I led a small corp and our whole play was to declare war on high-sec mining corporations (a formal war deceleration allowed one to avoid the wrath of the "CONCORD" police force). We'd then gank them until they'd pay us a ransom to end the war.
Eventually, some of our former targets started paying us to target other mining groups that they were competing with!
It was really great fun and a set of systems that facilitated the "emergent storytelling" that so many new open-world/survival games aspire to.
Admittedly, in much the same way that robbing someone at gunpoint is a mutually beneficial arrangement; because it's better for them than you just killing them and taking their money.
Ok, I get your point too, I just want to emphasize that what the OP did was essentially similar to casino side betting, going beyond the predicted actions in the world, by adding a layer of “entrepreneurial” spirit.
The solo pvp life worked until off-grid boosting became so prevalent that most fights were no longer 1v1 even if there were only two ships actively shooting each other. When one ship is boosted to the gills because of a squadron mate somewhere in a safe-spot providing fleet boosts, things got less fun, and I ended up quitting.
Found the article on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20160304033028/http://ghost.pilg...
1) Word could get around and your 'customers' would stop paying the ransom. Bad for business since the remains of a destroyed ship could be worth substantially less than the ransom.
2) More alarmingly, you could attract the ire of 'honorable' pirates who might just be willing to take time out of their day to make an example out of you. This would likely involve a plurality of suitably armed starships visiting your local space at ...inopportune times.
Repeat custom is a rarity in the pirate business
There were a few roleplay corps that built in-game reputations on taking ransoms etc seriously. I'm sure they had better results
I did this by fitting a small and fast ship with close-range weaponry that allowed me to take engagements versus much larger ships whose weapons couldn't reliably hit a target with so much transverse velocity. In addition I would run a special module that allowed you to deactivate your opponents warp drive, preventing them from escaping.
In game life was then just patrolling law-less star systems waiting for another player to arrive, typically they'd come to my star-systems in search of NPC pirates to destroy, netting in-game currency.
Once the prey was busy fighting the ai-pirates, I'd warp into their local space and begin shooting them to pieces. Once their ship was on the brink of destruction, I'd open a comm channel and demand an in-game currency transfer in exchange for letting them go.
This was a mutually beneficial arrangement as the ransom was lower than their ship value but also higher than what I could salvage from their wreckage.
As you'd imagine, responses were varied. More often than not however I'd get the payment and they'd return to safe space intact.
Ironically, I received more in-game love-mail than hate-mail for my exploits.
I've grown into a much nicer person since then but I can't help but look back on those times fondly.