There are many different professions in the universe, but one thing that ties most capsuleers together is that they are all involved in a type of warfare. Whether this entails securing the best resources to exploit, beating competitors with prices on the market or the more traditional use of force to attain your goals, everything comes down to competition where the strong and cunning are more likely to succeed.
This article does not aim to explore this interaction, but rather three of the more common mindsets many capsuleers inhabit who are involved in this ever lasting power struggle, we fill focus on pilots who rely on physical force, or guns and missile if you will.
First, we will look at the Mercenary. The term mercenary has through the ages been applied on all kinds of capsuleers. It has become somewhat of a catch all term, perhaps just like pirate, for anyone engaging someone for their own profit. However, this does not truly define the mindset behind truly professional mercenaries.
A mercenary is a professional soldier, albeit one that fights for money instead of an ideology. Mercenaries, however, can only be called a mercenary when they are engaged in a contract. These contracts will normally establish criteria of conduct and goals that must be achieved for them to earn their pay. Hence, a mercenary’s income depends on a set goal/s and the fulfilling thereof. This means that engaging against the odds, keeping a target docked in a station or even flying a few jumps as escort are all within the mercenary’s scope and all could contribute to fulfilling his contract and thus earning his pay because their income is target based instead of based on the value of enemy ships destroyed. They will also likely destroy any enemy vessels and pods, if this was stipulated in their contract because they are often hired to win wars, and breaking enemy morale is paramount in this endeavour.
Their flight time and performance is thus often unrelated to their actual income and they can afford to take whatever steps are needed to complete a contract. This attribute is of great importance to differentiate them from Pirates, whose income relates directly to the amount of time they spend in a pod and how successful they are at destroying profitable targets.
Pirates, although often professionally trained, inhabit a different mindset from mercenaries. As had been mentioned, they earn their pay based on the value of potential ships they destroy, or ransom for release. This means that time and money has a direct relation on each other. Unlike a mercenary, a pirate is unlikely to spend a day keeping a target docked, or even waiting to destroy them unless that target is guaranteed to justify the time though profit. Pirates are thus more likely to engage targets of opportunity, keeping in mind risk versus profitability. Losing ships is undesirable, because that is a direct loss in profit. But in the same trend, only a young or unprofessional pirate is likely to engage something where the ammo expended would not even be covered by the potential profit. There is also the added risk of becoming entangled in an un-winnable engagement every time a pirate enters combat.
A professional pirate can thus be identified not by the number of engagements, but by the quality of the targets destroyed. Understanding the relationship between risk and reward is key to ensuring an ever growing profit. Richer is the pilot who spends half an hour on the hunt and finds nothing profitable, than one spending two hours hunting something of questionable profit and missing out of true value or risking unnecessarily.
The final mindset being discussed today, because of its apparent relation to the first two is that of the Homicidal capsuleer. This term can definitely be improved upon, but for the moment it is acceptably accurate in describing this mindset.
The homicidal is someone who engages anything and everything that they possibly can. This does not mean they will throw themselves recklessly into any engagement, because they often have many of the characteristics that pirates have. However, unlike the pirate, the homicidal is unlikely to take into account the potential reward versus the risk of engaging. All that matters to them is the destruction of others, unlike the mercenary who is aiming to achieve clear goals through the destruction of enemy ships, and who also has clearly defined enemies most of the time. There is nothing professional in the behaviour of the homicidal, because it is based more on personal glory and emotion than on trying to have a successful career.
They are by far the most depraved and potentially dangerous capsuleer and they are often the very same kind that do not realise the responsibility they owe to their crews as has been discussed in the previous article. Incidentally, they are also least likely to consider the right ships for a certain engagement, relaying always on overwhelming firepower or numbers or simply trying to force their ship into every possible role as has also been discussed.
Even though there are some similarities between these mindsets, for instance the use of force and possibly motivation, they can be completely distinguished from one another based on modus operandi. Each one has distinct features, and though a pilot or corporation will often try and market themselves as a certain one of these, one has to take a clear look at how they approach situations before accepting their claims.
PS. This article is by no means a full study of all the different mindsets and motivations, nor is it a complete study of the ones mentioned. Rather it is aimed at being a starting point for further study by highlighting some of the often confused differences between these three mindsets, and showing distinct features of each.
