Please Remove Encounters Mechanism

[Crux_72]

Just like your game volume setting, Can we have a red encounter setting we set.

This would then please us all, as we can decide ourselves how often these encounters happen.

There are times you want to go out for a good scrap, then there are times you want to be left alone.
Having this encounter setting would be awesome.

I would welcome that too. And yes, I have to say that, like the OP, I also disabled the encounters the very moment I discovered the mod.

[M1A1 Carbine]

I have just started playing this after a short brake and i am still learning how to play and i must say the devs have F*****ed this game up by doing this i wont be playing it unless they remove it.
Gong back to Elite Dangerous.

[Crux_72]

I have just started playing this after a short brake and i am still learning how to play and i must say the devs have F*****ed this game up by doing this i wont be playing it unless they remove it.
Gong back to Elite Dangerous.

Why don't you use the mod to get rid of this? It works fine and makes the game much more enjoyable (for me).

[Falcrack]

I have just started playing this after a short brake and i am still learning how to play and i must say the devs have F*****ed this game up by doing this i wont be playing it unless they remove it.
Gong back to Elite Dangerous.

Why don't you use the mod to get rid of this? It works fine and makes the game much more enjoyable (for me).

+1, mods could help you out a ton.
This is a good game. It has some quirks, but overall quite solid.

[Shehriazad]

Yea I never quite liked it.


Instead give some ships a REASON to be there...for a "random encounter" system that isn't based on teleporting the same 3 ships in your face every other minute.


In the end all you need to do is to make up some "jobs"...and that's what this game is missing. JOBS aside from mining, trading and patrolling. If you create more jobs with pilots using appropriate ships for it, it suddenly becomes a whole lot more interesting.


Here some examples:

Deep Space Scientists:-> Going around in S class scouting ships, scanning and probing stuff

Smuggler Convoys: -> Using the "wormholes" to try and get goods from A to B...or at least have them avoid the highways. Maybe even have them meet traders that pick up the illegal goods in the middle of nowhere.

Secret Military Forces:-> Using the new Resupply ships, they could even be in enemy sectors...but just far enough to stay out of sector range. They would be a great place to add some special intel missions that you can only receive there.

Space Racers:-> Off the "grid" those guys will have violent races that the player can even partake in for prize and fame. (Im pretty sure some people will remember the X3 races that existed)

Xenon/Kha'ak Rogue base:-> COMPACT shipyards that are hidden away and are "self sufficient" (hidden inside an off-border asteroid belt) that can only produce S-Ships that are WAY out of scanner range, sending small waves of strike forces to weaken a system. Destroying one would cause the Xenon/Kha'ak to secretly set up one of those SMALL bases somewhere else.

Scavengers:-> Scavenging stuff...duh. Those could even get into fights with other scavengers over lockboxes and other space junk with the player having the free choice of who to help, to ignore it or to yoink it from under their noses.

Temporary "Venture Singularities":-> A tie in that could be enjoyed completely offline with optional on-line properties. Just imagine a trans dimensional wormhole that pops up every once in a while. Larger amounts of NPC traders, pirates and other stuff could pop out and disappear into that place. With Venture mode on a large amount of player ships could slip through this...maybe even enabling the planned "assault" ventures from THERE to give players a chance to tackle such ships head-on and try to yeet them out of your universe before they can do any real damage.



Obviously that's just random ideas...but in the end if you create more jobs, the universe will be more alive and ALSO allow the devs to turn off this shoddy feature. In general the random encounters just feel like something that was hastily plugged in to fix the hole that is the lack of NPC jobs.

[Axeface]

Firstly, there was talk of their being few reasons to find ships in the middle of nowhere. I dont really agree with this. Gameplay wise there isnt but lore-wise there are many.
I think encounters should be mostly finding L or XL ships out in deep space going about their business, disabled or under attack L or XL ships that need help, or large Kha'ak groups. You could also, very rarely, spawn (yes spawn) an abandoned ship.

My suggestions:-

1. Add some missions that have a small chance to appear on ships in deep space.
2. Reduce the probability of encounters happening at all by 90-95%
3. Remove the 2 fighters encounter or make it VERY unlikely (it makes little sense for fighters to be in the middle of nowhere, and im also tired of seeing this one).
4. Increase the probability of finding L or XL civilian ships under attack by many Khaak or Xenon.
5. Increase the probability of finding larger Kha'ak groups, these CAN actually be spawns (PLEASE add Kha'ak capitals, flesh them out).

Possible missions:-
1. Disabled ship crew need transport to nearest station
2. Disabled ship crew need specific component to fix ship
3. Ship under attack needs protection from attackers
4. Science/exploration vessel needs food delivery
5. Specific NPC wants transport off ship and to a specific location because of personal emergency.


One last thing, someone suggested linking the long range scanner and encounters - this could be really cool for some encounters, especially abandoned ships.... basically, the encounter only actually fires if the player is actively scanning the area, they get a blip 150km away, and then the abandoned ship spawns.

[Nort The Fragrent]

This thread clearly indicates the need for better outer rim action.
We all want something different, but not what we have got.
I want to find cool stuff, unique ships to claim. I damaged ship that when you get it the parts it needs you get a unique upgrade as a reward.

Or your ship get’s ensnared by some ancient net that takes some careful manoeuvring to escape from.

A fracture in space that snaps you unexpectedly into a new sector! Or pops you on the other side of the X virse.

A swarm of tiny ships that robs your ship off its weapons, and leaves you limping back home. With a screen you can hardly see through. Making you fly by navigating the chart.

An uba cab who has been lost for thousands of years, yet has survived.

Sputnik.

A big yellow Banana, Anything, There has been thousands of years of space junk. Where is it all?

Also ! Where have all the moons gone?

Don’t you think there should be More moons, with hidden stations on the opposite side. A gate to elsewhere! A Cloud of wet paint, come on ES, get imaginative.

Those red lost pirates are a joke. And mining ships where there is nothing to mine! If you can give us this plethora of space drivel, then you can give us big Banana. Least we would have a good laugh.

[Nort The Fragrent]

I went for a spin in Hewa’s Twin III, went out towards the green planet.
Exceeded 7200Km’s and collected an absolute flotilla of red devils behind me.
I then did a nice wide turn so as to keep them behind me. Now I am on my way back into Dodge. Not only have I got 12 Kahk after me, but I have collected a swarm of mining ships as well. We are all blating our way back as fast as we can , before the reds kill us.
Re set to go straight to the Defence dock, Yah thats right, 12 is too many to take on in my unarmed Pegasus. So it’s a mad dash to get docked before they come in for the kill. Wow! That was close, shields gone, hull’s ok. I leap out to see the Defence station go to town and snuff them all out.
Now it’s pop back into the diver seat to pick up all that stuff they left in those box’s. Ha, ha. An easy way to get those reds to open up.

But to be honest the place is swarming with them out there, No good for exploring!

[Ingr4m]

Suggestions:

Since it's about simulating roaming ships that do their own thing until the player arrives, there should be a greater variety of npc reactions and scenarios other than the "scanning cargo" situation. Right now most encounters feel like planned ambushes which, in this frequency, comes off as less realistic than just flying through empty space.

- Depending on the player's ship type, missile count, weapon type, etc., they might also try to flee instantly. It could be quite satisfying to be the hunter for a change.
- There could be a slight chance to encounter neutrals or neutrals under fire. A successful rescue might give a small reputation increase and the victim's "thank you" to make it worthwhile.

[CaptainX4]

You've missed the mark there, Kadatherion, sorry. First let's address the issue of why these encounters happen at all.

People have told us many times that they want "exploration" gameplay, but nobody is going to explore unless there is something to find. There is a limit to how much we can place manually, and people will find those "fixed" things fairly quickly, after which there is a significant danger of them having no reason to leave known areas of space ever again. This is a game that people play for hundreds of hours, and in order to keep people exploring, there has to be some reason for them to head out into the unknown. Reasons can be anything, including resources (be they mined or looted), missions, or just something to fight.

The simplest solution, of course, is just to spawn things (missions, ships, whatever) as we did in the past. The problem with that, as people have pointed out to us many times over the years, is that such spawns come from nowhere and go nowhere, which works contrary to our aim to have a "living, breathing universe". In particular, they have no effect on the economy, and the economy has no effect on them. This means that the spawned ships don't use resources and their loss means nothing to the factions they belong to. For the Kha'ak, this game mechanic actually makes sense, but for the other races and factions it is not so good. Using existing ships for such encounters, even if they have to be relocated, means that those ships and whatever you do to/with them have a real effect on the factions to which they belong.

Obviously it would be nicer if the ships were just flying around randomly rather than being moved to ensure an encounter, but this presents a very real practical problem with the size of the game universe. The chances of you encountering something "flying around randomly" in a space the size of the game universe would be so tiny that you would barely see anyone in hours of gameplay. This isn't just a theoretical analysis; we tried it and it didn't work out; all that empty space was, well, too empty! We also tried increasing the number of ships "flying around randomly" to make it more likely that you'd encounter them, but then we ran into the problem that there were simply too many ships overall. The sheer number of ships required to make a difference is too great for the universe simulation to handle, even with the simplifications we apply when the player isn't around.

I've little expectation that everyone will suddenly agree with the design decision having read the explanation, but LameFox is right that we're not just going to reverse it, because there are good reasons for it. Clearly the system of moving ships around to be near the player is not perfect, but it's as close as we can get given that we have to balance the desire to go out and explore with the the relative emptiness of space. However, that doesn't mean that this topic is entirely closed, as there is definitely more that could be done to improve things.

What's not up for discussion?

• Having nothing happen at all when you fly out into empty space, and just relying on random chance, would make exploration largely pointless, so we're not going to do that.
• Making it all optional does not solve the problem (for reasons I have explained in detail before) so that's not likely to happen either.
• Having things just spawn is possible, and will continue to happen for Kha'ak ships, for example, but not desirable in the majority of cases for the reasons set out above.

What points are very much worth discussing?

• What kinds of encounters could occur that would make exploration more varied and interesting?
• Have we got the frequency of such encounters right, and could we improve the locations and circumstances in which they do or don't happen?

this just shows very well how much you just ignore your customers with the excuse of "People have told us many times" while in reality we are telling you THIS since the very release of the game so so so so so SO MANY TIMES. you didnt point out a single reason against turning it optional but you just say its out of question because we wouldnt like it even the idea is funny. btw, people ask for the chance to turn it off not because an encounter system would be bad and we dont like the idea but because it IS currently rubbish and tbh we dont have the faith you can make it any close to be reasonably fun or interesting so asking for a tickbox to disable it is I think very reasonable

of course as you say there is a limit how much you can place manually but those are something to remember, like the ship graveyard in x3 with the Hyperion or the mamba you can find in the minefield, but these should be rare, exploration shouldnt be about flying around and hitting something or somebody every corner, it should be something worth LOOKING FOR AND SEARCH. if it just pops up in our face its not searching. a simple manually made system of clues and prizes, even without any mission (just have containers or data vaults sometimes popping coordinates with odd remarks to check /should be randomized/) sometimes finding nothing or just a new clue then run into other treasure hunters (both pirates and friends) etc, get containers dropped by them again giving randomized clues etc would make up a far better encounter system with some actual reason to do it.
if you want to go with a fully randomized system you still have to manually build the encounters and load them up at random points VERY rarely or they will be boring instead of interesting. in this case there should be a couple of different ideas:
-tradefleet caught by xenon/khaak/pirates who are asking for help (the only problem with this is that they will likely die before the player will have any chance helping them but this is down to your poorly balanced combat)
-minefield with abandoned ship (not in the center of the know system like now but somewhere far out)
-asteroidfield with wrecked ships either repairable or searchable or both
-pirate hideout
-pirate hideout attacked by a faction, both sides asking for your aid
-scouting xeonon/khaak
-asteroidfield with opportunist miners with protecting fleet
-asteroidfield with opportunist miners with protecting fleet under attack
etc etc etc, the options are endless but they have to be MADE or they will be crap
AND as long as the main gameflow is simulated, nobody, and I mean NOBODY would mind if these were spawned. just stop doing it in every few minutes. deep space is deep for a reason.

[Techedge]

this just shows very well how much you just ignore your customers with the excuse of "People have told us many times" while in reality we are telling you THIS since the very release of the game so so so so so SO MANY TIMES. you didnt point out a single reason against turning it optional but you just say its out of question because we wouldnt like it even the idea is funny. btw, people ask for the chance to turn it off not because an encounter system would be bad and we dont like the idea but because it IS currently rubbish and tbh we dont have the faith you can make it any close to be reasonably fun or interesting so asking for a tickbox to disable it is I think very reasonable

Didn't catch CBJ saying we wouldn't like it, just it is unlikely to happen . However I think he is referring to an old discussion on the "make it optional" attitude which, for a number of reasons, is highly unpractical (every "tick" option is a split of the testing universe and a doubling of its variables and outcomes; adding more and more "optional" options would make the game exponentially more complicated -nearly impossible to- debug, just for the sake of half the people -and exponentially less for any other option involved- who wants those options. The thread should be around and has been quoted in a recent discussion, but I don't remember which one.

AND as long as the main gameflow is simulated, nobody, and I mean NOBODY would mind if these were spawned. just stop doing it in every few minutes. deep space is deep for a reason.

I care, because I like consistency. Assuming "nobody" or "majority" without numbers is never, ever, good.

More on topic, I thoroughly agree with your, and other posters, proposals and I'm eager to see them applied, in some way or another.

[ezra-r]

agreed with the op, just remove it. No spawnings out of thin air, haven't we stressed that enough?

[CaptainX4]

this just shows very well how much you just ignore your customers with the excuse of "People have told us many times" while in reality we are telling you THIS since the very release of the game so so so so so SO MANY TIMES. you didnt point out a single reason against turning it optional but you just say its out of question because we wouldnt like it even the idea is funny. btw, people ask for the chance to turn it off not because an encounter system would be bad and we dont like the idea but because it IS currently rubbish and tbh we dont have the faith you can make it any close to be reasonably fun or interesting so asking for a tickbox to disable it is I think very reasonable

Didn't catch CBJ saying we wouldn't like it, just it is unlikely to happen . However I think he is referring to an old discussion on the "make it optional" attitude which, for a number of reasons, is highly unpractical (every "tick" option is a split of the testing universe and a doubling of its variables and outcomes; adding more and more "optional" options would make the game exponentially more complicated -nearly impossible to- debug, just for the sake of half the people -and exponentially less for any other option involved- who wants those options. The thread should be around and has been quoted in a recent discussion, but I don't remember which one.

no, it wont increase debugging, disabling features wont make it more complicated it makes LESS complicated...

AND as long as the main gameflow is simulated, nobody, and I mean NOBODY would mind if these were spawned. just stop doing it in every few minutes. deep space is deep for a reason.

I care, because I like consistency. Assuming "nobody" or "majority" without numbers is never, ever, good.

More on topic, I thoroughly agree with your, and other posters, proposals and I'm eager to see them applied, in some way or another.

because warping from random locations straight to the player is consistency? oh no, I have an other word for that

[Socratatus]

Can Egosoft please remove this mechanic from the game, or at least make it optional? It is the one thing that I hate the most about X4, where I am just cruising along and enemies are randomly warped to points along my path. Constantly interrupting the nice, chill music with the crap, frantic combat music. Killing me when I investigate data vaults. Giving me combat opportunities when I want none. Seriously, if I want combat opportunities, I know where to go.

There is a mod that disables this game mechanic, and I find the game 1000% more enjoyable with it. But I am trying to be a good little boy and play the vanilla version of the game right now, so that I can post bug reports for the 2.5 beta, and also have access to ventures. I cannot understate how much I hate this particular feature of X4.

As long as it`s optional, I`m ok with it. But I would never use it.

However, combat doesn`t happen when YOU want it to happen. That`s not how combat in a wild and untamed areas works. Just because its deep space don`t mean you won`t meet some adversity.

Some of you guys would kill any excitement in a game, then complain it`s too boring. I`ve seen it happen before with people who whine away any RNG in strategy games, including weather until they have a boring lifeless, predictable spreadsheet, killing the game.

[Techedge]

no, it wont increase debugging, disabling features wont make it more complicated it makes LESS complicated...

I'm sorry to disappoint you but making a feature optional (as you suggested) doubles the debugging because you have to test an entire game with the feature ON and another one with the feature OFF. You can't just assume switching off a feature won't have any impact without testing it. And making more things optional exponentially increases that. Please search for CBJ answer on the topic (as it contains other reasons other than debugging).

EDIT: found the post viewtopic.php?f=127&t=336329&start=30

Turning random encounters off entirely for everyone is another question, though, and I theoretically agree, but again I understand CBJ gave a no go on that too.

because warping from random locations straight to the player is consistency? oh no, I have an other word for that

I understand I'm not a native English speaker but I thought I was better at explaining myself.
I was trying to say 1) you cannot, and therefore should not, speak for everyone; 2) if the spawning system has to be kept, I prefer that ships are spawned with existing materials, because I was talking about consistency of the ingame universe, not of the single feature (of which, again, I could support the removal but that doesn't seem to be an option).

[MrFiction]

+1 for OP, encounters hurt playing as a (peaceful) merchant

[Nifhtyeq]

This thread clearly indicates the need for better outer rim action.
We all want something different, but not what we have got.
I want to find cool stuff, unique ships to claim. I damaged ship that when you get it the parts it needs you get a unique upgrade as a reward.

Or your ship get’s ensnared by some ancient net that takes some careful manoeuvring to escape from.

A fracture in space that snaps you unexpectedly into a new sector! Or pops you on the other side of the X virse.

A swarm of tiny ships that robs your ship off its weapons, and leaves you limping back home. With a screen you can hardly see through. Making you fly by navigating the chart.

An uba cab who has been lost for thousands of years, yet has survived.

Sputnik.

A big yellow Banana, Anything, There has been thousands of years of space junk. Where is it all?

Also ! Where have all the moons gone?

Don’t you think there should be More moons, with hidden stations on the opposite side. A gate to elsewhere! A Cloud of wet paint, come on ES, get imaginative.

Those red lost pirates are a joke. And mining ships where there is nothing to mine! If you can give us this plethora of space drivel, then you can give us big Banana. Least we would have a good laugh.

So basically you want star trek anomolies in x4. They are ways to add more depth to the simulation that aren't absurd.

[Nifhtyeq]

You've missed the mark there, Kadatherion, sorry. First let's address the issue of why these encounters happen at all.

People have told us many times that they want "exploration" gameplay, but nobody is going to explore unless there is something to find. There is a limit to how much we can place manually, and people will find those "fixed" things fairly quickly, after which there is a significant danger of them having no reason to leave known areas of space ever again. This is a game that people play for hundreds of hours, and in order to keep people exploring, there has to be some reason for them to head out into the unknown. Reasons can be anything, including resources (be they mined or looted), missions, or just something to fight.

The simplest solution, of course, is just to spawn things (missions, ships, whatever) as we did in the past. The problem with that, as people have pointed out to us many times over the years, is that such spawns come from nowhere and go nowhere, which works contrary to our aim to have a "living, breathing universe". In particular, they have no effect on the economy, and the economy has no effect on them. This means that the spawned ships don't use resources and their loss means nothing to the factions they belong to. For the Kha'ak, this game mechanic actually makes sense, but for the other races and factions it is not so good. Using existing ships for such encounters, even if they have to be relocated, means that those ships and whatever you do to/with them have a real effect on the factions to which they belong.

Obviously it would be nicer if the ships were just flying around randomly rather than being moved to ensure an encounter, but this presents a very real practical problem with the size of the game universe. The chances of you encountering something "flying around randomly" in a space the size of the game universe would be so tiny that you would barely see anyone in hours of gameplay. This isn't just a theoretical analysis; we tried it and it didn't work out; all that empty space was, well, too empty! We also tried increasing the number of ships "flying around randomly" to make it more likely that you'd encounter them, but then we ran into the problem that there were simply too many ships overall. The sheer number of ships required to make a difference is too great for the universe simulation to handle, even with the simplifications we apply when the player isn't around.

I've little expectation that everyone will suddenly agree with the design decision having read the explanation, but LameFox is right that we're not just going to reverse it, because there are good reasons for it. Clearly the system of moving ships around to be near the player is not perfect, but it's as close as we can get given that we have to balance the desire to go out and explore with the the relative emptiness of space. However, that doesn't mean that this topic is entirely closed, as there is definitely more that could be done to improve things.

What's not up for discussion?

• Having nothing happen at all when you fly out into empty space, and just relying on random chance, would make exploration largely pointless, so we're not going to do that.
• Making it all optional does not solve the problem (for reasons I have explained in detail before) so that's not likely to happen either.
• Having things just spawn is possible, and will continue to happen for Kha'ak ships, for example, but not desirable in the majority of cases for the reasons set out above.

What points are very much worth discussing?

• What kinds of encounters could occur that would make exploration more varied and interesting?
• Have we got the frequency of such encounters right, and could we improve the locations and circumstances in which they do or don't happen?

this just shows very well how much you just ignore your customers with the excuse of "People have told us many times" while in reality we are telling you THIS since the very release of the game so so so so so SO MANY TIMES. you didnt point out a single reason against turning it optional but you just say its out of question because we wouldnt like it even the idea is funny. btw, people ask for the chance to turn it off not because an encounter system would be bad and we dont like the idea but because it IS currently rubbish and tbh we dont have the faith you can make it any close to be reasonably fun or interesting so asking for a tickbox to disable it is I think very reasonable

of course as you say there is a limit how much you can place manually but those are something to remember, like the ship graveyard in x3 with the Hyperion or the mamba you can find in the minefield, but these should be rare, exploration shouldnt be about flying around and hitting something or somebody every corner, it should be something worth LOOKING FOR AND SEARCH. if it just pops up in our face its not searching. a simple manually made system of clues and prizes, even without any mission (just have containers or data vaults sometimes popping coordinates with odd remarks to check /should be randomized/) sometimes finding nothing or just a new clue then run into other treasure hunters (both pirates and friends) etc, get containers dropped by them again giving randomized clues etc would make up a far better encounter system with some actual reason to do it.
if you want to go with a fully randomized system you still have to manually build the encounters and load them up at random points VERY rarely or they will be boring instead of interesting. in this case there should be a couple of different ideas:
-tradefleet caught by xenon/khaak/pirates who are asking for help (the only problem with this is that they will likely die before the player will have any chance helping them but this is down to your poorly balanced combat)
-minefield with abandoned ship (not in the center of the know system like now but somewhere far out)
-asteroidfield with wrecked ships either repairable or searchable or both
-pirate hideout
-pirate hideout attacked by a faction, both sides asking for your aid
-scouting xeonon/khaak
-asteroidfield with opportunist miners with protecting fleet
-asteroidfield with opportunist miners with protecting fleet under attack
etc etc etc, the options are endless but they have to be MADE or they will be crap
AND as long as the main gameflow is simulated, nobody, and I mean NOBODY would mind if these were spawned. just stop doing it in every few minutes. deep space is deep for a reason.

Wait if you don't trust egosoft to make X4 better why even play? Like I don't get it if your response to ego saying how do we make this more interesting is that I don't trust you why even purchase their products?

[Nifhtyeq]

I think you might be confusing different things here. The encounter mechanism is not used for ships that you are not personally flying. If your trade ships are getting attacked, they are getting attacked by actual local pirates patrolling that area, not "encounter" ships..

These attacks do happen after I have arrived in a sector...( Pirate ships along with Xenon M's, Khaak and faction Miners are the ships that appear ) the Pirates then start flying around and attack my traders ( if carrying tech cargo )...and I cant defend them...because as soon as I attack them it gets Reported as "an attack against this station" and I get a reputaion loss from the local police...if I stay out of the sectors the pirate encounters are way way way less...so the universe ends up being the core systems on the superhighway ( and only the major ones at that ) otherwise the "encounter" pirate ships appear and then do their pirate thing.....which as I have stated wouldnt be a problem if the mechanism worked as you intended.

If a Pirate has fired at my ship do I not have the right to defend myself??.........because at the moment your game says that I dont

I'm not sure if this was answered but pirates mask their signature under guise of civilian ships so they aren't arrested. So try scanning them first then attacking.

[SPiDER]

OK let me give an exact blow by blow account of this bug....

I'm in my Pulsar flying across a sector using the travel drive.....there is a sudden hiccup in frame rate and low and behold some random ships have been transported to where I am in the sector.
These ships are
***** hive or queens guard with/without some forager's along too.
Some random Faction Miners L and or M class gas or solid.
If any Xenon are available either an M or an N.
and then anywhere between 1 or 3 pirate ships M class either faction allied marauders or SCA riot squad.
I'm carrying some thing worth stealing that they then tell me to drop the cargo!....
This gets ignored they then turn red and attack me....

When I fire back and defend myself it gets reported to sector security as " An attack against this station " and I then suffer a 1 point loss of reputation....for being attacked!!!!!

so either I let myself get killed and take no REP loss and then reload from the previous save and hope I dont run ino the pirates again...

My point is that a goodly portion of these pirates are allied to MIN and gaining reputation with MIn is not easy so having these BUGGED encounters is damned annoying.
Which was the point I was making to start with..if it wasnt bugged it would be just annoying however beacause the pirate encounters are bugged its DAMNNED annoying.

And scanning has no effect