Does anyone really even ever use the station hacking?

[=)]

hundreds of hours and besides a couple of missions, i have never used them for my own ends.

[eMYNOCK]

What exactly do you mean?
Signal Leaks or Special Items you use on the Terminal that are around on Stations?

If it is the later, well... these Tools have their uses, but its very Situational.

[Tommytools]

Very rarely, but sometimes I just want a station gone without having to take a rep hit, so I disrupt their defense and repair terminals when I see the station under attack.

Other than that and the missions? I always end up with hundreds if not thousands of the security decryption thingies in my games and nothing to use them on (can't even sell the damn things :P).

[blackphoenixx]

Hacking trade terminals for the stations you trade with is basically free money and the hacks last a fairly long time.
If it's a station you trade with often that can easily be millions of credits out of a single hack.

[=)]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

What exactly do you mean?
Signal Leaks or Special Items you use on the Terminal that are around on Stations?

If it is the later, well... these Tools have their uses, but its very Situational.

The terminals. Turret/production/cargo hacks. I end up with loads of them (wish I could just sell them to pirates traders). Situational seems a euphemism for "really doesnt have much use" Turning off local production of a ware to push up prices isnt going to make that huge a change in value of the ware for long enough to make it worth my time.
Maybe the one that forces a trade value boost if you do a LOT of business there, but the %ages on commissions are frequently so weak (sub 5%) as to not seem worth bothering... plus scan a leak.. it takes under a minute and doesnt require docking and running around the station

[blackphoenixx]

The value boost from hacking trade terminals is always 10% afaik.

[Kalisa]

I love to hack all the time but fits into my playstyle allot, I often shut down production of factions i want to weaken for my allies, turn off defenses/weapons for stations under attack i want dead, really like to get permanent trade bonuses for places i trade often with, and usually drop the wares of most stations well im there if they are more an enemy to help burn resources or more early game where my HQ functtions as a warehouse/trade station where i sell all my collected loot to help raise rep.

Shutting down shipyards/wharfs can devastate allot of factions long term as long as you stay ontop of shutting it down.

[conrado.lacerda]

If, for some reason, you want to take a sector from a npc faction, you have to take out their defense stations' admin centers; if you hack the station's defense turrets before sending your destroyers in, your odds of succeeding dramatically improve.

[eMYNOCK]

Originally posted by =):

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

What exactly do you mean?
Signal Leaks or Special Items you use on the Terminal that are around on Stations?

If it is the later, well... these Tools have their uses, but its very Situational.

The terminals. Turret/production/cargo hacks. I end up with loads of them (wish I could just sell them to pirates traders). Situational seems a euphemism for "really doesnt have much use" Turning off local production of a ware to push up prices isnt going to make that huge a change in value of the ware for long enough to make it worth my time.
Maybe the one that forces a trade value boost if you do a LOT of business there, but the %ages on commissions are frequently so weak (sub 5%) as to not seem worth bothering... plus scan a leak.. it takes under a minute and doesnt require docking and running around the station

oh, but you can sell them to pirate vendors and blackmarketeers... given you have the appropiate reputation to do so.

the "best" use is in my experience ejecting stored goods into space by the way... it may not be something special when you force a shipyard to do it but the economy will thank you non the less...

and your own shipyards may even snatch a few orders for ships because of such a storage malfunction.

[Palladin888]

I never so the hack missions due to rep hit. The only stations I would have are enemies but they are KOS so that is never an option.

[eMYNOCK]

there is no rep hit if you don't do missions and if you don't touch dropped containers.

[VA gamer]

Originally posted by eMYNOCK:

there is no rep hit if you don't do missions and if you don't touch dropped containers.

I'm curious about this - if I have one of my captains pick up those containers do I take a permanent or temporary rep hit? Does that change if I'm OOS, or if I'm on the ship but not in command?

[trooperrob]

was thinking hitting a claytronics factory storage early game could give a good boost. but last time my freighter got obliterated.
Maybe hitting turrets and storage at once might help...

[blackphoenixx]

Originally posted by blackphoenixx:

The value boost from hacking trade terminals is always 10% afaik.

Correction, i did some checking and it appears the value you get from hacking a trade terminal is fixed and depends on the ware, ranging from 2% (Computronic Substrate) to 8% (Advanced Electronics). Minerals and gasses get 3%, most non-Terran wares are in the 6-8% range.
It's permanent and a single hack applies to all wares on that station.

Also if you trade between two hacked stations you get the benefit twice, once as a discount for buying and once as a bonus for selling.

I'd say that's definitely worth getting out of your ship for.

[Wraith]

A lot
Those discount and commission from hacking really adds up

It my new method of getting rich early game