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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 30, 2011 16:30:04 GMT -5
I'm going to defer to Liz, Spike or Stu regarding the Pirates ... if I type up a summary here I think the documentation team will probably just post a flow chart correcting me!
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Mar 30, 2011 17:18:18 GMT -5
Empirically, this is how it works now (ST RPG Elite 3.6.4) when encountering ships of your home faction with positive Rep and no Rank, Warrant or Permit. No contraband or Records aboard, no Bounty flags against player:
Merchant.
Acknowledge or Retreat/Ignore = No Rep penalty (with any Faction).
Advance = -1 Rep
Capture = -3 Rep (was -50%?)
Ample explanation in encounter text.
Warship.
Retreat/Ignore = -1 Rep
Surrender = No Rep penalty (with any Faction).
Advance, then Retreat = -1 Rep
Capture = -3 Rep (was -60%?)
Ample explanation in encounter text.
Bounty Hunter.
Retreat/Ignore = -1 Rep.
Surrender = No Rep penalty (with any Faction).
NB initial encounter text gives no clue of whether you should surrender or not. But going to Battle Stations will provide you with the class type (Bounty).
Pirate.
Retreat/Ignore = No Rep penalty (with any Faction).
Surrender = No Rep penalty (with any Faction) (but Hold is looted and crew demoralised).
Attack and Capture = No Rep penalty (with any Faction)
Ample warnings given in encounter text.
Also, Retreat/Ignore vs a Pirate of another Faction, unfriendly i.e. with Rep 0 or lower, gives no Rep penalty (with any Faction).
Testing was conducted with Newbie Star Trader from starting position at DeValtos Prime. Normal Difficulty (1). Spent all training points on Pilot and Tactics. Patrolled continually over DeValtos Prime to generate encounters.
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Post by MTKnife on Mar 30, 2011 19:10:40 GMT -5
OK, in that case, I'm satisfied with how it works. That does however leave me wondering how I ended up with a Warrant against nd in the middle of an encounter against a pirate, since I shouldn't have been penalized for trying to run away.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 30, 2011 19:30:57 GMT -5
Ah.... interesting. There is a distinction between Reputation Loss and Criminal Status.
The Pirates CAN report that your (wanted) Captain IS ALIVE and operating in known space.
There are some occasions where this will trigger an application of the Warrant (failed a Stealth check, I'm afraid.)
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 30, 2011 19:33:53 GMT -5
I will clarify this rule with Spike and Liz, but the summary is this:
If a Captain has sufficient negative Reputation to earn a Warrant a Ship (Flag-Flying Faction Ship) can detect the Captain (depends on range, hostility, ship age and Stealth) and communicate to the military that the Criminal Is Alive.
This check strongly favors the player, but every encounter in a Faction Sector when hated by Faction risks being reported to the Central Database. Avoid the space of thine enemies and sail in the vast red spaces. I put plenty on the Elite map.
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Post by havocme on Mar 31, 2011 7:03:50 GMT -5
Hmm. The problem I can think of is trying to balance cargo space and having enough gas to use the red effectively.  |
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Post by oldalchemist on Mar 31, 2011 10:00:19 GMT -5
Water-Fuel Tanks are awesome.
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Post by Cory Trese on Mar 31, 2011 12:02:17 GMT -5
and working very well in the next release. much better =)
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Post by kremmen on Mar 31, 2011 18:52:19 GMT -5
All I was saying is that no matter how hard I try, many players prefer to just e-mail me directly instead of posting on the forum. I was regularly dealing with 10+ e-mails a week about Pirate Rep loss but now I'm not getting enough to even worry about keeping track. Now I'm on the Water-Fuel and Award Bugs  Feel the mildly irritating wrath of fickle consumers! Seriously, the amount of effort you put into this game is fantastic. Thanks. |
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spike
Exemplar
Posts: 360
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Post by spike on Apr 1, 2011 16:46:34 GMT -5
Due to the nerfing (total removal) of Rep loss for killing Pirates, during a Solar War you can kill Pirates of one side with impunity (no Rep loss), while still gaining Rep with the opposed Faction. Is that intended? Is it reasonable? Privateers may operate under a cloak of plausible deniability, but the sponsoring Faction is still going to know which Captain is trashing their ships, and they are still going to hate him or her. Unofficially, secretly, but still with full-on hate.
So while I agree you should not lose Rep with a faction for evading their Pirates, maybe it is reasonable that you do still lose Rep with that faction when you blast their Pirates into splinters.
I know this has been round and round a few times, so apologies for re-opening the issue.
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Post by Cory Trese on Apr 1, 2011 17:40:49 GMT -5
Imagine the fury of Mr. Knife tho, if any reputation was lost during war vs. pirates.
I fear the mildly irritating wrath of fickle consumers!
Devs really should have thicker skin than me.
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Post by slayernz on Apr 1, 2011 17:45:40 GMT -5
You know, if you find the right dock, you could get a thicker skin upgrade. However, note you can only have one thicker skin upgrade, and isn't something you can undo I'm afraid.
However, the local Doctor-technologist might be able to recommend a good brand of super-glue remover
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Post by Cory Trese on Apr 1, 2011 18:44:41 GMT -5
in cyber knights the character can install and remove upgrades as many as they can fit into the allotted number of upgrade points. they can find special installers that reduce the cost for some upgrades.
i learned my lesson here -- the maximum number of upgrades is no longer the balancing issue =)
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Post by MTKnife on Apr 4, 2011 14:33:42 GMT -5
Pirate. Retreat/Ignore = No Rep penalty (with any Faction). Surrender = No Rep penalty (with any Faction) (but Hold is looted and crew demoralised). Attack and Capture = No Rep penalty (with any Faction) Ample warnings given in encounter text. Spike, I took your word on this, but I noticed afterwards it didn't seem to work this way--my reputations with factions kept drifting downwards when flying through red zones and encountering nothing but Pirates. I've done some testing myself, and I have confirmed that ignoring a pirate does indeed inflict a reputation loss. For example, a few minutes ago, I ran into a Rychart pirate. Before anything else, I hit "Status" and found my Rychart rep was 1; I was also a level 1 officer with Rychart, though without a trade permit. I hit "Ignore", then "Depart", then immediately checked Status again, and my Rychart rep was now at 0. If it was working at one time like you specify above, it must have been changed, perhaps accidentally, but it's definitely not working that way now, at least not for me. |
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Post by sgtcookie on Apr 4, 2011 15:22:56 GMT -5
You got the rep loss as you were above zero rep with rychart.
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