One lucky hit

[stereohype]

I just gotta brag - got one hell of a lucky kill. Some lone offender was running from the authorities and firing at me because I guess I got in his way. I pumped some beam laser into em and he started blowin' smoke. (but smoke really can't emit in space, i dunno) ...anyway, he pulled up and over me. I spun around to find him at a dead stop. I pull up to avoid crashing, but end up grazing his hull. I get a few bumps, he explodes, I end up being rewarded with the 1500 cr bounty. w00t w00t!!!

[Commander McLane]

It's not smoke. It's plasma leaking from his drives. And it is the second sign of a ship losing energy and failing to maintain structural integrity. The first sign (probably you noticed this as well) is a flickering in the exhaust plume.

So it seems that the engine is the most critical part of the ship's structure and tends to show signs of failure first.

And congratulations to your other discovery as well: Ramming is a viable way of afflicting damage to another ship. Just make sure that your shields are in a better conditions than his, or you could end at the wrong end of the ram-scoop! A nice bonus with this kind of fighting is that your legal status doesn't suffer from ramming other ships.

[*cat]

I jumped into a communist system, where the Law took objection to my Offender status. After a while of being chased by a cop shooting away at me, and not wishing for Fugitive status, I thought I'd try to bash his ship up by ramming it (can't remember what kind it was - one of the small ones I think, kind of red coloured) because I've found this a great way of getting kills without it being an official crime. But no amount of collisions seemed to do any damage. Any ideas?
Everything went wrong at Ercediti - I'm off there again now.

[Captain Hesperus]

I jumped into a communist system, where the Law took objection to my Offender status. After a while of being chased by a cop shooting away at me, and not wishing for Fugitive status, I thought I'd try to bash his ship up by ramming it (can't remember what kind it was - one of the small ones I think, kind of red coloured) because I've found this a great way of getting kills without it being an official crime. But no amount of collisions seemed to do any damage. Any ideas?
Everything went wrong at Ercediti - I'm off there again now.

Mwahahahaha! I take it you must have Commies.oxp. The vessel you have likely encountered is a Ray Mark I of the dreaded Thought Police (also known as NeuroPol). Beware, Commander, for they are made of tougher stuff than the feeble Capitalist Vipers of GalCop!

Captain Hesperus
.....До свидания, мой друг

[Trexate]

A nice bonus with this kind of fighting is that your legal status doesn't suffer from ramming other ships.

I seem to remember in Elite on the C64 that ramming (or fatal collisions) did affect your legal status. There was an incident back in the day when I was docking when another ship suddenly exited and we collided. I lived, he died, and when I got docked I noticed that I had gone from "clean" to "offender," or maybe it was "fugitive."

But that was so long ago, maybe I'm mis-remembering. And if it's not in Oolite now, well, that's one less thing to worry about while docking.

[zimmemic25]

i modded my ship to strong shields and energy, i have cloaking too, so i often ram the small ships.

but i have another problem:
i attacked a police with cloaking and scan jammer (they should not notice me!) and when i uncloaked they shot 2 nukes at me!!!
but when i docked at station my status was clean.
i have 1.70, with some weapon and ship OXPs and RandomHits