A high-powered, warp-enabled ship just added itself to my fleet early in the game.

[deciplex]

Just got back in DW after a rather long hiatus:

So I've started a new game, pre-warp civ, built a spaceport and a few explorer ships. Went out and grabbed the functioning derelict ship in my home system, heading now to the broken one, pirates show up, demand payment. Pretty bog standard so far. While my explorer ship is on the way to second broken-down derelict ship, I get the notification about your first warp jump - note that I *just* discovered the ruins with my second explorer ship, I haven't even *started* to research warp precursors at this point. The ship that triggers the message isn't part of my fleet - I even look in the fleet view and it isn't there. And of course the kaltors show up now and I'm really wondering... WTF? A minute or so goes by and suddenly this capital ship with advanced weaponry and warp capability and whatever else, shows up in the asteroid belt and wipes out the slugs there, then jumps over the kaltors and makes short work of them so... thanks guy! Now it's sitting there, idle, and this is when I notice that it's part of my fleet. It's got the right color triangle over it and it shows up in the Ships and Bases screen and I can command it including jumping to other systems.

So... WTF just happened? Is this a new feature of Shadows I missed while I wasn't playing DW regularly? It's going to suck if my pre-warp civs are getting capital ship murder machines with warp capability two years into a new game. Kinda ruins the fun...

Is there a setting I accidentally switched on somewhere (or enabled by default and I didn't turn it off)? Is this just a rare bug? Or maybe, a not-so-rare bug? I don't remember this ever happening before.

[mordachai]

If you play with the return of the shadows story events enabled, your scouts may encounter an end-game tech frigate or escort (usually, in my experience) left over from the Shakturi's original invasion. It's a rocking ship during the early game, but you cannot upgrade it, so it becomes outdated by mid-game (even with future tech, it's a small ship and cannot match several larger ships by mid-game). Great little bug-exterminator and pirate knuckle-wrapper for a while...

[deciplex]

This was not a frigate or an escort, it was a capital ship with gravitic weapons and a hyperdrive. And I did not find it, rather it jumped from another system (which is when I got the message and the kaltors appeared) and then shortly later appeared in mine.

I know about the derelict ships from Return of the Shakturi, but they're not supposed to have hyperdrives, right?

[Bingeling]

My experience with this is from older versions, so things may have changed.

Sometimes the games spawn event ships at a location in the galaxy. This is the kind of event that arises when you get a coordinate (with the pulsing blue map circle) from pirates (at least from destroying a pirate base in "old DW".

I have had these ships pop up in my capital system at the same (or very similar) spot. So a steady stream of "ancient capital ship (or cruiser)" spawning in my home system. Since it was my home system, they for sure were not there all the time...

So this could be what happened to you. Someone else (pirates?) triggered a ship spawning, it happened to spawn in your home system, and your explorer found it. You got control.

[Shark7]

Sounds like a pirate group lost its starport and joined you. IF a more powerful empire managed to destroy their space ports and constructors, they'll 'surrender' and join nearby empires.

[deciplex]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Sounds like a pirate group lost its starport and joined you. IF a more powerful empire managed to destroy their space ports and constructors, they'll 'surrender' and join nearby empires.

Oh that's interesting. I think it's probably this, then. It's the only explanation that fits the facts. My ships didn't discover it, and it wasn't in my system at the start of the game. Just got the notification of my first ship achieving FTL, and then it showed up out of nowhere.

Thanks for the explanation.