Can anyone help explain what happened?

DEBO · Feb 5, 2018

I was mining for the current CG when I was attacked by NPC's. Not the first time. However, there was no piracy message (though I may have just missed it), and more concerning was that my turrets wouldn't return fire. Shortly after I get a message saying I have a bounty for killing someone (while I've been unable to fire), at which point system authority went hostile and someone collected said bounty.

I'd like to learn from my mistakes but I've no idea what happened.

EDIT: I am an idiot, and after going out again it looks like my SLF, despite being set to defensive, decided to attack a non-hostile ship for no reason. Still not sure why my turrets refused to fire.

NecasekO · Feb 5, 2018

Is it possible that you collided with another ship before that? The game remembers that and I believe it is theoretically possible to get a bounty if you collide with a ship and that ship gets destroyed by NPCs later.

Ophion · Feb 5, 2018

What are your turrets set to? Do you have "Report crimes against me" turned ON?

DEBO · Feb 5, 2018

Turrets were set to 'fire-at-will' (I tried targeting one of the attacking ships and even firing my mining laser at them to see if either of those fire modes were active or if that would jump start the turrets, but no luck) and Report Crimes was ON.

I may have collided with something, no idea. Can collector limpets trigger crimes? Is it possible one of them snagged something from another nearby miner or something? I had issues earlier with them collecting illegal cargo from NPC pirate wreckage from previous attacks, where everything worked as expected.

EDIT: I am an idiot.

Krieger · Feb 5, 2018

DEBO said:
<snip>...
I'd like to learn from my mistakes but I've no idea what happened.

EDIT: I am an idiot, and after going out again it looks like my SLF, despite being set to defensive, decided to attack a non-hostile ship for no reason. Still not sure why my turrets refused to fire.

SLF going rogue is a known but very rare bug (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/396355-Fighter-Bay-NPC-Pilot-Causing-Bounties). I've experienced it once. In my case there was another cmdr in the instance when the SLF went rogue. Maybe same in your case?

PS: If you've got the time please add your story to the bug report thread. Extra info is always welcome especially videos.

CMDR Cosmic Spacehead · Feb 5, 2018

Most likely a rogue SLF.

I've had a few of them very very rarely somehow assault someone. I guess they missed a shot and hit something else, or some reaction to taking fire that not been flagged properly.

It's basically unavoidable. Your game logs might tell you more.

DEBO · Feb 6, 2018

Well either the first incident was something else, or it happened twice in 2 outings. I only realised what was happening the second time because after getting warnings about having a bounty and taking fire, I went to recall the SLF and bug out, only to realise noone was firing at me and my SLF wasn't redocking because it was over 20km away. He also ignored orders to redock until he killed what he was fighting (giving me a 5 day bounty) and was listed as 'Following' while he was going rogue, even though I had set him to defensive.

Thanks for the help, safer to drop the SLF Bay for now I think.

BluePilot · Feb 7, 2018

I think fighters going rogue only happens when you get hit by a stray shot from a clean ship while the NPC Pilot is in defense mode (shoot things that shoot me). The simplest solution to this is to set your pilot to 'fire at will' so the NPC pilot will only attack things that are actually hostile.

Exluna · Feb 7, 2018

That thar be a filthy mutineer cap'n. That be a hanging offense it be!

mono · Feb 7, 2018

If you were in collision with something, in my experience it doesn't matter if the NPC flew into you (thus in the real world their fault) it is your fault (for simply being there 'in the way').

Krieger · Feb 7, 2018

DEBO said:
Well either the first incident was something else, or it happened twice in 2 outings. I only realised what was happening the second time because after getting warnings about having a bounty and taking fire, I went to recall the SLF and bug out, only to realise noone was firing at me and my SLF wasn't redocking because it was over 20km away. He also ignored orders to redock until he killed what he was fighting (giving me a 5 day bounty) and was listed as 'Following' while he was going rogue, even though I had set him to defensive.

Thanks for the help, safer to drop the SLF Bay for now I think.

No need to dump the SLF hangar. Even though you got hit by it twice in short succession, the rogue SLF bug really is rare. Now you know what the symptoms are. When it happens again don't try to recall the SLF but jump out of the RES immediately. That will automatically destroy the SLF limiting the harm it can do.