Scale plate pirates scripts - ABSURD

[BAG]

They literrally POP anywhere, whenever they want
Only focusing our traders
and then they literrally VANISH

No, its NOT wormholes
I saw that multiple times... I was observing the game for 1 hour, especially to make sure that the scripts are doing that exactly.
And thats exactly what they do.

They absolutelly do not care about their real enemy - could be argon, antigon, whatever, they can fly by them not doing anything.

sometimes, they vanish after NO more than 2 seconds after kill.
I cant even retaliate if I have patrols in.
Nor could the sector police (which btw, absolutelly do not care, even tho I am rep-22 with argons)

And they can do that even in main sectors - like Argon prime. I saw them

Those scripts are totally game killing.

I wish I had created a custom game, to turn off that reputation for SPP.


...sorry, im a bit upset. But those are really hitting my nerv. At least if its was a fair way to lose a vessel. But its absoletly not.



...is there a mod eventually, to rework their reputation on an ongoing game?.... I dont want to restart all over. That faction (should say stupid script instead of faction) is really killing my pleasure.

[Pandorian]

No clue what you mean by they vanish as at one point in time I set up an anti-piracy group made up of the fastest ships in the universe and had their command as "Follow" and then chose the SCA ships. Sometimes I'd forget and come back multiple hours later with them still following the ships.

SCA don't always show as SCA, they have disguise tech that makes their ship look like another faction's but it's easy to pick them out by their name.

EDIT: I also saw them pirating NPC stations. They remote hack and then pick up the dropped wares.

[Sticky Wicket]

They are hard to catch because they are very fast and they are able to zoom away.

I have found that Katanas are excellent for killing them. Fit them out with Lvl 3 drives and plasma cannons and they will make short work of those SCA pillagers.

Katanas are, I think, the fastest M class military ship in the game and they make for excellent *fast response* vessels. I use them a lot to defend miners and trade ships in potentially hostile areas. Set them to protect ships or protect areas.

Quite often you can spot one of those sca pirates when they are still *blue* and disguised. Set them as hostile and quite often friendlies (ships of factions you have high rep with) will start to attack them also.

[zpc]

They don't "vanish" after a raid. They activate the travel drive and disappear into the fog of war. In fact, they are patroling the sector in very simple patterns.

To mimize piracy on your property you have to:
- secure the sectors your trader operate with your own patrols (don't solely rely on the faction patrols)
- let (big) ships defend your stations (fastest way: select ship, right-click on the station, select "defend")
- use Barbarossa ships as trader (counts as military and isn't harassed as often - and if so it has a lot of guns to repel most attackers)

Unprotected trading is only possible in core sectors and shouldn't be done. Same goes for mining (even more so as high mining yields are mostly in remote sectors).

Those are the game rules, and if one plays by the book it isn't much trouble. I learned & perfected my piracy countermeasures by playing the new boron DLC start (#1). Those boron sectors are plagued by pirates.

[BAG]

no they disapear. Literally...
They PoP in, then they *poof* out. The icon is not moving away - it is simply not there anymore.

I observed that multiple times. And once, I had time to select my patrol. Send it against, and the I> simply disapeard.
There was no fog of war, the sector I observed last time was fully discovered further than the default HEX is. He didnt change icon looking, nor skin not whatever - he simply went *poof*
And that happened multiple times - I was standing in the sector while doing other things.

They just hop-in and out better than khaaks :-)

And what about police then? They also have *zips*
If I attack someone, they POP suddenly at close range with a whole squadron.
But if I get attacked, theres no nobody lol :P

I even lost a M-trader within seconds right next to a argon station (22 standing) with 3 fighters. They did nothing. nor the station as fired. And right after, the SCA disapeard.
(view was covered by satelittles)

I dont doubt that there might be real developped script, like you explain above. But What I observed is also true.

[Knottypine]

I've also never seen them vanish. Sometime if I'm quick enough I can set destination and follow them into uncharted map areas as well. I've chases them down several times for revenge and they have never disappeared.

[Wraith]

Mod?
Never seen SCA does that

[zpc]

Originally posted by -BAG-:

no they disapear. Literally...
They PoP in, then they *poof* out. The icon is not moving away - it is simply not there anymore.

If you are just looking at them via map - it may seem so as the map doesn't poll updates every milisecond (to save some performance I guess). But as I said - they just move away very fast. Also: they might move in a blind spot the map can't visualize (think 3D). Have a look at them in-sector / stalk them with a ship for yourself to learn their pattern.

edit1: Another tip which might help - if they are "zipping way" too fast for you to react - hit "Pause" (you might have to bind a key), give orders to your intercepting fleet and unpause the game again. In general I'd work on the blindspots I meantioned earlier and make sure that every path of my civilian ships is covered by own patrols.

edit2: Oh, and make sure to give all your civilian ships some lasertowers - and set their pirate-reaction-behaviour to flee-and-dump-lasertower. This buys some extra time for defenders to trash the pirate.

[BAG]

I use pause all the time.
I wouldnt complain if it was not obvious
I can give further example, but that wont get us anywhere I think :)

I only use 4 mods. Explore, Satellite mk4, and the last is something blocking illegals that goes with the auto-loot. I'm not even trading them, just because I am lazy to have to drop them... too many clicks :p

[Azrelus]

They probably turn the cover back on and you miss them, but they do not vanish. Set a ship to follow a SCA pirate and find out.

[Ygolnac]

In my experience they don't vanish. Sometimes they are labelled as ARG/BOR/TEL/WATHEVER pillager or plunderer and are blue. If they attack a ship yopu own they turn red and get the SCA signature, but after a while they go back blue with their original signature.

If you attack them before they do anything (they are always labelled as pillager, plunderer), initially faction police calls for your attack and ask sector command to retaliate, but then sector command says everything is fine and police don't move against you and you don't loose any rep.

You can set an alert when "pillager" or "plunderer" show up on your scan, then you can set them hostile and your patrols should engage them. That's some micro but works.

On the long run Barbarossas are the answer, set them to not comply to piracy but to attack on piracy, and they will be able to destroy the attacker wich is always alone and most always a TEL destroyer not very powerfull.

L miners with a couple of katanas each, moving in fleets, are enough. Pick a miner with a ton of shields (BOR ones are the best), set them to ignore piracy. The pillager will start to shoot the miner and the escorting katanas set to defend role will get rid of it.

If you set freighters to comply to piracy the plunderer doesn't tuen red and faction police don't care. If you set the freighter to not comply to piracy the plunderer will shoot and become red, and in this case I saw npc police retaliate, in PAR sectors where there's a lot of police. If the npc faction is on its knees becouse wars or XEN they won't have enough police to retaliate.

Also SCA has a ship cap, so initially they will concentrate on the only sector you start your activity and you still are on M Miners and Traders and you will loose some cargo or manually micro defence. But it's not that bad. Eventually you will spread your commerce on several sectors but they won't have enough ships to bother you everywhere. For example they are bothering my initial hull parts factory in 18 billions, my initial water commerce in GReat Reef, and ignoring my money printer in the belt with 90 miners assigned to it (Computronic substrate), and my huge mega giga shipyard in Pious Mist II.

[seePyou]

I've never seen them vanish. I don't know where they are generated (but basic premise is that they are created the same as all factions, constructed in a shipyard).

I have followed a few of them for curiocity, learning, or piracy reasons. One Phoenix I followed A LOT. I was waiting for some ships to be build to attack it, and they were out of resources. It took a long time for them to be ready, and that ship did not vanish.

Another I set as guidance target, but I was busy with other things and I could not get away to go chase it. It stayed like that for two game days (about 8 hours give or take) and that little bastard of a Minotaur did not vanish. It was my first bail :D

[D55]

They dont Vanish but they do spawn in, as mentioned set a ship to follow them and see for yourself.
The spawning in really bugs me, i made a post on the Egosoft forums about it as i find it really immersion breaking.
The good news though is someone has made a mod to stop the spawning in and given pirates a shipyard
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982889173
Currently only works with HAT and SCA

[K'senia]

They aren't vanishing, they are simply leaving your view. Whether that view is your own ships radar or one of your satellites. Radar is a sphere so they may disappear what looks like inside your radar's view, but in fact they are just "north or south" of the ecliptic. Thus leaving radar view and 'disappearing'.

[Sticky Wicket]

If you set your nearby defenders to attack them they will *lock on*.

Then you can keep updated where the sca target is by clicking on any ships that are set to attack; there will be a blue line pointing towards where it is.

You need fast attack ships. As I said earlier Katanas are faster and can actually outpace them.

[Despiser]

They only seem to target m-traders. If you phase them out and use L class they leave them alone if they’re armed enough.