Annoyed by fugitive ships

[adorkablejo]

I'll warp to a new solar system and immediately encounter ships trying to attack me. I try to track them and it's like their maneuverability is at 3000% because I can't track them for the life of me even while I'm holding S. By the time I finally lock onto one, it's zooming past me and by then my ship is heavily damaged if not completely damaged. I'm trying to explore and get some missions done just to be killed. This is starting to make the game a lot less enjoyable coupled with the game crashing so much on me.

[tkwoods]

The only time a battle starts on warping into a system is the battle for a free freighter. That battle is pretty easy for the most part.

You need to learn a few skills I guess. Boost to the space station and land. Land on a freighter.

[wkitty42]

ProTip: don't chase them... just sit in place and aim at them when they are close enough... i've not found any ships that can keep up with the NPC ships even will full S-Class tech mods and using the super slots... NPC ships' maneuverability really needs to be debuffed...

you can also fly in reverse and they will follow you so you can just shoot them in front of you...

[Mr. Bufferlow]

The game can be customized. Check out your options if you do not like how things are working for you now.

[Zigamus Wizard]

There is an auto-target function that you can use that will keep your weapons trained on your target until it is gone. This is NOT CHEATING, at the speeds of space travel and the 3D maneuverability in space, since we have not been trained to this, it is a very demanding behavior. Also to be frank the piloting controls are not really up to snuff for this. (it is like they try to take the controls for a car and apply it to a spaceship in 3D space, not going to work very well) It is better IF you use a controller but still exceedingly difficult.

[Voodoojedizin]

Originally posted by adorkablejo:

I'll warp to a new solar system and immediately encounter ships trying to attack me. I try to track them and it's like their maneuverability is at 3000% because I can't track them for the life of me even while I'm holding S. By the time I finally lock onto one, it's zooming past me and by then my ship is heavily damaged if not completely damaged. I'm trying to explore and get some missions done just to be killed. This is starting to make the game a lot less enjoyable coupled with the game crashing so much on me.

I'm sorry but this doesn't happen!
You can stay away from the fugitive ships and they will not come after you, You have to go to them.

The free the freighter battles only happen after you've jumped five times between systems, and even these can be avoided if you just head for a space station or call the anomaly. I have traveled into probably thousands of new systems and at least a half a dozen different galaxies and what you're talking about just does not happen.
And it doesn't matter whether you're playing on normal or survival.

[Ankido]

I think you're still in a starter ship. They've made finding a good ship easy now. Find a dissonance system and you're good to go.

[adorkablejo]

Originally posted by wkitty42:

ProTip: don't chase them... just sit in place and aim at them when they are close enough... i've not found any ships that can keep up with the NPC ships even will full S-Class tech mods and using the super slots... NPC ships' maneuverability really needs to be debuffed...

you can also fly in reverse and they will follow you so you can just shoot them in front of you...

Thank you for this! I've found this extremely helpful. I was using my S-class guppy ship with a bunch of S-class mods and still struggled but not chasing worked really well.

[Brew]

Originally posted by Voodoojedizin:

Originally posted by adorkablejo:

I'll warp to a new solar system and immediately encounter ships trying to attack me.

I'm sorry but this doesn't happen!
You can stay away from the fugitive ships and they will not come after you, You have to go to them.

By "fugitive", they probably meant something more like "pirate". A fugitive is trying to evade or get away; a pirate wants to steal your stuff.


Regarding the random pirate attacks: I think the likelihood of pirates depends on the conflict rating of the system. If you want fewer pirates harassing you, avoid the three-star conflict systems. Stick to 1's if you can. (You need a conflict scanner installed in your starship to see a system's conflict rating ahead of time.) Once arrived in the system, you can see the economy and conflict ratings in the discoveries screen.

I think the number and difficulty of pirates in a group may depend on how valuable your cargo is. If you want easier fights, don't carry around valuable cargo. When a pirate is chasing you, you see the countdown and an item from your cargo hold. If it's not something you need to be carrying, don't. If you can get by with a smaller stack, try leaving most of it behind. You also have the option to pay off the pirates, but you have to do it before the countdown ends.

If you have a freighter and a combat frigate (and the freighter probably has to be in the same system as you), the frigate will come to your aid during those fights. It deploys some fighters to harass your attackers (but they don't seem to do much in the way of damage). Come to think of it, you can also hire a squadron. I haven't really messed with that much, but they might help too.

I don't know what kind of starship you fly, but you might consider a fighter, since their stats are more geared for fights: they have higher damage rating, and decent maneuverability. The ship with the highest shield rating is a hauler. Perhaps max out shields on a hauler if you'd rather just run away? They can't maneuver too well though.

Upgrade everything as much as you can. If you need extra help keeping your shields charged, you might try using the phase beam weapon. It recharges your shields automatically when you hit enemies. I don't think it's that great for damage though; you might try also installing the positron ejector or infra-knife weapons and cycle between them as needed. Rockets make a decent finishing weapon.

If you have sodium/sodium nitrite or starship shield batteries, use the quick-menu to recharge shields during fights. With a stack of sodium, you can stay in the fight for quite a while. If you are low, go mine a pile of it. Refine lots of cave marrow bulbs, shoot the gasbag cave plants, etc. Can you also just buy the stuff?