legitimate" attackers than their piratical counterparts. To achieve their goal of taking prizes without a costly fight, it was therefore important for pirates to distinguish themselves from these other ships also taking prizes on the seas.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolly_Roger

Privateers and guards are expected respect Rules of Engagement. So, VO pirates should not be in regular nations, while privateers remain in their nation.
How privateers and pirates should differ in VO? Pirates are not expected to negotiate. Maybe one single "Drop yer cargo now and I may let you live", instead of "stop your engines and let's deal a price for me not trying to kill you.". And privateers have excellent native standing, while pirates predate anyone but corvus, and maybe other rats... Native KoS should ban player from nation, making him a pariah, homeless... for practical game implementation, a 4th faction.

Finally, about noobies, they were warned that grayspace is dangerous and rats are mercyless...

Er, Alloh, this does more to help newbies than pirate - we don't get any less work from it. But this way the newbie doesn't have to worry about figuring out the whole "quotes around names with spaces" thing, or spelling correctly, or counting to make sure he uses the correct number of 0's.

There have been quite a few times where it took the newbie so long to figure it out that I was beginning to suspect he was just trying to buy time for help to show up, so that I was on the verge of killing him when he finally figured it out. (And of course, several times they never did figure it out so I shot them down - though it's possible that all of those ones actually were trying to be tricky somehow.)

And by the way, if I'm pirating somebody and another player enters the sector, and if I think for any reason that he intends to interfere, I will shoot the victim on the spot, even if I know he's honestly trying to pay. No I will not take chances, sorry, so don't bother trying to play the hero because you'll only get him killed.

This suggestion would also help for conducting other player-to-player business. Instead of them going "how much money did you want again?" and then having to type it all out, we can just "invoice" them for the correct amount with /requestmoney.

This is a good suggestion for much more than what Savet has said. Having a less annoying way to pay money quickly is a good idea. The current dialogues to do it are more or less hidden and some people hate command lines.

Piracy in real life was a very different thing from what is even possible in this game. In particular, in VO you cannot steal their ship, nor loot it for random plunder besides their proper cargo. So there is no value to be had in killing a fighter, unless he's using some particularly nice piece of equipment that you hope he will drop (e.g. avalons). That is the main reason I do the whole protection racket thing, because this way I can at least make some profit off the occasional fighter who is willing to pay.

I suppose I could start only offering that option to small ships and empty cargo vessels, and simply kill any loaded moth I see which hasn't paid in advance. And of course, if I don't happen to have a cargo scanner, I have to assume the moth is loaded.

Moth pilots: please send any complaints about my new policy to Alloh.

There are two problems I see with this suggestion:
1) What happens when two pirates are both sending a request to the same person? Is it simply the most recent request that would go through? In that case, one pirate could ninja the payment from the other pirate. I suppose this wouldn't be an issue if the player uses the 'k' target info menu to confirm payment.

2) A pirate could request one amount and then follow it with a request for an exorbitant amount, and if the timing is right then the player sending payment wouldn't notice until it is too late.

The advantage I see to this suggestion is that a player could set up a bind to confirm payment quickly.

Pfft. Make the penalty for dying greater so people are more inclined to pay attention, and their money. Givemoney is covered in the tutorials, right?

"Pirates are not expect to negotiate, even less demands credits."

I will refute this. My evidence: The song "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)", which I'm sure we can all agree is authoritative.

Note the second verse, where it says "We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack." Then observe that the definition of "extort" includes "to wrest or wring (money, information, etc.) from a person by violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority; obtain by force, torture, threat, or the like."

I rest my case.

To address the legitimate concerns voiced so far:

1. Payment spam with different amounts.

Limit /requestmoney to once per 2 minute period per pair of users. This gives the recipient time to accept or decline appropriately.

2. Multiple pirates requesting money

I don't know that there's a good way to address this except that it's not really an issue in normal scenarios. I have shared sectors with "rival" pirates many times, and when one of us collects we generally split the proceeds. If the pirates aren't on good enough terms to handle this on their own, they probably aren't going to be worried about the newbie in sector, and will be fighting for control of the sector between themselves. More commonly, they'll choose different places to hunt.

3. This is more about building out an established aspect of existing game play rather than simply being lazy. Making payment easier for new and/or droid players makes for a less frustrating experience.. Less frustration means better new player retention. Better new player retention means more profits for pirates, and more potential veterans to combat the pirates down the line.

3. This is more about building out an established aspect of existing game play rather than simply being lazy.

Ok, now I got the argument and agree. It would indeed officially add piracy to VO's gameplay. And surely makes MORE interesting for newbies.

So, anyone can demand money at will? No consequences?... Or some sort of 'powerup' for being privateer/pirate?

+1 anyway, makes easier for noobies to reckon pirates.
But I'd prefer to see some previous requirements, like a privateer badge... to control its consequences, like if privateer charges from own nation ships he gets standing drop. But once a Privateer you keep this powerup forever, even if become pirate/3KoS.

And limit to 1demand/sector/player, so either the agreed, fastest or surviving pirate will demand the credits once per sector per player.

It's an enhanced /givemoney command, you drooling savage. What's officially piratical about that? Why would there be "consequences" for sending someone an invoice rather than a msg?

-1 Alloh

the proposed /requestmoney command wouldn't be limited to use for piracy; it can also make player-to-player trades and whatever other exchanges more convenient as well.

Thinking about it some more, it would be annoying to have to count zeroes in the requested amount if the number displayed doesn't have commas: "Savet is requesting 10000000 credits". If implemented, please include commas in the displayed amount to make reading more convenient.

Yeah, definitely not a pirate-only thing.

Alloh does have the right idea about preventing ninjas though. Once somebody has requested money from you, nobody else can request more until that request has been declined, aborted, fulfilled, or timed-out.

There should be a short cooldown period after a request is finished (whether aborted, satisfied, whatever) before the person who sent the request can send another to the same person, to prevent spam and ninja-price-changes (i.e. make a request, wait a bit, then abort it and make a new one).