Red Marauders & Pirates and sector police - Ideally, saves needed

[Panos]

Currently I have the following issue.
2 SCA Marauders are red, demanding from me to drop my cargo (Smart Chips). Trying to hit them back, all sort of warnings coming from the system police. (they are red)
Killing the second Marauder results to getting -29 with the Ministry of Finance. I have positive standing with Ministry (10) and Tel Company (20).

Am I doing something wrong, or is a bug?

I found this discussion which explains the same issue
viewtopic.php?t=407797

[Panos]

Update. I followed someone's advice to scan them first, however it is close to impossible to keep someone on your front of the screen while you scramble to open the menu to turn on the ship scanner, while getting hit and need to strafe with the mouse at the same time. Because apparently there is no shortcut to activate the ship scanner (not the Shift+2 but the action to scan enemy ships).

[Scoob]

This seems to have been an issue for quite some time now. A more extreme example of how bad this can get is when a ship you're not flying yourself gets attacked by these "pirates". For me, I've seen my ships asked to drop their cargo and when they haven't the SCA Pirate has attacked them. My ship then returns fire - while trying to flee - and I get an "Unauthorised attack" message from the local controlling faction. I have had this escalate into local security forces going RED and killing my ships. No valid reason for this behaviour, the game should have seen the SCA ship as the pirate that it is and blown it up. Simple.

Note: though SCA ships can be in disguise as local sector owner vessels, their name (Marauder etc.) is a dead give-away of course. However, the moment they reveal their true colours - i.e. attack another ships or ask it to drop cargo - they should be revealed and be able to be attacked without any warnings. This usually works ok, but sometimes it fails and the player gets blamed for the attack.

This has been reported a number of times, and seems to be a fairly well-known issue, but the devs don't appear to have been able to sort this bug quite yet.

Scoob.

[j.harshaw]

i've looked into this a few times over the past months and, each time, couldn't reproduce the issue. i've asked for another task to look into it again, but clear repro steps would be very useful. Would anyone happen to have a save right before it happens reliably?

[Scoob]

i've looked into this a few times over the past months and, each time, couldn't reproduce the issue. i've asked for another task to look into it again, but clear repro steps would be very useful. Would anyone happen to have a save right before it happens reliably?

I think that's the problem - the issue is somewhat inconsistent. I've gone through phases of snagging a save prior to when I *think* I might be scanned - I'm baiting Disguised SCA ships my carrying cargo - and I'm able to return fire without issue. Another time, when I'm not paying attention, the bug is triggered again. Often it's against my own Trade ships and I can see in the log they were first asked to drop their cargo, which *should* "reveal" the SCA Pirate for what they are. However, local forces seem to be blind to this, then blind to subsequent shots fired by the SCA pirate, yet they see my ship returning fire as if it's an unprovoked assault.

This is generally just an annoyance, but can be a pain if it knocks player standing to below one of the thresholds - i.e. player can no longer purchase certain things because of it - but standing can generally be recovered fairly easily - as long as the fight doesn't drag on. Much of the time, killing the pirate - despite warning from local security - doesn't seem to have any effect other than the slight standing drop. Other times local security goes totally nuts with red ships everywhere. Often a reload is a prudent choice when this happens.

Scoob.

[j.harshaw]

I think that's the problem - the issue is somewhat inconsistent.

Yes, which leads me to think that the trigger is something else entirely that just happens to sometimes coincide with pirates telling something to stop and getting shot at. But what exactly that is is proving difficult to track down.

This is generally just an annoyance, but can be a pain if it knocks player standing to below one of the thresholds

Yes, but it's still a bug if it's not clear why you're getting a reputation hit, or if it looks like your reputation is penalized for doing something that ought to be rewarded. Would be good to track it down.

i'll peek in here from time-to-time until the task hits, at which point, will just have to give it another go.

[Imperial Good]

2 SCA Marauders are red, demanding from me to drop my cargo (Smart Chips). Trying to hit them back, all sort of warnings coming from the system police. (they are red)
Killing the second Marauder results to getting -29 with the Ministry of Finance. I have positive standing with Ministry (10) and Tel Company (20).

TEL view SCA as civilians/neutral. This means that shooting SCA in TEL space causes TEL stations to think you are shooting civilian ships and so report you to "sector security". MIN operate sector security and so respond to the attack despite themselves hating SCA and even potentially paying you for SCA kills in TEL space.

The rep you lost with Ministry of Finance was likely temporary rep with some of their police ships. These ships are responding to the call for help from the TEL stations that you are attacking SCA.

Update. I followed someone's advice to scan them first, however it is close to impossible to keep someone on your front of the screen while you scramble to open the menu to turn on the ship scanner, while getting hit and need to strafe with the mouse at the same time. Because apparently there is no shortcut to activate the ship scanner (not the Shift+2 but the action to scan enemy ships).

Hit the Pause/Break key when in front of the ship and in scan mode. You can then issue the scan by right clicking the ship and wait until it completes while paused. This solves any difficulties scanning small and fast ships and can even be done at very high speeds.

No valid reason for this behaviour, the game should have seen the SCA ship as the pirate that it is and blown it up. Simple.

When out of sector the SCA ships disguise themselves very fast (near instantly). As such it looks like your ship is attacking a friendly faction I am guessing.

This makes it near impossible to kill SCA ships out of sector without a risk of sector security responding since itlooks like you are attacking friendly ships.

Yes, which leads me to think that the trigger is something else entirely that just happens to sometimes coincide with pirates telling something to stop and getting shot at. But what exactly that is is proving difficult to track down.

Although I have not tested these recently I do not think it has been fixed. The following generally resulted in what is widely considered incorrect behaviour with fighting SCA pirates.

1. Have an ANT police liscence.
2. Fly to the HAT station that spawns in Second Contact VII.
3. Be lucky and have many SCA ships patrolling around the HAT station to shoot up. This can make it difficult to recreate. I would recommend 5-6 ships to be safe. L destroyers also work well for this if nearby.
4. For each of the SCA ships, fly close to them and police scan them to drop their disguise code (turn them SCA). After doing so for a ship proceed to kill it by unloading lots of weak shots on it to make sure it goes hostile. Using missiles it is possible to kill ships before they go hostile which might not trigger this behaviour. Pulse Lasers or Bolt Repeaters are the best for this and a ship like the Nemesis is recommended to quickly and effortlessly dispatch SCA.
5. As the above is being done, the HAT station will eventually start to warn you that they "cannot tolerate your actions".
6. After yet more kills the HAT station will take action and report you to sector security. Sector security in Second Contact VII is run by ANT and the person who handles the report is the ANT faction representative. ANT will accept their report reducing your reputation with ANT.
7. ANT security ships nearby might go hostile towards the player when the above happens. If the player is at some stupidly high reputation with ANT, e.g. 30, then the temporary reputation loss will not be sufficient for the ships to go hostile or even stop liking you.
8. Since SCA and ANT are enemies and you have an ANT police licence, ANT and specifically the faction representative will thank and pay you for each SCA kill made. Due to the above this results in the ANT faction representative both updating a criminal record against you while also thanking and paying you in quick succession.

This is not limited to ANT, HAT and SCA, in fact this is a rare border case. The most common example of this the player will encounter is with MIN, TEL and SCA where the TEL stations do the exact same thing with MIN in response to SCA attacks and kills near their stations. SCA stations also seem to be able to report one to MIN when in TEL space (Grand Exchange III). Some people have even reported XEN stations which are attacked doing this, but I cannot substantiate such reports. There have also been reports that such stations try to report the player to themselves if the player is the sector owner (player is sector security) but I have not personally experienced this.

The solution for this particular case would be that sector security throw out/ignore any reports from stations that involve factions that are enemies of sector security being attacked. Hence both ANT and MIN would throw out reports of SCA being attacked.

[Scoob]

I don't know if it's in any way related or not, and I don't have a save, however, I just got a slight reputation drop for killing a Xenon ship!

My ship (Cerberus) was under AI control along with three subordinate Corvettes. I saw them destroy a Xenon fighter and, at that exact second, I got an "unauthorised kill" message pop up.

There are NO wrecks on the map which aren't Xenon - so there are no dead Race ships - plus my current sector is the only place where ships of mine are engaged. How could a Xenon possibly be counted as anything other than an enemy by the races? It was the Paranid who got upset with me, though no local forces have gone hostile.

Edit: I think I might have found out what's happening, and I think I recall reading it somewhere else, but couldn't find the thread. Basically, I just got another "Unauthorised attack" warning against a Xenon...sort of. My ships had attacked a "XEN Power Distribution Unit S" which had promptly deployed a Laser Tower - a "TEL Laser Tower MK1" - which was hostile (red) so a fair target for my ships with turrets set to "attack all enemies". Perhaps previously something similar had happened any my ships destroyed the Laser Tower which didn't leave a wreck? Just guessing here.

Scoob.

[radcapricorn]

In that realm, I once had a similar "unauthorized kill". I was being pestered by a station security cab who found illegal wares in my pockets. I flew away from him and attacked a KHK nearby. I launched a missile at the KHK, but it died before impact. A few seconds later - unauthorized kill. The missile found itself a new target - that security cab.

So could be that some of these are genuine mix-ups and not errors.

[Scoob]

So could be that some of these are genuine mix-ups and not errors.

It's possible of course, though in my case none of my ships are using Missiles, just standard guns and turrets. Also, Xenon dropping Teladi Laser towers...well, that's a bit broken lol.

Scoob.