X3AP: Frustration with two plots

[RAVEN.myst]

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.

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?

[Snafu_X3]

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

[Jimmy C]

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.

[RAVEN.myst]

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.

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 ^^

[Jimmy C]

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.

[RAVEN.myst]

I've seen Anarchy Ports flip back to red so often, I don't bother hacking them anymore.

Yes, they will flip back if your standing isn't high enough, so if I have one do so, I don't bother to hack it again until I've done *considerable* work on my reputation with the pirates of that region.

Pirate bases will also go red on you if you shoot a Gate in the Pirate sector they're in.

Yes, I've seen this, and it's often accompanied by that voice message about "pirate fighters will hunt you down like vermin" (which never actually happens, heheheh)

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.

Yes, as indicated above, I'm very familiar with this "phenomenon", been using it for some years, now. Quite often, when wanting to go to the Duke's Buccaneers HQ in Lasting Vengeance (if I recall correctly?), I need to go in, drop a satellite, back right out again and as quickly as possible peek into that sector - and then usually I'm no longer persona non grata (sometimes a few reds remain, but often all of the locals become a lot more welcoming. Those holdouts MAY, in fact, sometimes be visiting members from other pirate regions, for all I know - but that's only conjecture.)

[GathMemvar]

So what I'm hearing is that there is a workaround for docking at the very hostile pirate station, but there's a lot less stuff I can do for finding my to-follow target other than just keep looking. I just finished the war, so that should make tracking him down easier.

[RAVEN.myst]

So what I'm hearing is that there is a workaround for docking at the very hostile pirate station, but there's a lot less stuff I can do for finding my to-follow target other than just keep looking. I just finished the war, so that should make tracking him down easier.

Yes, the hostile pirate station, though it may take some patience, you can fix - you will want to do some missions for pirates in the area in question and try getting it hacked again. (Also, do remember to check your IFF settings to ensure you have pirate set to 'friendly' - if set to 'enemy', all pirates will show up red to you regardless of how they feel about you.)

As for your stalking target, I would go with a cautious 'yes' - you see, unfortunately it is possible for missions that get left in an active but unresolved state for too long to get broken in some unexpected way, and since you have had long enough to resolve the war, that's plenty long enough time for something to have gone 'boing!' I'm not saying it necessarily has, just that it's possible. You will be looking for a ship called "[race] parcel service". Since you have ended the war, you can deploy satellites in the war sectors now without immediately losing them (as you can now have OoS assets in those sectors and they will no longer be attacked by the formerly warring factions), and this should prove helpful in locating the ship in question. Once you do locate it, I'd advise you to bind it to a mini-monitor so that you can then find it easily should it get spooked again.

[GathMemvar]

Alright, well I finally found the guy. Looks like he jumped through my Hub, which was active in one of the adjacent systems, to Xenon Sector 685 or whatever the one is that's north of the Xenon Core (I was trying to raise Terran Rep by putting Xenon ships in War sectors). Had to call in an M7M to give me cover while "escorting" my target, but I finally was able to track him down and complete the mission

Also, learned a couple of things:
1) The target will not trigger nor will guidance be given unless both your mercs AND the space fuel are on your ship. You cannot "hide" your Space Fuel on a docked ship (I hid it on a fighter docked to my M7 Griffon)
2) You can abuse his "panic jump" if he gets stuck in Xenon Sectors to jump him out of there. Using this, I was able to completely bypass the Xenon Core sector, which would have required me to deploy several M2+s and an M7M to clear a corridor to get him through.

Still working on the pirates, no missions yet. I'm hanging out in Merchant's Haven, waiting on missions to pop up in the sector.

Thanks for your help, guys!

[RAVEN.myst]

Alright, well I finally found the guy. Looks like he jumped through my Hub, which was active in one of the adjacent systems, to Xenon Sector 685 or whatever the one is that's north of the Xenon Core (I was trying to raise Terran Rep by putting Xenon ships in War sectors). Had to call in an M7M to give me cover while "escorting" my target, but I finally was able to track him down and complete the mission

That's quite elaborate and challenging - kudos to you!

1) The target will not trigger nor will guidance be given unless both your mercs AND the space fuel are on your ship.

Yes, the mission mentions this in pop-up messages when conditions aren't met - but sometimes when things get hot, one needs to dismiss those quickly just in order to survive, so it can be very easy indeed to miss.

You cannot "hide" your Space Fuel on a docked ship (I hid it on a fighter docked to my M7 Griffon)

You can - I do it regularly. However, to stop the nagging from the mission, it is sometimes necessary to just transfer it to the primary ship temporarily - you can then safely stash it away again.

2) You can abuse his "panic jump" if he gets stuck in Xenon Sectors to jump him out of there. Using this, I was able to completely bypass the Xenon Core sector, which would have required me to deploy several M2+s and an M7M to clear a corridor to get him through.

Again, nicely done

Still working on the pirates, no missions yet. I'm hanging out in Merchant's Haven, waiting on missions to pop up in the sector.!

A word of advice - exiting and reentering the sector repeatedly will speed up this process. You can perhaps cycle between the four pirate sectors there, encouraging missions to be generated in the various stations around there, or you could engage in some unfocused jumping (at the expense of some ship systems attrition, of course - ugh!)
Good luck!

[jlehtone]

Trading Stations in the nearby Teladi/Argon sectors might offer Pirate missions too.

If at rock bottom reputation level, then only death of enemies is said to help.

I did hire a TL, told it to fly to Yaki sector, let it go, and then shot it there. The Yaki liked it. (The owners of the TL did not, but not all reputation is equal.) The Pirates may or may not be impressed by such acts. (I haven't checked whom they consider an enemy.)

[Timsup2nothin]

Trading Stations in the nearby Teladi/Argon sectors might offer Pirate missions too.

If at rock bottom reputation level, then only death of enemies is said to help.

I did hire a TL, told it to fly to Yaki sector, let it go, and then shot it there. The Yaki liked it. (The owners of the TL did not, but not all reputation is equal.) The Pirates may or may not be impressed by such acts. (I haven't checked whom they consider an enemy.)

Rumor has it that they don't like police. If you get a ship return mission and stash the retrieved ship at a station in a pirate sector until the police show up, you can destroy them and the local pirates may appreciate the effort.

[GathMemvar]

You can - I do it regularly. However, to stop the nagging from the mission, it is sometimes necessary to just transfer it to the primary ship temporarily - you can then safely stash it away again.

I was referring to hiding the illegal goods on a fighter and still have the quest guidance active, but yes, my findings correlated yours!

Trading Stations in the nearby Teladi/Argon sectors might offer Pirate missions too.

If at rock bottom reputation level, then only death of enemies is said to help.

I did hire a TL, told it to fly to Yaki sector, let it go, and then shot it there. The Yaki liked it. (The owners of the TL did not, but not all reputation is equal.) The Pirates may or may not be impressed by such acts. (I haven't checked whom they consider an enemy.)

Rumor has it that they don't like police. If you get a ship return mission and stash the retrieved ship at a station in a pirate sector until the police show up, you can destroy them and the local pirates may appreciate the effort.

Hmm, I've got most of the police licenses. I'll try pulling an enemy ship into the sector and blowing it up.

[Timsup2nothin]

Hmm, I've got most of the police licenses. I'll try pulling an enemy ship into the sector and blowing it up.

You having a police license doesn't matter. When a retrieved ship is not returned it spawns a number of "whatever race police" who will try to destroy the now stolen ship. I think that in a pirate sector such police are recognized as invaders when you destroy them.

[GathMemvar]

I have really high rep with the major races, so I created a Weed 'n Booze complex called "Pirate Forgiveness" in Maelstrom and blasted a couple of incoming Split transports. That got my rep high enough they would trade with me again, and some (though not many, and especially not the big ships)
of the pirate ships are now blue to me.

I tried your trick for the station hack missions (jumping between sectors) to no avail, but I figure it's just a matter of getting one to show up before I can gain some momentum




EDIT: FINALLY got it. These two plots have been resolved!

Thanks for your help, everyone! This has been most frustrating to work through.