Oolite Bulletins

This seems weird and is starting to bug me.

I jump in and attack a group of 5 ships. Usually I take out the 1st one. 2nd and 3rd ones seem to be shot to pieces by the other ships. I finish off the stragglers.

Are the other ships supposed to be that bad at aiming?

I have never watched this kind of strange behaviour. A group of 5 means I kill 5. A group of 7 means I kill 7.

Maybe you ran across two groups, 3 pirates, 2 clean ships, the two rushed to your help? Happens with GalCorp as well as with bounty hunters (OXP). Also if you attack a clean ship, other clean may rush to its help, while other pirates in the area might chose to kill any of either you or the other group.

The advanced scanner gives you details about the targeted ships legal status.

heir wrote:

This seems weird and is starting to bug me.

I jump in and attack a group of 5 ships. Usually I take out the 1st one. 2nd and 3rd ones seem to be shot to pieces by the other ships. I finish off the stragglers.

Are the other ships supposed to be that bad at aiming?

Did all the ships turn hostile to you at once? Like many aspects of this game things can be more complicated than they first seem, and the AI is quite sophisticated at times.
This is what I think could have happen in this case:
A group of 3 pirates fighting 2 escorts. They will not immediately turn hostile to you, but if you fire and hit one of them, the 3 pirates will all turn hostile to you, but not the 2 escorts - they will see you as an ally. So you hit a pirate, the pirates who were attacking the escorts before you arrived switched hostility to you. The escorts continued to fight the pirates. The pirates who have switched to you then switched back to the escorts as the escorts hit them after you did. Once the escorts were destroyed they switched back to you again.

They are all from same group. Turn red at the same time. Offenders most of the time. I do notice its usually close combat and its not me shooting. I do get the kills and the bounty. Also noticed ECM seems to kill them if missiles are near them. It always seem to be same pattern. 1st one killed by me. Next two dies by other folks. Last 2 makes a run and I chase them down for kills.

Weird. I also see green blobs aiming at them. It isn't me as when I shoot I get lasers

Does all this happen without OXPs? What OXPs are you running at the moment? Is this with 1.80 or nightly build?

heir wrote:

Weird. I also see green blobs aiming at them.

Have you recently bought a new ship, and is it one which has plasma turrets? If you're getting the kills and bounty for them, it must be you killing them somehow, and that would fit with it only happening at close range.

cim wrote:

heir wrote:

Weird. I also see green blobs aiming at them.

Have you recently bought a new ship, and is it one which has plasma turrets? If you're getting the kills and bounty for them, it must be you killing them somehow, and that would fit with it only happening at close range.

Heh.. I think you've nailed it, cim..

Green plasma, eh? Well, there are a few OXP ships that have that.. the Caduceus variants, the Kestros Mk4, the Kirin variants.. I've probably missed one or two others.

Ah I got a Cadauceus. Hmmmm I should read up about my ship. Thanks for the help

Yes, you definitely should.. the Caddy is one kickass ship, with a number of unique features.

And you're welcome.. helping is what we're here for.. well, partly, anyway.

Diziet Sma wrote:

... helping is what we're here for.. well, partly, anyway.

Also bad puns and thread derailing are also some of the services we provide.