Here I am in my lame ass tug...

I just started my pirating career and have 13 pods stolen. I'm scouting aroung the Samarkand and Blackeye L-Points and it's spotty at best. I took a trip to Smarkand Transfer Station and knocked a pretty juicey Transport out of LDS but got my ass shot off. Aside from these spots, where is there some juicy, relatively low risk pod hunting for an Act I tug.


BTW How do I get my hands on some upgrades for my Tug? Is there a side mission I can do at this point? Any overall tips for this part of the game would be greatly appreciated! I'm loving the free-form style of this game!


Mk

If everyone is special, then nobody is special...

I always stuck to the Blackeye-L and only occasionally lurked around stations. Not much cargo moves through Samarkand.

When you've pirated enough you'll be offered jobs by factions... and be offered trades for new hardware.

I now have 17 pods hijacked and Jafs has informed me that nobody will touch us. I sensing an offer from the Stepsons soon...






If everyone is special, then nobody is special...

I've never found waiting to be very fun, especially when looking for instant pirating gratification. Furthermore, I've never found the low risk areas to be any fun

What you'll find works best is plotting yourself a patrol circuit between the corporate stations. Jump in, look around quick, and then jump out to the next one on your list if nothing appeals to you. It never hurts to subtarget the cargo as well, you dont want to fight tooth and nail for scrap and ore [well.. maybe. depends on the trade you're working on].

Second unless you're ok taking on several heavy corvettes at once, it's all about the hit and run. Most of the escorts have a limited sphere of response. What you'll want to do is get in, hit the transport enough to spew, and get the heck out of there asap. It is good to note that the corporate ships will stay in formation until you make the first move. This allows you to set up the attack at your convenience.

That being said there is still room to make some big mistakes here. I'll put my standard tactic down, and you can decide whether it works for you or not.

[My primary weapon is always the comm/mining/cutting laser, for anyone but fighters]

-Find your target, approach from behind at a couple hundred metres/s. You'll have to dermine the right speed for yourself, depending on the target and your weapon.

-As soon as you're ready, open up and concentrate your fire. You have only a few seconds to make this work. Do your best and target the engines! Remember that there are no shields there.

-As soon as you start to shoot, hold down your thrust override and dont let go! [make sure you're not going to fly into the freighter, flying along its length works best] Also, make sure you pay attention to the pods, you dont want to boost into the area that the pods are about to occupy

-If you've hit the freighter enough, pods should be spewing just as you fly past. Hold your override until you get between 1000 and 1500 metres/s. Toggle your flight assist off, rotate to face exactly backwards [to face your shields], and now continue to thrust override (but use S instead of W now!).

-Once you get up near 2000metres/s, you can generally outrun all their missiles by coasting. Furthermore, the escorts will soon lose interest in chasing you and turn back. As soon as they do (and all the missles are gone) activate&deactivate LDS for some super fun intertia cancelling. You'll go from 2000 in one direction to 1000 in another.

-Set yourself to 0 thrust and wait for the ships to leave, and its all yours! Note that this also works for the mega freighter, it just takes more and you have toe dstroy the pods after as well.

In a rare instance the corporation will get very angry and send a cruiser to greet you. I'd recommend you acknowledge the message and flee. Unless of course you're good with that mining laser...

Pippu, that sounds like a grand tactic! I'll give it a try next outing. What has been a nice tactic for me is basically getting pods without firing a shot, which if course is getting harder since my rating is going up and I seem to find more Law about. Blackeye L-Point has been good to me. What I do is sit back about 50Km and let the Marauders do all the dirty work. When the Transports or Utilities drop their pods, I simply clean up the mess. They tend to be very slow in reeping their rewards...

As far as loadouts go, here is mine: Dual, Quad Light PBC's and my two turret fighters which are paking a total of 24 Harrower missiles and one Light PBC's each.


So you are recommending the Comms Laser? I haven't tried it yet. I traded for the Cryo PBC and I regret it. I'm just used to that rapid kill of the dual quads...
I usually do target the thrusters first on payload craft.

If everyone is special, then nobody is special...

Definetely recommend any of those beams. Just keep in mind that the comms laser is quite underpowered and requires a steady aim. Upgrade to the mining laser as soon as you can, its a significant improvement over the comms. And that cutting beam? Never has attacking a carrier been such a pleasure. Who wants turkey?

As for the PBC's, as you've already discovered the quad light is the greatest of them all. Hits for a small amount, but used together you overpower anythings shields quite handily. Just wait until later in the game when you get a third and fourth. >_<