X3AP: Frustration with two plots

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GathMemvar
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X3AP: Frustration with two plots

Post by GathMemvar » Wed, 26. Jul 17, 02:31

Hi Folks,

I am running two plots right now in AP vanilla:
Corporation Troubles, share recovery #9 where you have track some dude down;
and Breaking Grounds, where you have to get some hacking chips.

In Share Recovery, I was supposed to follow some guy's ship. I did this fairly successfully until he wandered into a war sector where I had to evade enemy fire and capital ships. Unfortunately, he jumped away. I can't find him ANYWHERE, and no, I do not have an old save I can go back to. Am I hosed on this mission? Is there any way to restart it?

In Breaking Grounds, I need to dock at a Pirate base to pick up the hacking chips. The station is perma-red towards me; no number of hacking missions will fix it. Again, no previous save, and am I completely hosed on this mission?

Thanks!

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Wed, 26. Jul 17, 07:04

Wow, I've never had that share recovery mission take me anywhere near a war sector - that's pretty unlucky. :( Since already that's out of the ordinary, your quarry's jump-out behaviour might also be unusual (usually, he stays near, jumping to a couple of sectors away.) I can only give you advice that would help with a saved game (besides the advice to always keep game saves to allow you to roll back time!) - when following a target, put it on a monitor (I usually use monitor 1 at the top-left for my current target, so I put a special target on monitor 2 at the top-right) - I forget the hotkey now, but it's something like Shift-2 or perhaps Ctrl-2 (you can find that in the options, in the control customisations.) If your target leaves the sector you are in, the monitor will collapse but not close - you can then use it to get info on the target which will include the target's current sector.

For the other issue with that station: have you tried checking your IFF settings, to make sure you don't have Pirates set to 'enemy'? That would make the station show up as red. (It's a long shot at best - if you're getting hacking offers for it, it sounds like it genuinely IS red to you - but worth checking just in case.) As far as I'm aware (but I may be mistaken), that mission won't send you to a station that you don't have docking privileges for, meaning that if the station is truly hostile to you, that became the case since you got the mission - here, again, game saves would come in very handy...
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jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Wed, 26. Jul 17, 09:16

Improving the overall Pirate opinion of you might help too. Do missions for them. Kill for them. Trade with them.


With regular race, if the race hates you then they are all angry due to that. Nobody can hack that general feeling.

However, individual (ships and stations) can personally dislike you too. They have a local blacklist of aggressors that they have met. That list you can hack.
("Met" includes you shooting at property of a station, e.g. "owned ships". Military bases own fleets. Pirate bases might too.)
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RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Wed, 26. Jul 17, 14:45

jlehtone wrote:Improving the overall Pirate opinion of you might help too. Do missions for them. Kill for them. Trade with them.

With regular race, if the race hates you then they are all angry due to that. Nobody can hack that general feeling.
Yes, this is, in fact, most likely the case. If your relations with a faction are bad enough, then when you get a station hack for one of their stations, it essentially turns red again immediately.

Also, although pirates are identified as a single faction (they are all marked "Pirate"), they are not monolithic like that - they have internal subdivision into "clans" or such, each based in a different region - so you may be OK with the pirates around Hatikvah's Faith but be hated by the ones near Gaian Star, for example.
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GathMemvar
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Post by GathMemvar » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 01:16

Hmm, I wasn't aware of the pirate sub-factions. I made some pretty intense M2+ fleet sweeps against the Gaian Star area, and that's where I need to go... I guess I'll have to set up some weed & booze plants and let them come and trade with me. I tried IFF and whatnot to no avail.

Still haven't found that guy I need to follow, but I'll keep looking.

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Post by Snafu_X3 » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 01:57

GathMemvar wrote:Still haven't found that guy I need to follow, but I'll keep looking.
He'll be on the way to his mission destination, via the shortest route (no jumps for NPC mission ships). If you feel the need to search, search the corridor between where you last saw him & his destination
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GathMemvar
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Post by GathMemvar » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 03:17

I don't know where the mission destination is, though. Only hint I got was "follow this dude until he docks at a station."

Did they say where he was going? I don't recall that being in the dialog.

RAVEN.myst
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Post by RAVEN.myst » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 11:17

GathMemvar wrote:I don't know where the mission destination is, though. Only hint I got was "follow this dude until he docks at a station."

Did they say where he was going? I don't recall that being in the dialog.
Once the bloke starts moving at the point where you first acquire him and get within, what, 15-20km (?), showing info on him will show you his destination, which you can then note down (obviously, at this point this doesn't help you, as that ship has sailed.) Also, if you bind the target to a monitor as previously described, I *think* the ship's destination will keep showing after that, but I'm not 100% sure about that (again I understand, not so useful at this stage, that horse having already bolted.)
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jlehtone
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Post by jlehtone » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 18:46

Doesn't the mission guidance (for the Corporate mission) show anything?
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Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Thu, 27. Jul 17, 20:03

'Follow Missions' generally don't give guidance.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

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ntweedie2007
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Post by ntweedie2007 » Fri, 28. Jul 17, 03:25

Hey there.

I note from Roguey's website (https://roguey.co.uk/x3ap/help/guides/c ... -troubles/) that share recovery mission #9 is "Returning a ship from a Xenon sector." Are you sure you are talking about the correct mission?

I've used Roguey's a lot and I've never known it to be wrong.

GathMemvar
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Post by GathMemvar » Fri, 28. Jul 17, 14:46

I note from Roguey's website (https://roguey.co.uk/x3ap/help/guides/c ... -troubles/) that share recovery mission #9 is "Returning a ship from a Xenon sector." Are you sure you are talking about the correct mission?
Ah, you're right, it's number 8, I was off by one. Issue remains the same, though.

Timsup2nothin
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Post by Timsup2nothin » Sat, 29. Jul 17, 08:33

A minor thing to add that was already mentioned...but to elaborate...

Doing the really simple missions for pirates you find at trading stations (bring me some cahoonas, or some majaglit, stuff like that) has what seems to be a totally outsized effect on reputation, and near as I have made out it seems to be pirate wide rather than with a particular clan. Of course if you have the where with all you can also take the "bring me thousands of space fuel in twelve minutes" type missions from those same guys and bank a bunch of credits along with the rep. I've seen them pay as much as ten times max price.
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Post by Jimmy C » Sat, 29. Jul 17, 11:46

That's right. If Pirate ships go hostile to you (happens to me regularly because I keep taking missions involving Pirate hostiles) Just complete one mission, of any difficulty, from a Pirate, and all Pirate ships will flip back to blue to you.

The only type that will cause complications is Station building missions. If Pirates are hostile to you when you place the station, the station will be hostile too. I'd recommend avoiding them for the purpose of repairing Pirate rep. But finding someone to hack them after placing them shouldn't be that difficult too.

GathMemvar
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Post by GathMemvar » Sat, 29. Jul 17, 15:03

Jimmy C wrote:That's right. If Pirate ships go hostile to you (happens to me regularly because I keep taking missions involving Pirate hostiles) Just complete one mission, of any difficulty, from a Pirate, and all Pirate ships will flip back to blue to you.

The only type that will cause complications is Station building missions. If Pirates are hostile to you when you place the station, the station will be hostile too. I'd recommend avoiding them for the purpose of repairing Pirate rep. But finding someone to hack them after placing them shouldn't be that difficult too.
So, earlier in the discussion it was mentioned that there are pirate factions. Is it ALL pirates that turn blue, or just that faction?

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sat, 29. Jul 17, 19:56

That's a tricky question, because this aspect is not documented, so we are responding from anecdotal evidence, what we've each witnessed ourselves during play. Yes, some actions do seem to work on a broader scale (I have the suspicion that there's some sort of, probably emergent, "grapevine" among the pirates - over time, changes in standing between 'sub-factions' seem to spread - but I can't back this up, and it could be an illusion.) Personally, station building missions are my favourite way to repair pirate standing, because not only do they have a significant magnitude of change, but they also provide a place to trade in order to further improve relations - assuming, of course, the station isn't red to you once placed, as pointed out above, which definitely happens while standings are abysmal. Also, I find that station build missions only seem to help with the eyepatch-wearers in the area where contracted for the job; I personally seldom do any other missions for pirates, such as ware deliveries, so am not qualified to comment on that - I would take the word of the others above, since they have experience with this. These observations suggest that different mission types apply their relationship effects differently, which I find quite strange and downright unlikely, as it would involve greater programming convolution - and yet the observations are what they are, so... *shrug* Well, to me this keeps things interesting and varied, and ever-so-slightly mysterious and unknowable, which I very much like. :D

Sorry if the above doesn't really answer your question per se. But then again, isn't it sometimes more fun to not *quite* know?
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Post by Snafu_X3 » Sun, 30. Jul 17, 01:41

RAVEN.myst wrote: Personally, station building missions are my favourite way to repair pirate standing, because not only do they have a significant magnitude of change, but they also provide a place to trade in order to further improve relations - assuming, of course, the station isn't red to you once placed ][...] which definitely happens while standings are abysmal
This is key info! I like building stations for pirates: the rep boost is pretty much the best you can get from any other pirate mission, & it opens up more trading (giving a further passive rep boost).

It also increases the opportunities for hacking missions should you be in need of one nearby..

WRT pirate clans & rep I haven't investigated; sorry :(
Last edited by Snafu_X3 on Thu, 3. Aug 17, 02:20, edited 1 time in total.
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Never played AP; all X3 advice is based on vanilla+bonus pack TC or before: AP has not changed much WRT general advice.

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Jimmy C
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Post by Jimmy C » Sun, 30. Jul 17, 09:30

GathMemvar wrote: So, earlier in the discussion it was mentioned that there are pirate factions. Is it ALL pirates that turn blue, or just that faction?
All Pirate SHIPS turn from red back to blue for me. Pirate stations, once hacked, never turn hostile to you again even if Pirate ships do. Stations only turn red again if you attacked them, but that's another problem.

I should mention a word of caution regarding Pirate ships being blue or red to you. It must be confirmed by viewing the sector from OOS!

Here's an example. Let's say the most recent mission you completed involved destroying a number of Pirate ships and resulted in all Pirate ships going hostile to you.

Now, let's say you followed my advice and sought out a mission from a Pirate and completed it. DO NOT immediately assume your remote ships are safe from hostile Pirates.

You can try an experiment. After completing the mission, send a ship, not the one you're using, to a Pirate-heavy sector like Mercenaries Rift. If you do not have a satellite in the sector (if you had, it was probably destroyed before you could reset your Pirate rep. Happens to me all the time) and you watch the sector until your ship arrives via the gate, you'll see all the Pirate ships are still hostile to you. If you never looked into the sector, the Pirates would still be red and your ship would be attacked.

However, if you wait for your ship to arrive and then viewed the sector, you'll see that the Pirate ships are now blue instead.

Docked Pirate ships may remain red after they leave a station or carrier and you entered the sector without remotely viewing it first. Turn around, exit the sector and view it remotely (assuming you have a satellite there) and you'll see those ships are now blue. You may now reenter the sector.

This game tends to try to do this "change hostility" thing outside of your view. I think I broke it by putting satellites everywhere. The neat thing about this is, if you've managed to make Pirates blue to you, is you can force Pirates to stay blue to you on certain combat missions. Very helpful.

On Kill missions, I look at the target sector before going, and the target is then blue to me.

On Defend missions, I can look at the sector where the attackers are waiting to come through, and they're blue, and they stay blue after they arrive too.

Without satellites, the Kill mission target would be red when I got there and the Defend mission attackers would be red when they entered the sector.

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Post by RAVEN.myst » Sun, 30. Jul 17, 10:53

Jimmy C wrote: All Pirate SHIPS turn from red back to blue for me. Pirate stations, once hacked, never turn hostile to you again even if Pirate ships do. Stations only turn red again if you attacked them, but that's another problem.
I'm afraid I have to challenge both those points: firstly, pirate ships appear to belong to these various splinters - I often have a mix of red and blue pirates *in the same sector*. (Please note, this behaviour may differ slightly in X3TC.) As for stations: I have had some pirate stations turn red again practically immediately upon getting hacked (especially common with their "hubs", the Pirate Anarchy Ports, and their attached lasertowers, which can often be observed to flip back to red one by one in such situations.) A distinction needs to be made here: Pirate BASES are a different story, they tend to be far more tolerant and tend to stay blue unless attacked (I think this is what Jimmy C was thinking of here), but Anarchy Ports and factory stations respond to standing with pirates similarly to how other factions do.

Jimmy C wrote:I should mention a word of caution regarding Pirate ships being blue or red to you. It must be confirmed by viewing the sector from OOS!
Yes, this is a VERY important (yet subtle point) - pirate assets relations viewed from out-of-sector but with a player-owned asset in that sector will update, *usually* for the better. This is very useful for when entering a sector-full of red pirates - one can drop a satellite and U-turn back out the gate, then *view that sector from outside* before the satellite is attacked - often it will turn some/many/even all of those pirates blue if relations are warm enough.
(Basically, the rest of Jimmy C's post above describes this in very good detail.)
Again, this behaviour differs somewhat in X3TC (if that's relevant.)

EDIT: One exception to the above behaviour are Orbital Weapons Platforms - they DON'T update relationship when viewed from OoS - quite frustrating, hehehehe ^^
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Post by Jimmy C » Sun, 30. Jul 17, 17:28

RAVEN.myst wrote:but Anarchy Ports and factory stations respond to standing with pirates similarly to how other factions do.
I've seen Anarchy Ports flip back to red so often, I don't bother hacking them anymore. However, I have never seen Pirate factories revert to red after they've been hacked, ever, even when Pirate ships go red to me. With the exception of shooting them, as said. Pirate bases will also go red on you if you shoot a Gate in the Pirate sector they're in.

As for some red and some blue Pirate ships in a sector, try what I said. Leave, remote view, see if they turn blue. If they do, it was probably just a missed update.

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