Repairing friendly ships

[Schenn]

Using the astronaut's repair beam against a non-hostile ship should not count as a hostile act. Escorting a ship and successfully kept the xenon off, however he took heavy damage and was only traveling at 16m/s when the combat ended. Tried to repair him, get a "HELP ME" message and everyone then kills my little space suit.

Repairing a ship, if anything, should IMPROVE relations with a non-hostile ship

[Alan Phipps]

Yes the repair laser is a weapon that happens to do negative damage. It is still seen as an attack by any NPC target (or even a no-pilot ship which auto-evades). This aspect is actually rather handy should you come across an Aran at any time.

Moving to the Universe (gameplay) forum.

[StarSword]

Using the astronaut's repair beam against a non-hostile ship should not count as a hostile act. Escorting a ship and successfully kept the xenon off, however he took heavy damage and was only traveling at 16m/s when the combat ended. Tried to repair him, get a "HELP ME" message and everyone then kills my little space suit.

Repairing a ship, if anything, should IMPROVE relations with a non-hostile ship

A little advice: never accept an escort mission unless it is plot-critical, and those are limited to some corporations' hiring missions, once in the Terran plot (and that one doesn't follow the usual pattern of mobs of enemies every twenty klicks), and random missions in Operation Final Fury. The freighters are flown by gerbils, made of wet newspapers, and attract respawning enemies like flies.

For the plot-critical ones, accept the mission, then keep out of any sector the freighters are in (this will make the mission complete without any mission enemies spawning). It's literally the only way to complete them at mid to high Fight rank, since the game will eventually start spawning bombers, corvettes, and cruisers to kill the freighters, and the freighters are fast enough that at best you'll be using a frigate just to keep up.

And yes, the repair laser is mechanically a negative-damage weapon combined with the mass driver's shield-piercing effect, which makes hilarity ensue if you use it on NPCs.

[TTD]

There are ways around this problem,but it involves s/m forum

[DrBullwinkle]

I have been able to complete escort missions at high fight rank. I would not say that it is impossible, but I agree that it is often not worth the trouble for the payment.

I use multiple escorts to protect each freighter, and I personally fly a fast M6 (or M3+) to intercept the heavy opposition. Ideally, I prefer two escorts per freighter; one with "attack enemy nearest" orders and the other with "protect ship" orders. That way the "attack nearest" ship will intercept incoming enemies while the "protect" ship will stay close to the ship being escorted.

The big trick is when the convoy reaches a gate. Between the freighters and my escorts, they spend most of their time in collision avoidance rather than going through the gate. When that happens, I go through the gate ahead of the convoy, then watch the convoy and escorts on the sector map. If I see an incoming enemy, I divert ship(s) to intercept.

In a pinch, I launch drones from one of the escorts to intercept the attackers.

Doing it this way, I have been successful escorting a convoy. It is fun, but it is also a lot of work for small pay.