Noob question - I was doing trading missions and flying an atlas through itani nation space - noticed a serco ship in itan sectors which followed me through all the way to divinia, attacking me when it got close enough. even when i was docking at a station in divinia j-11, the ship - now inside the nfz - attacked. i was just curious about this - seems kinda surprising that serco ships can penetrate into the core of itani nation space and even fire on itani ships right at itani stations apparently without much danger to themselves. is this normal?

Yes. Next time stop for the pirate and they wont follow you/ die for the good nationalist.

die for the good nationalist - can you explain? why stop?

We're tuning a lot of this stuff. There are long standing issues relating to the faction standing system that will be addressed in the not-too-distant future.

Moreover, if you let the evil serco kill you ozzy43, you would have been able to destroy his Itani standing, which would make it MUCH harder for him to sneak into itani space until he worked on his standing again.

well, i guess my question is - how effective are station defenses in nation space against a single enemy ship? when in something like an atlas, which is slow and defenseless, are station defenses not intended to be effective against such attacks, to keep things 'interesting'? or are they, but the system needs tuning?

also, the ship he was piloting was an IDF valk which i thought was odd for a serco, but maybe not.

also, i was wrong about the vector - i thought i was on an outward leg of the mission, but it was inward, so he did not follow from itan outward to divinia, but rather inward from jallik.

aticephyr - ahhh thank you for that illuminating answer - i did not understand that. under normal circumstances, i have no problem 'dying for the cause' but this was in the midst of a 4 WH (itan <-> jalli) bulk proc and my home was set to deneb! will be more thoughtful next time - thanks again.

Just ensure that you don't retaliate. A common tactic is to reduce your armour to almost nothing, but hope that you retaliate. That way, said dbag won't lose any permanent standing, but you will end up being killed by the strike force. Then they simply return with a cargo hauler and clean up the mess.

Moral of the story: if there is a Serco, flying an Itani ship, it's a safe bet they won't actually kill you in Itani space. And vice versa.

Yeah, i typically slam on the breaks in side the NFZ. Most people aren't going to kill you inside a national NFZ. If they want the kill, they can have it, but at a cost.

I wasn't going to actually kill him. I like flying valks!

Called that one.

you don't lose faction if the final blow is imparted by your hull and not your blasters.

Goddamn it Maal! Quiet!

:D

It seems to me that it's a bug or design flaw that you can blast away most of someone's armor, then ram them to death with impunity.

ozzy43 - it is a feature, not a bug that you can be attacked by anyone (almost) anywhere. I think the rules for NFZ and faction loss when retaliating should be tweaked a bit, such that there's no reason to not shoot back when attacked.

i agree with zak. what's the point of having nation space station defenses if a sworn enemy can fly in, shoot you to within an inch of death, and then kill you with their hull - all without any serious consequences? this seems like a serious flaw in game logic and balance. it seems the cure here is worse than the disease.

Killing someone with your hull isn't quite the uber-hax tactic you nooblets are making it out to be. Give what you're whining about a try sometime-not as simple or reliable as it seems.

Note that I just shot this loser up a couple times, I didn't ram him to death. Waaaaay too much work.

If this wasn't the case then we would get to perpetrate a greater evil. I bring it up mostly because I hope that Inc has some clever solution to roll out with yon faction redux.

And yeah, ramming someone to death is no easy task.

If this wasn't the case then we would get to perpetrate a greater evil.

I think the way it is now was actually instituted because I and a couple other people were doing this back in the Last Days of Arolte. It was pretty fucking awesome when it worked.

"Note that I just shot this loser up a couple times, I didn't ram him to death. Waaaaay too much work."

What a fucking asshat (though at least you are consistently an asshat in game and out). I'm asking questions about the game here because I just started playing a week ago and am wondering whether to stick with this game or go elsewhere. You use this as a basis to start slinging insults at me.

You were once just such a 'nooblet', though I'm sure those days are difficult to recall now that you are such a glorious 'warrior' (or however you imagine yourself). Your shitty attitude - on constant display in game especially when you disparage new players, which seems to be a habit for you - makes a good argument against continuing with VO - lotsa good games out there.

That's the problem with a game with such a small set of players already - when there is one who apparently thinks that driving a fake space ship on a computer makes him some sort of big shot, who then in order to maintain that preposterous self image likes to insult new players, it makes an outsized impression. So thanks for demonstrating right up front what a dick you are to 'nooblets' and 'losers' like myself. It's much appreciated. I wonder how many other potential players you've given reason to decide to go elsewhere?

Next time I'm looking for insults, I'll stop by. For fun, guess I'll go try some other game.

The difference is that I took the game in stride even back then. If I'd gotten worked up every time Yoda or Shape handed me my scrap on a plate, or I had to deal with mouthy old Sun Tzu, I'd have had a stroke. Getting all butt-hurt over a little neutron fire -- much less someone's dismissive remarks -- doesn't bode well for your blood pressure. Good luck out there!