[XT] Any way to make the pirates less active?

[Mighty Midget]

So here's the situation:

After doing the Perseus mission, and getting my own Orca, I have set up factories across the Universe. I also have nav sats in every non-enemy sector. These are telling me that at any given time, there are at all times massive pirate strike forces heading for the sectors in which I have my factories and sure enough, some time later I get the first warning that one of my factories/ships is under attack. Here is where things go haywire: Periodically, every sector with my factory is invaded and I end up with 10-20 attacks happening 1-2 minutes apart. The entire gameplay is now a never ending intercept/defence mission jumping from sector to sector defending my assets. I have fighters on a search and destroy misson in 3 key sectors and they are well busy for about an hour at the time before a break.

Is this pirate behaviour normal? Seems a bit over the top/over cooked to me. Is there a way the player can influence pirate activity to make them less determined to constantly assault my factories?

[Bill Huntington]

I only kill pirates when I have to. Then I do missions for them. I keep my pirate rating high so I don't have much trouble with them. There are missions where you have to kill them. I'll try to have the sector forces do it instead of me. If I must I'll ram them to finish them. There's less rep loss.

Check the pirate ID number. Regular pirate id begins with 'I'. There's missions where it isn't 'I'. You can kill those no problem. They don't count against pirate rep.

The Duke is a pirate and killing his ships counts against the pirate rating.

Usually pilots in your situations have to start over and apply the above lessons. You can try to recover with pirate missions. But you only get offered the worst missions when you already have a bad rating.

Good luck!

[Timsup2nothin]

The alternative to recovering pirate rep is to set up defenses for your factories to hold off pirate attacks without you having to be involved. Unfortunately, those defense forces will be destroying pirates and making your rep worse, which puts you on a treadmill of increasing your defenses to match their increasing investments in your destruction.

The good news, part one: eventually your reputation will bottom out, and they will stop increasing the size of their attacks.

The good news, part two: pirate attacks are easier to fend off than attacks by a major race.

[Mighty Midget]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'm not entirely sure how pirate rep works since the only rep I can monitor in the game is for the main species bar the Xenons. No pirate rep to be found that I'm aware of. Also, the Duke? I have played X:Tension on and off for years but never found anyone named the Duke, nor any ship by that name. Sure that is in X:Tension and not one of the later X games? Same with missions for the pirates. I trade with them having 2 destilleries and a space weed factory but never did any station or ship offer me any mission. On the contrary, the only reply the ships ever gave my calls was me to bugger off stop pestering them and the stations never even wished me welcome.

[RAVEN.myst]

Yes, the above comments seem to perhaps be overlooking that you specified [XT], and certainly apply to the later games (though some of it *will* also apply to the earlier ones.)

Regarding pirate reputation and how it works: it's pretty similar to other races' (in X3TC/AP there are some subtle differences, but I don't know whether those also apply looking back - I played little XT, a long time ago, basically just as part of a complete playthrough of all X from start to date - I never played it thoroughly, though, so I think I can add that to my to-play list... at some point.) The main difference is that you can't see the rep listed in your pilot info - your only clue really is how they appear to you (neutral/hostile), and how they act toward you.

The Duke mentioned upthread may be only from X3R or X3TC onward - I don't recall any presence/assets even in X2.

Regarding missions: as of X3TC onward, missions are offered via direct comm, but in X3R and X2 they were obtained by docking at a station and perusing its bulletin board - my guess is that it works the same in XT, unless XT predates even the BBS (bulletin board service.)

[Mighty Midget]

Thanks heaps. It explains a few things. As for the bulletine board, last time I saw that was in Frontier First Encounter (which I recently re-obtained to relive the game I played the most over the longest period of time in my gaming resyme). No such thing in XT.

EDIT: As for pirates in general, other than their uber aggression: I have 2 distilleries, one in Aladna Hill, which can't produce fast enough to meet the demands, and one in Hila's Joy, which cater for the only pirate base right next door. It sells whenever the pirates are out of booze. The weed plant however is strange. In Bala Gi's Joy, I can't attract customers at all even at minimum price so one of the station's Mambas has to run over to the nearest pirate base for manual selling. I have no clue why that is.

[Mighty Midget]

I'll take it then that there isn't anything to do but to really start a new game. That is unfortunate. I have no idea what triggered it and the idea of spending weeks in real life on something that could very well end up the same way, does not really appeal to me.

[RAVEN.myst]

Unfortunately, given that X:T is the title in the series that I'm least familiar with (by a serious margin!), I can't give you a definitive answer either way - for all I know, there's some way to repair relations (be it quick and easy or long and laborious), but I don't remember enough specifics of this particular title.