Scale Plate Pact now destroy sattelites too? WTF

[Caedes91]

As if the Timelines DLC itself was not already annoying enough and totally not worth forcing yourself through for limited ships and equipment, now SCA attack my sattelites too in the new 7.0 sectors?
The Buccaneers doing that in existing sectors was already ass, since there is no counter to it.
For the love of god, is it too much to ask that you instead of constantly thinking up new ways to obstruct the player, you for once make the game less frustrating to play?

[dayang]

There is a way to counteract it and it's much cheaper than a host of satellites.

Grab a Pegasus, grab a reasonably qualified pilot (1 star)... give them a repeat order to monitor 1-3 nearby sectors to keep the trades updated. The pilot will then do this one task endlessly.

[BitByte]

I've spotted BUC ships atleast from 1 of the new sectors.

Depending state of your game you can make SCA peaceful faction by starting their terraforming mission and completing 1 subtask to unlock their reputation. After that you can do missions and trade with them to improve your rep.
They will leave your ships and assets alone.

[Erqco]

I love this!! I have build a defense station around a few satellites... you can use a lot of laser tower too. SCA send a ship to destroy it, and is killed you got to pick up level 3 mods.

[BitByte]

I love this!! I have build a defense station around a few satellites... you can use a lot of laser tower too. SCA send a ship to destroy it, and is killed you got to pick up level 3 mods.

What ship SCA used for that? As that (exceptional mods) sounds more like BUC which have masked transponder.

[Erqco]

You are right, It is BUC. I put all of these in the same box. I don't think that SCA destroys Satellites.

[Alan Phipps]

@ OP: It sounds that you will have to provide some evidence of this behaviour such as a link to a vanilla save or screenshot. There's nothing about SCA in the 7.0 changelog.

[Koizuki]

There's nothing about SCA in the 7.0 changelog.

It's been a while since I've read the patch notes, but I don't think it was mentioned either.

That said, it should be true; of the several new sectors added to the base game in 7.00, most of them start off as neutral/ownerless "anarchy" sectors that the factions don't seem to try to take over (at least they haven't yet in my test game, despite nearly 3 days of gametime waiting for them to do so.)
Within these new "anarchy" sectors exist new "aggressive" SCA fleets that can spawn (unlike the regular SCA, these patrols apparently will try to attack you, as they targeted me when I was scouting out the new sectors, despite still being rep-locked with SCA.)

Of these new spawns, the "aggressive" ones will actually target satellites, although I have two in their space at jump gates that haven't been picked off yet, so they don't spawn specifically to take them out unlike BUC's "antisatellite" jobs.

I dug through the libraries/jobs.xml file for v7.00 a while back when I was doing a deep dive into what exactly happens during the SCA Terraforming mission and I remember coming across these new (to 7.00) entries for SCA, because these "aggressive" jobs also get disabled upon completion of the project.

Here is the code for the three types of patrol spawns (L, M, and S,) that will target satellites:

Code: Select all

  <job id="scaleplate_patrol_l_cluster_anarchy_aggresive" name="{20204,8701}">
    <modifiers commandeerable="true"/>
    <orders>
      <order order="Patrol" default="true">
        <param name="range" value="class.cluster" />
        <param name="targetclasses" value="[class.ship, class.satellite]" />
        <param name="checkrelation" value="false" />
      </order>
    </orders>
    <time start="0" interval="7200" />
    <category faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_l"/>
    <quota galaxy="1" sector="1"/>
    <location class="galaxy" macro="xu_ep2_universe_macro" faction="ownerless" tags="anarchy"/>
    <environment buildatshipyard="false" gate="true"/>
    <ship>
      <select faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_l"/>
      <loadout>
        <level min="0.7" max="1.0"/>
      </loadout>
      <owner exact="scaleplate" overridenpc="true"/>
    </ship>
    <subordinates>
      <subordinate job="scaleplate_fighter_escort_s_anarchy" />
      <subordinate job="scaleplate_fighter_escort_s_anarchy" />
      <subordinate job="scaleplate_fighter_escort_s_anarchy" />
    </subordinates>
  </job>

  <job id="scaleplate_patrol_m_cluster_anarchy_aggresive" name="{20204,8701}">
    <modifiers commandeerable="true"/>
    <orders>
      <order order="Patrol" default="true">
        <param name="range" value="class.cluster" />
        <param name="targetclasses" value="[class.ship, class.satellite]" />
        <param name="checkrelation" value="false" />
      </order>
    </orders>
    <time start="0" interval="3600" />
    <category faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_m"/>
    <quota galaxy="5" sector="3"/>
    <location class="galaxy" macro="xu_ep2_universe_macro" faction="ownerless" tags="anarchy"/>
    <environment buildatshipyard="false" gate="true"/>
    <basket basket="pirate_container"/>
    <ship>
      <select faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_m"/>
      <loadout>
        <level min="0.5" max="1.0"/>
      </loadout>
      <owner exact="scaleplate" overridenpc="true"/>
    </ship>
    <subordinates>
      <subordinate job="scaleplate_fighter_escort_s_anarchy"/>
    </subordinates>
  </job>

  <job id="scaleplate_patrol_s_cluster_anarchy_aggresive" name="{20204,8701}">
    <modifiers commandeerable="true"/>
    <orders>
      <order order="Patrol" default="true">
        <param name="range" value="class.cluster" />
        <param name="targetclasses" value="[class.ship, class.satellite]" />
        <param name="checkrelation" value="false" />
      </order>
    </orders>
    <time start="0" interval="3600" />
    <category faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_m"/>
    <quota galaxy="6" sector="2"/>
    <location class="galaxy" macro="xu_ep2_universe_macro" faction="ownerless" tags="anarchy"/>
    <environment buildatshipyard="false" gate="true"/>
    <basket basket="pirate_container"/>
    <ship>
      <select faction="scaleplate" tags="[escort, light]" size="ship_s"/>
      <loadout>
        <level min="0.5" max="1.0"/>
      </loadout>
      <owner exact="scaleplate" overridenpc="true"/>
    </ship>
    <subordinates>
      <subordinate job="scaleplate_fighter_escort_s_anarchy"/>
    </subordinates>
  </job>

Note that for each of these jobs above, their "target classes" are "class.ship," and "class.satellite."

BUC also has S/M jobs that target both, but it's also well-known that they have another job specifically spawned to hunt satellites, which I take advantage of to farm mods with:

Code: Select all

  <job id="buc_patrol_s_hidden_antisat" name="{20204,5301}">
    <modifiers commandeerable="false"/>
    <orders>
      <order order="Patrol" default="true">
        <param name="range" value="class.sector"/>
        <param name="stayhidden" value="true"/>
        <param name="targetclasses" value="[class.satellite]"/>
        <param name="checkrelation" value="false"/>
      </order>
    </orders>
    <category faction="buccaneers" tags="[military]" size="ship_s"/>
    <quota sector="7" galaxy="50"/>
    <location class="galaxy" macro="xu_ep2_universe_macro" hasgravidarregion="true" excludedtags="anarchy"/>
    <environment buildatshipyard="false" gate="true"/>
    <ship>
      <select faction="buccaneers" tags="[plunderer, light, phase1]" size="ship_s"/>
      <loadout>
        <level min="0.7" max="1.0"/>
      </loadout>
      <owner exact="buccaneers" overridenpc="true"/>
    </ship>
  </job>

Its only "target class" is "class.satellite," and the actual name of the job literally has "antisat" in it, which is fairly amusing, but for its spawn location it has "anarchy" sectors excluded, so they shouldn't be spawning in those new sectors, I don't think.

Ultimately, it should mean that if the new "aggressive" SCA patrols stumble across satellites in the new "anarchy" sectors, they will shoot them down, but they don't go explicitly hunting them like BUC does.

Edit:
Interestingly, now that I am looking at them again more closely, it seems like the aggressive "S" patrol job for the SCA is also using the same "<category faction="scaleplate" tags="[plunderer]" size="ship_m"/>" line as the "M" patrol job; I'm not sure if this is intended, or if it's a bug and should actually be "ship_s" at the end there, but I'll leave that to any devs who wander by to decide.

[Alan Phipps]

Thanks for the clarification - so special cases for SCA in/from the new sectors.

[Casishur]

I think he must have lost his way

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3302036593


destroyed my satellite at the north gate out of boredom, took the picture shortly after the destruction of the satellite.

then attacked my "Verteilerstation" on the right and was shot down
it's not funny anymore

I was once at +25 at 6.0 due to the terraforming project
but because of these harassers I'm down to +11 and can hardly counteract this with missions and trade.

[Captain_Canard]

Enemies destroying my satellites sounds like a feature, not a bug. I often will destroy enemy satellites, though I don't know if it actually "does" anything. Does the AI actually "use" those satellites, or is it just for show?

[Casishur]

Enemies destroying my satellites sounds like a feature, not a bug. I often will destroy enemy satellites, though I don't know if it actually "does" anything. Does the AI actually "use" those satellites, or is it just for show?

The sector surveillance uses the satellites. Aggressive ships of this faction can see your ships and stations in the satellite radius and then attack even though the ship is out of radar range.

[Captain_Canard]

The sector surveillance uses the satellites. Aggressive ships of this faction can see your ships and stations in the satellite radius and then attack even though the ship is out of radar range.

Okay, that is most awesome and exactly what I would expect and hope the game's AI would do. It actually makes me wish my enemies (and allies) used even more satellites! Maybe I should do more of those "deploy satellite" missions..

[Koizuki]

I was once at +25 at 6.0 due to the terraforming project
but because of these harassers I'm down to +11 and can hardly counteract this with missions and trade.

That is interesting, and if that's actually an SCA "Harrasser" type ship and not a standard SCA Minotaur, they probably ended up leaving those anarchy sectors and ended up along the highway ring (I do see BUC ships occasionally traversing the highway ring as well despite normally staying inside their own sectors.)

As far as the reputation loss goes, that might be a known bug; There is this report on the Technical Support forum that has an issue number assigned to it (and listed as a duplicate, I think?) where the player was complaining about the same thing -- SCA Harrasser ships were still attacking despite being at +12 reputation. Being that it has an issue number, I imagine the devs are looking into it, but I don't know if it's been resolved yet in the current beta.