(X3R) Keeping UT's out of Pirate sectors

EagleTwoThreeX · Post by **EagleTwoThreeX** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 08:30

(X3 Reunion Vanilla)

I did some searching but didn't find a solution...how do you keep your UT's out of pirate sectors?

Eagle

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 09:15

In X3TC/AP that is handled by the Blacklist Manager scripts present in their respective bonus packs (not perfectly, a bug-fix in my sig helps). The X3 Reunion Bonus Pack doesn't have one of those and I don't remember if a Blacklist Manager-type thing was ever developed for Reunion.

What Reunion options are available for UTs?

I found the following Reunion guide, which just says that vanilla UTs avoid Xenon sectors:
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=121043

devilofbelfast · Post by **devilofbelfast** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 12:19

fly through all the pirate sectors yourself and shoot at all the stations until they turn hostile. your traders shouldnt try to trade there as they wont be able to dock and assuming you've equipped them with jumpdrives, shouldnt try to fly through the sectors

EagleTwoThreeX · Post by **EagleTwoThreeX** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 16:16

Thanks Sparky, I did see that one, and it'll be one of the first things I install when I move to TC/AP.

Devil, are you sure that will do it?

How can the devs come up with something like a UT and not think about how to control even the most simple actions of the UT? Seriously?

Eagle

Post by **Nanook** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 19:29

EagleTwoThreeX wrote:...
How can the devs come up with something like a UT and not think about how to control even the most simple actions of the UT? Seriously?...

First, the devs didn't come up with it. It began life as a player-made script for X2 and due to its popularity was subsequently adopted into X3 in pretty much the same form.

Second, these are basically free money machines, so the reasoning is that there needs to be some risk to operating them. Otherwise, what's the challenge?

TycHouse · Post by **TycHouse** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 19:41

Buy 3x Dragons fitted with bhepts and an a-ppc in the tail, group and set multi sector patrol, worked a treat for me

Never lost one yet and pirate sector are nice and clean. (this does not include loomanskrats and the two sectors south !).

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Thu, 24. Jul 14, 22:47

The main problem with pirates is that they are not all red to you. The Xenon and Kha'ak are never blue towards you

I'm fairly sure that if you turn off the enemy if enemy to me option for your MK3 ships, and set the pirates as enemy, the UT's will avoid pirate sectors.
A side effect of that is that they may turn pirate sectors hostile toward your player ship. Due to them taking pot shots at pirates that would normally be blue towards you. Setting their turret to protect ship, instead of attack enemies should resolve that from being a major issue.

EagleTwoThreeX · Post by **EagleTwoThreeX** » Mon, 18. Aug 14, 20:17

I set pirates as enemy for my ST/UT's and I have not seen one in a pirate sector lately. I'll keep monitoring.

The problem I'm seeing now is that I get no warning when my UT's are being attacked. I either notice a missing ship in my ship list, or see a message that a ship has been destroyed. So far I have only been told once that a ship was under attack, yet I've lost 6 ships.

I tried having the turret inactive (no command) and set to 'protect ship', but I lose UT's in either case.

I understand if I'm in combat, I may miss the incoming message, but 6 times? I don't do combat unless I'm attacked, so I doubt that's what's going on. Do you not get a message if they are attacked by Kha'ak/Xenon? Usually all I see is "your ship XX was destroyed in sector YY" with no mention if by Kha'ak or pirate. Is that normal?

Eagle

Post by **Sparky Sparkycorp** » Mon, 18. Aug 14, 21:19

Long time since I played Reunion but as I understand it, they will try to jump to safety when attacked if they are Level 8 or higher, have enough fuel and enough shielding to live through the warm-up timer.

There's no guarantee they will have enough shield though, and they might have been travelling to refuel. I don't think there is an easy fix for the issue.

Threesixtyci · Post by **Threesixtyci** » Mon, 18. Aug 14, 22:05

You usually don't get a warning when they die, because they're dying on the first turn of OOS combat.

It's pretty much your fighter rank that factors into that. M5 enemies are gone, and your MK3's are being annihilated by capital ship, types.

EagleTwoThreeX · Post by **EagleTwoThreeX** » Mon, 18. Aug 14, 22:50

Hmm. It's got to be Xenon then. There's nothing I can do about that because where they die is so random.

My fighter rank is 'Assassin', so if that's true, I need to find cheaper UT's. 2-3 mil per death matters when you've only got 15 mil in the bank.

Eagle