Marauder stealing from stations?

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mtlmaks
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Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by mtlmaks » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 03:50

Hi,

I just came across a funny situation on my new trading station, which looked like a Marauder was stealing wares from the station. I recently built a new trading station and from the beginning I spend most of my time there, checking and tuning it. Today I notices a marauder Phoenix not far from my station, which showed up as red on the map, so I was keeping an eye on it to see what it was up to, fearing it would attack my traders. When it came near my station it turned blue, slowly navigated underneath my storage modules and came to a stop. After it didn't move for a while I started to wonder what he was doing, when I notices some cargo drones near it, that where clearly heading in its direction. There were some expensive wares floating near the storage modules, which the station also sells and which the drones picked up. All together those wares amounted to a couple of 100k. So I jumped into my Dragon and shot the drones down before they could reach the Marauder, which luckily didn't attack me as a result. More drones kept coming from it, which I all shut down and eventually the Marauder had enough and set off. As far as I'm aware of there has never been a fight resulting in a trader losing its cargo near my station. So, sorry if I'm ignorant, but I'm wondering if this is actually a thing in X4, that I'm not aware of, NPCs hacking and stealing from stations? :p It sure looked like it, and if that's the case then that's kinda awesome and a little scary at the same time, but in any case would result in some nice situations and challenges like this... :D

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Fenris321
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Fenris321 » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 04:24

Yeah, haven't had it happen to me yet ... that I'm aware of. But they will sometimes hack your station and make them spill out cargo, then pick it up. I have small fleets near each of my stations, so if I notice it, there is a good chance they will get blown up :D I switched over to only using stations for credits, so I don't have to worry about pirates retaliating against traders.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Alm888 » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 05:49

OP is wrong. Marauders do not steal from stations; they harass traders instead. And marauders are M-class ships (exclusively "Minotaur Raider" in case of SCA).

What OP saw was a Phoenix (an L-class ship) Plunderer, not a marauder. :P
But otherwise yes, plunderers do hack stations and try to collect dropped wares, quite inefficiently though: not only they have to use drones to collect wares at a snail's pace, they hack from a certain distance and fly towards a station on cruise speed. By the time they manage to grab a crate all other crates will expire (explode) on timer. Not that those plunderers have any cargo hold to accommodate the loot anyways, as unlike Minotaur, there are no special "scavenger" variants of either Behemoth or Phoenix with expanded cargo hold.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Midnitewolf » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 05:59

It happens to me almost hourly at times. One time they hacked open my storage and I had probably 10 million plus in goods just floating out in space. It is kind of funny because me and SCA are in an "unofficial" war. I capture every L ship of theirs I can and blow up any of them at I find within the range of my defensive station guns any time I notice them lurking and they blow up every cargo ships of mine they can get their hands on and steal my stations blind, this despite the locked -5 reaction hehe. Ironically it has been some of the most fun and engaging gameplay I have experienced yet and it isn't even scripted or meant to actually happen.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by mtlmaks » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 15:55

Well, I may have mixed up the names between Marauder and Plunderer, that's entirely possible, sorry about that :p Anyways, it happend again, not too long after my original post, this time with a M class ship (don't remember the model). Those sneaky bastards, or actually not so sneaky, since the last one tried to do it just in front of my nose, lol. Anyway, I'm having quite some fun with this, at least for now ;) I'm wondering though if this can also happen OOS, basically without the player noticing, or if this is a IS only behaviour, which would make more sense IMO?

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by terodil » Sat, 17. Apr 21, 18:23

Yes, it happens both IS and OOS, and I find it a terrible game mechanic. I and a few others have been campaigning for a change for ages, with absolutely zero success so far.

Those pillagers can hack your station pretty much with impunity, station defenses or protective fleets will not interdict them. When you observed it going 'blue', it assumed the flag of another faction to 'fool' your forces, effectively using IDDQD.

There are unreliable ways that can mitigate this ****** mechanic somewhat (if you own the sector, set up a police patrol that might accidentally demask pirate ships; create heavily armed/protected 'honeypot' ships to attract pirate forces; set an alert for plunderers, apparently, etc.), but there is no way you can tell a station manager or your defense forces to watch out for plunderers.

The station managers are so brain-dead, even, that they look outside their windows at all those shiny crates floating around in space and go 'this is FINE,' rather than send out subordinate ships or cargo drones to pick stuff back up before it despawns.

I'm so cross at this pointless annoyance by now it keeps me from starting a new game. It's not even a challenge (challenge = difficulty you need to overcome; there is no way to 'overcome' pirate hackers who fly under a false flag, esp. not if you don't own the sector), it's just a freaking annoying tax that gives me anxiety and makes me compulsively check my stations manually every few seconds to scan the map for pillagers. Past 10 or so stations spread across the sectors this becomes a very, very tiresome exercise.

:evil:
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mtlmaks
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by mtlmaks » Sun, 18. Apr 21, 00:00

Hmm, that does indeed sound a bit annoying, especially if it happens OOS as well and if it becomes too frequent... It's just funny that I noticed this only yesterday for the first time on my relatively new trading station, although I have another station and the HQ which also produces some wares, on which I never noticed something like this. So I'm wondering now how many credits I already lost because of this :p Oh well, for now I see it as fun, but it may very well become annoying if it is as you say :p Cheers!

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Midnitewolf » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 16:39

terodil wrote:
Sat, 17. Apr 21, 18:23
Yes, it happens both IS and OOS, and I find it a terrible game mechanic. I and a few others have been campaigning for a change for ages, with absolutely zero success so far.

Those pillagers can hack your station pretty much with impunity, station defenses or protective fleets will not interdict them. When you observed it going 'blue', it assumed the flag of another faction to 'fool' your forces, effectively using IDDQD.

There are unreliable ways that can mitigate this ****** mechanic somewhat (if you own the sector, set up a police patrol that might accidentally demask pirate ships; create heavily armed/protected 'honeypot' ships to attract pirate forces; set an alert for plunderers, apparently, etc.), but there is no way you can tell a station manager or your defense forces to watch out for plunderers.

The station managers are so brain-dead, even, that they look outside their windows at all those shiny crates floating around in space and go 'this is FINE,' rather than send out subordinate ships or cargo drones to pick stuff back up before it despawns.

I'm so cross at this pointless annoyance by now it keeps me from starting a new game. It's not even a challenge (challenge = difficulty you need to overcome; there is no way to 'overcome' pirate hackers who fly under a false flag, esp. not if you don't own the sector), it's just a freaking annoying tax that gives me anxiety and makes me compulsively check my stations manually every few seconds to scan the map for pillagers. Past 10 or so stations spread across the sectors this becomes a very, very tiresome exercise.

:evil:
I think it is an interesting mechanic and they are doing nothing that a player can't do themselves. I mean you can absolutely go in, hack the security terminal so that the defensive systems don't react, then hack the storage, then grab the goods and run off none the wiser so why is it an issue that Pirates can do the same thing to you.

Also, I have noticed that they don't always get away with it. Sometimes they do trip the sensors and it isn't a random police scan that is doing it because I don't use police often if at all.

Also, if you have transports assigned to the station, I do believe they actually do pick up cargo containers, at least I have observed this happening in my games.

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KextV8
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by KextV8 » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 17:40

Declare war on teladi, min, and paranid. Then their spoofs won't work cause you'll shoot them anyway.

Clear the sector of any stations but yours and set the stations to only trade with yourself then those races have no business being there, so you shouldn't have much of an issue with shooting the wrong people either.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by terodil » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:17

Midnitewolf wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 16:39
I think it is an interesting mechanic and they are doing nothing that a player can't do themselves. I mean you can absolutely go in, hack the security terminal so that the defensive systems don't react, then hack the storage, then grab the goods and run off none the wiser so why is it an issue that Pirates can do the same thing to you.
Your argument of symmetry doesn't hold water: pirates have no economy, let alone fabrication stations that you can hack, but they can and do hack your[1] stations. Even if you could hack some pirate station, being able to do something and actually doing something is not equivalent; lex talionis is far more acceptable than one-sided hacking attacks, but as we know, SCA rep is locked, so they'll always do this regardless of if you treat them well or not (ignoring late-game terraforming options).

But it isn't even an issue of symmetry in the first place. It's a matter of not being a fun game mechanic. The core of game design is presenting the player with challenges; and I defined challenges above as a difficulty a player needs to work to overcome (and in the context of X, we usually have several avenues for that, namely 'think' and 'fight'). However this one mechanic breaks this concept entirely: the player has no systematic options to prevent this from happening due to the practically uncounterable false-flag mechanic. This is not a fun challenge, it is an unjust, unavoidable loss inflicted upon you, leaving you essentially three options: (a) roll over on your back and let it happen, while occasionally rejoicing at a police patrol failing to ignore a pillager, (b) manually check your stations for approaching pillagers (I'm told it's possible to make that easier by using alerts, but I haven't tried/verified that yet), which quickly becomes utterly unfeasible due to numbers and effort involved, or (c) quit the game.

----

Edit/[1]: Do pirates even hack non-player-owned stations? I can't remember seeing an instance of that. If they indeed do not, this is even more egregious; bee-lining for player assets because of 'magic' makes the 'simulation' look really bad.
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mtlmaks
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by mtlmaks » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:41

Speaking of alerts, how do you actually set up an alert for e.g. a Plunderer? Putting "Plunderer" into the "Object ID" doesn't seem to work, since it is looking for a specific ship ID. So how would you go about setting a general alert for Plunderers or Pillagers?

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by KextV8 » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:48

terodil wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:17

Edit/[1]: Do pirates even hack non-player-owned stations?
Given the number of times I've seen random wares spilled outside of stations(not mine), my guess is that they do.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by mtlmaks » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:54

I can confirm that they do hack non player stations as well. I witnessed just yesterday a Plunderer hacking a NPC station OOS, was quite fun to watch, also because, as Alm888 said earlier, they actually barely have the time to pick up one or two crates, before all the others vanish. :p

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Wraith_Magus » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 20:32

Yeah, after seeing my PHQ and one of my major megafactories hacked, I decided to take out some revenge by having my independent fighters and corvettes start tailing every single "Plunderer" I could find on the map. (Just zoom to the scale where you see a single full sector hexagon at a time, have the unit tab open, and search for "plunderer" while moving the map across sectors.) Once ordered to follow a unit, they will continue to do so even if they go outside satellite range. I then when and methodically started boarding every plunderer I found, and selling it off for scrap. (Phoenixes suck, as demonstrated by the fact that I can effortlessly solo one in a corvette without taking damage, so I'd rather sell two and buy one good ship than use the one I boarded. I did keep the other destroyers like behemoths I captured, though.)

Doing so, I found the situation of stations being surrounded by crates filled with thousands of energy cells and whatever raw material that station needed being repeated in basically every instance of a Plunderer I saw. This is, amusingly, actually a great way to keep the economy from being filled up on goods, because most of those bailed goods wind up despawning, and your autotraders can rush in to sell the station all the goods it's now missing. Not that I spared the plunderers for this or anything, I still did a run of about 8 plunderer phoenix boardings in a row.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Midnitewolf » Mon, 19. Apr 21, 23:11

terodil wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 18:17
Midnitewolf wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 16:39
I think it is an interesting mechanic and they are doing nothing that a player can't do themselves. I mean you can absolutely go in, hack the security terminal so that the defensive systems don't react, then hack the storage, then grab the goods and run off none the wiser so why is it an issue that Pirates can do the same thing to you.
Your argument of symmetry doesn't hold water: pirates have no economy, let alone fabrication stations that you can hack, but they can and do hack your[1] stations. Even if you could hack some pirate station, being able to do something and actually doing something is not equivalent; lex talionis is far more acceptable than one-sided hacking attacks, but as we know, SCA rep is locked, so they'll always do this regardless of if you treat them well or not (ignoring late-game terraforming options).

But it isn't even an issue of symmetry in the first place. It's a matter of not being a fun game mechanic. The core of game design is presenting the player with challenges; and I defined challenges above as a difficulty a player needs to work to overcome (and in the context of X, we usually have several avenues for that, namely 'think' and 'fight'). However this one mechanic breaks this concept entirely: the player has no systematic options to prevent this from happening due to the practically uncounterable false-flag mechanic. This is not a fun challenge, it is an unjust, unavoidable loss inflicted upon you, leaving you essentially three options: (a) roll over on your back and let it happen, while occasionally rejoicing at a police patrol failing to ignore a pillager, (b) manually check your stations for approaching pillagers (I'm told it's possible to make that easier by using alerts, but I haven't tried/verified that yet), which quickly becomes utterly unfeasible due to numbers and effort involved, or (c) quit the game.

----

Edit/[1]: Do pirates even hack non-player-owned stations? I can't remember seeing an instance of that. If they indeed do not, this is even more egregious; bee-lining for player assets because of 'magic' makes the 'simulation' look really bad.
Well as to it being a fun mechanic, I sure as hell enjoy the it. I mean they are pirates and do what pirates do, steal stuff. What else would you expect them to do?

Also as I mentioned, I have seen them be unsuccessful as well and killed by my Station Defenses so it isn't a 100% chance they succeed. Hell I was went back to one of my stations to check up on it and saw 3 dead SCA ships right next to the station so obviously it killed them since nothing else was around.

As to them hacking non-player own stations, YEP THEY SURE DO. I have seen it happen numerous times, in fact I often catch them while they are doing it since they are stationary and using cargo drones to gather up the loot, it is easier to get into their blind spot and light them up.

Finally, and I don't think this has to do with any of my mods, but if you go global orders, you will see that you a section labeled, "Fire Authorisation Overrides" You can go there and create a list of how you want to handle all the factions in the game. You then can select individual factions and set the fire behavior to one of seven different levels ranging from defensive to ruthless. Then you can go to one of your stations and click on Information, then click on Individual Instructions Tab and set your "Fire Authorisations Overrides" to that specific setting. I am betting that if their disguise fails, which it does all the time, your stations will kill the pilot without a seconds hesitation.

Honestly though, Pirates are Pirates and do Pirate stuff. What would be the point of having Pirates in the game if you could counter all their activity with a single button on your station that not only shoots them, but also always detects them 100% of the time? What, you think crime is 100% preventable? Also what more do you want? Right now sometimes they succeed, other times they fail. You can set up a police patrol and sometimes they will catch them other times not. If they fail or get caught, they get killed. If they succeed they don't. You can also set your defenses AND your entire player fleet, to terminate anything SCA with extreme prejudice even if they aren't hacking your station or actively shooting at you. I mean really want more do you want?

Whelp since it is obvious you want more, I have good news for you. There is a partial solution to your issue. Download and install the Mod Sector Patrols by Assailer. I know it is on Steam and think it is on Nexus as well. It allow you to set a sector patrol and one of the things it allows for is allowing the patrol to detect pirates using false flags to escape hostile actions. Use this mod with the aforementioned "Ruthless" setting in your Fire Authorizations Overrides and set up some big nasty anti-piracy patrols. It won't catch everything but as I mention, what it the point of even having Pirates in the game, if they can't at least succeed at their nefarious deeds some of the times, BUT now you have something you can actively do to curtail Pirate activity.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there are mods that allow you to unlock SCA faction if you want to give up the easy peasy destroyer captures that is.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by terodil » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 00:00

Midnitewolf wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 23:11
Well as to it being a fun mechanic, I sure as hell enjoy the it. I mean they are pirates and do what pirates do, steal stuff. What else would you expect them to do?
That's your prerogative, but I honestly find it difficult to relate; feeling joy over losing millions in wares, mostly without even being aware of it, just cutting into profits and messing up supply chains, seems... idiosyncratic to me. But you do you! :)
I have seen them be unsuccessful as well and killed by my Station Defenses so it isn't a 100% chance they succeed. [...] if their disguise fails, which it does all the time, your stations will kill the pilot [...]
I'd like more info on this 'disguise failing'. When I was playing last, before I threw in the towel, the pillagers I noticed never failed to complete their hacks. The fact that you found several dead SCA ships in proximity to your station could just be the result of what I usually observed: after succeeding at the hack, the pillagers would drop their false flag and would then come under fire from static or mobile station defenses. This was, of course, always too late to prevent the damage though: the wares released from storage would still largely be lost to to the cookie monster a.k.a. despawn. And shortly thereafter, the next pillager would spawn and do the same thing again.
[...] if you go global orders, you will see that you a section labeled, "Fire Authorisation Overrides" You can go there and create a list of how you want to handle all the factions in the game.
Is there a faction 'SCA disguised as another faction'? Because if not, this won't help with false-flagged pirates. I need to ask because it's been a little while since I played X4 last.
What would be the point of having Pirates in the game if you could counter all their activity with a single button [...] what more do you want [...]
We've had this argument before, and I think I already answered 'what more' I want. I want a challenge, not a tax. Xenons, Khaak or other factions I may have pissed off are a challenge. I can counter that challenge by starving their economies, by deploying defenses, etc., and if they wipe out my assets, it's because I, personally, am to blame for bad tactics and a lack of preparation. I can handle that. Pirates, however, profit from temporary invincibility that allows them to do serious damage without me being able to do anything to stop them. That is ridiculous.
You can set up a police patrol and sometimes they will catch them other times not.
Are you saying police sector patrols are a reliable way to counter piracy, like aformentioned economy starvation or military presence would counter main faction fleets? If so, can you send me some of your cops? Because mine are largely content going on scenic flights around the sector while munching donuts. It would help greatly if I could attach a police patrol directly to a station; but this is just one of the numerous suggestions that I, and others, have previously submitted to address the pirates-hack-stations-with-impunity-issue.
Download and install the Mod Sector Patrols by Assailer.
That's brilliant. I hadn't seen that mod. Greatly appreciate the tip.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there are mods that allow you to unlock SCA faction if you want to give up the easy peasy destroyer captures that is.
Don't even need mods for that; a quick savegame edit allows you to unlock the rep, or to set it to clearer values (-1/+1 = eternal enemies/friends), which apparently eliminates the false-flag-issue.


I'm sorry if I'm coming across as invested into this issue or as argumentative. It wasn't a lie or hyperbole when I wrote that this issue killed my last game and that I quit X4 due to this. I find it hard to cope with uncontrollable/chaotic elements at times, and this mechanic, at least in its state somewhat pre-4.0, made me watch helplessly as pirates ravaged my stations and messed up my finely-tuned supply chains, even though I had done everything the game allowed me to do. In X3 I could create huge supply chains that would run like well-oiled machines -- I would occasionally sit back and just enjoy watching countless ships ferrying goods to and fro while keeping inventory levels low and profits high. It was beautiful. Pirate hacking in X4 ruined that and made me feel helpless. I hate feeling helpless.
My X3 mods: Ship Autoclaimer - Ship Services - Friendlier War Sectors - in development: Logistics Centre

SwizzleStick86
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by SwizzleStick86 » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 00:23

Ironically to this topic, this morning o had a FAF rattlesnake attack my Hokiddo (however you spell it, TER L miner), with all TER components and basic shield mod, chassis mod, engine, and basic on the L mining turret..long story short the miner stripped the rattlesnake of shields and took it down to about 60% hull before the rattlesnake retreated...Miner only dropped to 90% sheild...all OOS btw and only 3 star captain on my miner.
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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Wraith_Magus » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 05:10

terodil wrote:
Tue, 20. Apr 21, 00:00
That's your prerogative, but I honestly find it difficult to relate; feeling joy over losing millions in wares, mostly without even being aware of it, just cutting into profits and messing up supply chains, seems... idiosyncratic to me. But you do you! :)
I've noticed that pirates only appear in certain sectors, almost always ones near places SCA is active. Places like Nopileos' Fortune, Hewa's Twin, Silent Witnes, and Heretic's End (basically all the "neutral" sectors players like to claim) are expressly noted as pirate havens, and I have almost exclusively found plunderers operating in sectors adjacent to those. Obviously, you can't help your PHQ being placed in Grand Exchange (at first...), but otherwise, try to just build your stations someplace else. A place like Holy Vision will have some Xenon problems... but those are clearly marked red baddies your station turrets will have no trouble recognizing are worth shooting.

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Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Midnitewolf » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 06:09

terodil wrote:
Tue, 20. Apr 21, 00:00
Midnitewolf wrote:
Mon, 19. Apr 21, 23:11
Well as to it being a fun mechanic, I sure as hell enjoy the it. I mean they are pirates and do what pirates do, steal stuff. What else would you expect them to do?
That's your prerogative, but I honestly find it difficult to relate; feeling joy over losing millions in wares, mostly without even being aware of it, just cutting into profits and messing up supply chains, seems... idiosyncratic to me. But you do you! :)
I have seen them be unsuccessful as well and killed by my Station Defenses so it isn't a 100% chance they succeed. [...] if their disguise fails, which it does all the time, your stations will kill the pilot [...]
I'd like more info on this 'disguise failing'. When I was playing last, before I threw in the towel, the pillagers I noticed never failed to complete their hacks. The fact that you found several dead SCA ships in proximity to your station could just be the result of what I usually observed: after succeeding at the hack, the pillagers would drop their false flag and would then come under fire from static or mobile station defenses. This was, of course, always too late to prevent the damage though: the wares released from storage would still largely be lost to to the cookie monster a.k.a. despawn. And shortly thereafter, the next pillager would spawn and do the same thing again.
[...] if you go global orders, you will see that you a section labeled, "Fire Authorisation Overrides" You can go there and create a list of how you want to handle all the factions in the game.
Is there a faction 'SCA disguised as another faction'? Because if not, this won't help with false-flagged pirates. I need to ask because it's been a little while since I played X4 last.
What would be the point of having Pirates in the game if you could counter all their activity with a single button [...] what more do you want [...]
We've had this argument before, and I think I already answered 'what more' I want. I want a challenge, not a tax. Xenons, Khaak or other factions I may have pissed off are a challenge. I can counter that challenge by starving their economies, by deploying defenses, etc., and if they wipe out my assets, it's because I, personally, am to blame for bad tactics and a lack of preparation. I can handle that. Pirates, however, profit from temporary invincibility that allows them to do serious damage without me being able to do anything to stop them. That is ridiculous.
You can set up a police patrol and sometimes they will catch them other times not.
Are you saying police sector patrols are a reliable way to counter piracy, like aformentioned economy starvation or military presence would counter main faction fleets? If so, can you send me some of your cops? Because mine are largely content going on scenic flights around the sector while munching donuts. It would help greatly if I could attach a police patrol directly to a station; but this is just one of the numerous suggestions that I, and others, have previously submitted to address the pirates-hack-stations-with-impunity-issue.
Download and install the Mod Sector Patrols by Assailer.
That's brilliant. I hadn't seen that mod. Greatly appreciate the tip.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there are mods that allow you to unlock SCA faction if you want to give up the easy peasy destroyer captures that is.
Don't even need mods for that; a quick savegame edit allows you to unlock the rep, or to set it to clearer values (-1/+1 = eternal enemies/friends), which apparently eliminates the false-flag-issue.


I'm sorry if I'm coming across as invested into this issue or as argumentative. It wasn't a lie or hyperbole when I wrote that this issue killed my last game and that I quit X4 due to this. I find it hard to cope with uncontrollable/chaotic elements at times, and this mechanic, at least in its state somewhat pre-4.0, made me watch helplessly as pirates ravaged my stations and messed up my finely-tuned supply chains, even though I had done everything the game allowed me to do. In X3 I could create huge supply chains that would run like well-oiled machines -- I would occasionally sit back and just enjoy watching countless ships ferrying goods to and fro while keeping inventory levels low and profits high. It was beautiful. Pirate hacking in X4 ruined that and made me feel helpless. I hate feeling helpless.
Hey man no worries. I am probably coming off as argumentative as well because in real life, pirates are an uncontrolled, chaotic element that you can only do so much about. I mean again just look at real life pirates. We have tons of Naval vessels patrolling those places where it happens but they can't be everywhere every time so ships still get hijacked in fact there were 195 real life Pirate Attacks in 2020.

My point is the game is supposed to simulate or try to simulate what it might be like out in the verse 200-1000 years from now. Pirates will be a thing and they will be a chaotic and uncontrollable factor just like in the game. And you keep claiming you don't have recourse in the game but you do or as much recourse as we have in real life. You can set police patrols, you can make them kill on sight, you can order your ships to attack them at will with no penalty and you can actively hop in a ship and hunt them down. Also they can't hide from you because the have the name "pillager" or "Marauder" in their title no matter what flag they fly. My point is you have a lot of control over pirates each with its own level of effectiveness. The only thing you can't do is completely eliminate them, which is pretty damn realistic if you ask me.

Also, I get that it is annoying to lose 10-20 million in goods to a hack, but I find it just as annoying to lose a 20-30 million miner or transport to a random, roving Xenon or the worst, a Friendly Fire incident. Hell I just lost an entire fleet of 7 cap ships over some sort of friendly fire incident where my ships fired at a Xenon as it flew by and hit a station triggering its defense platform. That was about 150 million gone right there. I know it probably won't mean much considering how you feel but my point is your going to lose things in the game so losing a bit here and there to pirates isn't any different.

Oh and I want to confirm that yes, the SCA pirates do fail. I had one in my sights who was in the process of recovering goods from an NPC station it had hacked. About the 3rd crate it picked up, suddenly the station lit him up like a Christmas tree which unfortunately deprived me of my capture but I just wanted to say I did witness it. One cavate though. I am playing a modded game so I don't know for sure if this happening is due to a mod or vanilla behavior. As far as I know, I have no mods installed what would change this but who knows.

Anyway, man good luck to you. I hope maybe you can see things in a different perspective about how the pirates work but as I always say, it is a single player game and at the end of the day, you should tailor it to be enjoyable by you and no one else so cheat, increase the difficulty or mod to your heats content and enjoy the game.

Pares
Posts: 468
Joined: Wed, 6. May 09, 15:46
x4

Re: Marauder stealing from stations?

Post by Pares » Tue, 20. Apr 21, 13:12

I wish there was a "Police area" command which would make your selected ship to scan every non-player non-hostile ship going through the area. Obviosly if there is a lot of traffic and few police ships, there would be a good chance for pirates to slip through. Lot of police ships? Little chance. The current "Police" command, as stated before, is utterly useless.

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