We loved your entries to our exploration photo-essay reward, like this one, and so we're asking you to create new ones, this time on piracy! Please read this guidance carefully:
What is a photoessay? A photoessay combines a series of themed images with a couple of sentences of text accompanying each photo. Together, the photos and text should tell a non-fiction story exploring a topic, in this case: something related to piracy, such as 'the life of a lone pirate on the outskirts of the Bubble'. Could you imagine your photo-essay being shared in the future-equivalent of the New York Times? Then you're probably onto a winner. Be sure to give your photo-essay a title.
We recommend between five and 15 images. All images must be verified via social media. In fact, while not essential, we recommend you create the entire photo-essay on social media. If you were using Twitter (X), for example, you could create a thread of tweets, each containing one image and the accompanying text.
This is a tiered reward, offering 20 $10 rewards as well as a $50, $30, and $20 reward for the best photoessays.
This reward closed to entries at 4:12pm on May 6, 2025 but you can still reply, react, and join the conversation below! If you’d like to enter other rewards which are still open, click here.
Most pirates like me hijack trade ships from supercruise, hack advertisement beacons and rob settlements. So what makes me unique? I always aim for the biggest fish! Stealing assets or ships cargo is time consuming and low profitable. So I just steal materials for my own equipment and something bigger for real money.
My mighty Sailor, lightweight Cobra Mk.3 is a perfect ship to sneak as close to the settlements as possible.
With my Sailor, raiding settlements is easy job, yet at the end of each run I risk loosing it forever... You'll see later why!
Landed 1.5 kilometers from my target that does not expect any problems today.
Settlement scanners have effective distance of over 7 kilometers, but thanks to mountains and small ship, as well as silent running mode, I am nearly undetectable.
Sneaking into shadows, it will be night very soon but I cannot wait that long. It's dark enough here.
My pumpkin mask is everything the guards can see. And yet if they see that glowing face, they cannot believe their eyes.
Getting nearby settlement is quite easy, the hardest part is to get into any building and hope for technicians with top access level to be inside. But if you know where to search, you'll eventually find them and peacefully knock them down.
With unlimited access to entire settlement, I can disable alarms, authorization scans and most importantly, defence turrets.
But why anti-air defence turrets are so important to disable here? Well, because of the main goal, which is currently that beautiful ASP Scout on a second landing pad!
With all defences disabled, that ship is completely unprotected. A perfect reward for my effort!
Just a couple self-made e-breaches and I'm inside the ASP, now I have to engage the engines and leave the planet.
Doors closed and locked, no one knows I'm here.
Leaving the planet and my Cobra, but I'll get back soon.
So unfortunately I cannot remotely order my ship to follow me but thanks to Apex Interstellar Transport I'll be able to rent a shuttle and come back to this settlement. Nobody saw my face, except for some knocked down engineers so I'm completely clean. After I'll get back on the planet, I just have to hope my ship will be still waiting for me in the mountains.
Finishing transaction with my friend from local shipyard and a bunch of million credits lands on my account. What will happen to that ASP is not my business anymore.
Our ships are no big deal, people usually think they have well-secured ships but that's not technically true. The real challenge would be to bring home a Guardian Sentinel or even Thargoid Scout!
Quick note: You can't actually steal other ships so don't try that 😅
Love the idea of a ship heist! I know it's gonna be so fun if it's possible, but it's also gonna be so game breaking that's why it's not in the game, lol.
"I only take cargo, no lives" that's what I say to them freighters everytime I interdict/manifest scan one. The war has already taken too many lives, we don't need anymore dead. Don't get me wrong, pirates still thrive, and at this point, it's more like a lifestyle than anything else, but after all, I'm a pirate, not a terrorist.
I'm a pilot of many jobs, and piracy, if you don't want to call it a hobby, could be one of the jobs, and I have a specific ship for every job. The Krait Phantom "Phantom Voyager" is the one.
A good pirate is a good pilot, and a good pilot knows how to outfit his ship, before heading out for a naughty day, I get to the hangar to make sure everything is in place, the exact modules I need, no more, no less.
A good pirate is a good pilot, and a good pilot knows how to outfit his ship.
We start with the intersting part first: guns. Meanwhile those Pacifier fragment cannons look intimidating, they will be retracted as soon as the victim's shield is down, it's when the pack-hounds do their job: they put the victim's drive to rest, leave them with no way to escape.
Those Pacifiers might look a bit scary, but don't worry, as long as your shield is down, they'll stop shooting.
This is where the art of piracy comes in, while the victim is floating there, it's time for your limpets to work, cargo dropped, end of the job, no one has to die. Of course if you're the victim, consider calling the Hull Seals later, I said I wouldn't kill, didn't mean I have free taxi service.
Ship with dead drives and hatch breaker, the art of piracy.
Now let's get to the job.
LHS 3384, an Anarchy system, perfect for when you're not in the mood of shooting back at the authority. Also it has a pretty (but deadly) white dwarf as the main star.
Let's start with a small fish first.
A little warm up at first won't hurt
Please stop resisting.
Well, looks like someone doesn't have to call the Hull Seals today.
Let's drop into a RES then.
And of course, before I can actually see a ship that potentially has cargo, I was greeted at first with someone of my very own profession:
We exchange manifest scan, maybe it's a casual pirate salute somewhere
As sad as it sounds, working on the same job wouldn't exactly mean we're friends. He didn't want me to compete with him in piracy in this site, neither did I, so a scan exchange became some lead exchange after a couple of seconds
After the scan exchange, we moved on to exchanging some leads (or laser in his case)
I just casually followed my normal procedure, kill his drive, get his stuff, like any other cargo ship.
I guess the pirate got pirated.
I did say "no casualties", but in case your hull dies before your drive, I can't guarantee that.
The pirate did actually have some cargo, but somehow my stupid limpets didn't get to collect them. The real fight sometimes is your limpets' duration and AI, not the ships.
So I just moved on.
I see a mining laser, it's time for another victim.
Name is Pete Slaughter, but no one's getting slaughtered today. I approached him with my manifest scanner, he started running as soon as his ship detected my scan. No word, no negotiation, dude just started boosting away.
Name is Pete Slaughter, but no one's getting slaughtered today.
"Pew, pew, pew" and his shield was off, and sometimes, like this time, half his hull as well. You run some powerful weapons, gotta be easy on the trigger, they're just too powerful for these civillians.
Gotta be careful on using Pacifier, or any other engineered powerful weapons, you get a bit trigger happy, and your victim's dead.
Now it's time for the pack-hounds:
You're not gonna wake away sir!
A couple of missiles later and his drive was Slaughtered.
Peter Slaughter got his thrusters slaughtered.
Now it's the time:
Go Go Gadget Hatch Breaker Limpet!
Sit tight and let the hatch breaker limpet do its job. Actually, don't sit tight, as he is floating away I had a hard time to catch up without over boosting that I might crash with his ship.
As I left the guy floating away while he probably was contacting Fuel Seals (and maybe dumbfounded why I didn't destroy his rear), I went back to collect the cargo.
Now just collecting my prizes.
The sound of my limpets delivering cargo to my hatch gotta be my favorite sound.
There should be more to pirate, but I was craving for a drink, a short break after these "stressful" encounters.
Contacting my favorite Black Market gal, she will handle the rest.
It's not much, but it's honest work.
Just a bit of credits, but should be enough for a couple of drinks.
"Yes, a mug of Centauri Mega Gin, and if you don't have it, please just a glass of ice (in case you don't have the mug either), I have some onboard myself, if it doesn't go against the rule."
That's almost a day of a "Peaceful Pirate". Remember, no casualties involved if you do it right!
It took me a while to do this, showing you the location and how to approach a station heist or assault. This time, it's an anarchic station, and that's what I recommend doing.
I hope you like the area, and I recommend it to you for making materials for engineering or powerplay.
The descriptions of how to approach the situation are detailed in the previous post.
(There are 18 photos, but without them, it was difficult to show you the station's approach).
This is the first time I've made a Twitter thread and shared it. If there's any problem and it can't be seen, please let me know and I'll upload it another way.
