[X3TC] So, that Goner mission...

[rwhiteruff]

You know the one. Where you tail the pirate ship.

Looking for suggestions on it. The blockade you have to run through in soup space is particularly vicious, and last time I played through it I was cocky because I'd 'befriended' the pirates throughout the universe but... not those guys. They still ate my face. Luckily I was in a turbo booster equipped Hyperion Vanguard, so I managed to make it through by the skin of my teeth (though I did get torn up some).

This time I'm in a Terran ships-only run, and I haven't even bothered to befriend the Yaki, let alone the pirates.

If I go through those sectors before doing the Goner campaign, can I clear them out of most of the trouble? i.e. kill the cap ships and most of the fighter escort? If I leave some sector fleets in there to deal with threats will they interfere with the recon mission (i.e. do other player owned ships count as getting "too close"?)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

[cmdnenad]

I did it in Springblossom. All pirates were hostile to me, but I managed to avoid them by flying some 20 km away from the ship, even further away from everyone else .

[Frank Johnson]

I did it in a vidar(M6) 129m/s

After you make first contact with the ship in question it will start moving. I normally swing wide by say 20 KM and run for the gate. Jump the gate run clear again and wait for the contact ship. It worked perfectly. I didn't have any issues what so ever..... on the 11th reload.

You will get a message saying you lost the ship if you are past 20 KM but not to worry it is still there you can still see it and it is still marked.

The trick is to stay away from the Carracks and Brigantines, they will eat your alive even in the Vidar. If I have tag alongs hounding my tail I turn and destroy them when my distance is good enough on the larger ships listed above.

I also used a lot of poltergeist missiles(200ishy) to kill many of the smaller ships hounding me.

The next part to delivery some illegal goods is even harder. In my game when I return with the illegal goods there is a Carrack sitting right on the gate and I have yet to get past it after 6 reloads. I am gona wait 20 min and try again hoping the Carrack will move away from the gate

[VincentTH]

Fly parallel to the target ship, instead of following it. At 20km, and a fast ship (Springy), you should have no problem evading the pirate. Push come to shove, bring in an M7M, and Missile barrage the threat away
(Yes you can missile-barrage from an M7M you are not flying, as long as it is IS).

[Frank Johnson]

Push come to shove, bring in an M7M, and Missile barrage the threat away
(Yes you can missile-barrage on an M7M you are not flying).

hehehe I am betting he does not have an M7M yet. If he did he would not be here asking for advice. DOOOOO

[Gold Dragon]

Altho not confirmed this myself, personally, but I read on these forums that once the ship starts, you can bypass it entirely by jumping to it's destination.

Also, you can use the Xenon Hub to shorten the journey if you have two sets of gates available.

[rwhiteruff]

Push come to shove, bring in an M7M, and Missile barrage the threat away
(Yes you can missile-barrage on an M7M you are not flying).

hehehe I am betting he does not have an M7M yet. If he did he would not be here asking for advice. DOOOOO

Yeah my biggest ship right now is a Vidar and I'm somewhat limited in my M7 selection as I'm only using Terran ships.

I'd love confirmation on Gold Dragon's supposition that you can cut to the last sector and finish the mission.

[Jeraal]

There is also the trick, where if you are friendly with pirates you can scan SOME red ones and they will turn blue. Some being the key word there. Worked for me in my latest soup swim. I only had to take out a few M3 and lower ships. I saved when those red capitals showed themselves. Flew to within scan range(dodging and with turrets to missles only), scanned and I swear I could here the captain sy "Oh, I know that guy".

[rwhiteruff]

Unfortunately, as I said, in this run I'm a total enemy of the 'rats. Going to keep that way, too.

[Jeraal]

Sorry, missed that line.

[Triaxx2]

Wait a bit, and buy an Osaka. That'll solve the problem.

[Frank Johnson]

After you make contact with the ship it will start moving. You do not have to stay close to it at all. you get messages saying you lost it but it will not stop.

Get in your fastest ship zip past it jump the gate zip out to a safe distance from all enemies and wait for the ship to come through the gate when you get close to the pirate base Hall will pop out in a space suit. fly in scoop him up and jump out asap.

it is my exp that the only key part of this mission is starting the contact ship moving(after that the ship is not a factor in the mission) and getting within 15-20 km of the pirate base and avoiding getting blown to bits in the process.

There is an attack force near the pirate base that will attack when you get close but if you are fast enouugh you can zip and scoop Hall and get out before you get shot at>

[Romantic Heretic]

I did that in a Shrike recently. Mostly it required careful steering to avoid clusters of pirates. I also steered far out from the main line of travel to minimize encounters. A couple of times a fighter cluster noticed me and attacked, but between my FAA and my Solanos they never lasted long.

I also used my Turbo Boost Mk2 a couple of times

Spoiler

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mostly to avoid the Brigantines.

One thing, make sure you have Cargo Bay Life Support or the mission will fail.

[Bill Huntington]

rwhiteruff, I tried the idea to start the mission and jump to the end. I tried a few different ways. I couldn't get it to work. If you leave the target for too long, another ship gets assigned as the target. I had one begin in Tears of Greed. (That was another version, so I'm not positive of how 3.1 does it. But I haven't heard that it is different.)

A few things I have tried that did work:

Use a Kestral and speed 605 to avoid trouble.

Fly in front of and above the target, just stay between 10 - 20 Km.

In a Kestral you have time to jump to the South gate of the Unknown and fly back to the target near the East gate.

Map the sectors first, before you start this mission. Put up Sats. Then you know what's on the other side of the gate. You might want it mapped later anyway. Do it first for the bonus of this mission.

When you get to Gaian sector, feel free to blow up all the pirates near the red pirate base. Notice their number designation does not begin with "I". So they are not regular pirates. So you can kill them without hurting your pirate rep. Killing red pirates (with # beginning with "I") does hurt your pirate rep. Killing blue ones is not smart. It will turn the blue pirate base red and the other blue pirates will now turn red. They are the same pirate grouping based at that other base.

Good Luck!

When you come back to finish the mission, bring Both the spaceweed and the SQuash in the same ship. Save a trip and a lot of trouble.

[Coupaholic]

I was quite impressed with myself, did it in my fat arsed Deimos without a single shot being fired.

I stayed about 20km away from the target ship, turned off all the turrets to stop them giving my position away and just cruised parallel to the target at the same speed right above his head and a little to the right to keep me invisible to traffic flow.

In the soup I had 2 M2's and fighter escorts after me once I saw the west gate, so I just led them on a merry chase until the target ship got through the gate - then it was just a case of jumping to that same gate and doing a 180 turn.

Once I got to the last sector I saw that for some reason all the syndicate ships were shooting at the station (?) so I left them to it, casually flew right past them, picked up the guy and jumped out.

[perkint]

Pretty sure other player ships are ignored. Which is quite amusing You can have a fleet trashing anything in the sector or you can fly a capital ship nuking anything that comes close and the mark doesn't notice you. But fly within 10Km in an M5 and he gets spooked!!

Tim