Repairing ships in debris field

[Jake Hamilton]

This has happened before, and I don't know what is going on. I get to the debris field and chase out the Kaltors. Then I send in a construction ship. Everything has been going along fine; the ship is repaired and belongs to my empire, and I go on to the next ship. As the construction ship is repairing, say a capitol ship, a different empire's ships come on the scene and park themselves. They don't do anything, but once the Capitol ship is repaired it now suddenly belongs to the empire sitting there. Now how did that happen? Did they manage to somehow get their troops onto my Capitol ship, and take it over? I don't really want to start something with the other empire, but this is, in my mind, an act of war. Anbody want to weigh in here?

[Dracus]

You can capture ships being repaired by parking ships near them, no matter who is doing the repair. If you want to prevent this from happening assign a large fleet of ships to sit in the field until all ships you wish to repair are done or you can repair to 95% and then wait for the enemy fleet to leave to refuel then complete the repair. You will see fleets coming and going if you attempt a world killer repair as they are hoping to do a capture after you do all the work. Look at it as a form of state approved pirating.

[Jake Hamilton]

Well, I'll be darned. That's something not in the manual. I guess that's why there are forums. Good explanation. I've run across World Destroyer being repaired by another empire's construction ship, so I just destroy the WD so it won't get into another empire's arsenal. Thanks, Jake

[Dracus]

Sometimes you can fire a single shot at the builder and drive them off, You might take a small hit in rating. If the builder is a friendly race, you can quickly get that rating back though. If the race is a enemy race, they might decide to declare war.

There is a chance the race will send ships to take out the ships you used to attack the builder ship without actually going to war with you. It is as if the game sees those ships as rogue.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Jake Hamilton

Now how did that happen? Did they manage to somehow get their troops onto my Capitol ship, and take it over? I don't really want to start something with the other empire, but this is, in my mind, an act of war. Anbody want to weigh in here?

It's an old issue:
tm.asp?m=2747594

I'm curious what version you're using, though. I haven't seen this happen as often in Legends, so I suspect he's made some changes without noting it in the release.