And pirates rub shoulders with smugglers.
In fact they're two sides of the same coin.
Say you're a pirate engineer, and your boss is withholding your narcs until you've redesigned the hound (a cargo freighter) to perform even better in that role.
You've got two distinct demographics to target:
- Pirates who see a LOT of combat & need to haul loot back to base
- Smugglers who see their fair share of combat & need to haul contraband to/from 'safe' markets
Sure the former don't have as much of a use for cargo-shielding, but it's
vital for the other half of the market & it's still gravy for the former.
Case in point, I'm playing as a pirate-smuggler and this is the reason the Venom isn't even in consideration for me.
It would be an interesting trade-off between OP/mounts & maintenance cost, but the fact that it'd cut my shielded cargo capacity in half puts a foot on the scale.