Destroying/capturing pirates gives reputation loss?

[Bermag]

If I get attacked by a pirate from a faction like VIG does destroying or boarding the ship give you a reputation loss? I am working on improving VIG (and doing their quest line) so don't want to get reputation loss, but I do want to capture their Barbarossas (some are always hanign out in SIlewnt Witness XI/XII). So thinking of baiting them to attack.

[LeftPaw]

I also would like to know what ships I can rob or capture without rep loss. Is it ships that are marked as independent?

[Bermag]

You can board SCA ships since they are at a fixed reputation. They are often disguised as other faction ships but if you scan them they will show up as SCA (if not scanning then you might get a reputation hit for the faction they are disguised as).

They are easy to spot. They are named plunderer (but VIG use that name as well). I have taken several destroyers. But watch out where you attack them because factions which are at war with SCA might attack and destroy. I lost two targets in a row after disabling and starting to board, because MIN etc attacked (after I did all the work) and destroyed them.

Silent Witness XI/XII are great for hunting SCA capitals.

[LeftPaw]

Originally posted by Bermag:

You can board SCA ships since they are at a fixed reputation. They are often disguised as other faction ships but if you scan them they will show up as SCA (if not scanning then you might get a reputation hit for the faction they are disguised as).

They are easy to spot. They are named plunderer (but VIG use that name as well). I have taken several destroyers. But watch out where you attack them because factions which are at war with SCA might attack and destroy. I lost two targets in a row after disabling and starting to board, because MIN etc attacked (after I did all the work) and destroyed them.

Silent Witness XI/XII are great for hunting SCA capitals.

Thank you. Great info right there.

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by Bermag:

If I get attacked by a pirate from a faction like VIG does destroying or boarding the ship give you a reputation loss? I am working on improving VIG (and doing their quest line) so don't want to get reputation loss, but I do want to capture their Barbarossas (some are always hanign out in SIlewnt Witness XI/XII). So thinking of baiting them to attack.

If you destroy the ship or any hard point on the ship you'll take reputation loss. If you manage to board and capture a ship without destroying anything then there is no reputation loss.

[Bermag]

Originally posted by Pandorian:

Originally posted by Bermag:

If I get attacked by a pirate from a faction like VIG does destroying or boarding the ship give you a reputation loss? I am working on improving VIG (and doing their quest line) so don't want to get reputation loss, but I do want to capture their Barbarossas (some are always hanign out in SIlewnt Witness XI/XII). So thinking of baiting them to attack.

If you destroy the ship or any hard point on the ship you'll take reputation loss. If you manage to board and capture a ship without destroying anything then there is no reputation loss.

Hard points? You mean any surface component like turrets, engines etc? Is that even possible?

[Mystozhaf]

You can basically capture any ships without getting reputation loss using "fly by boarding" method. I got 5 Asgards using that method without reputation loss at all (bless the Terrans for making another Asgard as soon as i capture one. Also bless the soul of the boarded crew that were killed using this method while their faction don't give a single damn about it, and lastly bless the soul of my marines that willingly board ships that barely have any scratch XD).

In case you don't know, fly by boarding is a boarding method that will allow you to capture ships without rep loss. How to do it, you might ask. Well, here's how:
1. Use a ship that could carry plenty of marines (depends on which ship you wanna board, L ships is preferrable). For me, i usually use Shuyaku Vanguard with full marines crew for boarding. If you have Tides of Avarice DLC, buy your marines in Windfall I Union Summit. They usually have better quality marines there (you can only buy recruits in the upgrade menu, but some will come out as veterans)
2. Locate the ship you want to board (make sure the ship is not near any of your station, your AI controlled ship, or AI controlled ship path).
3. Use travel mode and go below the desired ship (by below, i really mean below it that you're close to a crash with the ship).
4. When you're below the ship, pause the game and board the ship (set both Stage I and Stage II to very strong).
5. Unpause the game and get out of the boarded ship's vicinity (because it will shoot you, but after some time it will be back to normal).
6. Wait until the boarding is done.
7. When the boarding is done, congrats! You just got yourself a ship without getting rep loss.

Gotta remind you tho, using this method will make the game easy mode as it's low risk and high reward. If you don't want to use this method, then what Bermag said is probably the best choice.

Bonus: if you have Cradle of Humanity DLC, still early in the game, and want "free" Katanas, go to Pioneers sector (Brennan's Triumph, Gaian Prophecy, or Segaris). You can find Pioneers freelancer there. The ship you want to look for is "PIO Freelancer Katana". Make them abandon their ship by doing these steps:
1. Shooting it to around 74% hull
2. Let them recharge their shield
3. Shoot again until their shield is depleted
Repeating step 2 and 3 should make them abandon their ship and since it's a freelancer, you won't get rep loss with the Pioneers. The smaller your ship's hull, the higher the chance they will abandon the ship faster, So S ship is preferrable.

Things to note for the bonus:
1. They usually have lots of advanced satelites (depending on your luck), so you can sell those satelites for profitsss.
2. IIRC, the ships only spawn one at a time and will take time for another to spawn.
3. (IMPORTANT) in my game (and also my brother's game), these freelancers only spawn up to 3 times. So if you captured all 3, there will/might not be anymore PIO Freelancer Katana. Don't know if this will change anything, but just want you to know.

Cheers and happy hunting!

Edit: added second paragraph

[Pandorian]

Originally posted by Bermag:

Hard points? You mean any surface component like turrets, engines etc? Is that even possible?

Yeah you can destroy those by focus firing them. Engines will lose function around 5-10% (I don't remember the exact value) so it's not necessary to completely destroy them to kill a capital ship's movement. There are even buttons to cycle through hard points in the hotkeys.

[StormhawkV]

Me: 'Yo, my marines just gunned down 120 of your crewmen. Is this going to be a problem for our relations?'

Terran high command: 'Nah, it's fine. We hope you enjoy our Asgard.'

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by StormhawkV:

Me: 'Yo, my marines just gunned down 120 of your crewmen. Is this going to be a problem for our relations?'

Terran high command: 'Nah, it's fine. We hope you enjoy our Asgard.'

you have to camouflage this... something with the Crew had an incurable Alien disease like serious symptoms of Boron Fin rot should sound legit to Terrans.