Pirates should take your stuff until you've really vexed them, and you should be able to take money from other people. I've been thinking about this more, because the rep hit you get from fleeing pirates irks me. If somebody is so angry they chase you down and kill you, why in heavens would they care whether you fight or try to run? As a pirate playtester I tell you this is truly vexing.
Also being punished with a rep hit for something done to you rather than something you did is a gameplay problem that causes various difficulties. For example see
this post.We already have similar mechanics with the patrol captains and Luddic path, so why not pirates. It'll make campaign even richer, and give a couple chances to avoid death for newbies.
Pirates want money. It makes no sense to kill you and get 10 tonnes of salvage rather than 40 tonnes of intact cargo. Every pirate who catches you should first demand value from you. The value depends on the ratio of your respective fleet strengths.
They demand one of the following:
-Some/all of your cargo
-A bunch of cash (if you don't have enough cargo, of if they haven't enough cargo space)
-One of your ships (if you are trying to be sneaky by not having cash or cargo)
-Your ship, sorry (if you have only one ship and no cargo/cash)
So they catch you and tell you what they want. Then you have some options:
a) Comply and give them whatever. This results in no negative rep. You get positive rep with the pirate captain. Maybe even +1 rep with pirate faction, but not beyond inhospitable? (not sure about this though). i.e. if you're good dupe and regularly pay out like you're told, they accept you a little bit. You come to arrangements.
d) HaggleTry to bargain them down. This may or may not work depending on your relative fleet strengths and the personality types of the pirate officers.
if it doesn't work you can:
b) Run (or entering combat and retreating) This results in the -2 rep with pirates. But you get negative rep with the pirate captain so that he'll kill you next time he can catch you.
c)FightThis gives you like only -10 with the pirates since they're so loose knit, / modified by your transponder status. But that particular captain will become your sworn enemy (if you both survive the combat. if you die and go into the escape pod he won't care).
If you kill a lot of pirates and become vengeful, your name is known among them and they just try to kill you.
You taking stuff:On the flipside, whenever the player catches a pirate fleet they should be able to demand money from them. Or from the fleet of any faction they aren't favorable with. The rep hit for doing this is adjusted by your transponder status, however its more than smuggling, but less than fighting/killing.
Once you get down to vengeful status though, everyone assumes it is no quarters given and people don't even trust you enough to bargain with you, and its just fight or flight.