Why was the difficulty of pirates set so high?

[Malacandra]

Do you have Scanner Targeting Enhancement installed? That's a core piece of equipment and should help with not losing your target when things get hot.

Not sure about your fighting style, but there is a video here, where I go against 12 pirates in an iron ass. Custom shields OXP is in use in the video, so all enemies are buffed up and harder than normal. Note that I am not trying to concentrate on anyone in particular, never stop moving and as soon as I get fire I immediately break and evade, until one by one they are all gone. Not entirely a beginner's situation, but I hope it gives an idea or two.

Nice display. Couldn't help noticing that you ended up needing to get the Shield Boosters and Cloaking Device fixed - that's all the profit from many, many runs gone (and it's a PITA finding someone who can fix the cloak...!). That's the part that usually gets me to ragequit

[Rekrul]

This is the joystick sensitivity indicator. If your joystick is in precision mode (there is a button setting for this in the game's stick setup), this is green, otherwise it is gray. If you don't have a joystick connected, it doesn't show up.

Thank you for the explanation.

[Rekrul]

Is the following normal, or has something gone haywire with my game?

I jumped into Ensoreus like usual and there were a couple police ships chasing a couple of other ships. As I got closer, some of the yellow dots started to literally zip across the radar. You know the speed the markers move when you roll the ship? They were moving at that speed, but I wasn't rolling the ship. I was just going in a straight line. Besides, they were the only ones doing it, the rest were moving at normal speeds. I've seen that happen other times, but it was usually an isolated incident, here they were doing it a lot. When I managed to spot one in the distance, it looked like someone shot it out of cannon. I couldn't even turn fast fast enough to follow it even though the ship was so far away it looked like a grain of rice on my screen.

Then some of them went from the extreme edge of the scanner to right on top of me in about a second. They were moving so fast that I couldn't even target one of them to see what it was. I did target a slower moving Asp and fire on it since its status was offender. That's when every yellow dot on the scanner changed to red and suddenly there were about 10-20 of them. I could swear that when I fired, there were only 5-6. Immediately I was getting hit with lasers from all directions. Needless to say that my shield boosters and extra energy unit didn't do jack squat against the onslaught and I was dead in just a few seconds.

Is this a glitch, or is there some explanation for this behavior? Especially the ships that seem to be moving about 3-4 times normal speed?

[Cody]

They could've been using injectors. The Asp was probably part of a pirate pack - attack one, you attack them all.

[Rekrul]

So, against a small group of pirates, say 3-5, I can now usually survive. The more dangerous systems are still 100% off limits. Just for the hell of it, I tried jumping to an anarchy system through someone else's wormhole (so I had a full tank of fuel). Trying to fight was pointless as every group included at least 8-10 ships and while you're trying to kill one, all the rest get behind you and and... hey, where'd my rear shield and the first three energy banks go? They were here 3 seconds ago... Trying to run, I ran out of fuel after getting attacked for about the fourth time while trying to make it the the station.

[Rekrul]

Another thing I find highly frustrating: You need to make money to build up your ship, but literally all of the contracts that would help you do that are off limits to you (at least without OXPs which is basically cheating, and if you're going to do that, you might as well just edit the save file and give yourself unlimited cash). All of the cargo contracts are for more cargo than you can carry and none of the passenger contracts will accept you until you have more experience. By the time you can afford a ship large enough to carry the cargo, or have enough experience to accept a passenger contract, you'll have enough money that you won't need to bother with the contracts. Maybe the parcel deliveries are available, but I'm not going to travel halfway across the galaxy for less than I can make on a single cargo run between two systems.

It just seems like new players would really benefit from the contracts, but they can't make use of them, and the players who can accept the contracts, don't need to.

[Malacandra]

Something amusing from yesterday's session (because this discussion has got me playing again...). I'd just jumped into a system and a pack of "Clean" ships hanging around the Witchpoint all turned red while one of them made a threatening remark. I lit one up, happy to see there were Vipers nearby; whereupon the police absolutely shredded me, because while those Assassins were hostile to me, they hadn't opened fire, and I'd fired the first shot at a Clean ship.

Well played, Assassins. Well played.

[Malacandra]

Another thing I find highly frustrating: You need to make money to build up your ship, but literally all of the contracts that would help you do that are off limits to you (at least without OXPs which is basically cheating, and if you're going to do that, you might as well just edit the save file and give yourself unlimited cash). All of the cargo contracts are for more cargo than you can carry and none of the passenger contracts will accept you until you have more experience. By the time you can afford a ship large enough to carry the cargo, or have enough experience to accept a passenger contract, you'll have enough money that you won't need to bother with the contracts. Maybe the parcel deliveries are available, but I'm not going to travel halfway across the galaxy for less than I can make on a single cargo run between two systems.

It just seems like new players would really benefit from the contracts, but they can't make use of them, and the players who can accept the contracts, don't need to.

Much like life itself, Rekrul. It has long been acknowledged that if you want the bank to lend you money, first you have to prove you don't need it.

The deal with parcels is that there's no limit on how many you can carry, so you can start a nice long parcel run and fish for more business on the way. Even a short low-profit run helps your rep a tiny bit, which will help. Just try to make sure the runs line up and make sure you don't waste time.

[Cody]

Even a short low-profit run helps your rep a tiny bit...

<nods> It's all about building your rep! And parcels take no hold space, so you can trade as you go.

[dybal]

<snip> Maybe the parcel deliveries are available, but I'm not going to travel halfway across the galaxy for less than I can make on a single cargo run between two systems.

It just seems like new players would really benefit from the contracts, but they can't make use of them, and the players who can accept the contracts, don't need to.

Much like life itself, Rekrul. It has long been acknowledged that if you want the bank to lend you money, first you have to prove you don't need it.

The deal with parcels is that there's no limit on how many you can carry, so you can start a nice long parcel run and fish for more business on the way. Even a short low-profit run helps your rep a tiny bit, which will help. Just try to make sure the runs line up and make sure you don't waste time.

I've been trying the parcel business the last week... just completed my first round-the-galaxy (NE-NW-SW-NE) run: since I started taking notes, I delivered 24 parcels (I don't take notes of the government parcels I get through messages just after docking, just contracts from the BB... I think there were perhaps 5 government parcels at 100~150₢ each) for something like 15500₢, and right now I have 11 contracts active for 19750₢ without the early delivery bonuses, with three of them in the 3k-5k₢ range - the only parcel I delivered late was one I got salvaging a derelict. The Reputation and Awards in F4 places me right now as an Elite courier.

Just to put it into perspective, the side-line trading I did in the second half of this run brought me a profit of 59000₢... building up my courier reputation still has a way to go before parcel running gets more profitable than trading (but then I have 82TCs of hold space). But it's way more challenging than trading, specially the planning/decision making side (there is room for some tools, but making it too easy would spoil part of the fun...), and I don't know how much having a slower ship would complicate things - I can easily run away from the assassin packs.

And when I was into turning pirates into derelicts to salvage, 6 ships I towed back to a Main Station (I did around that in a system before getting bored and moving on) got me 15k-25k₢ from bounties and salvaging.

[gilhad]

There are pack of trader and his security, and while trader is Clean and part of security too, some security could be Offenders. They still do not attack, as they are paid to protect the trader.But if you attack anyone of them (even the Offender), they all go after you and still are Clean (and you are Clean, if you defend them too, after they start firing on you).

Parcels/passengers/cargo runs are mainly for better equiped ships, and it provides something to do, when just hoarding equipement does not work anymore.

Still some may be done on low level and slowly build your rep, with some small pocket money (I - on the begining - take just what goes around the way I plan to travel anyway - so it is like 1 in 20 stations or less, but still it counts. The game remember up to 70 of each and you are total top, when all are delivered. till there is small variance, in some systems they "do not know it all", but in save file the values are intact).

After Cobra mk III phase I usually go for Boa 2 cruiser and delivering 1.000's of gold/gemstones/... really pay nice bounties in even one run - and you can load/offload all of that on one place, not restricted by usual 127/255 items limit.

Still it is not way to be rich, it is way to not be bored, once you are rich (As well as RSS missions and many others)

(Yes, some of us, as myself, spend insane time in one pilot - I want to travel all planets of all galaxies (now nearly finished first two), get max on each ranking (RSS, 3 couriers, state packages (and later with better reputation also pirates elimination), etc, etc - no matter, that my current ship could not be improved more and I have Elite status long time ... ) - it is not game to win, it is place to live

[Rekrul]

It's just frustrating because I looked at the passenger contracts and found one that wanted to go across the galaxy and would pay 11,000. I looked at the route and even though it passed through a couple anarchy worlds, I figured I could detour around them, since the route had like 150 hours to spare. Then I saw that a second passenger wanted to go to a system that was only one jump off the route and after studying the area, it seemed that I could make the detour without losing much if any time. I thought it would be a fun experience to try, so I bought two passenger cabins, went back and discovered that I couldn't take the contracts.

Not only would I have made a small fortune (for me) by doing both, I was kind of excited to see if my planning panned out so that I could make both destinations on time.

[dybal]

It's just frustrating because I looked at the passenger contracts and found one that wanted to go across the galaxy and would pay 11,000. I looked at the route and even though it passed through a couple anarchy worlds, I figured I could detour around them, since the route had like 150 hours to spare. Then I saw that a second passenger wanted to go to a system that was only one jump off the route and after studying the area, it seemed that I could make the detour without losing much if any time. I thought it would be a fun experience to try, so I bought two passenger cabins, went back and discovered that I couldn't take the contracts.

Not only would I have made a small fortune (for me) by doing both, I was kind of excited to see if my planning panned out so that I could make both destinations on time.

I don't thing it's viable to follow any of the contract-based careers and avoid getting into dangerous systems - it takes too long to go around them (and it might not even be possible...)... you would have a hard time figuring out which deadlines you can meet, and which you can't, if the fatest-route ANA feature isn't enough (and it isn't if you need to avoid the more dangerous systems...).

That said, based on my experience bounty-hunting and parcel-running, I don't think Anarchies (at least the low TL ones... it looked like everybody was out there pirating in the neighboring systems and there was nobody home ), Multi-Gov and Dictatorships are so much more dangerous than Democracies with bad neighbours (at least with the OXPs I have installed). I got into less trouble getting from WP to the main station in Anarchies than in Democracies when I was bounty-hunting, and now I'm parcel running it seems there are assassin packs waiting for me in most systems... and not just at the WP, sometimes it's after launching from the Main Station (the ploy malacandra described above of tricking _you_ into attacking them in front of police... congrats to whoever coded that AI!)

[Cody]

... it's after launching from the Main Station (the ploy malacandra described above of tricking _you_ into attacking them in front of police... congrats to whoever coded that AI!)

<chuckles> Aegis botherers, I call them! And they'll happily follow you through your wormhole. There are ways of dealing with them...

[dybal]

... it's after launching from the Main Station (the ploy malacandra described above of tricking _you_ into attacking them in front of police... congrats to whoever coded that AI!)

<chuckles> Aegis botherers, I call them! And they'll happily follow you through your wormhole. There are ways of dealing with them...

Before parcel running there were just the Hognoses targeting you and getting you into red condition (and masslocked)... but now there are others (and now I'm in too much of a hurry to pay attention and notice who they are) that start firing lasers around you - but not _hitting_ you...

I have been just ignoring them and running away... is there a better way to deal with them?

And to think I've been fired upon by police just for having my weapons online...