[answered]Killing Pirates

[Mailo]

I'm pretty much ready to throw the towel on this, I spent about 4 (real-time) hours on this mission so far, and got two pirate kills (the only M5 and M4 I've seen so far).

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Both the north and west Paranid sector have only pirate M3s in them that kill all traffic, but don't get killed in return, the southern and eastern Paranid are pirate-free since quite some time, and I have not seen a single kill-mission against pirates. Unfortunately all M3 so far have had guns in their rear turret, my Discoverer fighting skills are not up to the task, and the M4 I managed to buy off some guy is unarmed and unshielded, and neither guns nor shields are available anywhere.

[Hwitvlf]

The pirates that I defeated were from factory protection missions. Since they are scaled to your combat rank and are focused on the factory, they're usually easier than the roaming squads with M3s which attack in unison. If you pass back and forth through a gate, several mission usually spawn as you enter the sector. It shouldn't take too long to find a protect-factory mission. I don't recall if there were missiles available for your ship, but they could help too.

[Klord]

I'm pretty much ready to throw the towel on this, I spent about 4 (real-time) hours on this mission so far, and got two pirate kills (the only M5 and M4 I've seen so far).

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Both the north and west Paranid sector have only pirate M3s in them that kill all traffic, but don't get killed in return, the southern and eastern Paranid are pirate-free since quite some time, and I have not seen a single kill-mission against pirates. Unfortunately all M3 so far have had guns in their rear turret, my Discoverer fighting skills are not up to the task, and the M4 I managed to buy off some guy is unarmed and unshielded, and neither guns nor shields are available anywhere.

You know, you can pretty much steal guns and other goods from ships. Theres that tool you get from the plot. Its a fast way to get your hands on some early game weapons. Try it on big, slow capital ships. Much easier and profitsssssss.

[Mailo]

You know, you can pretty much steal guns and other goods from ships. Theres that tool you get from the plot. Its a fast way to get your hands on some early game weapons. Try it on big, slow capital ships. Much easier and profitsssssss.

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Unfortunately, access to that tool is only granted after you manage the pirate kills.

I did finally get my 5th kill after another 2.5 hours ... the ~30th combat mission was a defense vs. pirates one.
This was easily the most frustrated I've been in X3 after spending over a hundred hours in each of the X3 iterations, since basically all I could do was SETA fly between sectors, wait for NPCs to kill other NPCs (which they didn't) and check any combat missions if they were defense vs. pirates.
Other missions or trading were pointless, as there were no ships, guns, shields or missiles available to buy. Exploring was also out, as I already explored the ~12 available sectors, and even fighting was counter-productive, as this would have raised my rank, potentially making a defense vs. pirates mission impossible when I finally get one.
Take all that out of X3, what is left?

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Maybe the script spawning the pirates could be tweaked a bit, e.g. spawn new M4/M5 even if there are still M3s left? That simple change would defuse the whole problem.

[X2-Illuminatus]

Do you still have your savegame from before finishing that mission?

[Klord]

Wait a minuet, I just realized you are talking about main plot mission objective to kill some pirates. As I remember, in my case, they were spread throughout Holy Vision sectors. Did you check all the sectors, every knock and corner? I remember having more pirate ships than I needed to kill.

[Mailo]

Do you still have your savegame from before finishing that mission?

I'll check, but probably not, I think I only used autosave during that time, and have landed at more than three stations afterwards.
Edit: As I thought, no luck, sorry.

Wait a minuet, I just realized you are talking about main plot mission objective to kill some pirates. As I remember, in my case, they were spread throughout Holy Vision sectors. Did you check all the sectors, every knock and corner? I remember having more pirate ships than I needed to kill.

Yes, that is the mission I was talking about, which was why I was so frustrated, as it completely blocked me from advancing.
I spent those 6+ hours (real time, not ingame) sector hopping through all Holy Vision sectors and checking missions. During that time, I found one M5 in Holy Vision epsilon (kill 1), a group of 3 M3, 1M4 and 1M5 in Holy Vision gamma (killed the M4 (kill 2), the M5 got taken out by NPCs during that), 2 M3s in Holy Vision beta, and nothing in Holy Vision zeta nor in Holy Vision alpha.

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From time to time I also checked the pirate base in The Void alpha, no luck there either.

Kill 3+4 were from the one pirate base defense mission I found in Holy Vision epsilon, and the final kill was one of the M3s in Holy Vision gamma that got knocked down to 2% hull by NPCs and had no back turret. Still took some hugging a station to survive the missile onslaught. By that time it was either that or quit playing altogether though.
I think I remember seeing a group of pirate ships in zeta before I got the mission to kill pirates, they were gone by the time I had the mission though.

[lampacz]

after 5 hours i deleted game - waiting to spawn M5/M4

Holy Vision zeta has pirate M3 - unable to kill (turret), i've 4 pirate kills (so i need last one)

mostly of game time i was traveling in circle: epsilon - delta - zeta - gamma - delta - beta - alpha (nothing found, no spawn)

[Ramdat]

after 5 hours i deleted game - waiting to spawn M5/M4

Holy Vision zeta has pirate M3 - unable to kill (turret), i've 4 pirate kills (so i need last one)

mostly of game time i was traveling in circle: epsilon - delta - zeta - gamma - delta - beta - alpha (nothing found, no spawn)

Accept a station defense mission with pirates as the enemy to spawn pirates.

[lampacz]

no pirate misson - only xenon