Paranid Odysseus shooting up civilians in Argon Prime - no armed response?

[Narog]

I just finished outfitting 50 Expresses in the shipyard in Argon Prime to use as Nvidium exploiters. I undocked to watch the mighty exploit fleet fly away when I realized there were explosions in the background, near the north gate.
It turned out to be a Paranid Odysseus destroyer shooting up all argon ships and stations in its vicinity. The Argon One was content just idling not far at all from the enemy destroyer, only the police had any interest of defending the sector (i.e. getting blown to smithereens). I just want to know, is this common behaviour? Shouldn't the Argon military defend its home sector?

PS
I run vanilla X3TC + bonus pack.

[Roguey]

I had a smilar thing happen to me, although it wasnt in Argon Prime but I think Red Light. Like you said, its an odd thing to see, as an Paranid M1/2 is attacking without any reason. Well, I guess you might get some freeb's from it

[Defaid]

Hey! My first post.

A couple of days ago in X3R I found a psycho Goner in an Eclipse taking pot-shots at stations in, I think, Barren Shores. I was surprised more at the sect's hypocrisy than the actual action! Blew him away and lost about 10 points Goner reputation, though in hindsight, given the species that owns the sector, perhaps I should have left him to it...

Seriously though that's the first time I've seen a Goner in something so big and the first time I've seen one armed. I have a non-plot game going and have only just finished Bala Gi's missions so probably have relatively little game-time compared to a lot of other people.

Still, it seems strange behaviour does occur sometimes.

Regards,
D

[Bill Huntington]

Narog, the Argon and Paranid go back and forth on the corridor from Argon Prime to Paranid Prime. If you find them going at it early in the game, the battle debris can really help a starting pilot get those first needed credits. The Boron and Split are usually going at it between Patriarch's Conclusion and Queen's Harbor. These battles can be quite a sight.

Usually they assign a fleet to the problem but it might take them a while to show up. Once the Paranid were wiping out all the stations in Light of Heart, which was my second home at the time. When they started for the Eq Dk, I capped my first Oddy, and about then the Argon fleet showed up. Capping a ship has some rep loss that goes with it, but only a small proportion to blowing it up.

[VELLA]

In my game a Paranid M2 and M7 plus assorted fighters were in Light of Heart for hours, shooting up civilians and police and wrecking stations with no response. After a while a lonely Collosus wanders in carrying a dozen or so fighters and they only last a few minutes against the Paranid who take minimal casualties. After that I stopped monitoring the sector and went on my way. Eventually the Paranid did either leave or get booted out but all the time they were there there was Argon and OTAS capital ships in neighboring sectors who didn't lift a finger.

This kills the immersion for me somewhat. I have considered installing one of the scripts that improves the race's response behavior to aggression, but atm most of my income is dependant on peddling booze to pirate bases. It would be bad for business to have overzealous militaries wipe out pirate bases as soon as they spawn, but at the same time I would like to see race millitaries mount proportional responses to aggressors using jumpdrives. It seems unrealistic that the military would fly halfway across the universe and not use jumpdrives. See what happens when you steal a ship from a return ship mission: a bunch of police ships will jump in with a gateless JD in order to destroy it! If they can do that to try to stop the player getting away with the petty theft of an M3 or M6, why can't they respond in a similarly aggresive way to having a foreign millitary invading a core sector and murdering it's civilians?

[Nanook]

I just finished outfitting 50 Expresses in the shipyard in Argon Prime to use as Nvidium exploiters. ....

I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but those Expresses can't carry XL-class cargo, which is what Nividium is. You need Mercuries or some other TS's for mining.

[deca.death]

I just want to know, is this common behaviour?

Yes, races do battles like this, but often in a clumsy and unbalanced way if I may add. Argons will eventually respond but it may be quite late or inadequate. I have small special vessel for situations like this - deca.hade, ie. hades bomber filled with 80 thawks. I gate it in, fire 3-4 barrages on leading vessel (usually deimos) one on biggest escort (usually heavy nemesis) and jump it out. When you kill off ringleaders, rest of ships fairly quick meets their doom, but most important thing is that they cannot do something stupid like kill argon stations, terracorp HQ in particular. Paranid often pillage home of light in my game ant there is terracorp and my argon friends - I cannot let that happen so I use this half-exploit. I like to think of my hades as an assassin who uses pirate IFF for the mission. What? It's plausible ; )

Life in this game becomes much more easy when you invest in M8 plus small (2 fab thawk /S food /S raw/ ore mine) complex somewhere.

[Nanook]

... I have small special vessel for situations like this - deca.hade, ie. hades bomber filled with 80 thawks. I gate it in, fire 3-4 barrages on leading vessel (usually deimos) one on biggest escort (usually heavy nemesis) and jump it out. ... I use this half-exploit. I like to think of my hades as an assassin who uses pirate IFF for the mission. What? It's plausible ; )...

Or ... you could just 'man-up' and take the rep hit with the Paranid for blowing up their ships. Like, it's hard to get rep back, or something.

Pilots who use this trick are wimps. A real pilot would thumb his/her nose at the Paranid. [ external image ]

[Narog]

I just finished outfitting 50 Expresses in the shipyard in Argon Prime to use as Nvidium exploiters. ....

I hate to be the bearer of sad tidings, but those Expresses can't carry XL-class cargo, which is what Nividium is. You need Mercuries or some other TS's for mining.

I mixed the names up, it was actually 50 Mercuries I sent on their merry way. They made me a few hundred million in proffits after selling them full with Nividium.

Anyway, I blew up the Odysseus with my Boreas but the Argon rank didn't increase like I thought it would. The only result was a drop in Paranid rank, so naturally I reloaded and let the Odysseus continue its killing spree.

[sjones25]

Why would you care about your Paranid rep? My only concern with it is making sure its constantly at the absolute lowest level! If it ever rises above "Enemy of Priest Xaar" then I'm obviously doing something wrong and I need to go kill some Paranids quickly to correct this!

The Odysseus isn't a bad destroyer, you might want to "borrow" it from our three-eyed friends! It is the ONLY M2 that can equip the insanely powerful PSGs. I've got one with PSGs everywhere except the sides, which have PPCs. Just hop in and park it in the middle of Paranid Prime and watch it go to work! It is, of course, mind-bogglingly slow, but its a destroyer, its going to be slow.

(Be careful using the PSG around ANYTHING you don't want to see turned into a smoldering pile of debris! Anything and everything nearby when you start shooting a bank of 8 PSGs will be dead when you release the trigger)

[deca.death]

I mixed the names up, it was actually 50 Mercuries I sent on their merry way. They made me a few hundred million in proffits after selling them full with Nividium. :P

Oh for pete's sake man, unload them to orca then sell one ship, not 50. You could even automate whole process.

here:
Mobile Mining quick setup

[deca.death]

Pilots who use this trick are wimps. A real pilot would thumb his/her nose at the Paranid. [ external image ]

You do not understand, it's not about rep grinding at all, reputation of my company is in stake here. Terraformer INC cannot allow to be dragged into international military scandal, I have firm connection to paranid royal family, both in assets, diplomatic relations, bonds and in military matters. It's just not the way TC plays, all sentient races in universe are consider friends, even pirates and yaki. Undercover intervention is unfortunately and regretfully, sometimes necessary.

[Nanook]

I mixed the names up, it was actually 50 Mercuries I sent on their merry way. They made me a few hundred million in proffits after selling them full with Nividium.

Oh for pete's sake man, unload them to orca then sell one ship, not 50. You could even automate whole process.....

You do realize that an Orca costs 22.2 million cr whereas for the same cargo volume you can buy basic Mercuries (~17) at a cost of 3.2 million. I fail to see where selling an expensive TL as a cargo crate is cost effective.

[RicoOcho]

i see this alot too...this silly little paranid n argon..kind of hate it when an eqd or shipyard gets popped on either end...trying not to botch my rep with the paranid..that way it can go up about 10% more to 25% ....had it at 30 but went down cause i borrowed an aggie and never gave it back..haha

[ganjanoof]

Oh for pete's sake man, unload them to orca then sell one ship, not 50. You could even automate whole process.....

You do realize that an Orca costs 22.2 million cr whereas for the same cargo volume you can buy basic Mercuries (~17) at a cost of 3.2 million. I fail to see where selling an expensive TL as a cargo crate is cost effective.

Time might be seen as a cost too. I hate micromanagement so my best combination is Mobile Miners -> Resident TL -> Nutshell TL.

This way I can have Miners I keep (and which gain experience as I use the Prospector script), a properly outfitted TL used as a base, and I only need to go get the niv once every X with a nutshell TL (beaming the stuff in from the resident). This is worth 20 million every cargo load imo.