What's up with pirates?

[Thrake]

I've been trying to buddy up with the local rascals with mitigated success. Lately they offered me a defend the station mission for a rehabilitation factory in a pirate sector. It spawned argon ships. After a bit of ramming spree, I found out that the pirate base that was next to the rehab station turned red. Why? Are pirates supposed to object to blowing up argons in their space? Or is it just un-piratey to protect defensless scums? Should only the strong survive? But then I did a very piratey act by ramming the weak... Or maybe the pirate station just had a spout of villainy

Since I'm at it, another thing that got me confused: does anyone gets angry at me for blowing up things in unknown sectors besides the pilot's family (provided they get to know what happened in an unknwon sector!)?

[RAVEN.myst]

Did you happen to hit a gate with a stray shot? That turns pirate bases red pretty much instantly, with a "You were warned - pirate ships will hunt you down like vermin" message.

[Thrake]

I played without sound and while I should not have hitted it, it's likely that turrets shot it as we fought near the gate. Stupid turrets, it's the AI getting mad because of being shot by itself!

Thanks!

[RAVEN.myst]

No problem. I recently had the same issue twice in quick succession, at the same damn gate, while smacking Xenon in SPG. What made it twice as annoying is the fact that in this particular game, I'm quite actively dealing in weed and booze, so pirate bases have (or at least, at that point had) some significance for me... And yes, it was my turrets, too.

[Thrake]

There's another thing bugging me with pirates. I'm friendly with pretty much every pirate station/base and I commonly do missions for them, but when I come to Malstrom/Mercenarie's rift and the surroundings, it's all red and filled with M6/M7/capitals all going after me. I can't even soft talk them into turning blue as they don't want to talk to me. There are a couple blue ships but it's fighters riff-raff, and two friendly pirate bases there, but I'm not sure if it's because I hacked it or not. Either way it's super hot trying to do missions there because I must not kill anybody to be in their good graces but even my Akurei has a hard time fleeing in comm range to get missions.

I'm not even sure that would fix it, I had another pirate system like that, with a hostile carrack and many missions after almost all ships were still hostile (I could only do it because the carrack was down to maybe 20% hull so not too hard to dodge ). Then the boron military came in and cleaned the sector, even the station I built for the pirates

So, why are they all still hostile? In other sectors, there's only the occasional fighter patrol that I safely ignore as they can't lower my shields. That's with my cautiously staying away from missions that involve killing stuff as it commonly involves pirates.

[RAVEN.myst]

There seem to be several pirate "sub-factions", based on location. The ones based in the area in question I also usually find to be the most intractable. Here are a couple of things to try, depending on which game you're playing:

X3TC: In this game, a freight scan seems to be the pirate equivalent of a friendly "howdy!" - if they are on the verge of being friendly, this will make it happen. The tricky parts are: you need to get close enough for the scan (4 clicks), and then you have to get clear for a bit, as they make up their minds in a little while (I can't say for sure, but should be less than 15-20 secs). Also, while it may happen (I forget now whether this applies) that befriending a leader will also apply to his/her followers, the rest of the time you may well have to do each one individually (of course, it gets progressively easier as you succeed, since you gradually decrease the number of hostiles you need to dodge during your overtures.) If this method fails, it means you're not close enough to civil terms with the pirate/s in question, and more schmoozing is still required.

X3AP: In this game, there is a faster and simpler method (I don't think the X3TC method applies anymore, either.) Drop a satellite in one of the sectors in question, jump out, and quickly look into that sector (the "quickly" is to do so before any nasties pop your sat) - any pirates that are on the fence about whether or not to like you, will now flip to neutral. If they don't, it means you still need to butter them up some more. One exception: the OWP in Mercenary's Rift appears to be immune to this method, and can be a persistent thorn in the side.


Now, it's up to you whether the above tricks are to be considered "exploits". Personally, I like the X3TC system and wish it had been carried over - it simulates a "secret handshake", so to speak, in my opinion.

[Timsup2nothin]

I find that the biggest boost to pirate rep isn't doing missions for pirate stations, it is doing missions for pirates that are out and about. For that particularly aggressive gang, check the trading stations in the connected group of Teladi sectors. Pirates are identifiable by their avatars (there's a rogue's gallery around here somewhere, but a simple rule of thumb that works in most cases is that they mostly wear bandoliers full of ammunition, and mostly no one else does) and they tend to want rapid deliveries of goods, sometimes food and often illegal goods.

Have stock ready, find a desperate pirate, make the delivery, and you get a big boost in rep. They also pay really good prices, though a lot of times they want smallish amounts that make the total profit insignificant.

Once I get them settled down I usually set up regular booze/weed delivery services to their stations. It seems to provide a steady drip of good fellowship that maintains my security.

[Thrake]

Thanks for the tips. Yeah, I never could get the orbital platforms to be friendly. It got cleaned in one sector by the AI, and I guess when I get friendly enough I can ram the one in mercenary's rift. It being tied to sub-factions would make sense, though I kept purposefully a non hacked pirate station in LooManckStrat's Legacy to check my local standing and even after many missions it is still red. But maybe I had them very angry, I have to say that I had my share of pirate assassination missions early on to get things going, maybe it tanked my rep with a sub-faction more than the others.

If it's not a dead hope, I'll keep trying, I just saw a pirate capital ship there that wasn't hostile for the first time, that made my day

Can the PHQ be destroyed? I kept it loaded in my TL, and was wondering where to set it up. I want to turn officially to piracy soon and I was wondering where to set it up. If it can't be destroyed, it won't matter much and I can try to setup a fleet to defend it, otherwise I guess I'll have to stick to Yaki core or deep in Gaian star.

[Nanook]

Yes, the PHQ can be destroyed. The only stations that are invulnerable in the game are those associated with plot missions, and then only until it's no longer needed for that plot**.

**Sometimes the invulnerability flag gets stuck in the 'on' position and that station remains invulnerable for the whole game.

[Thrake]

Do pirate heavens respawn?

Do you have good tricks to locate pirate stations?

Mine are to check their missions (passenger transport usually go to another pirate station so I always check the system where it leads). Of course the follow the smuggler mission also works but it's much longer and no guarantee I don't know the station so I pass these.

I also suspect there's stations around when I find a couple of pirate fighters in a system, though it's not perfect because they can cross one or two gates, they like having their stations sometimes even outside of zoomed-out map so super boring to find and some sectors do seem to be patrolled even when they are empty.

I thought lone freighters in empty systems (especially dead-end ones) meant pirate station too but had no success even with auto-mapping.

[RAVEN.myst]

[Thrake]

[Timsup2nothin]

[RAVEN.myst]

"Remote", Tim? Now there's an understatement if ever I saw one!

Personally, I think that the Bonus Pack contains essentials that were developed afterward/externally once the subtle emergent dynamics of the game... ermm... emerged... Also, once holes were identified. I do wish that the updated CAG and CLS scripts were made non-*** modified ***, as then I'd gladly use them (hell, Terran development would become considerably less traumatic! Then again, the divided territory does present unique challenges. I see Terran rather as beginner-friendly fight-wise, but advanced in terms of economic play.)

I also don't see myself playing without CLS (except, rarely, in a pure-Terran, fight-biased playthrough), and certainly not without CAG. Other must-have elements for me are the missile defense mosquito, the turrets on/off hotkey (X3AP only), dockware manager, and the turbo booster. (There's a few more that are subtle but also important, they slip my mind at the moment.)

A nice-to-have for me, lately, is SEWN (unless it's in the base game; X3AP only), and it's likely to become another highly used feature.

Hephaestus construction is a nice option that I almost never use, but like to have available when I'm really lazy or on the extremely rare occasions when I build a large complex that I find impractical to hand-craft.

Trade Command Software Mk.3 I don't use. Ever. At all. I think that's about the only Bonus Pack item I don't use. All in all, I consider the BP an essential toolbox.

[Nanook]