X3AP Stop my Freighters from being blown up!

[electron_pilot]

Occasionally, but enough to be annoying, I have to replace my freighters in X3 AP that are destroyed in the war zone, usually Omicron Lyrae. By undertaking missions with all races involving minimum destruction of each others ships I am Argon Protector of the Federation and Terran Solar Sentinel so neither side should attack me or my ships.
Neither side are red to me and my freighters are selected to show them as friendly but after examining the message log I find they have been destroyed by Argon military ships.

I have Trade Command Mk3 upgrade on all my freighters, whether Universal traders or Commercial Representatives, and under Additional Ship commands I have selected Start Mk3 Blacklist Manager and entered all the war zone sectors.
I then went to all my ships and have selected this menu option but unlike Start Commercial Representative there is no confirmation that this command has been successfully selected unless I am doing it wrong.

Why are my ships still entering these sectors and why are they occasionally destroyed?

[Gligli]

Hi,
Quickly said:
1° Put an end to the war (if you wants so) -> main Plot
2° Mk3 sucks (imo)

This problem often occur due to inaccessible regions due to black-list and the terran jumping system (catapults). In other words, the ship try to reach an isolated sector passing trough hostile black-listed sectors... But in the case of Omicron, that seems a bit weird... Maybe it's warfare.

Still, maybe that's all right, but verify the training level of your mk3's.

[Alan Phipps]

Moving from Rebirth to X Trilogy Universe.

[Sabrina Bergin]

Regardless of your high rank with both warring factions one of them will always attack player property assets in the war zones.

You can try the MK3 trader black list but I have found that is not fool proof. The consensus of opinion seems to be to keep them as local traders with a range set to keep them away from those or Xenon sectors.

[ancienthighway]

War is war. Your AI ships are simply collateral damage by flying though a sector controlled by the race you have lessor relations with, even if those relations are near stellar.

[RainerPrem]

Hi,

War is war. Your AI ships are simply collateral damage by flying though a sector controlled by the race you have lessor relations with, even if those relations are near stellar.

But they are no "collateral damage." The whole sector is blue, because my rep with both fighting party is on the max level.Then there is a fighter popping up out of nowhere to especially kill my ship in the war sector. It delivers a blow, and then disappears from the scanner. Ten seconds later it reappears and shoots again - normally the death blow.

cu
Rainer

[ancienthighway]

Who owns the sector, which race is your lowest top rating (e.g. Argon top rank (11%) Terran top rank (19%), and which race shot you down. If you are no IS, the lower ranked race will consider your ship a target and hunt you down, even if the lower ranked is at the top.

[Jimmy C]

Do your ships even have jumpdrives?
If they did and you blacklisted the sector, they should have skipped the sector on their way to their destination.

[RAVEN.myst]

Using the blacklist manager, I have NEVER had any of these hassles, but there is something to keep in mind - you should add Jupiter 2 and 3 sectors to your blacklist, as well as Saturn and its satellite sectors (2, 3 and Titan). This is crucial while using CAG (as it can't use jump beacons, and then ends up jumping into Asteroid Belt and then trekking across the warzone to the abovementioned sectors) - I am not sure, but UT *might* behave similarly, so just to be on the safe side, I always added those sectors to my blacklist and then never had a problem, except when they try to arm themselves with drones - for some reason, the blacklists (both in Mk.3 and CAG) are ignored when shopping for drones and mosquitoes - so you have to keep an eye on that. Here is where having good rep with Argon may be working against you, as it means your merchantment are flying to TradePort in Omicron Lyrae or Circle of Labour to equip themselves.

As for being shot at - this is the standard game mechanic for the warzone sectors - doesn't matter what your reputation is, as long as the war is on, if you are OoS, whichever of the two factions (Argon/Terran) is lower in rep with you, will attack your assets in those sectors. This is not a bug, but the "normal" behaviour of those sectors - these are war torn areas, and random casualties happen (I think that's what another poster meant by "collateral damage" - war correspondents, relief workers, and various other civilians, for example, regularly get killed in war-torn locations, even though they may have no alignment with either faction - bad things happen in war.)

[Sparky Sparkycorp]

The Blacklist Manager is not perfect. With the vanilla version, there are circumstances whereby it will let a ship enter a black-listed sector.

There is a good bug-fix for that by gnasirator linked in my signature under "Updated TC/AP Bonus Pack".

[Jimmy C]

I am not sure, but UT *might* behave similarly, so just to be on the safe side, I always added those sectors to my blacklist and then never had a problem,

UT can use jump beacons, but those sectors don't have beacons on their own. So, if they have to trek through Asteroid Belt and Jupiter to get to them, they'll be attacked. Therefore, blacklisting those sectors is the correct thing to do until the war is ended.

[electron_pilot]

In the past if I get to the freighter quick enough after being warned that it is under attack then I jump it out. Sometimes I cannot as it has no energy and I think it is not possible to specify a quantity of energy to be retained for UTs unlike CAs.

Thanks RAVEN.myst what you say makes sense. When I have been able to get to my freighter before it was obliterated it was near the Drone factory in Omicron Lyrae. In the last few days I have been monitoring freighters closely but nothing has entered the war zone so I sent one to trade there and followed it about but nothing attacked so have given up.

One thing on Trade Command Mk3, is the menu option Start Mk3 Blacklist Manager under Additional Ship Commands just to set up the blacklist sectors or does it start the process for that particular ship?

Will try your bug-fix Sparky Sparkycorp soon when I get fed up of replacing my ships.

[Jimmy C]

is the menu option Start Mk3 Blacklist Manager under Additional Ship Commands just to set up the blacklist sectors or does it start the process for that particular ship?

That's the Blacklist manager for all your UTs. Remember to blacklist all sectors that can only be reached by passing through a blacklisted sector as well. Otherwise, a UT will travel through a blacklisted sector to get to one of those sectors.

[pref]

As stated above, blacklisting the sectors where the shortest way possibly leads through war sectors solved the issue for me.
Either terrans or argon will attack you in war sectors OOS, so that is the only safe way to solve this without mods.

[Nanook]

...In the last few days I have been monitoring freighters closely but nothing has entered the war zone so I sent one to trade there and followed it about but nothing attacked so have given up....

As stated above, if you're in the same sector as the freighter, nothing will happen to it. It's when you leave, i.e., go 'OOS' (Out Of Sector), that it will be attacked by the race with lower rep.