Delivery Ship and bad rep

This forum is the ideal place for all discussion relating to X4. You will also find additional information from developers here.

Moderator: Moderators for English X Forum

Post Reply
jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 5. May 21, 11:21

NPC has "Delivery Ships". Usually S-sized. Very often their apparent faction and shiptype do not "match". Say, PIO Balaur.

Once I did chase such ship across the Galaxy as it had destination if far away Station. It might have had contraband.


Now something different. Load game. Short time after: "You have lost -3 rep with PIO"? :? I don't interact with PIO. I'm neutral (rep 0). What? Where? How?

Reload. I don't have active assets, but couple. Told them to hold fire. Same rep loss.
Reload. Tried to see whether any Lasertower of mine has PIO near it. No. Same rep loss.
Reload, all the above and dash through Gate to next sector. No rep loss.

The save was in The Void. I did dash to Second Contact. I had Rattlesnake there. Almost next to me flew a "TER Delivery Ship Frog".
I have -30 with TER. Very red. I did chase this ship to scan it. It did reveal to be PIO.

The only logical explanation for the rep loss was thus that when this TER popped into Second Contact next to Rattler, OOS, the Rattler did kill the enemy and since the TER was just a disguise the PIO was upset.


It does look like the "Delivery Ships" can be of any faction and disguise as any faction. Furthermore, they do travel far. Player assets with license to kill can encounter them anywhere, react, and cause issues with the real owners. Sudden, unexplained, and prone to escalation incidents. :twisted:
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Raptor34
Posts: 2475
Joined: Sat, 12. Jun 10, 04:43
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 5. May 21, 11:29

Edit: Nvm, I missed that you were red to TER and its not pirates. That's fairly interesting. Does that mean that factions might have these small blockade runners?
Last edited by Raptor34 on Wed, 5. May 21, 11:54, edited 1 time in total.

Waltz99
Posts: 171
Joined: Thu, 6. Dec 18, 23:03
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by Waltz99 » Wed, 5. May 21, 11:38

Sounds a lot like SCA ships.
They can disguise to any faction except yours.
You can easily find out by scanning these ships.

I wouldn't bother much with such low rep los.
incase the rep did not chance in global reputation then its only temporary so it will go back to normal. else just kill 3 criminal drones to get back to neutral

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 5. May 21, 11:54

Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:29
How are you auto killing them when you need to scan to turn them red?
They were disguised as TER. TER is bright red.

When scanned, they turned into PIO. PIO is blue.
Waltz99 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:38
Sounds a lot like SCA ships.
They can disguise to any faction except yours.
SCA (and FAF) usually disguise as "natives". These hoisted TER colours in ANT space. Not very smart?

The rep loss was not an issue. Not knowing why there is a rep loss is an issue.
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Raptor34
Posts: 2475
Joined: Sat, 12. Jun 10, 04:43
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 5. May 21, 11:56

jlehtone wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:54
Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:29
How are you auto killing them when you need to scan to turn them red?
They were disguised as TER. TER is bright red.

When scanned, they turned into PIO. PIO is blue.
Waltz99 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:38
Sounds a lot like SCA ships.
They can disguise to any faction except yours.
SCA (and FAF) usually disguise as "natives". These hoisted TER colours in ANT space. Not very smart?

The rep loss was not an issue. Not knowing why there is a rep loss is an issue.
Check my edit, I missed it the first time.
But yeah, the log needs to give way more info for almost everything.
The only thing currently they give appropriate info for is sales transactions. Which I don't care about anyway. Like why do I need to know my SPP sold ECells?

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 5. May 21, 13:03

Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:56
why do I need to know my SPP sold ECells?
Some station owners care about such things. Mostly about "no sales" and "how much".

There is a balance on how much to log. You can't fill every place with logs. Still,

Reputation lost

is minimal compared to

Reputation lost because your Fleet XYZ demolished PIO SY in Segaris.
Commander's reason: "I did not like the way they did not look at me."
Do you want to promote her immediately?
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Raptor34
Posts: 2475
Joined: Sat, 12. Jun 10, 04:43
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by Raptor34 » Wed, 5. May 21, 14:00

jlehtone wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 13:03
Raptor34 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 11:56
why do I need to know my SPP sold ECells?
Some station owners care about such things. Mostly about "no sales" and "how much".

There is a balance on how much to log. You can't fill every place with logs. Still,

Reputation lost

is minimal compared to

Reputation lost because your Fleet XYZ demolished PIO SY in Segaris.
Commander's reason: "I did not like the way they did not look at me."
Do you want to promote her immediately?
But I generally know that by checking inventory of SPPs myself. But I think I see your point.
Rep loss for unauthorized kills/attacks and ship losses are too lacking.

chip56
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon, 13. Apr 20, 21:52

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by chip56 » Wed, 5. May 21, 14:02

Overall the logs tend to show incredible details about things which you almost never care about in that detail:
I can see every single logbox picked up and i can see every single police scan. Honestly i personally dont care about police scans unless its a ship with illegal wares/ inventory. I dont need thousands of confirmations that my ships are behaving like they should.

However in the case when its actually going to be a problem we tend to have almost no information:
"Temp rep lost. Unauthorized attack." Thats important because it can escalate into lost ships and even full out war. But do i get any information what ship did lead to the temp rep loss, in which sector and what exactly prompted that ship to fire in the first place? No. So my only hope is to pause the game and start looking for red ships/stations anywhere near my ships. So now i manage to find a red station of a faction i am at +25 rep and all my ships have "defensive" setting. I am OOS so it was clearly not Friendly fire. At this point i would need to save, pray i have a save from 5 minutes ago, load that and observe what happened 5 minutes ago. And then i might find out that for some reason a police vessel found illegal inventory on some other ship, that ship fired back, the station also turned hostile and latter fired on a trader of mine wanting to trade with that station and so the trader fired back and thats the one "Temp rep lost. Unauthorized attack." message. For those messages i really, really would wish to have more information: Which ship fired on which ship in which sector. Even better would be if it would tell me why my ship opened fire. Was it a wrong fire override that i set on that ship? Did it return fire? Was it friendly fire (if in sector)

User avatar
KextV8
Posts: 843
Joined: Wed, 13. Oct 10, 06:42
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by KextV8 » Wed, 5. May 21, 14:38

chip56 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 14:02
So now i manage to find a red station of a faction i am at +25 rep and all my ships have "defensive" setting. I am OOS so it was clearly not Friendly fire. At this point i would need to save, pray i have a save from 5 minutes ago, load that and observe what happened 5 minutes ago. And then i might find out that for some reason a police vessel found illegal inventory on some other ship, that ship fired back, the station also turned hostile and latter fired on a trader of mine wanting to trade with that station and so the trader fired back and thats the one in sector)
Change your global police order to escape. Theres no reason they should ever fire on police as long as its only fast ships that have illegal cargo. Theyll enter travel before their defensive turrets shoot back.

chip56
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon, 13. Apr 20, 21:52

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by chip56 » Wed, 5. May 21, 14:49

KextV8 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 14:38
chip56 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 14:02
So now i manage to find a red station of a faction i am at +25 rep and all my ships have "defensive" setting. I am OOS so it was clearly not Friendly fire. At this point i would need to save, pray i have a save from 5 minutes ago, load that and observe what happened 5 minutes ago. And then i might find out that for some reason a police vessel found illegal inventory on some other ship, that ship fired back, the station also turned hostile and latter fired on a trader of mine wanting to trade with that station and so the trader fired back and thats the one in sector)
Change your global police order to escape. Theres no reason they should ever fire on police as long as its only fast ships that have illegal cargo. Theyll enter travel before their defensive turrets shoot back.
That was not a specific case with which i have a problem (okay, i did have 1 case where i still dont know how i got one station hostile in one game but that pretty much resolved it self after a few minutes). it was just an example.
In my case it would actually be more often: "police decides to scan xenon defense force. Xenon defense force picked up an illegal inventory item. police goes gun crazy vs a x100 stronger fleet. Fleet shoots back and 5 minutes later i am at -20 rep and worse with the whole faction." .
That issue however "solved itself" by some "mysterious malfunction in the cargo bay" of some ships which were "unfortunatly" next to their admin modules. It was "really, really unfortunate" and "a stroke of bad luck" that they were carrying 50 mines each at that moment. That the sector control reverted to the only working admin module which was by "a stroke of random chance" mine was "in no way my intention". ;)

The worst case where i would have needed more information was in a previous game where i did load the wrong building plan for a station and build an illegal ware production module there. However that station never had any traders only miners so it took me forever to find out why i was losing rep for illegal wares. After all i had no traders in their sectors and my miners didnt carry any inventory whenever i checked them. Only much, much latter i found out that the police ships were scanning the station itself.

User avatar
grapedog
Posts: 2398
Joined: Sat, 21. Feb 04, 20:17
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by grapedog » Wed, 5. May 21, 16:21

Sounds like the police didn't do enough due dilligence if you had a bunch of faulty ships, loaded with mines, near their bases.

chip56
Posts: 500
Joined: Mon, 13. Apr 20, 21:52

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by chip56 » Wed, 5. May 21, 16:55

grapedog wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 16:21
Sounds like the police didn't do enough due dilligence if you had a bunch of faulty ships, loaded with mines, near their bases.
Considering that they all suicded against my fleet thats no surprise that there was no police left near the station. However my lawyer reminded me that i should point out here that this was a "unfortunate accident" and by no means planned and that safety improvements have been implemented to ensure that no such accidents will happen again in this sector.

jlehtone
Posts: 21801
Joined: Sat, 23. Apr 05, 21:42
x4

Re: Delivery Ship and bad rep

Post by jlehtone » Wed, 5. May 21, 18:15

chip56 wrote:
Wed, 5. May 21, 14:02
my only hope is to pause the game and start looking for red ships/stations anywhere near my ships.

At this point i would need to save, pray i have a save from 5 minutes ago, load that and observe what happened 5 minutes ago.
In my OP case I was "lucky" as I had a save under a minute ago, but "unlucky" because there was no "Temporary" in the announcement and the stated reason "unauthorized kill" already told that there is no red ship after the incident. Furthermore, there was no sane reason to see red PIO before either.


I would be thrilled, if killing engine from FAF Rattler that is disguised as MIN would affect MIN reputation. Alas, these pretenders (FAF, SCA, Delivery) take everything very personally. One does not simply break character, okay?
Goner Pancake Protector X
Insanity included at no extra charge.
There is no Box. I am the sand.

Post Reply

Return to “X4: Foundations”