Surrendering to militia

[LeafStorm]

I just now had the misfortune of running into a militia and merchants vs. pirate dogfight. I had just upgraded my armor, so I jumped in and started pounding on the Talon that was shooting at me. Unfortunately, there was also a militia in a Talon, and I accidentally hit him a few times. Eventually, I decide, "I'm out of here before the militia turn on me," turn around, kick my afterburners. I see the pirate a splode, but then I see the LOCK indicator on the bottom of the screen, and I think "WHAAAT?" Then that militia Talon and a G come in and start shooting at me. I pull up my comm and look for a "Stop shooting, it was an accident!" option, but there's not one. So, I stop firing and reduce speed to 0, thinking that the militia won't fire on a ship that's not attempting to defend itself. They do, and my ship a splode.

So, what I'm asking for is an option where you can hit your comm and say "I surrender!" to militia and confeds, reduce speed to 0, and let them board you and then you can get some kind of deal about not dying. (Maybe I should have deselected my gun, too.)
 

[TragicHero]

It's pretty understanding why you joined in the fight: you upgraded your armor. It's confusing to know which faction is which if you don't have one of those fancy scanners. If you see a dog fight with two factions fighting each other, and they have the same ship, don't attack unless one of them attacks you, then attack the one attacking you. But before that, press C and you can see which factions there are, if it's both Kilrathi and Retro then feel free to attack both, or if its a friendly or hostile, just wait or move on. You don't have to help friendly ships, unless...unless you feel bad not helping them o,.O"

You can always go T then Shift+C, but it's a slower way to figure out who's who.

Another thing, save often. I usually save before and after a mission. With different save files. So if anything like this happens (or you get ambushed by gothri), you can always load you're last good save.
 

[VincentFirePony]

An option to surrender and then attempt to bribe/kill them once they've boarded might be interesting...
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There are only a few good things in life: AS, AS, beer, Minecraft and Hostile Takeover! A<0>V
 

[Cthulhu]

A while ago (like 6 months or so) I posted something about us not being able to exit combat-mode in any other way other than killing the opponent, and now we can actually just kick him in the face, until he's unconscious, and it would seem we need something similar here.

Bribing the militia/confed has been suggested many times, and I'm all for it. (and as always, it could backfire, and add another offense on your criminal record).
Having them board you would be very cool, however, as CK pointed out a while back, it could be misused so you'll end up boarding them... without having to spend 600 credits on a disabler missile.
(Perhaps a one-way docking-tube, that won't allow non-officers of the law to pass through it would solve that problem?)
Of course, they usually don't have that much cargo, so perhaps there's not that much to steal anyway. (Or conversely, they're filled to the brim with confiscated ultimate, and plutonium )
 

[GLI]

[VincentFirePony]

A Hacking (or cracking) mini-game would add some coolness to the game.
One way docking tubes (unless opened by hacking or an ID card taken off the body of a confed/militia.

And the ID Hack for the ships is interesting too, how about not only being able to buy it (possibly from only Pirate bases) but upgrading the Quine so you can do it yourself through a hacking mini-game? On a short timer so when you're being scanned or you see confeds/militia coming you have to hurry to do it.
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There are only a few good things in life: AS, AS, beer, Minecraft and Hostile Takeover! A<0>V
 

[Quaker2k9]

Maybe an option to talk yourself out of an aggressive action that was actually an accident would be a good option, but IMO it could affect the gameplay negatively if you could do it all the time and maybe even make a strategy out of it. Not being careful about where your stray shots impact SHOULD have negative consequences, potentially even very negative ones.

I'd suggest something like a hidden variable that tracks how often you've had friendly fire incidents and then sets your options accordingly. Something like:

-1 incident within the last say 10 hours gameplay and the faction you've fired at is very friendly towards you: You can just say sorry and they'll let you be.

-2 incidents within 10 hours, very friendly faction attitude: You have to apologize between 2-3 times and you may or may not have to pay a fine of 500 credits.

-3 incidents in 10 hours and very friendly attitude: Pay some money and your reputation with this faction suffers a little.

-2 incidents within 10 hours and neutral faction attitude: They'll demand a considerable amout of money or they'll attack.

-3 incidents within 10 hours and neutral attitude: They'll fight you whatever you say.

Etc... you get the idea.
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Retros tick me off!
 

[Christian Knudsen]

Friendly NPCs that turn hostile because you accidentally fire at them can be appeased by sending friendly messages. Sometimes you have to send them a few times, but it does work (unless you've hit them a lot of times and turned them really mad at you).
 

[VincentFirePony]

Yeah thats happened to me many a time:

-mainly because someone crosses the line of fire of my aft turret more than once

-I attempt to fire at a kilrathi/pirate/retro with my forward cannons and the enemy is too close to the friendly or vice versa.
_________________
There are only a few good things in life: AS, AS, beer, Minecraft and Hostile Takeover! A<0>V
 

[GLI]

[Christian Knudsen]

[Lexus]

I like all these Ideas... I hope to see them implemented...
 

[GLI]

[GLI]

OK, I found it:

[Previously on Development Updates (v0.6 - 0.6.6.3)]

[VincentFirePony]

That would be an interesting twist to game play. Although i think I might pass on compensating an NPC with a cap ship. Though it would make for an interesting fixer/merc mission...
_________________
There are only a few good things in life: AS, AS, beer, Minecraft and Hostile Takeover! A<0>V
 

[GLI]

[VincentFirePony]

[GLI]

[VincentFirePony]

Yeah even EMP torpedoes won't go thru cap ship shields. Gotta wear them down some first. I just did the FM of a Drayman but didn't shut off my aft turret in time. Got 6 plastics out of it tho.
_________________
There are only a few good things in life: AS, AS, beer, Minecraft and Hostile Takeover! A<0>V
 

[GLI]

[LeafStorm]

Update: Same thing happened, but this time I used more friendly messages ("Back off, and we'll forget this"), and they stopped, but I got slapped with a 2000 cred fine. Also, I accidentally bumped into a Drayman with about four confeds and militia nearby, all of them turned red, and I was dead in two seconds.

Anyway, "Back off, and we'll forget this" sounds a bit threatening to me. It might help players realize what they need to do in this situation if it's changed to something a bit more apologetic.
 

[GLI]

[GLI]

[Cthulhu]

[GLI]