VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

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Nanook
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VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. May 22, 07:52

Please tell me this isn't supposed to happen. I have a station (my PHQ) in Windfall IV, which I'm slowly building up. It currently has some storage and an Argon Dormitory. Early on, I supplied it with Food Rations and Medical Supplies with no bother from the VIG cops. I have not added any more Rations since them, nor have I allowed the station to buy any. So that's the background.

Now the weird part. Three times now, I've gotten an 'illegal wares' warning from the VIG despite not having any ships flying around in their space, and definitely none carrying any illegal wares. Each time I checked, I had a horde of VIG fighters cruising around my station. The first time, there were a few 'hostile pink' leaders and a horde of Blue followers. The second time it happened, there were quite a few red-hostile ships as well as the blue ones. Third time was same as the first, with 'pink' leaders and blue followers. I counted them this time and there are nearly 140 fighters circling the station.

These ships are apparently scanning my station, detecting Food Rations, and giving me a hit to my rep. Is this a new, and unwelcome, feature, or is it a bug of some sort? Anyone else had this happen.

I'm playing a Creative Custom game with no mods.
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Stoats not Goats » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:21

The Vigour Syndicate are certainly X4's most exploitative faction, since they control all food production in the DLC systems, they treat food and water as an illegal ware as they have a monopoly on the resource. So extreme is their enforcement of this crazy law that the Ministry actually gets smuggler ships that mask their faction to smuggle in food rations and water to Avarice (which is a cool touch by the devs imo). I've gotta say though its really unfortunate that you discovered they have food and water as illegal wares in this manner, best of luck with dealing with the Syndicate.
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Rei Ayanami » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:27

If I understand the issue correctly, it's not that food and water are illegal wares, but that they actually scanned Nanook's stations for it and became angry.

As far as I know police only scans ships for illegal cargo, not stations.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Raptor34 » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:32

They scan for illegal production.
I think, at least that's the assumption. They might not have coded it that way and just reused ship scanning code which leads to this.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Stoats not Goats » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:34

Police will scan stations for illegal wares too (although I've never seen it in person, I've only gotten the notifications for it afterwards), its also the means through which they detect illegal plots.
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Ehli » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:44

I think it's production, not wares. My stations in VIG buy ice from VIG, because mining it is illegal for me. These stations do not get flagged at all.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Stoats not Goats » Thu, 19. May 22, 14:47

Oh right cool, and thinking it over in my head, how you state it makes a lot more sense anyway
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. May 22, 18:08

Yeah, my real problem with this is I can't have Argon workers on my station since I'm not allowed to have Food Rations at all. So I can have Split, Teladi, Paranid and Terran workers, but not Argon? Makes no sense! :roll:
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 19. May 22, 18:15

When you teleport the HQ to a non-hostile NPC controlled sector, do make sure to buy the plot licence at the destination after teleportation has occurred. This must be repeated each time you teleport the station and adds an additional overhead to teleporting it, especially if placed near landmark structures that raise plot prices. If you do not do this, then any faction police that come across your HQ plot will flag it as an illegally built station and cause a reputation loss. This is the same reputation loss as flagging newly built stations in unlicensed plots.

VIG illegal wares are different from all other illegal wares in X4. When you reach 20 reputation with VIG and complete the promotion ceremony they will give you a free licence to handle Ice, Water and Food Rations within their space. As long as you hold this licence (remain above 20 reputation) the wares are no longer illegal for you in their space, even showing as such in trade information panels (normal white instead of illegal orange). This is in stark contrast to something like Spacefuel which does not have a handling licence and so will always be illegal in the space of appropriate factions.
Nanook wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:08
Yeah, my real problem with this is I can't have Argon workers on my station since I'm not allowed to have Food Rations at all. So I can have Split, Teladi, Paranid and Terran workers, but not Argon? Makes no sense!
You can use Argon workers on your stations in their space as you can legally own and trade Food Rations in their space as described above.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. May 22, 18:20

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:15
When you teleport the HQ to a non-hostile NPC controlled sector, do make sure to buy the plot licence at the destination after teleportation has occurred. This must be repeated each time you teleport the station and adds an additional overhead to teleporting it, especially if placed near landmark structures that raise plot prices. If you do not do this, then any faction police that come across your HQ plot will flag it as an illegally built station and cause a reputation loss. This is the same reputation loss as flagging newly built stations in unlicensed plots....
Not the case here. I started with a Custom Creative game and I had the PHQ placed there at game start, so no plot buying necessary. Besides, the message I got was about illegal wares, not illegal plots.
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 19. May 22, 18:26

Nanook wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:20
Besides, the message I got was about illegal wares, not illegal plots.
It could also be that bug showing its head again. For a long time I got illegal ware warnings from TER and never could track down why, especially given that these were not the same messages you get if a ship carrying stimulants is caught by TER police or customs.

However after some time it stopped happening in TER space and instead started to happen in ARG space with ARG police giving the same notification. Again this is different from a ship being ordered to drop illegal cargo. I suspect that under some strange conditions the police incorrectly credit you with illegal cargo even though it was a NPC ship they caught. Never could recreate it reliably to file a bug report.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. May 22, 18:35

Imperial Good wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:15
....
Nanook wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:08
Yeah, my real problem with this is I can't have Argon workers on my station since I'm not allowed to have Food Rations at all. So I can have Split, Teladi, Paranid and Terran workers, but not Argon? Makes no sense!
You can use Argon workers on your stations in their space as you can legally own and trade Food Rations in their space as described above.
So you're saying I can hire Argon only once I get to level 20 with the VIG. That's ridiculous! And you're also implying that I can't legally buy Food Rations from the VIG, even though that's part of the whole Windfall/Avarice scenario and how the RIP do business (whose stations, btw, do not get scanned for 'illegal wares'). Again, this makes no sense. :roll:

My understanding of the VIG/RIP economy is that Food Rations are only illegal to transport by anyone but the VIG, but are not illegal to own. Tell me that's not true.
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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Imperial Good » Thu, 19. May 22, 21:25

Nanook wrote:
Thu, 19. May 22, 18:35
My understanding of the VIG/RIP economy is that Food Rations are only illegal to transport by anyone but the VIG, but are not illegal to own. Tell me that's not true.
Did getting to 20 reputation solve the issue? If so then yes. If not then it must be the bug.

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Re: VIG Scanning Stations for Illegal Wares ??

Post by Nanook » Thu, 19. May 22, 22:10

I'm not yet at rep 20 with VIG. But my point is that if it's supposed to be this way, it's just plain :thumb_down: . It should be allowed for VIG to sell Food Rations to my stations without them being flagged as illegal. After all, that's how the local economy works. Having it otherwise tells me that the devs just didn't bother changing the code to make it work that way, but instead went with the default for the other illegal wares. That makes no sense to me. :?
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