Hostile Ships

[Fast Johnny]

Is every ship you run into out on the water out to get you or are there any peaceful encounters? If you are in good with the Khanate, then why do their ships attack you? Same with the Rat ships, if you supported the Rat faction at Pigmote and have a rat as your mascot?

I have seen a ship or two that was the same as my starter boat, that goes by and then suddenly disappears in front of me, that was not hostile.

[Elitewrecker PT]

Yes everything other than those mysterious ships are hostile. And actually, the khanate ships are a way of reducing your suspicion, if you destroy them and then let the crew go.

[Specific Beef]

The blue ones seem to all be okay. It gets more dangerous the further out you go.

[voidlight]

I always took the blue ships (the ones you're talking about) to be traders from London, especially given the fact that they are a Wolfstack model and usually say something to the effect of "Calico class merchant cruiser." If this is true then they are the same faction as you, and therefore will not attack. This also explains why they typically spawn in the West. They are likely trading between Wolfstack and Port Carnelian (London's colony).

As for other factions you're on friendly terms with, I view it like this: The sea is to dangerous to ask questions first and shoot later, so people do it in reverse. You may be a spy sympathetic to their cause, but they don't know that, and there's no obvious way of telling, otherwise you'd be a bad spy. You on the other hand, can roleplay your allegiances by not preying on those ships, and instead just sailing by. Essentially all combat cam be avoided by running unless you are crippled in some way (the most obvious one being out of fuel, but also less than half crew so you move at half speed, etc).

[Xachariah]

I was always bothered by the fact that "allied" factions would still attack you. Until I came to the conclusion that all of these ships are pirates. They don't actually represent the faction itself, but rather its criminals. In some cases it's rather obvious, i.e. the unfinished pirates of polythreme.

No idea whether that actually was the intention of the developers, but thinking about it like this definately made the game more enjoyable for me.

[Frosty]

The "Blue" ships have a special comment when you loot them.

Something along the lines of "Thee crew is uneasy with the idea of pillaging a hapless ship of London"

[Specific Beef]

I've been playing for 40 hours now, and although the game felt pretty dangerous at first, ships are my least worry.

I don't know what changed in my game -- maybe arming up and buying a bigger vessel put them off? -- but I have to provoke ships to fight me now. If I hang around them and keep them in attack range then eventually they open fire, but this seems about right. I should be continuing on a line to wherever I'm going. If I start dawdling and swimming in wasteful patterns like a goldfish then I should expect to be treated as a threat.

[Maverick]

As for "being on good terms with factions", if youre speaking of the Khanate, youre not on good terms with them at all. Youre a citizen of their enemy state, see it as Sowjet Union vs USA during Cold War. So if the Khanate ship "accidentally" blows up what "turned out to be" a citizen ship, there wont be any repercussions, only commendations from the Khanate.