Interdiction without a reason | Combat after failed escape

[Shiro Akai]

o7 CMDRs,

recently I had noticed atypical NPC behavior. Namely - they started to interdict me without a reason. Last whole week I was running navy rank missions and at some point I got info that there are upset people for what I'm doing. Some data missions stated that there will be attempts to stop me from delivering said data. Understandable. They tried once or twice, and failed miserably as I haven't lost interdiction escape even once (*).

But it occurred once - an interdiction without a reason. I thought it was some Empire rank aftershock or something but it happened yesterday so I start to think there's something about it. It went like this:

Situation #1
I finished Empire ranks run and decided to give a go Fed's. I plotted a course and started to jump to my destination. I had no missions on me, my cargo was empty (whole 4t of available space) as I was flying iCourier. I had no fine nor reward on me. Then iin the middle of nowhere I got interdicted. "Been waiting for you"-ish comm. Evaded and moved along puzzled why that happened. If he could interdict me then what exactly? I had no cargo to spill out. Direct credit transfer is a no go. Besides my general pirate policy is F you but that's not the case. Issue is it was pointless attempt in the first place. I thought it was related to my recent Empire rank up to Duke. Revenge?

Situation #2
Yesterday. I needed to move my new iCutter to my home base. Plotted the route and moved to perform my 23 jumps as my range is about 11 LYs. Being low on funds I didn't wanted to haul anything so I made empty run. No cargo, no mission, no fines or rewards on me. Simple ship ferry from A to B. And again - in the middle of nowhere I got an interdiction. I entered some system and immediately noticed square swoop behind me. Comm hail with threats and then interdiction attempt. I was already aiming toward my next jump so instead of fighting I just initiated jump, while still being in the interdiction game. Waited for countdown to finish and simply jumped out of the system and interdiction tunnel. While in hyperspace I was being puzzled again - what was the reason for that interdiction?

Both cases were on Solo, so purely NPCs, not some PvPers.

#####

And now second part of interdiction news. Yesterday was also a day when I lost the game and got pulled out while in my iClipper. Hence the (*) above. I was approaching the station, long past 0:07 mark so on a slow down when interdiction happened (as usual). Escape circle went into the nearby planet I was passing by so I had to maneuver away. Before I could track back the circle, NPC filled his bar and pulled me out. He demanded 55k worth of cargo. Well, he gets sh*t since my pirate policy is F you. Oh, he won't get even sh*t as I was hauling about 200t of biowaste, all my cargo was mission cargo. So a double no go for submission as complying would mean loosing the mission.

Ok, pulled out for the first time, now need to get out and escape. In my noob situation I didn't noticed what ship he was flying but I got 63 mass lock factor. I already knew that pulling makes your FSD cooldown run longer so I had to endure that. No big deal, iClipper is pretty agile ship.

As I went full throttle + boost pirate went "hey, where are you going?". And start shooting. My weak shields went out pretty fast so I switched from 2-4-0 to 4-2-0 and started to dance. And funny things started to happen. Shields didn't have time to up again, I started to get hull damage pretty fast and SC wouldn't boot up. I got the bars appear, they got like 3 or 4 bars (~15% filled) and stopped. NPC got close nad mass factor got into play?

Unable to hit SC, getting more and more hull damage, shields knocked out I was preparing for a rebuy. At 15% hull I switched back to 2-4-0 and went combo boost. NPC managed to hit few more hits and reduced me to 11% hull. Having light ship I was able to boos almost continuously. NPC stopped firing (probably I went out of his range) and things suddenly started to play along. SC jump bar filled in no time and I escaped.

I limped to the destination, repairs costed 29.9k. Spare change compared to 400k I earned for delivering some biowaste. I had one more delivery to do and that pirate was after actually that mission so I expected him to try again. And he tried. But this time I had free space all around so no F's were given this time - avoided with ease.

As an afterthought:
- don't tank, boost away, then boost some more. Lesson learned.
- remember that your drives are G3 DD
- remember that your PP and PD are engineered slightly as well, hence your boost fills quickly and your speed is far above average.

But hey - it was my first pull out, I was so shocked that I forgot few things. But I survived and emerged stronger and with new knowledge.

So... fly safe.

 

[gooddoc]

I'm not carrying cargo or running missions, I'm just system jumping looking for USS's to collect some mats for engineering.

I rarely get 'dicted, but it does sometimes happen. When it does, like you, I can win the mini-game everytime - can't remember last time I lost.

What I found yesterday amazed me though.

While looking for USS's I usually only go for Threat Lvl 0's, 'cos I don't do pewpew. Now my understanding is that Threat Lvl 0 means what it says, ZERO threat ie no ships to attack you. Yet on around 6 consecutive USS drops I was hit with ships in the instance. Twice they were rescue ships & left me alone, but on 4 occasions I was attacked, one of those were with 4 ships attacking.

How is that a Threat Lvl 0?

 

[[VR] Dr Gentech]

FDev wants to make solo more like open so they added NPC griefers

 

[Shiro Akai]

How is that a Threat Lvl 0?

I believe it refers to attackers overall skill level, not the probability of being attacked at all. Compare it to group of 4 kindergarten kids attacking you (threat lvl 0) vs single martial arts pro (threat lvl 4) vs spec ops soldier (threat lvl 6). Threat lvl 0 means that you are attacked by unskilled, harmless NPC which should't pose any real threat beyond annoyance.