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..by an Empire I have a Free Trade Agreement with !!! This occurs regularly in my game - I mean each 5 minutes... Maybe it's because ALL my civ ships have at least 1 blaster for self-defence ?[:'(]

They are provoking you I think.

It seems that any ship that has a weapon is regarded as military, not civilian. And empires get pissed if you send military ships in their systems.

I imagine this behavior was made so that players couldn't disguise warships by designing them as constructors or explorers, but it is also triggered by civilian craft, that you have no control over and therefore cannot really use in a militarily aggressive manner. Admittedly, Israel isn't the most popular naton either, but they're not universally hated for it.

The solution? Install more weapons. In for a penny, in for a pound. If your freighters aren't packing enough firepower to blow holes in small moons, you're not arming them enough.

That, or go the heavily shielded route. Watching a pirate ship blast away at a freighter forever, whose shield regen times are amusingly high, is priceless.

Don't really need that many shields, just enough to buy them time to jump away.. and if one freighter goes down, so what? Your private sector will buy a replacement from you, so more money in your account :]

The game behavior is a bit strange though... AI Empires should really pay attention to real military ships, not anything which have a beanthrower as weapon ! Packing more weapons and shields on freighters don't make much sense, they're not supposed to really fight.

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

The game behavior is a bit strange though... AI Empires should really pay attention to real military ships, not anything which have a beanthrower as weapon ! Packing more weapons and shields on freighters don't make much sense, they're not supposed to really fight.

Do you carry a firearm to the supermarket? No? Then why should a trade ship be packing a weapon? Especially one that isn't really going to do anything in an actual fight (better to pack more defenses).

A trade agreement is just that, not a "sure, bring all kinds of armed ships into our space" agreement.

ORIGINAL: tuser

Don't really need that many shields, just enough to buy them time to jump away.. and if one freighter goes down, so what? Your private sector will buy a replacement from you, so more money in your account :]

Because protecting my citizens and their property is of the utmost importance to my Administration. [;)]

ORIGINAL: FerretStyle Do you carry a firearm to the supermarket? No?

Yeah, actually, I do. It's legal to do, and I choose to exercise that. Never know when some whacko may open fire in a supermarket, after all

Then why should a trade ship be packing a weapon? Especially one that isn't really going to do anything in an actual fight (better to pack more defenses).

Not do anything in an actual fight? Why, just earlier today, I had an empire suddenly declare war on me while one of my trade ships was passing by one of their space ports. Their spaceport and combined fleet open fire on it. My merchant cruiser responded to this vile attack by wasting the attacking fleet of over a dozen ships and burning down the offending space port. This all happened without ME having to do a DAMN THING about it. Do YOU want to rush to the aid of every single one of several hundred merchant cruisers every time some random yahoo decides to take a potshot at them? I sure don't. It's a royal pain in the ass! Now I just get an evil chuckle every time I hear BWEE BWEE BWEE. Occasionally, I go to watch as another wannabe pirate becomes an expanding cloud of monatomic gas.

A trade agreement is just that, not a "sure, bring all kinds of armed ships into our space" agreement.

Trade agreement? What trade agreement? It doesn't appear that one NEEDS a trade agreement for your ships to start visiting foreign spaceports. I'm not even sure what those things DO because one certainly isn't needed to visit and be visited by foreign merchants. Believe me, if it were possible to keep my ships OUT of strange alien space where they bitch and moan about it, I would!

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith Because protecting my citizens and their property is of the utmost importance to my Administration. [;)]

I prefer my citizens to exercise their right to self-defense with extreme prejudice.

Fishman I wasn't talking to you, and my comments were relevant to the OP's situation. As far as you bringing your gun to the grocery store, if that's even true, do you brandish it about to make sure everyone sees it? That's about the equivalent to flying around in an armed vehicle.

The only problem here is that merchants ships are even bought at all if they have weapons equipped. If they were smart AI, they'd know they were going to get shot up while trading in an armed vessel (by the people they're trading with, no less) and not buy the ship. Within the rules of the game, it really doesn't make much sense.

Your trading ships are visiting foreign nations. Even if it is okay going to the supermarket with a gun in your place, try doing it in (most of) Europe.