Last try to mitigate SCA annoying gameplay

[Tiberius Rex]

So I'm looking for some way (a mod) to either reduce or remove the annoying SCA behavior.

Before you reply please note I have 1000s of hours in the game, I've spent hours on Reddit looking for solutions and this is my last hope that there is a more permanent way to remove this from my game.

If it's not one thing it's another. I figured out how to mitigate the constant piracy and was really even looking forward to dealing with that. But now SCA is space station spamming Heretic's End where I was hoping to set up my HQ. That's just absolute nuisance, I can't leave the system for even 5 minutes after destroying a station under construction, and another one goes up.

This is just totally annoying and game breaking. Why the devs ignore this when over the years players have repeatedly voiced that this is game breaking super annoying gameplay and will turn off people from playing the game. It boggles my mind.

So if you can recommend a mod to deal with this I appreciate it, otherwise I will have to say goodbye to an otherwise decent game even with all the other problems it has.

[Sticky]

I agree that SCA is annoying. Play in POI and Terran Space its much safer, not completely but its rare that a Pirate will harass you there. Step two, create an alert for all Pirate Factions S M L XL in your entire discovered universe. Then chase them down S and M classes make them bail from their ships. L classes board them and take their ships. Its a new way to enjoy playing with SCA in your game. What once hunted me, i become the hunter. I look forward to seeing a poor SCA Trader or a Destroyer ready to become part of my fleet. I have about 6.5 K hours playing X4. Don't worry about SCA stations just go after their ships. You can keep your Headquarters in Heretic's End just add the needed storage to get your research completed. There is also a SCA plot that you can do for SCA to be friendly with you. I suggest leaving VIG alone though, I trade with them and get my Marines from them. Marines from a normal place is more like COP's that failed and become security guards, VIG Marines are more like Retired Green Berets.

[NoDMoD]

There are mods that make pirates build ship (not spawn), which you can use to cripple them.

[eMYNOCK]

there is also the vanilla option to just unlock their player relations and they will stop harrasing player once high enough.

[Alakbar]

I am so on board with Sticky's solution because its fun to do.

The SCA got on board my PHQ and released half of my stations cargo into space and took my nvidium, so I destroyed that Phoenix E and then massacred one of their nearby pirate bases. After 3 or so more L ships, I'm only seeing Minotaur's. With some new found Xenon PE's, they can easily chase them down.

Before, I had to chase them with a Pegasus in order to ID them so I could start shooting while my team of Nemesis/Osprey closed in. Now they see me coming and start running, which I like.

You can get a scout ship and have it follow them until you are ready to deal with that pirate. Unfortunately, that damn ID mask they use will make your pilots while in combat go "oh, that's not the ship we're looking for". So its better to start the fight yourself, or you could wind up taking a rep hit for an unauthorized kill.

I almost gave up when they started hitting my freighters, but I did some changes after a restart and now its going good this time around.

I gota try that with the VIG so I can get some trained marines rolling.

Vanilla 7.1 running ToA

[Doom]

Postat inițial de Tiberius Rex:

So I'm looking for some way (a mod) to either reduce or remove the annoying SCA behavior.

The way to deal with them in vanilla is to do their terraforming missions. You'll become friends and they'll stop bothering you.

[blackphoenixx]

Put Mirage mods on your trade ships or just use non-traders to trade (Guillemot Sentinels work early game, Barbarossas are pretty much ideal). Either will make pirates ignore your ships.

For preventing station hacking it helps to put your stations in neutral sectors (and not claiming them) since SCA don't cloak in those - just give your defense fleets fire override orders to kill all SCA and you're good.

Postat inițial de Doom:

The way to deal with them in vanilla is to do their terraforming missions. You'll become friends and they'll stop bothering you.

It'll be a cold day in hell before those bastards get a single credit from me.
I'd rather invest the money to put a pirate-hunting carrier fleet in every sector first.

[Venerable_Sin]

I hope someone will link the mod you're after but I also want to add my 2 cents because I don't know what you do or don't know about the two ways I know of dealing with SCA. I know some people edit their save game file to change faction relations. I also know there's a terraforming mission that is suppose to greatly reduce their affects upon you. Now that I've said my peace and because I don't have the mod you're after. Goodbye to you too. :)

[mystery]

Postat inițial de blackphoenixx:

Postat inițial de Doom:

The way to deal with them in vanilla is to do their terraforming missions. You'll become friends and they'll stop bothering you.

It'll be a cold day in hell before those bastards get a single credit from me.
I'd rather invest the money to put a pirate-hunting carrier fleet in every sector first.

You also get their fleet when you do those missions & they're all 5 star pilots. Bonus, once you're friends with them, they make for great customers, always buying your stuff because they're so scattered & have no major friends.

[blackphoenixx]

Postat inițial de mystery:

You also get their fleet when you do those missions & they're all 5 star pilots. Bonus, once you're friends with them, they make for great customers, always buying your stuff because they're so scattered & have no major friends.

True, but by the time i can terraform Scale Plate Green i can easily build a pilot academy and no longer need money.

And more practically SPG is at the ass-end of the universe. I don't want to park my HQ there for the duration.

Even if that wasn't the case i'm vindictive enough about my lost trade ships and raided stations to disregard the rewards.
Screw SCA, all my patrol fleets and stations have fire override orders to shoot them on sight. It's good practice for my bomber pilots if nothing else.

[Venerable_Sin]

Postat inițial de blackphoenixx:

True, but by the time i can terraform Scale Plate Green i can easily build a pilot academy and no longer need money.

And more practically SPG is at the ass-end of the universe. I don't want to park my HQ there for the duration.

Even if that wasn't the case i'm vindictive enough about my lost trade ships and raided stations to disregard the rewards.
Screw SCA, all my patrol fleets and stations have fire override orders to shoot them on sight. It's good practice for my bomber pilots if nothing else.

Do you outift all your ships with split engines? I enjoy having a network of carriers throughout my empire that act as quick reaction forces. It does gets old after awhile having to stop whatever it is that I'm doing at any random time just to go after another pirate. Using the mk 3 or 4 engines on my medium traders and always killing every pirates seems to result in rarely loosing a ship 99% of the time. I'm sure someone knows how to give you instruction on changing whatever notepad file it is that has the faction relations in it. I only know it's possible to do this, not necessarily how to do it.

[blackphoenixx]

My M traders mostly use ARG travel engines.
For pirate hunting i use Sapporos assigned to a carrier on position defense (set to hold position) with 5 interceptors and 5 bombers each.
A separate group has a dozen meson Katanas as a fast reaction force to reinforce those when they find a threat.

Sapporos have a native 80km radar range (up to 96 with Scope mods), so 4-5 of those have enough radar range to cover most sectors.
The moment an SCA ship uncloaks the inties or bombers target it, causing the Katanas to fly over to reinforce them and basically atomize everything with their meson beams.

Most of the time the pirate doesn't even get close enough to scratch the traders shields.

[Xautos]

Postat inițial de eMYNOCK:

there is also the vanilla option to just unlock their player relations and they will stop harrasing player once high enough.

Doesn't stop the SCA from just spamming more stations down though, also if you allow it the same happens for the Duke's Buccaneers or the Xenon. They just keep spamming stations.

The only way to be sure is to eradicate their presence entirely from the system. That means isolating the system by blockading the gate with ships and setting the faction to hostile and to give the order to fire on sight, and then finding every station on the map and destroying them completely.

Eventually they'll stop but this has nothing to do with the player relations. They'll act like this with or without your approval. If left to their own devices again, they'll barge right on into the sector again and start building new stations.

[D3st]

Postat inițial de Xautos:

Postat inițial de eMYNOCK:

there is also the vanilla option to just unlock their player relations and they will stop harrasing player once high enough.

Doesn't stop the SCA from just spamming more stations down though, also if you allow it the same happens for the Duke's Buccaneers or the Xenon. They just keep spamming stations.

The only way to be sure is to eradicate their presence entirely from the system. That means isolating the system by blockading the gate with ships and setting the faction to hostile and to give the order to fire on sight, and then finding every station on the map and destroying them completely.

Eventually they'll stop but this has nothing to do with the player relations. They'll act like this with or without your approval. If left to their own devices again, they'll barge right on into the sector again and start building new stations.

You can't completly destroy them.They spawn at gate not at shipyard.Even if you destroy them all and camp TEL shipyard that sometime build them,they will eventualy spawn at a gate.

[Killzad]

I have my traders M size as an default behavior set on drop laser tower and escape plus notify me. Maybe lost a trader to them every 200 hours they are more than capable to escape. If you use the Mirage mod on chassis Pirates will never bother your traders. Terraforming SPG all you need is 1mil microlatice and some hull parts so you can build bubble house this will trigger SCA to go in to protection mode for the project no need to finish the project from this point they will not include your ships as targets. If you do complete the project you get massive reward with ships, pilots and hundreds of exceptional mods, plus they will protect your assets and join you in combat if they are near your ships and you can raise your reputation with them for some discount on elicit goods for trade.

SCA are not annoying they are friends! Early game they donate sorry bail ships to you with no rep penalty. And end game they have the best Terraform reward.

[eMYNOCK]

Postat inițial de D3st:

Postat inițial de Xautos:

Doesn't stop the SCA from just spamming more stations down though, also if you allow it the same happens for the Duke's Buccaneers or the Xenon. They just keep spamming stations.

The only way to be sure is to eradicate their presence entirely from the system. That means isolating the system by blockading the gate with ships and setting the faction to hostile and to give the order to fire on sight, and then finding every station on the map and destroying them completely.

Eventually they'll stop but this has nothing to do with the player relations. They'll act like this with or without your approval. If left to their own devices again, they'll barge right on into the sector again and start building new stations.

You can't completly destroy them.They spawn at gate not at shipyard.Even if you destroy them all and camp TEL shipyard that sometime build them,they will eventualy spawn at a gate.

lets just say, for lore reasons...

at some point the formerly proud captain of a teladi phoenix will get overthrown by a native that came from scale plate green... and he starts his own band of pirates on that former teladi phoenix.

canonically... and game mechanic wise scale plate pirates are more or less smuggler then they are true pirates.. much like the Dukes Buccaneers and Hatikvah.

give them a goal, be their hero... or at least the guy who enabled them to go back home... and they are fine... well.. most of them...

to be left alone by the true hardcore pirates down below ceos doubt you really need to be the hero of scaleplate green.