Help with interdictions

[Dunringill]

Dear CMRDs,

I am a greenhorn explorer, currently cruising with my DBX in unpopulated regions. I have accumulated scanning data worth some millions in my ship and sooner or later, the day to cash them in will come. While jumping and scanning alone in the dark, a lot of things come to an explorers mind. So I was thinking about interdictions. Usually, I dont play in Open, but even in Solo or Mobius, NPC-interdictions occur from time to time.

What I am wondering about is: Until now, I got maybe 8-10 NPC-interdiction attempts. Every time i fought the interdiction off, by aligning to the flight vector. It did always work out.
But quite often, I read here (or in the German FD-Forum), that it is suggested, to submit to the interdiction and then speed away.
What is the benefit in that?
Was I just lucky until now?
Does the submit-then-speed-away-tactic refer to PVP-interdictions?

I´d like to bring my data home safe and sound, so maybe you fellow CMDRs could help me out with this one.

Thanks and fly safe!
CMDR Dun Ringill

 

[Major Klutz]

It works well with NPC interdictions.
Submitting gives your FSD a shorter cooldown and you'll be able to re-engage FSD quickly.
If you fight the interdiction and lose, your FSD cooldown will be long and your opponent will have plenty of time to disable you before you can re-engage.

I submit, and as soon as I drop from Supercruise I boost and drop a heat sink or chaff, then boost again and start charging the FSD.
The NPC can barely get a few laser shots at long range before I'm back in supercruise.

If you are not carrying any cargo, your chance of interdiction is very low. If you do have cargo, dump it.
Since the 2.2 patch, If you are interdicted, and you have no cargo, NPCs will often leave you without attacking.

NPCs can appear within 1000Ly of populated space and the odds increase as you get closer.

 

[Zieman]

What I am wondering about is: Until now, I got maybe 8-10 NPC-interdiction attempts. Every time i fought the interdiction off, by aligning to the flight vector. It did always work out.
But quite often, I read here (or in the German FD-Forum), that it is suggested, to submit to the interdiction and then speed away.
What is the benefit in that?
Was I just lucky until now?
Does the submit-then-speed-away-tactic refer to PVP-interdictions?

For a while it was nearly impossible to win the interdiction minigame, but now it looks like the earlier bugs in the interdiction mechanics have been more or less fixed. Back when you would lose the interdiction anyway, it was better to submit & get away quickly, as opposed to losing and not being able to get away quick if at all.

If you lose the interdiction, you crash into normal space spinning helplessly for a few seconds and with very long FSD cooling time and some damage to your ship (just like emergency stop and supercruising too close star or planet). By submitting, you get your ship under control right away and FSD cooling time is short (just like any other safe exit from supercruise).

 

[dayrth]

If you have a fast ship (and a good boost speed) then submitting, four pips to engines and boosting away until you can jump again is very effective. It takes a few moments for your pursuer to drop in to the instance. By that time you can be out of weapons range and only a few seconds from jumping.

 

[Dunringill]

It works well with NPC interdictions.
Submitting gives your FSD a shorter cooldown and you'll be able to re-engage FSD quickly.
If you fight the interdiction and lose, your FSD cooldown will be long and your opponent will have plenty of time to disable you before you can re-engage.

I submit, and as soon as I drop from Supercruise I boost and drop a heat sink or chaff, then boost again and start charging the FSD.
The NPC can barely get a few laser shots at long range before I'm back in supercruise.

If you are not carrying any cargo, your chance of interdiction is very low. If you do have cargo, dump it.
Since the 2.2 patch, If you are interdicted, and you have no cargo, NPCs will often leave you without attacking.

NPCs can appear within 1000Ly of populated space and the odds increase as you get closer.

If you have a fast ship (and a good boost speed) then submitting, four pips to engines and boosting away until you can jump again is very effective. It takes a few moments for your pursuer to drop in to the instance. By that time you can be out of weapons range and only a few seconds from jumping.

For a while it was nearly impossible to win the interdiction minigame, but now it looks like the earlier bugs in the interdiction mechanics have been more or less fixed. Back when you would lose the interdiction anyway, it was better to submit & get away quickly, as opposed to losing and not being able to get away quick if at all.

If you lose the interdiction, you crash into normal space spinning helplessly for a few seconds and with very long FSD cooling time and some damage to your ship (just like emergency stop and supercruising too close star or planet). By submitting, you get your ship under control right away and FSD cooling time is short (just like any other safe exit from supercruise).

Thanks CMDRs, that´s exactly what I needed.
I will definitely think over my interdiction behaviour!

CMDR Dun Ringill

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

Thanks CMDRs, that´s exactly what I needed.
I will definitely think over my interdiction behaviour!

CMDR Dun Ringill

the important thing to note is the difference between high wake and low wake.

if you try and low wake after submitting you may get mass locked with a higher chance of death, your best option is to quickly select the nearest "next system" (usually on a hot key) and then high wake out to that.

of course with NPC's you usually can just low wake away from them without too much issue.

But remember you can always just keep an eye on your radar and comms, stop them from lining you up for an interdiction in the first place its obvious when a pilot (human or NPC) is trying to line you up for an interdiction

 

[newman1702]

Being able to win the interdiction mini-game depends largely on player skill and what ship you're flying (it's not the same thing trying to dodge one in a DBX, or a T9 - maneuverability plays an important role). So, the ability to actually successfully escape an interdiction that way can vary a lot from player to player, while submitting to have a shorter fsd cooldown, and then high waking works consistently for everyone. This is why you'll find the general safety advice to always be submit and wake, but in some cases you may find that you'd prefer to play the mini game instead.

 

[disorganise]

If you're confident of winning the mini game, no harm. But to be honest, it can often be faster to zero throttle and boost away like everyone has already said.
I've had mini games last well over 30 secs which, even if I win, wasted more time and often take me away from my destination thus costing more time again in SC, than if I'd just zeroed throttle straight up.

I'm currently in a Conda with a SLF and happy to take on most NPCs to rank up to unlock Lori, and if I have no cargo it is basically impossible to have a fight. I get interdicted, submit, launch fighter, pirate scans and tootles off. I KWS them in the meantime and open fire after confirming they're wanted. Not only do they not fight back but the SLF refuses to engage as they don't become hostile. They just continue on their merry way and jump out.
So.....get rid of any cargo and you'll fine.

 

[goemon]

for the returning explorer i recommend returning to a high security system (filter galaxy map for this) at the edge of the bubble with a station close to entry point (see system map), to minimize any chance of interdiction. there you can either reoutfit your ship, or switch to a bubble ready ship if you want to sell your data somewhere else.

 

[Ashnak]

Personally, I found that against NPCs, the minigame is easy to win in 2.3 in a Sidey or a Dolphin. The DBX should also handle well. The advantage of winning the minigame is that NPCs don't pursue you further after that.

On the other hand, if you have a sufficiently fast ship (boosting), submitting to the interdiction will give you the benefit of a much faster FSD cooldown, and boosting away as soon as possible may even prevent your pursuer from even appearing on your radar in the case of an NPC.

Player interdictions I've found much harder to fight off, and a lot of players who interdict other players have fast ships themselves. But then again, unless they know you're coming, most of the PvP crowd will hang around in the more populated systems. If you drop into a high security, not rare producing, not CG, system close to the edge, chances are slim to none of encountering another player. Of course, this is moot if you want to use your collected exploration data to unlock the favours of some specific factions so that they may give you access to locked systems.

What some explorers (me included, once I get back) tend to do in this case is to dock at a station (see above - close to the edge of the bubble, high security, no rares, no CG, no engineers) with a shipyard and swap their explorer for their bubble ship. In my case, that would mean to swap my long range Dolphin for my hot rodded Sidey (and first see if I can get materials for a few more grade 3 DD rolls - that Sidey could go faster....), since I don't have the Empire rank (in this life) yet for a Courier.

 

[ArgusP]

Most of my initial 100 million credits and Pioneer rank came from a DBs outfitted for speed/FSD range in near-bubble exploration exclusively in solo. Interdictions very rare but submit,boost,boost,high wake seems like guaranteed escape.

 

[Dunringill]

Awesome insights, folks!
Thanks a lot!

 

[Jackie Silver]

Faced with players, it helps to have a good working knowledge of the relative speeds and mass-lock-factors of the ships. Can you outrun them easily? Can you low-wake away regardless? And of course, how much unpleasantness can they sling in your direction, how good your own shields are, and how much of a target does your ship present if you're running directly away from them. Also how well your ship can maintain its full boost speed. Opening range is key; if you're up close they can hit with frags and with dumbfire rockets with nasty side effects. Most weapons have less effect at a distance and in any case you're harder to hit, so once you get past the initial few seconds of an interdiction you're relatively safe provided you're outrunning them.

I don't use a "Bubble ship" as such, but when exploring near the Bubble - that is, if I'm going to be passing through civilised space - I use ships which can avoid and survive unwanted attention. (Apparently Jackie now has a bounty on her virtual head! Exciting... but inconsequential.) Far enough away from civilisation and I use more dedicated exploration ships.

In addition to looking for out-of-the way systems to sell your data, you might also consider some of the new asteroid bases - player traffic is relatively rare. I wouldn't rate them as safe havens, on the off chance some goon decides to camp out at one, but they do provide a whole new set of places to sell data that are away from the Bubble.

 

[Sonof Hibachi]

My two pennyworth...

Never had a problem in the mini-game against NPCs in my Keelback, just throttle to the middle of the blue band and keep moving the mouse (yep, M&K) until you win. However, pro tip is to ensure your glass of wine is far enough away from possible mouse movement!

Never been interdicted by a player, so no idea if it's any harder.

 

[marx]

One more thing to add: against players, you'll want to high-wake away, and not low-wake. So not back to supercruise, but to another star system. This has two benefits: one, unless they have a wake scanner (and they often don't), they'll have no idea where you jumped to. Two is that mass locking doesn't actually work on high-waking, last time I checked anyway.

 

[Rustnsawdust]

One other thing to add - there are no NPC griefers, just honest(!) hard-working pirates. So you can submit and if you have no cargo they won't attack, they just fly away lamenting their starving children. Whether to take a cargo hold on an exploration trip is a personal call, but the security of *not* having one is an important consideration, I think.

 

[Sonof Hibachi]

One more thing to add: against players, you'll want to high-wake away, and not low-wake. So not back to supercruise, but to another star system. This has two benefits: one, unless they have a wake scanner (and they often don't), they'll have no idea where you jumped to. Two is that mass locking doesn't actually work on high-waking, last time I checked anyway.

Yes, correct.

One other thing to add - there are no NPC griefers, just honest(!) hard-working pirates. So you can submit and if you have no cargo they won't attack, they just fly away lamenting their starving children. Whether to take a cargo hold on an exploration trip is a personal call, but the security of *not* having one is an important consideration, I think.

This is also true in my experience, no cargo = no problem. However, I always have a small cargo rack because you never know what you might find...

 

[goemon]

One other thing to add - there are no NPC griefers, just honest(!) hard-working pirates. So you can submit and if you have no cargo they won't attack, they just fly away lamenting their starving children. Whether to take a cargo hold on an exploration trip is a personal call, but the security of *not* having one is an important consideration, I think.

This is also true in my experience, no cargo = no problem. However, I always have a small cargo rack because you never know what you might find...

it is only true in ~95% of all cases in my experince. you get some npc's with an archetype opening fire not matter whether you have cargo or not. very rarely, but happened again yesterday to me.

 

[marx]

it is only true in ~95% of all cases in my experince. you get some npc's with an archetype opening fire not matter whether you have cargo or not. very rarely, but happened again yesterday to me.

Yep, you are right. Even with NPCs, there's the small possibility of a "psycho" type appearing, the one which will open fire on you without any reason. (You can notice this because they say so.) It's so rare though that I've forgotten about them. The vast majority will be pirates, who won't bother you if they see you have no cargo. I'd say it's ironic how it's exactly the other way around with hostile players.

 

[goemon]

maybe also to add, as i have a habit of returning from longer travels after a patch ... you never know what the next patch will bring. i'm more relaxed about it since i made elite in exploration, which was important forme, but for exampel i have a lightweight pointdefence on my non-fast (<400 m/s boostspeed) exploration vessels, as i had an unlucky pirate lord spawn after the 1.4. patch, when missiles were buffed... luckily i just returned from a 1 week short tour, so it wasn't too bad...

just putting this here as dangers to returning explorers change from patch to patch. currently it is very safe, i'd evdn say foolproof without cargo and using high security systems, where you easily could return sagetly with a shieldless slowboat - but if you don't know how long you'll be out, you might want to invest into a bit of basic defense.

that said - returning after engineers with the bugged op NPC in a badly damaged AspE, i had a friend picking me up in a combat vessel with cargo to drop for the last 5 jumps.

iridium wing does such protection service, and you'll always find explorers on this forums to bring you sagetly in.

last thing, as i'm one of the few who made the experience of getting shot with a month of exploration data on board: you grow with such experience, both on safety measures as well as in your perspective on exploration, which is about the experience... the journey.