Getting interdicted for no reason? Or is there?

Why the hell am I getting interdicted by NPC pirates when I DO NOT HAVE ANY CARGO?

I keep getting pulled out of super cruse with NPC pirate types saying your cargo looks great, dump your cargo. ???? I DO NOT HAVE CARGO TO DROP?

Or is there some reason I am getting flagged by NPC pirates?

When I goto resource extraction sites and get scanned from NPC pirates they see I do not have any cargo. Why do the idiot ones flying around and pull me out of super cruse think I have loads of cargo?
 
Yeah, lately I find myself sometimes interdicted for cargo while I don't carry anything. I don't mind, I just wish the reason for interdiction to have a bit of logic into it. Otherwise, since I have all my thrusters on DDT grade 5, I can easily run if I am unarmed or don't feel like fighting.
 
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Well, some people HAVE been complaining how NPC pirates ALWAYS seem to know you're carrying cargo without scanning you... so... this is an improvement? ;)
 
Not only I keep getting interdicted with empty cargo - but I keep getting interdicted over and over and over again by the same NPCs - my record was 8 times in a row during long SC. [down][down][down]
 
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Possible unknown cargo . . .

Why the hell am I getting interdicted by NPC pirates when I DO NOT HAVE ANY CARGO?

I keep getting pulled out of super cruse with NPC pirate types saying your cargo looks great, dump your cargo. ???? I DO NOT HAVE CARGO TO DROP?

Or is there some reason I am getting flagged by NPC pirates?

When I goto resource extraction sites and get scanned from NPC pirates they see I do not have any cargo. Why do the idiot ones flying around and pull me out of super cruse think I have loads of cargo?

Sometimes you might have cargo you do not even know you have. Customers drop little "presents" into your cargo hold when you are not looking. Described as mission rewards in the mission brief but some people do not read that far down in the brief.

Easy way to check is either in panel 3 (inventory\cargo) or go to any Commodities Market and sell anything you find in the "Cargo" column. You might find something you did not know you were carrying. NPC pirates are omniscient and know about every single ton of "tasty" biowaste or micro-weave cooling hose and they want it. Whenever I need to "go" somewhere, dead-heading just to get there and not purposely hauling cargo I make sure my holds are completely empty to reduce or eliminate interdictions.

PS: Completely empty your cargo holds before going mining (if you go mining) or you will be almost immediately attacked. Just saying . . . o7
 
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I honestly believe it's just very poorly scripted NPCs. What do they have half a dozen lines? Dozen maximum.

In reality, they would be pulling you out into normal space routinely, especially if you are flying one of the small trader ships. For they have no way of scanning your cargo in supercruise. It's just pot luck. But we can't have players getting pulled every system they jump through.

If the NPC pirates actually behaved like what a player pirate behaves.. They would say "Close down your engines, prepare for the scan, fleeing will be meet with aggression, etc.". What NPCs actually say "MMM, mE lyks tasteiy CaR--Go" when all you are carrying is biowaste or worse nothing.

(On a side note- If anybody knows a good mechanic/handyman, there are 4 Beluga liners at tourist beacon #341 and apparently all 4 of them have malfunctioning gymnasiums, what are the chances. Also in need of a good speech writer as a lot of people seem to be struggling with their vows right now..)
 
Pirates are smuggling hidden contraband out of stations in your ship and they want it back!

They really really really like biowaste, possibly not really Pirates jut misunderstood gardeners look for something to feed to their space tomatoes
 
The persistent ones are attached to missions, especially those where you have to collect something. After some time, you get a mission update warning telling you who and how many are coming after you. Once you get that warning, the same NPC will interdict you every 5 jumps or so, and will chase you, interdicting every 40 seconds, from the star to the station. You should do those missions as quickly and efficiently as possible. I'm not sure whether it's a simple timer that triggers the warning. They don't know whether you have the goods or not, but it seems that they don't care. The message is probably programmed into them as part of the mission mechanics.

Some NPCs will still come after you for cargo when you don't have any, but they are not persistent, once you've got away from them, they don't normally try again. I think this happens when you set off from the station with cargo and eject it later. That doesn't seem to reset the "no cargo" tag on you in all circumstances. I found out that when I was doing combat missions and kept getting cargo rewards, which i didn't want and I kept forgetting to get rid of it before taking off. Whenever I remember to sell the cargo, I got no interdictions. When I forgot, I normally got interdicted every time. When I ejected the cargo after take-off, I sometimes got interdicted with a message saying that they were after my cargo.
 
There's several types of pirates in the game: stalker, supercruise and RES pirates.
Stalkers spawn specifically for you when you have cargo (or a bounty). Their ships and combat rank are tied to your own. I don't think (it's been a while) they have cargo scanners, but since they spawn only if you have cargo on board that's a non-issue.
RES pirates (and pirates spawning behind you when you enter a ring outside of a RES) have cargo scanners and will use them, only attacking you if they detect cargo on board.
Supercruise pirates, like most NPCs in supercruise, are spawned based on the local conditions (what factions, how strong, economic state etc..) and will sometimes interdict you just in case you carry something. They don't have cargo scanners and therefore can't tell if you're even able to comply. They'll just keep shooting until you drop enough cargo (based on value) or die.
I did it once in my FDL as I wasn't particularly well fitted for piracy and had forgotten my cargo scanner but came across another player in his type 6. I told him to drop 8t, hoping he wasn't empty (which would have force me to either be a d-nozzle or fail to make good on my threat), and kept shooting until he realized he couldn't escape. Finally I saw 8t of sweet tobacco come out of his ship. The day after he contacted me and asked why I hadn't demanded that he drop his 8t of rare goods..It was a nice D'oh! moment, we laughed about it. I don't think he could have pacified an NPC FLD with 8t of tobacco though.
 
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Why the hell am I getting interdicted by NPC pirates when I DO NOT HAVE ANY CARGO?
Passengers? I had the same thing last night. 32 cargo pod installed, nothing inside (not even limpets) but I did have two cabins with passengers. Happened 4-5 times over the sight seeing tour.

Could be Frontier have not updated their text files for interdiction's, or there's a bug. It's hard to say.
 
My guess is that that the interdiction sequence is a script in the code of the game that follows you upon accepting a Data Mission with cargo rewards. Once you jump into the target system the script engages. You may not have any cargo but the game knows that it has to run the interdiction script. Upon accepting the mission most missions clearly state "Hostile ships may be sent after you". So when the NPC interdicts you they don't have a script that says "I've been tracking you for a while! All that juicy Data! They can't exactly ask you to dump the data when doing delivery missions (as of yet). So it kind of makes sense. It is annoying but it's the only challenge when doing data missions currently programmed into the game's code. Also when you "stack" missions the interdiction frequency increases and at certain times you have multiple ships attempting to interdict you. Just my 2 cents CMDR.
 
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