Bug or Design?

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Cory,

I spent some time this weekend playing a spy on Impossible difficulty, and I noticed something that may be a bug, but may be designed.

Whenever blockading a planet, if I encountered a friendly ship, and I hit ignore, I would still lose my death warrant with that faction. I duplicated this repeatedly, and made sure that there were no alliances that I was violating during my blockading efforts.

Is this a bug, or is this just a faction punishment for stopping a friendly faction ship with your rude and inconvenient blockade? Cause, I know that the spice must flow!

[slawyer]

If it's friendly, why are you hitting ignore instead of acknowledge? Or is this a pirate? Those are never friendly, just less unfriendly, and sometimes attack outside faction space even when you have a trade permit. I think you always have to engage those when they are hostile ("you vs. [Faction]" in red at the top of the encounter screen), or you lose your death warrant for that faction.

It seems when the faction is allied with another, you are just screwed -- either you ignore the pirate and lose the death warrant, or you fight them and piss off the allied factions (assuming you win -- losing or fleeing after engaging seems to make you lose your permit for that faction). How they know about it when you don't leave any witnesses and it's happening in an Independent sector, I don't know -- I think that should only happen in the allied faction space, but it doesn't appear to work that way. If your RP is positive with the pirate's faction, they don't seem to care if you engage and kill the pirate, even when you destroy the ship, though the allies might revoke your trade permit and/or dock you ranks.

I always fight them for the morale boost, unless they are way higher level than me (then I just go buy another death warrant). Those high level pirates are crazy-ram-happy and like to kill themselves and take you with them!

[Tenebrous Pirate]

You mention some valid points to investigate. I am not certain if it was pirates or not, I can't remember for sure. I will have to go blockade a bunch more and see what happens.

[Cory Trese]

if you ignore bounty hunters as a licensed bounty hunter then you loose your warrants.

Failure will not be tolerated. If the Acknowledge button is available, it should be used.

There are some nuances, but if you are in the range of -30 you don't have a Death Warrant anyway.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Hmm, I haven't noticed it with Bounty Hunters, just with Pirates of a friendly faction. And, it has only been when no Acknowledge button was available. So, if I encounter a friendly bounty hunter or pirate and cannot acknowledge them, I need to blow them out of the sky. I have tried surrendering to them, and they will just loot me even though I am a friendly.

[Cory Trese]

I guess it depends on "Friendly" definition. I'll check the code, thanks for the explaination

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Well, I define "friendly" as in I have high positive faction and military rank with them. Thanks for checking on it.

[oldalchemist]

Do you also have a trade permit? That's supposed to keep pirates off your back.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Yep! Rank 18 with faction ranging from 700+ to 1100+ with trade permits and death warrants.

[Cory Trese]

Pirates of a Faction with a Trade Permit show Acknowledge.

Pirates of a Faction during Notorious Pirates, Trade Wars and Merchant Swarm Rumors ATTACK WITHOUT WARNING. Unless you have correct Ranks, Permits and all your paperwork is up to par.

This is a confusing thread

[Cory Trese]

yah I mean I am looking right at the code -- if Trade Permit, show acknowledge.

Just watched the tester run it for about an hour too -- everything seems good.

There was an edge case bug ...

if you attacked a privatteer (or carried trade goods without a permit) and then escaped (DRAW result) that you could (50/50) loose a Death Warrant.

[Cory Trese]

All things being equal, I think I like the way Pirates and Privateer AI and resolution systems work right now. Is it 100% perfect for every player? No, but it is a fair balanced system IMO.

I know that from the once common "pirates are cheating me" e-mails are now a no-show. In fact, I think this thread might be one of the only ones I have gotten in weeks.

Anyway, stuff to think about

[Cory Trese]

if you attacked a privatteer (or carried trade goods without a permit) and then escaped (DRAW result) that you could (50/50) loose a Death Warrant.

On second thought, I like that ... I think it works. You get a toast and a warning.

Stu, Liz, Alcy? Anyone want to sound off?

[absimiliard]

May 13, 2011 11:11:56 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

if you attacked a privatteer (or carried trade goods without a permit) and then escaped (DRAW result) that you could (50/50) loose a Death Warrant.

On second thought, I like that ... I think it works. You get a toast and a warning.

Stu, Liz, Alcy? Anyone want to sound off?

Sounds pretty edge-case-ey to me. So if it was my code I probably wouldn't worry too much about it.

I also rarely worry too much about what I lose. I'm pretty used to losing thing, and captains, so generally I just blow off worrying about and just try to remember to buy a new Warrant/Permit/Promotion/Pardon the next time I'm on-planet.

So I'd say I'm fine with it. And from a role-playing standpoint, well, bureaucracy is what it is, and someone did something wrong . .. .

-abs

[Tenebrous Pirate]

Cory, I only do not have the Acknowledge button with the pirates that I have a trade permit with when I am blockading a planet of a different faction.

Edit: Let me clarify. Here is the scenario. Difficulty Impossible, spy class.

My captain has positive faction, military rank, trade permits and death warrants with all three syndicates. He has negative faction with all three houses.

When blockading a planet from one of the house factions, and I encounter the rare syndicate faction pirates, I have the ignore option instead of the acknowledge option. If I click ignore, or if I engage and then retreat, I lose my death warrant with that syndicate faction.