not even his ship, Sheb. This game is designed so that whenever someone makes the mistake of investing on an immobile target (such as a mine or orbital station), the pirate can attack with no risk at all, as many times as he wants, until he eventually wins. There is nothing the base can do except have a huge and expensive ship move it away. The pirate however can move as he pleases, and find a different base to pick on.
The fact that there are no repercussions or risks whatsoever for piracy, as well as the fact that there is no other profit-making mechanism in the game, means that it's safer and more profitable to just attack anyone than try and plan, build, expand or explore.
OOC:
I agree with you Jaqvaar that the game as it stands makes it too easy for a pirate to destroy the work of others. That was why i was fully behind Bomales suggestion to modify things so that modules could be plunderd rather than destroyed. If i read a recent post from Sir Emi, then that suggestion is being implemented right now. There are also not that many ingame repercussions or risks, your right. Its impossible to track someone in game. Even if you could track people the game space is chock full of safe zones where you cannot attack. I would love the challenge of evading a tracker, or playing cat and mouse with a bounty hunter. However dont forget that the same technology should be available to us pirates... I would love to track down a nice big fat transport ship and plunder it.
On one point however you are wrong. Piracy is not some golden lotto ticket that leads to untold riches. Actually besides returning a poor profit its also self defeating. If i successfully raid in a system, then that system will be no good for raiding again for a good while. Even if i do have a successfull raid, then the return is pretty small. We get around a 10-20% return on the minerals used to manufacture a module. Sure if i attack a single or a small group of undefended modules on a planet then the risk reward for that particular attack is weighted in my favour. However the defendant either gives up completely, or learns to fortify their modules, there are plenty of lanetary instalations out there that i am unwilling to attack because the risk of damage to my ship is too high.
Regarding other profit making options. From what i gather, NPC pirate hunting turns a good profit, when you can get the jobs. Mining minerals must also be very profitable, because there are plenty of people doing that that are climping the top ranked players much faster than me...and my ships are laid out for combat, not economics, so other than me shutting down a few weapons all of my invested power is on display in that list.
Scion himself is a living proof of that: 0 skill, 0 investment, 0 effort, 0 risk. Just random attacks. Worse case scenario, he jumps away from the planet, big deal. Click on the target again. Repeat until successful.
Thats a little unfair. Just because the current system doesnt allow me to demonstrate my true abbilities... Im still here playing, that represents a reasonable investment in time, does it not? I deffinately dont consider myself a griefer either. I raided a few of your planets, thats true, we had a few games of cat and mouse on some others, but then i move on and looked to other players. I could have just continued to target your planets... but i didnt. I also try to be fairly egalitarian with the noobies. I may hit them a few times, but i dont keep going back over and over. Unfortunately you and a few of the other top ranked players in the game currently make 'big targets'... I imagine you have to deal with others besides me. Just one of the downsides of being at the top of a small heap.
Piracy would be a welcome addition to a vibrant economy, with rich corporations that could afford bounty-hunters and mercenary wingmen, and risks but also big profits for the pirates living on the edge. The merchants would have big profits, and a lot to lose, and therefore might invest in counter-measures. The pirates would weigh their options.
That would be cool wouldnt it... perhapes sirEmi will eventually get us there.