Oolite Bulletins

While conducting a 'tactical withdrawal' from a band of pirates last night, I tried hiding behind a Behemoth which was in the area in the hope that it would get involved but to no effect.
Do they only get involved if Thargoids are around or do they personally have to be attacked to respond? As it is an Imperial Navy craft I was obviously hoping it would take action.
Either way, it's still a great game.

Yes, the behemoth has to actually be fired upon, in order to cause it to retaliate. It would then return fire with its turrets and (if necessary) begin launching fighters. After their launch, any ship firing on their mother would cause the fighters to react as if they had, themselves, been attacked by those ships.

There's no AI, that I know of (either in-game, or in any player OXPs), that specifically instructs ships firing upon you to react in the same way.

Thanks Flying_Circus.
I wasn't specifically looking for other ships to come to my rescue (although that would be nice ), it just seemed to me to make sense that it would tackle pirates.

Do Vipers react in the same way then (only taking action if fired upon)? I ask in all innocence as I haven't indulged in piracy myself (yet).

Vipers on patroll will respond to ships emitting a "help me!" message on the general emergency frequency.

Also when police detect (scanning range) a villain, they can decide to challenge, which is annoying when you are just about to lose your bad rep (undeserved I'm sure) ..."Do not try to dodge our lasers offender!"

how do you send a "help me" message, I remember seeing it somewhere, but I've forgotten where that was so I can't go and find it again.

As a player, you can't do that, at least, there's no 'help' key, but IIRC, this works automatically, w/o intervention of the player...

If you want to get the Behemoth involved, the best thing to do is to draw the pirates' fire and stick close to the Behemoth.

I've used this tactic quite a lot, and it's great fun.

Behemoths also used to attack Vipers whose fire overshot, but I'm not convinced they do this anymore.

I also like hiding behind the Nav beacon and shooting ships coming out of the station. Vipers firing at you will then get into trouble for firing on the beacon!

Wiggy wrote:

I also like hiding behind the Nav beacon and shooting ships coming out of the station. Vipers firing at you will then get into trouble for firing on the beacon!

Love it!

I was recently trying to work of an offender legal status (unfortunate misunderstanding ) and got pegged by a Viper while out of fuel for my injectors. Fortunately there was an Anaconda nearby I was able to hide behind. A few seconds later and bingo... One seriously annoyed trader and one ex cop.