It just got interesting (and expensive)

OK, first up, this is absolutely not a complaint, whine or anything like that, just pointing out what happened to me.

Up until now I've been playing Elite: Slightly Annoying. I trade in solo mode. The worst that can happen is I get interdicted where I just submit, boost, jump. Occasionally I go play Elite: Mildly Perilous where I go find NPCs to shoot. Recently I've got a T7 and started joining in with power player. And yesterday I got my backside handed to me on a plate playing Elite: Fatal. T7 went bang with over a million credits in cargo. Which was unexpected.

I'm insured and have funds so the death has only set me back a day or so (I don't get to play much, otherwise it would be a few hours), but it does mean a big rethink in playing strategy.

Options are, as I see it:

* Drop out of Power Play and return to Elite: Slightly Annoying, albeit with bigger shields and some heat sinks.
* Continue with Power Play and be a lot more careful where I take my pure trading ships.
* Continue with Power Play and only fly things that can defend themselves, or escape.

For now I think I'll try the middle option. My Asp has been stripped, the cargo bay on my Cobra is a bit on the small side, and it's nice to be able to shift 216T per trip. If I get my backside handed to me again I'll sell the T7, refit the Asp and go look into making friends with the Empire for their ships :)

Ironically enough, this may convince me to go play in Open mode. If NPCs are also going to gank you then it makes little difference solo or open :D
 
Aye, NPC's are diabolical. Trading just got Dangerous with a capital D.They actively hunt you down and are downright nasty about it as well. Skankers (Skynet Gankers) the lot of them :D
 
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My T7 Mining Ship (trying out drones) got interdicted by an Imperial Courier (NPC) last night, and although I instantly throttled to zero, the interdiction was too quick, and I got the long cooldown - which meant I barely escaped with my life, and I do mean barely.

No shields and literally 1% hull.

I was out in the black a little bit, hoping to not get bothered(!) and had to jump 5 systems just to find the nearest place I could dock.

Every system was a nerve shredding experience, waiting for another interdiction (which would kill me), or a mistake while scooping causing an emergency drop out (which would kill me).

Pleased to be able to say I made it, though, and had an enormous amount of fun! :)

PS Sold the T7, transferred to my DB Explorer and am now out in the black again...at least this thing can look after itself a bit! :D
 
Lol killed by Npcs even after admitting he does submit fsd ez mode

FD said they were gonna nerf that one a while back - still waiting.
 
Been trading with my T7 for a while. Have had the NPC's try to interdict me about 60 times....they were successful once. Boosted away with about 20% loss in hull. It's easy to break it. They tend to send bigger ships after you which are horrible at yanking you out. Don't slow down and drop out. Just beat it..easy.
 
Lol killed by Npcs even after admitting he does submit fsd ez mode

FD said they were gonna nerf that one a while back - still waiting.

They did? Source or you have nothing worthwhile saying.

Admitting? Personally think it is not an issue, unless you are some PvP player who wants the game to allow them to force others to be their playthings. It's the way it works and I don't believe FD have said it will change

OP - sounds like it has got interesting. I have had a few surprises from NPCs since the update. Good fun.
 
To cope with the constant interdictions of trade ships that seems an inherent part of PowerPlay, I sold off my other ships and outfitted an ASP as an armed merchantman. I lost 40t of cargo as compared to my T6 but the 60t I do carry is going to get through and I can make up some of the lost profits by collecting bounties on the way. In a T7 maybe sacrificing a bit of cargo space for defensive modules will not hurt you that much, got to be a better bet than losing ship and cargo on those occasions when you can't quite run fast enough or you make a mistake.
 
Well hopfully to make it a little less dangerous for traders Frontier will implament NPC wing men in a upcoming patch
 
If it's you despair to escape pirates in a T7 never get the T9. Just sayin'.

T9 would have likely survived ;) My biggest issue was I was mass locked, so it took forever to charge the frame shift, by which point I'd massively overheated and had been crippled by the attacker.
 
Guys, I don't get it. I escape NPC interdictions every single time, in anything, including T9 or Anaconda. It even seems that the slower your ship turns, the easier it becomes to evade interdictions.
What controllers are you using?
(I'm on an Xbox controller with pitch/yaw on left stick and roll on right).
 
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Guys, I don't get it. I escape NPC interdictions every single time, in anything, including T9 or Anaconda. It even seems that the slower your ship turns, the easier it becomes to evade interdictions.
What controllers are you using?
(I'm on an Xbox controller with pitch/yaw on left stick and roll on right).

I didn't try to evade. Never needed to in the past, and by submitting you can sometimes get a nice easy kill (my T7 has guns and will take on smaller ships ;) ). From now on I will try and evade, but the price of failure looks like it could be death. The Power Play NPCs are in big ships with big guns that eat through my shields and hull quite quickly.

As for controllers, see my sig. Can't blame them for anything :D
 
The Lakon Type 7 is the ultimate manifestation of trade grinding misery.

The T6 has the legs to trade rares and there are other ships in similar(ish) price bracket to choose from or work up to. But the T7 is that desolate wasteland of grind between ASP and Python.

The T9 has massive cargo capacity and can make you a Tycoon in now time. The T7 has more cargo than any of its peers but not enough to earn your way out of it quickly enough.

...and when you get interdicted the T7 is too slow to run away and too small to not get mass locked.

Apparently people smarter than me bought a Vulture or stuck with the ASP :-(
 
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Yeah, the T7 was horrible for all the reasons you just listed. It's a dedicated trading ship that requires a large landing pad and yet somehow, has less cargo capacity than a Python which is an "all-rounder" ship that can land on a medium landing pad. That makes no sense whatsoever, and honestly they need to just do a straight swap between the cargo capacity of the T7 and Python, which would make a lot more sense and make the T7 a worthwhile trading ship and the logical midpoint between the T6 and T9.

I dumped the T7 as soon as the Vulture came out and never looked back.

P.S. I now have both a Vulture for fighting and a Python for trading (smacks forehead).
 
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Honestly i like the clipper for trading, yes the grind to baron was Loooooooooong (I'm not the best at these things)

You could even put a c5 or c4 shield and still get 200t cargo, its faster in regular space than a viper (got 400ms in boost), and more nimble than a python. And packing dual large guns and dual mediums, so no slouch dealing damage either.
In fact only drawback with it was i couldn't dock at outposts, wich is rather annoying now since my playstyle is "roving mercenary" doing missions and or hunting in whatever area I am in.

In short if you want to do risky trading, the clipper could easily outrun whatever it couldn't kill and there isn't much it couldn't kill at least not 1v1.
So currently trying a python, although I can't afford to fit it up right :(
 
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