As the wealthiest player on the server I can say that 99% of my money is from pirating / bribes etc. I did some trading way back in 2007 when I was part of the MC – but not much. My LT, "Beedo's BattleBarge", was just that. Used for PvP (looting other LTs).

Regarding LT's being hard to beat, yeah I think they are a little too strong – as are AT Mk IIs. Bulska gives examples of how to play smart vs. them. This is assuming the LT you are chasing is a moron and provides you those exploits. Don't take my word for it though, it's not like I have any sort of experience with this kind of thing. :P

The example you are giving with your LT is a valid point, and I may judged a bit too soon that all "pirates" trade for their income. I personally think that pirates hunting LT's should be armed properly, and not in the swiss pocketknife they see in VHF's. Like your LT, but people could also get a bomber (yes I know they cost a metric crapton of credits). There should be no one counter to everything, anywhere. Most people see the VHF's as this, because they are somewhat the endgame content PVP-wise, but they are not. I myself pirated in an AT1 once in the past, just for the fun of it but it got people off guard, and my char wasn't tagged with an X at the time.

Ninja-edit: +1 Kurile

Which can't really work well together with robo's point, as he thinks (I share the opinion) that if you pay 75m for a ship, you should at least stand the slightest chance against pirates. Killing LT's takes some skill, mostly due to the high effective HP they can get with bots involved, and with relatively strong weapons. But hitting anything with an LT really is difficult. If anyone that has an eagle can come around and shoot your LT, you wouldn't like it either. A solution for this could be the following: give GB's the ability to fit and use CD's, so they can be used viably for hunting/pirating LT's. They cost 100m, so in theory could be used for something more then snipers, or nothing at all. Also when they have a CD they can function more as support, CD'ing the larger caps to keep them where they are and snipe from 3k's out, instead of dieing horribly when the BS gets a small cruise cycle off.

I'd like to share my own opinion on the current definition of "pirate" on FLU. Most people think that a pirate should be someone that's flying around and can only talk with a click on the RMB, beam loot and then get the hell out. To me, such a move simply is PvP, and guys tagged with a X are more likely to shoot you than someone without the tag. A pirate, in my opinion, should be someone flying around, and when he runs into someone he should attack (but not kill) someone and then request payment, so the guy under attack can move on.

Pirates on current day earth also don't float around in their rubber boats blowing up oil tankers, yet they hijack them and let them go when they have recieved a ransom of sorts (or are blown off the boat).

That's very optimistic outlook of a pirate Faros & Fireball. The sad reality is most traders F1. I always fire first and then demand payment so that if they try to F1 they will at least be punished. Usually traders take my initial assault the wrong way and just open fire like fools.

Also, giving a GB a CD would just add to the problem. VHFs would then have no place in fleet battles or really for anything at all. As it stands the only reason to fly one here is because of the CD mount.

Paying tons of money for a ship is all fine and well, my problem is that you pay to be in a ship that outclasses fighters completely. I cannot play the game the way it was intended (for end-game to be VHF combat) because the caps here are overpowered. If they were balanced that would be another story. And by balanced I mean 1 VHF vs 1 Battleship = fair fight.

OR, why not give VHF pilots the ability to "buy" overpowered stuff to compete EG: a 500 mil module that increases their armor value ten-fold. Why can't I throw billions at robocop to make my VHF competitive instead of buying a skill-less dread? VHFs are supposed to be the premier end-tier ship of the game, and yet they are worthless against these modded monstrosities.

And complaining that you have no chance in a VHF against a cap is like whining that you can't kill a VHF with the starting loadout on your starflea… Don't attack caps in an eagle!

Yet that one person isn't allowed to use the cap against a fighter, and is he does, he will loose the cap due to abuse. If you attack a capital ship in a fighter, expect it to shoot back. That said, expect ANYONE in ANY ship to shoot back when you open fire, no matter the intention.

And we can also turn your argument upside down in relation to the BS's… We are talking about a universe roughly 1500 years from where we are now, computers are advanced! That's the beauty of sci-fi, you can use any reality you want, it is fiction after all.