"We will not tolerate the presence of your forces in our territory. "

[Interesting]

"We will not tolerate the presence of your forces in our territory. Remove your military ships from the system at once!"

I keep getting this message by each race, one after another, identical messages, every few minutes.

The thing is, I dont have any Military Ship in their territory. What happens is that I equipped a freighter with a beam weapon for it to protect itself against pirates. It is a "Private" ship. I cannot control it and use it to attack a target.

Why do I keep getting this annoying message. I dont have Military Ships (escort, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, capital ships) there.

The AI is bugged into thinking a freighter with a beam weapon is a military ship when its not and therefore keeps giving me these messages. One for each race. All the time. Why? Because my freighters trade with those nations all the time.

There is absolutelly not way any race should even reasonably complain against a freighter with a beam weapon, or a weak passanger ship with a beam weapon. Everyone knows freighters and passangers are "Private", a.k.a. civilian ships.

Ah, and another thing. My relation with those races gets reduced because of this bug.

How to fix it? Simple: Make the AI check if the ship in question is controled by "Private". If it is controled by private, it toogle that message.

[ASHBERY76]

The state is ment to protect the private ships from pirates and empires,it is part of the gameplay.

[BigWolfChris]

But, it's still a vessel that has the ability to cause harm There have been countless discussions on both sides of the fence with this, tbh, I think some input from Elliot might be needed on this matter Would he prefer the current system stays, or allow room to have private ships having "defensive abilities"

[VarekRaith]

Civilian freighters today can't roam the oceans with 5" deck guns... Instead of weapons, add more defenses.

[JosEPhII]

When an AI ship (of any kind private or state) is in your system give the same warning to that empire and see how it responds. Most of the Time it will be," we don't have any ships there. [;)] " (wink added by me cause They Do know they have a ship or base or even a colony there.)

But they're gonna raise a fuss about yours anyway. Even if you did colonize the 1st plane/moon there!

If it's an Ally I'll pay a little attention to it. If they're indifferent/cautious to me I Ignore them. If they're an Enemy I sic the "dog" on them!

JosEPh [:)]

[Fishman]

I think that they should at least change their whine if they're going to complain about private freighters being armed, and not all races should react similarly, simply because they are NOT military.

In fact, I think that the private/state thing should be expanded, so we can design and build privateers, private armed warships that go forth and pirate the freighters of enemy nations and give you a cut of the booty. YARR!

Because let's face it, space is a far more interesting place when you treat it like it's the 17th century...in SPACE!

[Interesting]

I wont accept it as part of the gameplay. To me its a bug.

Ive been playing these games for years now.

Since Elite. Freelancer. X Universe series. In all those games wich defined its subgenres IS COMMON SENSE THAT FREIGHTERS HAVE WEAPONS. Turrets or whatever.

Even discussing this seriously is stupid. Off course its one of those things the developers didnt thought foreseen.

developer 1 "Hey, we need a trigger for when the player invades an AI faction's territory"

developer 2 "What about weapons?"

developer 1 "That will do."

Arguments about "but then the players will abuse the private budget and make death star freighters!" NOT MY F*CKING PROBLEM. If that is another unintended effect, fix that too.

[BigWolfChris]

ORIGINAL: Interesting

Arguments about "but then the players will abuse the private budget and make death star freighters!" NOT MY F*CKING PROBLEM. If that is another unintended effect, fix that too.

But what suggestions would you propose in order to fix a potential exploit? The only one I can think of, is too limit a number of offensive weapons allowed to be installed... but then people will complain about such a limit

[richieelias]

I cant imagine how even making a super deathstar frieghter would be any sort of exploit. First off it would rapidly drain your economy as the AI pumps them out by the hundreds. Second, you have zero control over these ships, and they certainly arent going to be assaulting any planets on their own. Third, they would only fire on things that were firing on them first.

[Fishman]

ORIGINAL: BigWolf But what suggestions would you propose in order to fix a potential exploit?

What exploit? That you have armed merchant cruisers? How is that an exploit? Back in the 16th century, they put cannons on merchantmen all the time. I'm not entirely sure how arming merchant cruisers would create an exploit. If anything, privately owned warships is something that should be expanded on as part of the gameplay.

[Sarissofoi]

Something like that? At last xxx% of cargo containers?

[Fishman]

The reason SEV imposes limitations like this is because the hull sizes are all fixed, and if you give someone a 900-point hull when their best warships are only 450-point, they may very well decide to make a battleship out of it. DW has no such rules, because everything is procedural: The size of the hull is purely a factor of how crap you stuck on it. There are no fixed classifications of hulls. If you produce a very large, very expensive ship, it just becomes very large, very expensive, and very cumbersome.

In SEV, any ship with "max" engines on it goes the same speed, regardless of size. Although some hulls make a token effort to approximate mass-to-thrust by making so they take more engines to move, they also enforce the slowness of those ships by then capping how many engines you are allowed to stick on it in the first place. DW has no such rules, because the speed of a ship is determined by its mass-to-thrust ratio. If you want to build a battleship capable of a speed of 80, you CAN, but you're going to have a ship where a huge portion of it is devoted to engines, exactly as if you were doing the same thing to an escort.

So that brings us back to armed merchantmen: You know, in SEV, those rules do not, in ANY way, prevent you from creating heavily armed, highly deadly transports. There is, frankly, no real problem with armed merchantmen in DW, because they are still private, and do not go about attacking things...and in any event, because there are no arbitrarily determined hulls, there is nothing that specifically makes a freighter better off than any other ship. Thus, ship requirements only include the prerequisites needed to function as a ship and perform the designated role: They do not require that the ship perform the role WELL, nor do they require that the ship be incapable of doing anything else.

[BigWolfChris]

ORIGINAL: Fishman

So that brings us back to armed merchantmen: You know, in SEV, those rules do not, in ANY way, prevent you from creating heavily armed, highly deadly transports.

But, I do remember that transports were only used within your own borders in Space Empires, trading with other empires was automatic and instant, no trade lanes to disrupt

Re: Exploit, I believe the concern is, if war is declared, you may already have some serious firepower already in place, don't forget, the AI will automatically attack nearest targets... which would be your heavily armed freighters

As said by some, you would only need a fleet for defence and specific attack locations, let your freighters handle the rest

Maybe the problem is more in how the AI moves ships around... afterall, why would your merchants go and trade at planets that are at war with you? Because I'm pretty sure they still do, as freighters will trade at any planet regardless of treaty status

So, sure, only hand out warnings if the ships are military, but at the sametime, if war is declared, these ships should be getting the hell out dodge asap, and not return while you're enemies

[Interesting]

As I said, any "possibly unintended side effects" aside have nothing to do with the fact Im getting annoying messages by many factions at all times because my freighters have 1 beam weapon.

Look, Im not discussing it. This is going to have to get fixed.

The whole STATE vs PRIVATE distinction is prone to a hundred "exploits". 

Im talking about going from 0 reputation to -34 in a matter of minutes with any faction just because my freigher has 1 beam weapon, really?! Also, the messages are identical for all factions. Its like the factions dont have any personality taken into account! How do they know my freighters have 1 beam weapon? And if they have cargo scanner, why would they be so touchy about it to the point of DECLARING A WAR OVER IT.

"Oh, I can see your freighter came to refuel at our Colony, but it has a weapon, therefore this is BAD, you are trying to conquer us with your 1 beam freighter military ship in deep cover" Uh hu.

How is it possible that in the year 2760, all races, are so stupid and have prejudices against freighters with 1 beam weapon?

Knowing there are pirates and giant interspacial worms out there, how did all these races developed to a point where they wouldnt be smart enough to add weapons to their freighters? Really?



If its a "gameplay" thing, then FIX THE 15 IDENTICAL ANNOYING MESSAGES EVERY 2 MINUTES. Tell you about break of immersion. I try hard to get into the game lore and setting, I read races description, I download their concept art screenshot, I try to imagine how they are like and how they behave and YET ALL THOSE RACES ARE SO STUPID THEY WANT TO GO AT WAR WITH ME BECAUSE MY FREIGHTER WITH 1 BEAM IS IN THEIR SYSTEM?

This is a bug. I can understand that the developer must have used an unfortunate trigger to get that desired effect (a military fleet aproaches and prepares for war, oh, great! the game AI aknowledges that, but from that to a freighter with self protection weapons?! In what galaxy are we living?)

I can talk about this all day long.

There is a simple fix:  Just make the AI to check if the race present in their system is PRIVATE or STATE. If It is STATE, then it acts normal. If its PRIVATE, then it ignores them.

I played a game with multiple races and after many in game years players will have so many freighters, that players will end up getting these annoying messages all the time, its completelly annoying, unrealistic and causes a really bad effect on game mechanics, because it reduces reputation unjustifiedly.

I also dont accept being "forced" to use escorts, instead of using my freedom of design on Private ships. I like to play full manual, and if I cant add weapons to Private ships (because the other races are stupid about it), then their protection would require my manual attention as well, baby sitting them, and I refuse to babysit a hundred freighters manually.

[VarekRaith]

Gee, if I were an interstellar "nation", I'd sure as heck would not want armed alien freighters roaming about my systems.

[8|]

[Barthheart]

Mr. Interesting,

Strong language and YELLING aren't going to win you any converts to your point of view. In fact the mods will probably warn then ban you. This is a very family friendly site.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but that does not make the only one nor the correct one.

I'm pretty sure lots of us here have been playing 4x games since the "beginning", you are not the only one with experience here.

The developer desided to make the game this way. I happen to agree with this method, you don't that's fine.

If you can't live with the way the game is Designed, then game is probably not for you and you should move on to a different game.

Have a great day![8D]

[VarekRaith]

ORIGINAL: Barthheart

This is a very family friendly site.

Good point, my post has been edited accordingly. [8D]

[D.W.O.H]

I would think if we are dealing with future technologies and the ability of scanners and what not a race could determine the probability of an attack based on what they would get back in a scan, If you scan a freighter that has minimal ( protection type weaponry ) A race wouldnt be inclined to get all fussy then say if they detect powerful warships coming in force.

and in all reality even though protecting these private ships is part of the game it doesnt break down realistically because is the private sector "paying" you to trek a ship across the galaxy to protect their interests so it arrives safely?, I havnt seen anywere to indicate that to me so why do I get stuck with this task.

A private ship imo should be able to have minimal ( 2 or less laser weapons ) to protect itself from scirmish attacks from pirates on its own ,OR the private sector should up me more money for basically what boils down to pirate protection fees.

On a side note, I have messed up and attacked a race that was cool with me on accident when they approached one of my new colonies cause i thought they were pirates,lol. they are angry with me now and how do I improve this so we can get back on good terms cause their one of the potential few allies I have in my galaxy.

[FerretStyle]

ORIGINAL: D.W.O.H

I would think if we are dealing with future technologies and the ability of scanners and what not a race could determine the probability of an attack based on what they would get back in a scan, If you scan a freighter that has minimal ( protection type weaponry ) A race wouldnt be inclined to get all fussy then say if they detect powerful warships coming in force.

Obviously anything that's armed is considered a military unit in DW. Don't see it as a problem, myself, and certainly don't see it as a bug like the OP is screaming about.

and in all reality even though protecting these private ships is part of the game it doesnt break down realistically because is the private sector "paying" you to trek a ship across the galaxy to protect their interests so it arrives safely?, I havnt seen anywere to indicate that to me so why do I get stuck with this task.

Taxes? I think pretty much all of your income comes from there...

A private ship imo should be able to have minimal ( 2 or less laser weapons ) to protect itself from scirmish attacks from pirates on its own ,OR the private sector should up me more money for basically what boils down to pirate protection fees.

See above... the premise of DW is that you are there to protect (also colonize and explore, etc, but protection is supposed to be one of your major concerns). Allowing armed merchants is exploitable (doesn't seem to be any "safety period" after initiating a war, or requirement of withdrawing of your forces from their systems (which in the case of private ships, you can't)), so where do they draw the line? 2 guns, 10 guns?

On a side note, I have messed up and attacked a race that was cool with me on accident when they approached one of my new colonies cause i thought they were pirates,lol. they are angry with me now and how do I improve this so we can get back on good terms cause their one of the potential few allies I have in my galaxy.

You should be able to request the war end through the diplomacy screen. Or just wait a bit and they will request you end the war.

[D.W.O.H]

im not at war with them as i just fired on their ships doing minimal damage, they have since sent more ships to my planet which is close to their system but their attitude towards me is gone from angry to annoyed so it seems i got it up but im not sure how i did it