[v3.0 TO] Neutral Faction executing unprovoked attacks???

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Ok,

There I was minding my own business waiting for my trade ships to complete a cargo exchange when a neutral Teladi destroyer decides to attack the larger of my trade ships.

Spoiler

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The UA faction in this instance

If the ships of such factions are going to attack my assets regardless then perhaps I should forget trying to make pals with them and board as many of their destroyers as I can find.

Will they attack my assets regardless or do I need to increase my rep with them above a certain level to avoid such attacks?

I am trying to play a neutral trader with as few enemies as I can get away with, I thought that with all the Teladi factions starting out neutral I would not have to deal with this kind of abuse from them. I am thinking about making myself some Teladi skin slippers and maybe a jacket if this is going to be how it is.

[Jaxartes]

I hope we c an befriend them somehow.

[GCU Grey Area]

Same thing happened to me earlier today. Pity, those Teladi sectors were quite profitable for my mobile mining business. However, have now relocated to Albion, where at least hostile ships appear red on the radar & hopefully no more sneak attacks from warships owned by neutral factions.

[Snafu_X3]

Roger, what rep lvl were you with with them?

A couple of the new TO factions are said to be piratical, so just a plain 0 (starting) rep may not be enough to stop them choosing you as targets of opportunity..

[Titan127]

Had the issue twice. UA in Teladi Space attacked one of my mining ship then one of my transports that was selling goods. I am at neutral (0 rep) status with them so I was a bit surprised.

However they do appear to be pirate factions which makes me believe they are set to attack traders and mining class ships when they can. Because they have had plenty of chances to attack combat ships of mine but it never happened. I just hope that due to them being neutral we can complete missions at their stations and get the rep to a point where they cease to attack any of the player assets.

[Scoob]

Hi,

I'm having this happen too.

A CAR Marauder Phoenix ignores me yet it targeted my Titurel delivering Water to the Overwatch station. All this time it remains BLUE. My Rep with The Cartel is 0 (ZERO) and considering certain factions are -5 to me and don't attack any of my assets, I suspect this is an error.

How do the Teladi react if you start attacking these technically neutral ships? My Titurel was already attacked by something while I was out of the Zone and could not see what. I suspect it was this Cartel (CAR) ship - there are three large ship wrecks in the Zone now, so my Titurel did well to survive!

Scoob.

[Titan127]

How do the Teladi react if you start attacking these technically neutral ships?

Well on my 2nd experience, I got the distress call and sped to the sector and found a UA Pheonix attacking the docked ship. I started attacking it with novadrones and then destroyed it (might have reloaded twice as my freighter was lost ). But anyway, I didn't get any rep lost to the Teladi Union and the TU station didn't react at all.

Which is kinda why I have the believe that the UA and Cartel are classed as pirate.

[Scoob]

You could well be right Titan127. Just makes life that little bit harder when they're not marked as hostile - makes giving a Patrol command to any ships ineffective, as they're neutral and not targeted.

I like the idea of dedicated pirates, but not sure they should really attack in Core Zones, rather sneak around the edges.

It's odd really, I've had that CAR Marauder Phoenix showing that it's attacking my Titurel in it's orders for ages - however, it just flew past, easily within weapons range, and did nothing. Possibly the size of the Overwatch station has confused its pathing?

Will keep watching, but my Titurel is likely to get away soon as it's finished its trade at the Overwatch.

Scoob.

[Snafu_X3]

I just hope that due to them being neutral we can complete missions at their stations and get the rep to a point where they cease to attack any of the player assets.

I did a couple of missions for them & smalltalked until I was +15 rep, but I can't say how that affected their status because I left TO for OL very shortly afterwards..

[Senar]

Aha! So those ones are guilty in killing my rahanas and titurels in the FO. I have lost two titurels and one rahanas in FO already. They signalled me that they are under attack, but when I watch them on the map, i didn't see hostiles. Those dead trraders leave note in logs like "%Shipname% was destroyed" or something like that.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

Roger, what rep lvl were you with with them?

A couple of the new TO factions are said to be piratical, so just a plain 0 (starting) rep may not be enough to stop them choosing you as targets of opportunity..

<10 with both the "piratical" ones, I hope that if we get to Allied status (>15?) the attacks will not happen any more.

I initially thought it might have been a friendly fire incident as my squad destroyer IZ had taken some hull damage from a neutral Phoenix attacking a random NPC trader but it even happened while I was OOZ. I had a save from shortly before the destroyer was in the line of fire and sent it on patrol which stopped the damage but not the attack.

I tried flying from the outpost station to the AL/DV gate while the trading went on and it appears to be a bit of an RNG situation as to if your assets get attacked by the piratical Teladi factions.

My final solution to prevent the attack was to temporarily assign my squad destroyer to the trade ship as an escort. This seemed to stop the attack.

[wwdragon]

I reported this issue in beta forum a little while ago.
No dev ever responded, so I assume it's intended... because hey... pirates.

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

Yeah, it feels like the wild west. Anything goes for Teladi and we won't hate you for it

I guess CAR/UA faction drop their standings towards us if we kill them in self-defense?

[dmk]

I reported this issue in beta forum a little while ago.
No dev ever responded, so I assume it's intended... because hey... pirates.

even if that is intended the bug is your transport don't fires back, and his escort TOO, no fight command is working (because marauder is neutral!)
even escape from battle is not working.

[exogenesis]

tbh I can't see the point in befriending these piratical TO factions,
apart from the Rising Tide mini-plot mission - which by reports sounds a bit minimal.

I'm just on the point of making a point of getting them to -ve 30 rep,
so at least I can see them coming !

They certainly seem to target just weak ships, like freighters,
but leave the heavy hitters alone - seems tailor made for a set of retaliative strikes...

But my freighters will have to go in with reasonable backup from now on,
even though there's bugger all useful commerce in the TO zones.

btw anyone managed to destroy the upgraded Xenon-I with full fighter backup yet?,
the one that's wandering around near the new Xenon station zone.

[GCU Grey Area]

there's bugger all useful commerce in the TO zones.

There's good mining opportunities in those zones. With all those rampaging CAR/UA capitals disrupting trade there's a lot of +50% (high demand) trade modifiers on minerals at the foundries. Mining for those stations was really quite lucrative for me at the start of my current game. Paid enough to assemble a decent mining fleet (4 Vulture bulk miners, 1 Vulture container + over 200 cargo & mining drones), though had to stop mining there when those CAR/UA capitals started going after my ships too (rather than just conveniently eliminating the competition for me).

[randomuser]

sooo the real questions remain:
-does enough reputation stop the attacks?
and
-how do they determine their targets?

concerning the latter question:
a lyramekron(hope i spelled that correctly) is basically a feighter that has the firepower of a destroyer, do CAR/UA still attack that class because it is technically a freighter or do they ignore it because it has too much firepower

as i do not use lyramekrons(yet ) i d like to know if anyone whos using those had one of them attacked7destroyed

[Scoob]

My Titurel got attacked at the jump beacon, it was only saved by the fact that it boosted fairly promptly, but it lost 20-30% of it's surface elements in the process.

Ironically we'd have to issue a manual "Attack object" command for our ships to reliably defend themselves...assuming the message arrives before it's too late.

However, if we're in a remote Zone, how exactly can we order this? We cannot as NO NPC ships are visible remotely. Looking at the Zone we'd just see stations and our ship(s) with their hull going down, no enemy to see or order an attack against.

If the player in In-Zone they can react, if not, we're out of options. I'm likely going to have to avoid the TO System unless I'm with my ships. Bit of a shame really.

Scoob.

[Sam L.R. Griffiths]

The freighter they attacked in my case is a Lyramekron, funnily enough they did not go after the softer target of my Vulture Bulk. Perhaps they attacked it because it was the recipient of nividium cubes and spaceweed from the Vulture.

So randomuser, the man "from the pirate faction he say yes"... wrt the Lyramekron being considered a valid target.

[VincentTH]

My Titurel got attacked at the jump beacon, it was only saved by the fact that it boosted fairly promptly, but it lost 20-30% of it's surface elements in the process.

Ironically we'd have to issue a manual "Attack object" command for our ships to reliably defend themselves...assuming the message arrives before it's too late.

However, if we're in a remote Zone, how exactly can we order this? We cannot as NO NPC ships are visible remotely. Looking at the Zone we'd just see stations and our ship(s) with their hull going down, no enemy to see or order an attack against.

If the player in In-Zone they can react, if not, we're out of options. I'm likely going to have to avoid the TO System unless I'm with my ships. Bit of a shame really.

Scoob.

I agree. Egosoft should reconsider OOS combat, especially with the hostility of the friendly pirates in Fields of Opportunity system. I worked my rep up to 10+ for either UA and CAR, to no avail (Imagine doing an escort or assassination mission through the dangeroua fields in Serpentine Haze). I regularly lost ships that were parked or served my station in Verdant Profit, and scratched my head every time, because I had no idea how I lost them.

At the very least, the user should be able to see NPC ships that are in OOS, at least within 24km of every ship that the user has. 24km is the normal radar range of a freighter.