Surrender during ship combat?

[memmott]

Is there any way to surrender once ship combat starts?
My runs often end by not being able to escape and my ship being blown up. If my engines break though I surrender, which is a much preferable result.
I'm a little frustrated, and feel like I must be missing something.

I just found posts talking about the retreat formula, so it sounds like best bet for crew build up for that is navigators.

[Metallicus]

I also wonder why the opponents don’t surrender at times when they are clearly outmatched. I almost feel bad having to carve them into little pieces when the outcome is inevitable.

[MasterShake]

A very popular question, pops up on regular basis.
The short answer is still (unfortunately imo) - no, there's no way to surrender once you start combat. Same rules for AI (also popular suggestion to devs, plenty of discussions happened).

First you try your best not to start combat at all (with rep control, talents and surrendering before fight (last button usually). Unless you dumped your rep through certain treshold (popular mistake among newbies who try to immediately and blindly rush Faen storyline), you should have ability to surrender before fighting.
If that failed, and you are not ready to combat, you may try to retreat. To be honest I find this way somewhat odd, bc both retreat and combat ways require building overwhelming defence. And once you got it, there's no reason to run really unless you roleplay.

Unless you mean navigation build (not navigators, bc it's more about components not crew) you are partly right. But navigation dice is, as abovementioned, very restricted one, especially in starting and small ships (component number), to really improve your chances you should build command dice (which for now is not restricted) and electronics dice. But thing is - both also answer for defence dice too. So once again if you have decent command and electronics dice, it's probably easier to fight, than run.

[Tomcat]

If surrendering is a thing, there should be more punishments to go along with it. Like having 1/3 of your crew getting conscripted.

[MasterShake]

Do faction officials consript tho?
Also rules for player are that you can conscript only as much as free beds you have. No AI runs around w/o 1/3 of crew.
Not like it would be an unfair deal (honestly, those who failed, would prefer any other deal than death).

[Tomcat]

Also, surrendering should always force change your captain's gender.

[memmott]

Originally posted by MasterShake:

A very popular question, pops up on regular basis.
The short answer is still (unfortunately imo) - no, there's no way to surrender once you start combat. Same rules for AI (also popular suggestion to devs, plenty of discussions happened).

First you try your best not to start combat at all (with rep control, talents and surrendering before fight (last button usually). Unless you dumped your rep through certain treshold (popular mistake among newbies who try to immediately and blindly rush Faen storyline), you should have ability to surrender before fighting.
If that failed, and you are not ready to combat, you may try to retreat. To be honest I find this way somewhat odd, bc both retreat and combat ways require building overwhelming defence. And once you got it, there's no reason to run really unless you roleplay.

Unless you mean navigation build (not navigators, bc it's more about components not crew) you are partly right. But navigation dice is, as abovementioned, very restricted one, especially in starting and small ships (component number), to really improve your chances you should build command dice (which for now is not restricted) and electronics dice. But thing is - both also answer for defence dice too. So once again if you have decent command and electronics dice, it's probably easier to fight, than run.

I have always done the campaign to start with. that is likely my error

[Tomcat]

You can jump right into Faen. It's the fastest cash imo. You do need to take talents that are get out of jail free cards versus going the rep mitigation route.

I will say that early game spy ships are pseudo xenos. You can be combat ready against xenos much faster but rolling a spy encounter will end you since there is no free escape talent for them.

I think bounty hunters are not free escape either but it feels like they tend to be easier to manually escape.


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Either you take military officers for stiff salute and play a more risky early game ship development. Getting to god mode dodging is faster here and you can pretty much ignore rep loss. Again, getting a spy ship early encounter will end your game but Xeno ships that come later on are not a big deal.

Or you take bounty hunter and diplomat for a slower pace which doesn't anger people. Alot of the early Faen missions fully utilize the Diplomat talents so it's not too bad in terms of progress. But since people seem to think early Xeno ship encounters are bad, I'm guessing it's because people are taking this safe but slow route. Then it probably is necessary to go for a Navigator officer for Skip off the Void when taking this path.

[Trese Brothers]

There is no mid-combat Surrender at this time but it has slowly climbed the rank on our priority list and is pretty hot atm. It will come often with stiffer penalties and punishments than surrendering in advance.

[MasterShake]

Originally posted by Tomcat:

getting a spy ship early encounter will end your game

Getting a BH may end your game. Getting Pirate encounter may end your game unless you aimed for merchant captain/crew with rank 5 job and utilizing certain talent. There're also bad rumors. And spies.
Getting MO/zealot if your stiff salute just went cd will also end your game. And it's entirely possible if you don't abuse FDF.

Too many variables, don't you think? You're not wrong, but I think, the route you propose must be done only by those, who know exactly, what they are doing. For those, who are yet to catch up, it's safer to carefully mend reputations until 2nd ship at the very least. Which includes not rushing Faen missions or at least use talents, ops, and other faction missions to keep reputation damage at bay.

[Tomcat]

Without having to go home, login, and spend time gathering dice data or talents, early game BHs are more escapable than spies from my experience. Late game Sbc merchants are more easily explained since they pack the most command crew and thus are the most dangerous human ship. I never checked the crew comps of early spies and BHs since I'm trying to fit into a 2nd ship asap in my naked underwear 1st ship.

Pirates are a non-issue. They ALWAYS allow you to surrender prebattle without issue. That's the glass half full side to them wanting to raid you even if you share the same faction. If you aren't merchanting, pirates can be totally ignored.

It's of course funny to me when new players come and get into the same ol privateer argument after attacking a pirate for no reason when in reality, pirate encounters early on (non merchant playthroughs) are super welcome. I would be spreading my body while smiling and [redacted due to adult content] before they fly off without issue.

[veloper]

Originally posted by MasterShake:

Getting Pirate encounter may end your game unless you aimed for merchant captain/crew with rank 5 job and utilizing certain talent.

Getting a random pirate should never end your game. You can see and compare their stats before a battle may commence and you can ALWAYS safely surrender to a pirate as long as you don't put all your wealth into cargo items.
Pirates are only interested in carrying off your cargo. Unlike the rest, they never punish/execute captains with low faction scores or take their mission cargo and passengers.

When you can do the same to them in reverse, the faction penalties are much lower. Pirates are your best friend in this game.

[MasterShake]

I'm totally sure, I sometimes have encounters with Pirates, who force fight. Even on captains with 100+ rep with all factions. Tho I can't really confirm those were random encounters, you may be right about that.
If I get one, I'll try to remember about this topic.

[davea]

On "hard", I've never really had much trouble retreating from human captains even at hostility 5. I have a few key upgrades like ECCM and nav assist with sufficient dice; a small, fast ship; and usually a spy officer with one dose of bolt. I guess I get hostility 5 rarely, because I usually only piss off one or two factions ever.