Someone tried to steal my cargo and I got punished? What gives?

[Marund]

I want to make a quick point to update my experiences from the past few hours, all of which are great.

*I was interdicted by an eagle who demanded my cargo. I scanned him, saw that his record was clean, and held fire. I was carrying nothing, and a moment later he said "no cargo? waste of time." He took off, I went on my way.

*I was interdicted again with cargo in my hold. Same thing happened; the pirate's record was clean, and I held fire. I waited for him to start shooting at me, giving him a "WANTED" designation, and wrecked him hard. I got a bounty voucher.

*Got interdicted a third time, scanned, saw the pirate was wanted, opened fire before he did, got a bounty voucher again.

Long story short, SCAN THEM. If they're wanted, you're all good. If not, wait for it. I haven't had a problem so far following this simple method. A straightforward game mechanic to be sure, though it might not be intuitive as has been said.

The problem is the 4th situation, one you apparently never had. They're clean, they ask for cargo, then attack you first but just happen to miss every shot. If you land the first shot, you're considered the assaulter, no matter who actually started firing on who.

Thankfully this has already been declared a known issue.

 

[shrinkshooter]

If you land the first shot, you're considered the assaulter, no matter who actually started firing on who.

Well, right, when I say "wait for it" I mean "wait for one of their shots to hit you" rather than for when they start shooting. Not ideal, but it will net you money.

 

[MarcusReed]

I was interdicted twice in one trip.
I was 'pirated' by both. I waited for the first to fire, but he didn't hit me. When I hit him, I was wanted.

Eventually he scarppered off into supercruise.

I did the same, was interdicted again, pirated, waited until he'd hit me, then opened fire. I was again wanted.

Ended up with two pirates worth of bounties on my head.

And this was my first tip anywhere.

Not a good start.

You can deploy hard points and target them but do not fire until your target display turns from YELLOW to RED.

Also as of right now, even if there info says wanted, you will still get a bounty on you. So again just wait to be fired upon.

 

[Im_Lost]

Just using a interdiction weapon should be a crime tbh. The only ones allowed to use them in a non-anarchy system without getting a bounty should be the authorities. That way there's no chance a civilian ship interdicting you won't have a bounty.

 

[OlFart]

Yes, you need to wait for them to start attacking you, UNLESS you target and scan them and it says "wanted" on the info. Then you're free to open fire.

I agree though, this is something the devs should fix at some point. NPC pirates pulling interdictions and making demands should have NO EFFECT on your standing with the system if you choose to open fire.

This isn't fool proof though. There's a bug somewhere. I had a red target attacking a civvie in an unknown signal spot; he had a wanted tag on him and iff showed red. I chased him down and used the K-warrant scanner on him. When I opened fire I got a 100 credit bounty for "assault". I had to enter the local station doing 300 through the aperture so I could get in and pay it off before the feds scanned me...

 

[MadEye]

The moment I am interdicted, I max out engines and shields and boost away. As soon as the FSD is back online, I just warp out. In a crumby Sidewinder, it is just not worth aggravation of dogfighting IMO

I subscribe to this. I tried defending myself, one a couple times. Every single time I won I had repair bills far in excess of anything I picked up. Additionally, anything I picked up that was 'trap bait' for pirates is marked as stolen instead of being legal salvage is it should be (imo).

 

[Armchair]

I agree with this entirely. Interdiction by anyone other than authority vessels in itself should be made a crime.

You don't pull in front of cars to make them stop just to say hello.

I strongly disagree.

I, for one, enjoy receiving great deals on toxic waste disposal.