Diplomacy update and the disguised Ministry of Finance Raven

[MakerLinux]

Dear Egosoft,

Since you finally decided to revamp the diplomacy of the game, I would really want you to consider an obscure mechanics that's getting in the way of my particular gameplay a lot.

See, since everybody talks so badly about the the Vigor Syndicate and how they exploit the poor Riptide Rakers with their monopoly in water and other stuff, I decided, in my game, to just exterminate them. I got friendly enough that I got all their ship blueprints and landed ships on all their stations, only to conduct an overwhelming assault that extinguished them all, Casino included.

On the other hand, due to commercial needs, in this very own game I worked hard to work my reputation with the Ministry of Finance. I got 30 reputation with them, otherwise they would be just really annoying and interfere with my trades and ships.

However. Even though VIG is extinct (and they try to respawn every now and then, only to be dutifully destroyed by my patrol forces), the Ministry of Finance still acts like they exist. They at random times spawn 1-3 Raven ships disguised as VIG to trade some stuff around. As my patrol forces are programmed to take care of VIG, even after the first shot which drops the disguise to be "MIN", my ships keep shooting the Raven until it's killed, and of course my reputation with MIN drops by then. It occurs very quickly and most often than not I can't interfere to prevent the Raven from being destroyed.

Now, is that mechanic fair or realistic? You are talking about a police faction that throws a "criminal" in the universe and expects you to not react to it, gets mad if you do. It makes no sense, it doesn't follow lore, it doesn't seem to be part of the artistic vision of Egosoft, it seems just like a quirky collateral mechanic that was not properly thought out. And it means that no one can destroy VIG and keep friends with MIN because eventually they'll get in this trap too.

To properly play the game I have to play it very slowly so that I can intervene in my blazingly fast X-Shuttle and scan the VIG Raven to reveal it as "MIN" before it is shot once. This makes the game really unpleasant to play and I want to play the game with no mods, just in case. Can't you at least cancel the reputation drop this causes? Or make MIN eventually stop with these tactics once VIG population decreases below a threshold.

[CBJ]

This is not feedback on the Public Beta. Moved to the main forum.

[jackeycheung]

That mechanic’s kind of annoying. The practice where Ministry of Finance dispatches VIG ships using camouflage makes no logical sense since VIG has dissolved. The game seems to penalize you for eliminating the difficulties it generates. The game would be more enjoyable without the Raven ships because VIG has already left the scene.

[LameFox]

Every time I fight VIG I end up cursing these stupid ships. Even a fire override doesn't fix it. They remain already hostile once they display as MIN so my ships set to defensive against MIN annihilate them anyway.

[Jar B]

In a similar vein, during the Northriver plot where VIG is pitched against the player, I believe "Reaching Out to the Enemy" should play out differently depending on what happened to VIG. IMO VIG should grovel and bribe the player to seise attacks and allow them to rebuild if all assets have been destroyed. As for diplomacy, I would love to be able to mandate conditions such as "stop making water trades illegal".