Can someone explain to me how to scan data ports in settlements without being caught?

[Agony_Aunt]

most power cells can be found at crash ships sites too. just take out the sentry drones or scav's guarding the place, i use the srv has it takes them out a lot quicker. The jump on the crashed ship and open up the maglock, grab the power cell (might be degraded) but it will work i think. Never try stealthie tactics either. But that just me I'm more of Rambo style and use ship to kill everything with non seeker missiles. so you get a fine for murder and abet of notoriety but a few hours and it gone.

and most engineer weapons can now be found at starports.weapons shop i never engineered a suit or weapon yet!

Nah, only found degraded ones there.

I've switched to using the tactic of finding a faction i don't care about and agreeing to fix their disabled bases before riding off into the sunset.

 

[taniwha-qf]

Nah, only found degraded ones there.

I have found good power regulators in crash sites, but they are indeed very rare.

 

[Screemonster]

You didn't answer my question: they will or will not rise the alarm / attack you on sight if they spot you near a dead body ?
The answer - I will answer myself since you do not want -- the answer is YES - they will rise the alarm and YES they will attack if they found a body in the same room / near you.
And yes, I think also here is a lot of room to improve the AI behavior - but I do not believe this will come in near future, are a lot of bugs to be patched, game breaking ones, graphic others ( bodies floating, NPC stuck in the walls peppering at you with gun fire but invulnerable if you return fire) , bugged missions, things who need to be solved first...

If you leave the room after killing someone, they'll find the body, search around the immediate area for a bit, then after a short while they'll pull the ol' "must have been the wind" and go back to what they were doing - at which point you can walk right back in there and they'll say hi to you as you conduct business standing over the corpse of their former co-worker.

 

[lysan]

presume the guards assume its you if they find a dead body?

Unless it’s a target for assassination you get a wanted tag no matter what, however for some funny reason the alarm only goes off if you’re detected, great logic isn’t it?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Unless it’s a target for assassination you get a wanted tag no matter what, however for some funny reason the alarm only goes off if you’re detected, great logic isn’t it?

I've raised that as an issue, getting wanted for kills when not observed. Feel free to add to it:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/46618

 

[hems303]

Does anyone else find this:
In HAB building (I haven't checked elsewhere) having disabled the settlement alarm; I go click on the HAB data port and BLAHHH!!! the alarms trigger...what gives and is there a way around this happening? ... is it a bug? o7

 

[Northpin]

"Stealth":

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHbh9UG1pSE

In the first movie, if it's a high tech / agri settlement - i usually get in that building by waiting for an npc to get in (not that's valid for you since you were already a criminal by the moment the movie starts )

Then i clone the ID of the guard (usually grade 3) that patrols the security room you took residence in - sometime i have to drop the stolen ID if i get scanned, but i do steal it back as soon the guard turns 180... Then i'm free to roam the building.
Staying out of guards sight avoids the scan, but even if scanned - if you dont have any bounties or not carry any illegal stuff, you can drop the stolen ID (binding that to a key is mandatory) and just let them scan.

My point is that, with enough patience to watch the patrol routes, there is no need to murder anyone (and to get a bounty) in any mission that's not a massacre or assassination mission. And even for assassination missions, if you scan them before killing them, you might find they're wanted so you get no bounty for killing them.

 

[Screemonster]

obtain dominator
obtain two shotguns
blast sentry skimmer to set off alarms immediately
locate reinforcement guards at dropship or bunker
bfg_division.mp3
steal level 3 access from corpses of guards
proceed with mission

 

[Agony_Aunt]

obtain dominator
obtain two shotguns
blast sentry skimmer to set off alarms immediately
locate reinforcement guards at dropship or bunker
bfg_division.mp3
steal level 3 access from corpses of guards
proceed with mission

Well, the point was without being caught, but your approach is also valid.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Does anyone else find this:
In HAB building (I haven't checked elsewhere) having disabled the settlement alarm; I go click on the HAB data port and BLAHHH!!! the alarms trigger...what gives and is there a way around this happening? ... is it a bug? o7

Not had alarms go off. I think the red light still blinks, so if any NPCs see the red light they will raise the alarm. Maybe i'm wrong. Maybe there is a bug.

 

[Screemonster]

Not had alarms go off. I think the red light still blinks, so if any NPCs see the red light they will raise the alarm. Maybe i'm wrong. Maybe there is a bug.

Yeah, it doesn't raise the full settlement alarm, but downloading/uploading something illegal will still make the dataport flash a light and cause anyone that sees it to become suspicious (and anyone that sees you to become hostile regardless of whether they see the dataport or not)

It's best to find somewhere to hide before doing any long uploads if you're not planning on just clearing the area of potential witnesses first.

 

[lysan]

I've raised that as an issue, getting wanted for kills when not observed. Feel free to add to it:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/46618

Done

 

[Frop]

I've raised that as an issue, getting wanted for kills when not observed. Feel free to add to it:

https://issues.frontierstore.net/issue-detail/46618

Unfortunately this sometimes seems the only way to push a suggestion through. Then again, I've encountered this additional bug where I don't give a hoot about notoriety or bounties.

But, as ever:

 

[Morbad]

there is no need to murder anyone

But there isn't any reason not to either.

Indeed, I find my suspension of disbelief is better preserved if I never leave any survivors. How else, other than the uncertainty that comes with a lack of witnesses and the damage done to a ransacked base, could the slap on the wrist my CMDR receives for multiple mass murder sprees per day be justified?

 

[Agony_Aunt]

But there isn't any reason not to either.

I like the cut of your jib!

 

[Frop]

But there isn't any reason not to either.

Indeed, I find my suspension of disbelief is better preserved if I never leave any survivors. How else, other than the uncertainty that comes with a lack of witnesses and the damage done to a ransacked base, could the slap on the wrist my CMDR receives for multiple mass murder sprees per day be justified?

I like to leave at least one survivor, explains the notoriety a bit better for me.

"We had carefully laid out four memory chips in each spacious locker according to base protocol, but they're all... gone. What kind of a monster does this?"

 

[Morbad]

If the system population figures don't go down and tax revenue remains the same, can it really be said that any murder was committed?

 

[hems303]

Yeah, it doesn't raise the full settlement alarm, but downloading/uploading something illegal will still make the dataport flash a light and cause anyone that sees it to become suspicious (and anyone that sees you to become hostile regardless of whether they see the dataport or not)

It's best to find somewhere to hide before doing any long uploads if you're not planning on just clearing the area of potential witnesses first.

Ahh thanks for that info... I thought (wrongly) that the whole alarm system was sounding across the settlement, not just local to the data port in question..... o7

 

[hems303]

But there isn't any reason not to either.

Indeed, I find my suspension of disbelief is better preserved if I never leave any survivors. How else, other than the uncertainty that comes with a lack of witnesses and the damage done to a ransacked base, could the slap on the wrist my CMDR receives for multiple mass murder sprees per day be justified?

I was told that the 'lore' (handwavium) behind the logging of 'crimes' was all bound up with the remote downloading of security footage/feed from personal suit and location monitoring vid cameras... i.e. so no way to escape the consequences of our 'crimes'....''Big Brother is Still Watching You'' (some considerable time after *1984!).....

* 1984... nod to George Orwell not David Braben

 

[Morbad]

I was told that the 'lore' (handwavium) behind the logging of 'crimes' was all bound up with the remote downloading of security footage/feed from personal suit and lacation monitoring vid cameras... i.e. so no way to escape the consequences of our 'crimes'....''Big Brother is Watching You'' (some considerable time after *1984!).....

* 1984... nod to George Orwell not David Braben

That is the vague handwavium we've been left with, but like many design choices it doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. It doesn't offer any actual gameplay choices and it doesn't explain the softness of the consequences imposed by the inevitability of our character's crimes being discovered.

Ultimately, it's a lazy gamism that explains nothing and does nothing to improve play. This game is riddled with things like this. Hard, arbitrary, constraints that corral and disrupt, rather than describe and enable.