[X3TC] Goner Plot help (follow blastclaw) **spoilers**

MarvinTheMartian · Post by **MarvinTheMartian** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 21:47

Clearly I'm not the first to have this issue and most of the solutions I've seen involve buying a bunch of big ships and vaporising the entire pirate armada in Gaian Star. Not something I'm keen to do though for a couple of reasons: my most powerful ship is an M3+ and I'd quite like to keep the pirates on-side.

The issue is that no matter what ship I do this in the hostile pirate forces in Gaian Star (and the US next door) are simply too numerous to slip past unnoticed. I did even try buying a cobra to blast my way through but all the hammers in the universe (all 6 of them!) weren't enough.

The best result I had was in an Elite, dodged 3 Carracks, a Galleon and hordes of fighters only to enter Gaian Star and be greeted by a Brigantine plus Caravels spewing fighters.

I thought I was on pretty good terms with the pirates as a I'm seeing more and more "friendly" pirate ships around these days, even a Brigantine in Brannan's Triumph, which is why I'm surprised at just how decidedly hostile this area of space is to me.

Will the blastclaw wait in Merchant Haven indefinitely while I hunt around for stations to build for pirates and for that matter, will building a better rep make these pirates any less aggressive to me?

Cheers,

Marv

VincentTH · Post by **VincentTH** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 21:51

While the blasclaw will wait for you for ever, the pirates that are already red in US and Gaian Star will remain red, regardless of your rep, unless you scan them to reset their relationship (assuming you are on friendly term with the pirate).

I would suggest you go there, and try to scan them to make them all blue before attempting the follow mission. or failing that, wipe them all out, and then do a few missions for the pirate to fix the pirate rep.

Spychotic · Post by **Spychotic** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 22:14

Wait, scanning a Pirate ship in Pirate space turns it blue? Am I reading this right?

Spike

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 22:17

only if youre on friendly terms with them.

Spychotic · Post by **Spychotic** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 22:20

O.K.

Thought it wasn't that easy! So lets get this straight;

- Pirate Carrack is red when you're neutral with the Pirates
- You spend two days doing missions for them, Carrack is still red
- You can Carrack, it turns blue

Correct? (I want to be clear as this little gem is going in the walkthrough, which is now almost complete)

Ta,

Spike

Catra · Post by **Catra** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 22:27

its not that clearcut.

for a flightgroup of pirates, you need to find and scan the lead one.
im not sure about the ones that are specifically spawned to harass the player(the very small group of red pirates that occasionaly appears to muckup your rep).

MarvinTheMartian · Post by **MarvinTheMartian** » Wed, 8. Dec 10, 22:28

That would indeed be great news. Is this that same thing where they were hostile at the start of the game and don't automatically reset when your rep improves?

In this case I'll get myself a small, fast ship and scan everything I can to see how much rep work I have to put in.

Awesome thanks.

MarvinTheMartian · Post by **MarvinTheMartian** » Thu, 9. Dec 10, 04:00

Just to report back, it does indeed work. As I already have a fairly good rep with the pirates I didn't need to do any extra rep building either.

Initially I used an agile ship to dodge the incoming fire and scan the capitals first, a couple of seconds later they (and their wingmen/escorts) turned blue, then it was the turn of the caravels.

The tricky part was dealing with the small squads of fighters, try to pick the leader of the group (generally the guy in the middle or front of the formation - target one ship then with target view [F3] zoom out and see who's leading the pack) and if that doesn't work use [End] to skip to the next one and scan again, unfortunately not every pirate is actually friendly so there was a lot of PBG fire dodging, I came back in my elephant with 1GJ of shielding to do this part at a more leisurely pace.

This mission may be manageable now. Thanks for the tip.

Cheers,

Marv

SkullCowboy · Post by **SkullCowboy** » Thu, 9. Dec 10, 15:58

The scanning thing is good to know! But I completed that mission in a Perseus Advanced and did it without too much trouble.

Stay out of the space lane. Instead of following along behind, I swung out wide and paralleled the target from the side. It seems that the pirates either don't have scanners or they just don't monitor them that well and they all stay on a pretty direct line between the gates. It was tricky around the gates, and I got lucky not popping out right next to someone unfriendly. Otherwise, the hardest part was maintaining proper distance while flying out to the side.

Playbahnosh · Post by **Playbahnosh** » Thu, 9. Dec 10, 16:25

and you are telling me this NOW??

Hell, I spent yesterday evening doing the last part of the Goner plot, no matter how many times I tried I always got my ass handed to me by Brigandines, Carracks and a metric f***ton of fighters. I even managed to finish FF with only a few losses, but by the time I finished the Goner plot I lost at least 2 M6s and 9 fully equipped M3s to the marauding pirates and left my shiny new Griffon in ruins.

And now you are telling me all I had to do was raise a little rep and scan them...

I spent half a day doing that last set of missions, there is no way I'm doing it again, so I guess that is one harsh lesson learned. At least I'll know what to do the next playthrough....

MarvinTheMartian · Post by **MarvinTheMartian** » Thu, 9. Dec 10, 21:16

SkullCowboy wrote:Stay out of the space lane.

I managed this too but as soon as I entered GS 3 Caravels spat fighters at me and the Brigantine and Carracks were already within firing range.

Playbahnosh wrote:and you are telling me this NOW??

I share your pain, I spent a few hours trying different ships/techniques and none of the other posts I found mentioned scanning to reset IFF, I'm glad I asked, thanks VincentTH

So, I completed the plot last night and got my reward, time to go hunting I think

and as for the TLS, it would have been a better thankyou if the Goners hadn't stripped it of every piece of equipment, I'm pretty sure it was fully shielded with a full complement of PSGs on board when I rescued their sorry arses

BDK · Post by **BDK** » Fri, 17. Dec 10, 17:56

Pirates and me dont get along too well to begin with, so this mission was a fail from the very beginning. I even brought my shiny new destroyer along with my tiger only to see them get utterly slaughtered as the pirate destroyer popped through the gate and started shooting them in the back.

On my mission screen there is a timer however, so if I dont respond to it I hope I dont lose any rep anywhere. I mean it's impossible to raise enough cash for a second destroyer or m7, let alone spending time equipping the thing as well.

Hmm maybe it's time to try an m8 and sucker punch that pirate destroyer from 50km away

n00biwan · Post by **n00biwan** » Fri, 17. Dec 10, 18:03

I waded through the red... maybe tiptoed is a better word for it.

I flew outside the spacelane while staying under 20km from the blastclaw, all the while being followed by various red groups.

The big spiral flight path was kinda tricky (esp considering the huge amount of red) but I barely took any fire as the faster ships tended to stay in escort positions around the m6 (1/7/whatevers) that were chasing me.

I did it in a springblossom as I came to this plot quite late on but an m3 would have probably been as easy.

Kirlack · Post by **Kirlack** » Fri, 17. Dec 10, 20:02

It's been a fair while since I finished this mission, but I've got to do it again sometime soon methinks

I was flying a standard Nova Raider at the time, had the Blastclaw up on vid monitor 2 and stayed a good 20+km above the gate network all the way across US. Gaian Star was a bit more challenging but the rocks provide plenty of cover, and more than a few of those M5/M4s will hit a rock whilst chasing you (or did me anyhow). The Brigantine and Carracks were too slow to be a big problem. In the end I had to pepper a couple of M5s with PBG fire just to give me some breathing space, but that was it.

All that said, I work pretty hard on my Pirate rep from the very start of the game, refardless of whether I'm playing as a Pirate or a legetimate trader. It never hurts to have friends in low places

Baddieus · Post by **Baddieus** » Fri, 17. Dec 10, 20:07

First time I went through this mission I was #1 on the Pirates hitlist.
I used a fully loaded M8 to clear the US & Gaian star before following the Blastclaw.

daimond · Post by **daimond** » Sat, 1. Jan 11, 22:52

Where in Aldrin is Bola Hi?

Deadbeat_Spinn · Post by **Deadbeat_Spinn** » Sun, 2. Jan 11, 00:14

daimond wrote:Where in Aldrin is Bola Hi?

What does Aldrin have to do with the Goner plot....wrong thread perhaps?

daimond · Post by **daimond** » Sun, 2. Jan 11, 14:46

When I finished (or thought I'd finished) the Goner Plot I was put onto another thread about a scientist called Bola Hi who was looking into the CPU ship, and how to destroy it. It lead me to Aldrin saying he was with some other scientist. I have as yet been unable to find him. Has anyone else had this plot?

Spychotic · Post by **Spychotic** » Sun, 2. Jan 11, 15:20

That's the New Home plot.

Spike

jedineon · Post by **jedineon** » Tue, 11. Jan 11, 10:40

I was going crazy with this mission, I finally managed to capture the truelight seeker (waiting for it to halt, thend simply capping it);
now I was having LOTS of trouble in Maelstrom with all that pirate activity, so I went for some BIG guns in Omicron Lyrae.. and then, I get this message from the Goners, "Thanks for your help, take this truelight seeker, thank you"... as I had completed the follow-that-damn-blastclaw mission!!!
No sense at all!!!

Anyway, couldn't be happier with this...

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

[X3TC] Goner Plot help (follow blastclaw) spoilers

[X3TC] Goner Plot help (follow blastclaw) spoilers

Whaaat?