Elite Dangerous – Piracy Tips

Trying to get into piracy in Elite Dangerous and not very good at it? This guide will show you few useful tips.

Tips to Piracy

Сrеdit gоеs to funkynutz!

Keep an eye on in system messages while flying around in sueprcruise… Wedding/Funeral Barges usually make easy targets especially when it’s a solo T9. If it’s an Orca, you need to be in a fast ship to keep up.

You’ll see messages like these:

Funeral Ship

• “They’re one with the stars, now.”
• “Now that I am without you, I am desolate…”
• “Peace for the dead… Peace for the dead…”
• “Too young, too young…”

Wedding Barge

• “Help us celebrate our happy day!”
• “Can all guests please make sure they’ve taken their assigned places in the convoy!”
• “At least I don’t have to meet the in-laws!”
• “You chose the wrong wedding to crash!”
• “I still haven’t written my vows. What can I say?”

Convoy dispersal patterns can be a bit tougher, often a wing of combat ready ships. You’ll find Imperial ships in Imperial systems, Fed ships in Fed systems etc… Usually not as good for loot, (mining systems that can be a very different story), but pop them and use some collectors to gather the materials (high grade shield/armour material requirements, I think this might be dependant on whether there’s war in the system though? It’s been a while lol).

Trader ships that are broadcasting for wares etc… I think these are usually a solo T9? Easy prey. Usually have some good loot. Sometimes you might be better off selling your loot to them though.

Look for them all in populated Anarchy systems, that way no cops show up to give you a hard time.

Try to shoot out their Thrusters or FSD so they can’t escape. Power plant works too, but you’re more likely to pop your target than disable it.

Once disabled, hit them with a hatchbreaker (or shoot out their cargo hatch, but like popping the power plant – you may pop the target instead). Pop off your collectors and grab the goods.

Again, keep an eye on the messages (local this time). Occasionally they’ll surrender as soon as they’re disabled and they’ll just let you have the loot. I even had one surrender as soon as I deployed hardpoints once. Just dumped his cargo and boosted away… It was comical.

If you’re going after players, you’ll either need to get good with the FSD interdictor, or you’ll want to catch them in mining hotspots.

Don’t attack straight away, greet them. Introduce yourself, tell them you’re a pirate (or privateer, or tax collector, or whatever else you feel like calling it), and inform them that you’ll be taking a portion of their cargo (might want to set up a macro for the message rather than typing it out every time). You could try opening voice comms, but some of us are antisocial gits who have that set to auto-refuse.

And don’t get greedy. You only want 20 units, maximum.

They can’t dump more than that anyway (any extra just explodes).

If they try to fight or run, that’s when you hit them with a shield busting torp, and some drag munition/fsd reboot missiles… Then treat them like an NPC, disable FSD/thrusters, loot them, and then either kill them for the inconvenience they just caused, or leave them to restart their systems and escape as you please. Some of them will actually appreciate it if you’re merciful. I’m not one of them. If you’ve just robbed me, I’m coming back in a combat ready ship looking for you either way; so you may as well kill me if you can.