You Might Be a Pirate ...

That one happens to me a lot - usually because the Maas fighters manage to knock me out of control with those guns they have. What are those things they use, anyway?

Here's one - you might be a pirate if you've ever accidentally set off a crate of antimatter while attempting to use it as a booby-trap for megafrieghters passing through an interstellar L-point.

you might be a pirate...

if your don't know weather your wife is still at home at present.

if you wish to have a quad light pbc installed in your car for changing arguments with this Maas transporter in front of you.

if the clock shows half past three, Monday morning.

if the adrenalin in your blood lets makes you analyze your last battle for twenty minutes, before you fall asleep.

if you keep some pods of air, drinking water and real food on the recycling screen, as an emergency ration for Cal and his mates.

if you hunt down seven foes in your tug for some pods next to a station, call in Jafs, get a "Are you stupid? It's dangerous out there!", recognizing a cruiser with escorts is coming in, firing a swarm of missiles at you - and you lure the escorts around the station - damage alert constantly audible - get them down and use your last disruptor to get behind the cruiser, pbc's blazing its aft.

....if you completely forget that you have washing in the apartment block laundry room that stopped washing two hours ago....

DOH!!

...that's torn it.

if you know the key combination:

u F6 F5 w F6 F5 w F8

... and the thought: only one last trip

Ahh, yes, the "just one more freighter" syndrome:

If you'd be 100 times richer if you'd taken 1 less freighter per trip.

If you turn instinctively toward the (HUD-simulated?) sound of an L-point activating.

If you've ever seen a nature documentary of lions staking out a watering hole and felt a vague sense of deja' vu.

If you turn off the FutureTrader mod every once in a while to flush the sewage (76 pods last time, and I had no idea when Jafs picked it up.)

If you never recycle any cargo below a reserve of 12 pods. The purpose of the "strategic reserve" of such critical necessities as dirty ice and unprocessed gas is to provide a rationalization for continued looting.

If you let Jafs worry about tagging the pods while you go get more loot. (Call Jafs w/ nothing tagged and he does it for you!)

If you've ever "cycled Jafs" via manual LDS. Bonus points if you leave and return completely on manual without ever cutting the LDS drive. Greedy freak points if you've docked to an extra pod (or 2 if you're even greedier) before leaving then keyed Jafs to get it before returning.

If you've ever finessed a call to Jafs between station defense cruiser arrivals. (The cruisers first appear at 99.9 klicks, so you just like a decimeter to convince Jafs it's safe.) Alternatively if you've pirated right under a cruiser's nose without it going hostile.

If you've ever looted the same frieghter twice in one flight. (Once as it brings cargo in, then again after it loads & undocks.)

If you've ever moved pods out of the way of an L-point so they don't cause an accident ... or put them in the way so they do.

If you've ever thought to yourself, "If this had been an L4 there would be a frozen sewage debris ring in orbit." Bonus points if you've actually tried to visualize it. Sick freak points if you've imagined a huge accumulation of it coalescing into a planet, and the frantic radio chatter of a hapless pilot in a decaying orbit streaking across the sky on a fiery trail of burning methane before crash-landing in it: "I can't get the engines started! We're going down! Oh, dear God, the horror! It's ... getting closer ... I'm beginning to make out surface features and ... oh, geez, gross, is that supposed to be a river? I think I'm gonna be sick ... HELP!" I guess that would be an example of the fan hitting the ...

(cargo pod L-point booby trap pirated from Phatose, thanks goodbye)