The Equilibrium

Hi friends, Cat here. Today we will be wondering if such a thing as a status quo can exist between pirates and the non-pirates? I will seek to explore both sides of the coin in this article. I am known for being a very vocal "anti-pirate" myself, but if there was no piracy, I'd have nothing to complain about. A necessary evil, if you like.

First, let us define piracy in EVE.

Piracy is simply any illegal aggression. If illegal aggression occurs in high-security space, i.e. systems with a sec status of 0.5 or greater, the perpetrator gets a visit from CONCORD, and is very quickly relieved of the ship they were piloting. In lower security systems, there is no CONCORD to interfere. The police are, however, aware of pilots breaking the law in 0.1 to 0.4 systems - and they will adjust the pilots security status accordingly. This is why many pirates are "Flashy Red", because they have committed so many crimes that CONCORD declare open season on them. This happens when your security status drops below -5.

What are the drawbacks of being a pirate?

A pirate, depending on their security status, cannot enter certain high-security solar systems without the faction navies chasing and attacking them. It is possible to evade the navy attacks by either moving about in a capsule, or a fast and agile ship. If a pirates security status drops below -5, they become a viable target anywhere in the game. This means a non-pirate can freely attack, without suffering a security penalty.

What are the benefits of being a pirate?

PvP is more available to you than your average high-sec dweller, and generally it will be against the victims will. This may result in gushes of tears from the hapless traveller, and legend has it that tears are what fuel pirate starships. Once the victim has been destroyed, any loot can be removed from the wreck to be used or sold later.

There are many blogs written by pirates, recounting their tales of misdeeds with fondness. Most are very interesting to read, whereas a blog about how many missions you did, or how much ore you mined is unlikely to receive any repeated traffic.

The Global Criminal Countdown(GCC)

With the exception of 0.0 systems, any illegal violence will result in a fifteen minute timer being applied. Within this timer, sentry guns will fire at you, and if you jump into high-security space, CONCORD will be one of the first things you see.

Where does piracy happen?

Usually in low security systems, to start with. The most frequent places you are at risk from pirates, are stargates, asteroid belts and mission areas. If the pirate has or gets a GCC, they will be targeted and shot at by sentry guns, which are devastating to anything below a battlecruiser.

To avoid sentry fire, many solo or small gang pirates will often scan or probe down their victim, and once destroyed they will retreat to a 'safespot' away from the dangerous station / gate guns.

What is an anti-pirate?

Being an anti-pirate generally means to seek out and destroy the flashy red pirates. There are significantly fewer dedicated anti-pies than there are pirates, there are several alliances dedicated to piracy (Negative Ten, Neo Spartans for example) while I cannot recall any alliances devoted to the destruction of pirates.

What are the wider effects of piracy?

Basically, destroyed ships and products need to be replaced, which helps fuel the market. Any loot that was dropped, or ransoms taken, provide the pirate with ISK to be spent. Pirates can lock down trade routes, such as Rancer - a low security system on the shortest route between Jita and Hek.

Another result of general piracy is that mining nearly never happens in low security systems, without having plenty of friends - preferably having a blue status to the local pirates. If you have this; mining can be very profitable in low security space.

One of the more amusing claims that pirates sometimes make is that they are "cleaning the pool", making reference to Darwin's theories. I am sure that piracy has further effects than those listed above, but those are the main ones.

What can be done about pirates?

Well, you could become an anti-pirate, and go hunt them. You could avoid low-sec, or if you must take a trip there, check the in game map and have the ships &/or pods destroyed in last hour filter turned on, and then keep your wits about you.