Why not capture the escape pods ?

[jmrc]

I suppose this has been requested a thousand times, but I'll add another one: why isn't possible for capital ships to capture escape pods and put the survivors in the brig? It would then be possible to get missions from them, recruit them, or free them for a price. It's not a big deal, but would be nice for immersion.

[Imperial Good]

Prisoners do exist and are found on some NPC ships. I wonder if this is a case of a concept that either did not work or that there just is not enough time to finish.

[dtpsprt]

Ahhhh... good old X Universe... with a "Cargo Life Support Sustem"(!!!).

1) Take on passengers on a mission, loose the delivery time limit, dock on a Pirate Base, convert them to slaves and sell them to make some of the money you lost back!!!
2) Buy a second hand ship on the fly. Scoop up the leaving seller. Rinse and repeat as above!!!
3) Make a pilot bail. Scoop the ejected pilot into your ship then claim their ship. Sell the ship and sell the pilot as above!!!

These mechanics were not transferred in X Rebirth and/or X4. Either the engine has problem supporting them or it was an Egosoft decision. Or, simply, morality of a different age. I grew up in a world that violence was equal to sex when deciding on film X rating. Today violent scenes are shown to 5 year olds while someone has to be over 18 (or 21!!!) to watch anything more than a kiss. Mass school shootings and religious fanatics strapping bombs and going boom in street markets and other faith temples were a non issue though...

[jmrc]

I understand that Egosoft stayed away from anything that might be related to "slave trade" but the mechanics should not be used as such: they would not be wares to be traded.
The ideia is simply to let the player decide to make use of the escape pods or to let them go.

Btw, the prisoners in NPC ships might be used in "rescue the prisoner" missions, where the ship has to be boarded to release him, but I never got any like that (aside from the storyline in the SV dlc).
What a waste if it's not possible to do that.

[dtpsprt]

I understand that Egosoft stayed away from anything that might be related to "slave trade" but the mechanics should not be used as such: they would not be wares to be traded.
The ideia is simply to let the player decide to make use of the escape pods or to let them go.

Btw, the prisoners in NPC ships might be used in "rescue the prisoner" missions, where the ship has to be boarded to release him, but I never got any like that (aside from the storyline in the SV dlc).
What a waste if it's not possible to do that.

If the most usual "suspects" of escape pods (SCA/TEM/Yaki) were not reputation locked they could be used to take back and (re)gain reputation. Unfortunately the "diplomacy" part of X4 is severely lacking (see leads on diplomacy).

As for the "Rescue the prisoners" what can I say... Many times I think that X4 is a game of missed opportunity, most possibly by lack of devs to tackle all aspects (afterall Egosoft is an "indie" company).

[Nanook]

Ahhhh... good old X Universe... with a "Cargo Life Support Sustem"(!!!).

1) Take on passengers on a mission, loose the delivery time limit, dock on a Pirate Base, convert them to slaves and sell them to make some of the money you lost back!!!
2) Buy a second hand ship on the fly. Scoop up the leaving seller. Rinse and repeat as above!!!
3) Make a pilot bail. Scoop the ejected pilot into your ship then claim their ship. Sell the ship and sell the pilot as above!!!...

You forgot one:

4) Make a transport pilot bail. Deliver the passengers to their 'destination' for a fee.

Yes, that was in X3, as well.

[NightmareNight91]

I miss selling my enemies into slavery aboard pirate bases. Was good fun in x3

[Scoob]

How about an option to put chips in their heads (pirate base) and turn them into Marines? It seems there's somewhat darker (but fun) gameplay to be had here. Embrace that Pirate life even further.

[Socratatus]

You should be able to capture escape pods. And if it's because "We don't want slavery!" then that's really stupid. Please don't put ideology into an open world game where it's the UNIVERSE and anything can happen. It's bad enough that brothels don't exist in a universe where any rule might go from one planet to another.

It should be down to the Player whether he captures a capsule, frees the captured or enslaves and sells the captured. He should only suffer for it if he goes into a system that makes it illegal or via his own conscience. But I get it, these days every company wants to virtue signal how 'good' they are even in a game.

So many worlds- all grey.

[Alan Phipps]

"brothels don't exist in a universe where .."

Oh, I don't know.

[LameFox]

What is this about slavery? They've had it before, I doubt suddenly they decided it's not acceptable in fiction.

Remember that this game released in such a state that you could not even make shipyards. Minor features like prisoners and escape pods that aren't very fleshed out don't need any fancy explanation...

[flywlyx]

I understand that Egosoft stayed away from anything that might be related to "slave trade" but the mechanics should not be used as such: they would not be wares to be traded.

For now, players are slaughtering all the crews on the boarded ship, I am not sure if this is a more humane solution

[Lord Dakier]

I doubt it's anything to do with 'wokeism' surrounding slavery. After all, you have the ability to increase or decrease slavery in the Split plot, even if it doesn't make much sense that CUB would want to, given it'd piss off their main backers more. In any case slavery in science fiction should be given a free pass. Stellaris is great to bring out your inner tyrant.

[Duncaroos]

If it's VIG I shoot them down. They're scum and vile.

Anyone else I let live. These VIG assholes killed my civilian miners....one of them destroyed my personal corvette. Later, after I built a new corvette (early game so had to drop $4mil), I boarded this same destroyer that did it and renamed it "Vengeance". Now Vengeance is the commander to my boarding fleet solely for VIG