A Beginner's Guide to Piracy | Elite Dangerous Piracy Guide 2024 

Well, there it is - my first guide! I hope it helped a few of you out. Obviously, as it’s my first try I have next to no idea about teaching people and pacing videos, so if you’ve got any feedback, please let me know! o7🫡

It always makes me happy when i get interdicted and its someone ACTUALLY playing pirate, I am always happy to toss a little help to my Piratical CMDR's Thanks for trying to remind folks that this game was meant for FUN !

I love the way you paced/ordered this video. Really starting from the right place and immediately dropping information without any kind of cross-chatter is a beautiful thing to see in a guide like this.

What a breath of fresh air, absolutely brilliant work. Really appreciate the very necessary optimism about this brilliant game!

For the smuggling, the station's hologram on your HUD matches the orientation of the station, so you can use that to line up in supercruise, giving you a straight shot in to the mailslot. Remember the mailslot faces towards the planet, and Coriolis stations have arrows on the hologram to point towards the mailslot, and they also have red and white lights to indicate front and back when in normal space.

glad to see i finaly found a type of interdiction pvp where i can call the aggressor something else than ganker. i would actualy feel like dying to them would be my fault to some extend when in other casses it basically feels like a tax i have to pay for existing in open.

Just 1 tip I noticed is, selecting subtargets through left pannel can often be tedious and take longer than would be ideal, I would recommend everyone to bind the cycle subtargets forward and backwards controls.

Superb video commander. This was a really enjoyable and helpful guide. Keep this up.

This channel might just get me back to Elite proper...

Thank you! Nice contribution to the community!

Well done! Keep it up! I thought the video was well paced and easy to follow. And you portray a fun, enthusiastic attitude.

As a new player, I've never been into illegal activities yet and still learning the ropes, but I would really like to try piracy. Thanks for the both informative and simple guide!

Very well done guide. I've never tried piracy before and I just might after watching this.

Fantastic video commander, I’ll be recommending this video on Reddit any time someone talks about piracy. I particularly liked the way you noted that engineering isn’t required, and your instructions were so well described and ordered. It’s also encouraged me to dust down the cobwebs covering my Krait MkII ‘Ammanas’ to have a go at your technique, when I’m back from the black.

Nicely done Cmdr am looking forward to the next one

Great video. Really nice to see someone making up to date guides, especially to this standard. Keep up the good work CMDR o7

Great first guide cmdr. Short and to the point with some tips and tricks. Keep up

Well done Badger. Very methodical (unlike some guides). Worth a thumbs up and a sub.

Well done CMDR, great video on a subject too often forgotten. Loads of differnt play styles in Elite, so looking forward watching more of your videos and seeing you in game in open...o7

Lovely work. Never considered full-time piracy but great to know how it works. Looking forward to the mining one.

A great start! Well paced, content order was good and you took it down to basics for those of us with no prior knowledge. Keep going commander o7

I never thought about piracy previously but your guide makes it easy to understand as well as fun. Thank you.

YT algorithm sent me this gem of a video. Great content, great editing and to the point. I don’t even play ED anymore but I might just fire it up because of this. Subbed for future guides of this caliber.

Nice job, we need more original, innovative creators like you. Good luck and I'll be looking for the next one.

Very well done video, great editing and overlay graphics. You make it seem so easy.

This was awesome! Thank you! The only thing I can think of: More Clockwork Orange theme stuff.

This was quite good. Keep it up commander!

Future video idea: tutorials on how to use the many 3rd party tools at our disposal. Alot of players know the struggle of learning how to navigate EDSM, Coriolis, inara etc.

Excellent guide, very well narrated enjoyable to watch and informative. Even though I am a longtime player I have never really tackled piracy but I’m now quite tempted. Thanks to your innovative and useful guide I have liked and subscribed thank you

More guides on unlocking modules... specifically a guide on what modules we should be unlocking that are useful for different jobs or whatever.

Arrrr! Piracy! Glorious! A lovely little guide. Some great technical points in there.

thanx for this great idea this is the one thing i havent tried and it does look like fun thanx for this great video

Nice guide, very well made!

Nice video, commander. Good to see piracy is still going on in Elite.

Good start, Good video. Looking forward to more.

cool guide I've never tried pirating but I might have a go after watching this. love the background music too 😁

Nicely made video. It explains piracy perfectly

Good pacing an explanation. Anyone new to piracy should get some good advice from this video guide.

Very well done guide. Thank you

great guide! Right to the point.

GREAT Start, Diturti. Love it.

That's a great guide. I never thought about targetting NPC miners/haulers actually. This on top of all the useful information like the builds and procedure, I mean well done! It's also nice to welcome fresh blood among the ED creators community since a lot of great youtubers have turned away from the game recently. You're well on their track commander, I hope to see more of your vids.

I’ve never done piracy, this looks like something I should have a crack at, your instructions are clear, well done

Excellent first video! Perfect length and pace and really clear instructions, I'll definitely be giving this a go as piracy is not something I've actually ever tried. With things like silent running when smuggling, I don’t even care if it works or is strictly necessary, the important thing for me is that it feels right and that people should be doing stuff like that for the role play of being a smuggler regardless of wether the "meta" (yawn) says it's a waste of time. Another example would be using a warrant scanner when bounty hunting. I'm sure there are people who would say it's not worth it but hell, if I’m hunting bounties then of course I should be using one. Really looking forward to more in this series and I have plenty of ideas if you ever run out. One example is racing. It scores zero on the risk/reward scale (massive risk of death, zero reward, but man is it fun).

Nice video! Hope to see you in the black someday.

o7 Good Job, I will try it out. See you on the next video. Greets

Awesome vid! Can't wait to see you take off and I'm excited to see your mining videos -- mining's the one portion of the game I haven't really gotten into yet so it'll be exciting to check it out from a more fun-having perspective than anything.

I have a smuggling python, although I’ve been on a hiatus from Elite, so I may just come back and try this! These tutorials are amazing in quality and straightforward, too. No tedious G5-engineering-everything necessary!

I'm usually on the other side of the fight, but I'm almost tempted to give Piracy a try now! Perhaps privateering... :D

You got good Elite Dangerous guides. Subbed

Fantastic stuff. Brilliant to finally see someone playing the game and actually enjoying it, rather than telling people to grind their heads off until they rage quit the game out of boredom!! Fantastic stuff for new players, and a reminder for us veterans. (I sort of want to go out and swipe some LTDs now!!!!!) Subscribed and REALLY looking forward to more. I'll do what I can to spread the word in the meantime!

really good compact tutorial thx men

Well you’re my new favourite elite video stream! Keep up the good work and if you ever want to go exploring let me know 😂

I didnt even know this was a thing...will be having a crack at this very soon for sure!

For even more fun, go into Open and try your hand at PvP piracy, which is obviously much more challenging, though it comes with the increased risk of the target simply logging off. You can even request them to abandon their goods which means they won't be classified as stolen. This was something a lot of people did when the game was new back in 2014-16, though it went out of favour really quickly as more content was being added.

Well done, sir!

Damn this is a great guide, really good work there. Should try it myself! :D

Cheers, mate, great video!

Great video, Commander o7 Can't wait to watch the next one:)

I tried this a few years ago and at first it was fun, but then it became too tedious after awhile. If it paid more I would go back to piracy. The best part I liked was sneaking into stations with stolen goods and getting one up on the man. Silent running with heat sinks was my best friend.😆

Cant wait to watch this one.

Duuuude, this is amazing, thanks.

Nice one! I'll have to try that out soon. Basically I want to try all kinds of illegal activities with my Alt (while my Main is mostly sparkling clean), so more guides in that direction will be very welcome. =)

You make the bump look so easy!

Don't play the game or know much about it. But I enjoyed your masterful video editing. It was a joy to watch..

Nice job, keep it up :)

A good guide, very well done. Having played ED almost since the start (with a rather long break from '16 to '20), piracy is one of the few things I haven't done yet. You made it look fun, maybe I should give it a try someday. Wouldn't Cytoscramblers be better at taking down shields?

Love this guide, I've been playing for years but never tried piracy but this video has got me wanting to try it out. Now where did I leave that hatch breaker module

Good job, o7 cmdr!

Have subbed already - not seen the video yet, but know it's going to be great 😀 o7

Nice video :) and piracy is a load of fun :)

Hi. When i was pirate, i used a python: -1 force shell large cannon was a fun and effectiv way to slow down a ship. -1 seeker to destroy the drive, the point defence turret (if they destroy the hatch breaker and the collector drones) and mine launcher (sometimes the npc blow themselves...). and 1 pack hound if too many turret defence. A good way to detroy every external modules at once. -2 beam for the shield -1 repair drone in case the npc has too much damages, plus the smoke indicates the overall direction of the ship. A good way to aim well with the cannon or the ship to slow down the npc. I played without assistance in order to fly reverse when i slow down the npc.

Good job cmdr!

this was awesome ^^ and informativ. and as Jaedi3100 said right on the point.

You can also fire off a heat sink to avoid a station scan will landing.

Excellent stuff. I like that you made a point out of not requiring any engineering for this. However, I still feel you should have mentioned that using Cannons with the force shell experimental OR (my personal favorite for the task) the Enforcer powerplay multicannon works much better to slow down a drifting target than crashing into it. You have more control that way. Keep it up :) o7

nice well made entertaining and simple to follow, good job dude. a bombing guide in video format would be cool to see. I tried to make a text one with vary short videos for visual aid but it is not vary good. I love bombing in elite, mines do a vary good job at ending stuff on the ground :) give me a poke if u wanna know more. if u are interested u can probably get a good hum from my short videos.

When I first got Elite, I was so excited to try smuggling and piracy, but somebody told me it wasnt worth it because it didnt make the most money so it took a minute for me to try it. The first time I smuggled stolen goods into a station had me hooked. Now I fly everything like its stolen.

Very good and passionate tutorial, keep it up! Few addings: You may consider having a smuggler ship with good cargo, speed and engineered (or just build) to be very cold. You can swap this ship in the anarchy system. With this you dont need silent running as the ship will be default cold. You can also use multipropuse limpet which has hatch breaker and collector limpet, if the space is not enough. The Cyto burst laser (power play module) is probably the best for shields and do no hull damage (true pirate laser). Other powerplay module is the Containment Missile. It reboots the FSD giving more time. This can also be achieved with engineering (grade 1 is enough, and an experimental effect). Back in the day I done pirating and is was quite good, because the NPC started fighting and I just needed to tank it, while hatch breaked them. Now they run, and the worst part is to stop them when they drift. That was a fun killer for me. :(

Regarding crashing into the target: why not boost ahead of them, turn flight assist off, turn your nose back towards them (with FA off you will keep your speed and heading) and then either adjust accordingly or even just turn FA back on while also setting engines to full reverse (again keeping the speed and heading) and making all adjustments like that? then adjust the throttle forward to initiate the crash

Yiarrr 🏴‍☠️ 07

Nice :D I have to try this, when I'm back on ED again ^^ However, for me there's only Grade 5 engineered stuff....

I love your quality vids. Do you think you’ll make a bouny hunter instructional viddy? Just skimmed your library and drooled all over myself.

Well done! You've covered all the basics to have someone start in their piracy career.. in the dirty pirate career that is! I will burn you dirty pirate!!! Lol. Good work. BTW, when I started years ago, I remember being thoroughly confused just staring at the ship HUD. Maybe there's a need for super basic, ED-101 guides on how to get started and what all the buttons mean.

Nice guide 👍🏽 another idea perhaps and not something I’ve seen a guide for recently is selling gathered odyssey materials to players fleet carriers. INARA displays what’s for sale and fleet carrier owners are able to place purchase requests. Once players have finished upgrading their suits and weapons it makes for a nice side hustle and a reason to loot settlements. Materials like manufacturing materials and other hard to come by materials sell for big bucks! And even the common ones sell for much more than at regular npc bartenders. I’ve been doing this game loop for a while now and it makes you feel a bit like Robin Hood by stealing from the big corporations and factions to feed the poor newbie cmdr’s that want to buy materials to upgrade their bits quicker. Liked, subbed and I will give you a shoutout from my small YT channel. o7 CMDR

nice vid, never considered piracy in this game. but you forgott to clear some questions: what happens when i just destroy my target, will that destroy all the cargo? could i just shoot the cargo hatch so it droppes everything on its own? other than that, looks like a straight forward part time activity.

You are wanted now, bro!

I want a hook tool with mini game instead of slowing the ships down by bumping.

We want more :), maybe mission guides

I know that LTDs aren’t so hot for mining anymore, any reason you recommend those for piracy in particular? Is it as useful to pirate platinum (to add to my regular mining output) and if so, what locations would have good platinum-carrying ships?

Is there a mechanic for hunting Pirates? just to make things a bit interesting...

Analytics!

Hey man thanks for this guide! I keep finding that when I find a good target they end up warping away before I can disable their drives, usually it’s due to mines or point defense turret taking out my missiles. I have a turret of my own to take out mines, it’s helped but more often than not they get away. Any advice?

We could do with some sort of a tractor beam in this game

Playing in open I got almost ganked by players immediatetly open fire.... so I am used to do the logout.... those 15 secs my Conda.always survives. .... I would deal in with a pirate if they'd do some role playing... I'd give them some goods or even hire them to protect me.... but no such offers ever seen. So the 15 secs wait screen is my friend.

It's really unfortunate that player piracy(actual piracy, not sealclubbing/griefing) isn't more viable in Elite. It's a lot more fun than NPC nonsense, when another player plays along. But what happens 99/100 times is the pirated player quits the game immediately.

How can you use your fleet carrier for piracy? Just to store your loot until you can find a place to sell it or can you sell you loot to yourself on your fleet carrier to sort of clean it?

If you feel especially evil, and want some materials, you can also end with blowing up your victim collecting some precious materials as well. If your hold is not full, pick up any escape pods to get some good karma rescuing the victims of piracy,

I miss the good ole days of PvE piracy Low Temp Diamond farming.

Hey guys I have a question! I play on console and I've been in frog for the past few actual real life days. I've only come across 1 type six and got 33 LTDs. Like I dunno what's going on. I fly in SC over the system checking the contacts list I'll occasionally see a type 7 or a 9 but they won't have a refinery...so I'll exit SC and jump back in to reinstance myself but still it's the same as before. So last night I got tired of all this work for nothing and decided to run to giliese 3987 b and I spent 6 hours doing the same shit with no results. Is piracy on console dead or am I doing something wrong.