This commander was a pure iron man still when he just had become deadly
, flying an iron-assed military manta ray. It happened in witchspace while ship was in good condition (shields green) without any warning. Just as it had gotten interesting as quite some navy ships did show up. I can only assume I must have collided with a heavy thargoid, or rather the thargoid with me from somewhere out of the field of view as my speed was low and I was in front view IIRC.From other games I know I am used to consider all kinds of saveloads (of course) cheating, but oolite core is balanced with the thought in mind that it's okay to occasionally saveload if you died or it wouldn't be that dead easy to die even in an extremely advanced stage, especially without any chance to react to the threat. Or the core would not determine every commander to starve to death in witchspace at some point because of a misjump on a too long jump.
As collisions do such an insane amount of damage, that should be the thargoid tactics of choice anyway. They don't care about losses so if there's a ship who's shields are so hard to take down, just sacrifice a warship for it. Quick and easy. Similar for assassins.
The way to never die basically seems to always avoid all combat, otherwise you collide at some point or get a hardhead banged onto your noise. Run away or drop cargo and don't do something that makes assassins hunt you as you can't buy them off. I had 20 kills and several 100k credits when selling the not very well equipped cobra 3. Just this isn't quite funny. Sure, you can still crash into the station or buoy while not looking thanks to planning your route.
