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[sector_terror]

I felt I should ask this before I start editing the base settings file again, as this is just plain unfair.

I was running around the sector, coming back to the core after a good bit of exploration. I had around 800 harvested organs but nothing else black market sitting in my stores and got scanned. I thought "No big deal, I have 1500 in shields cargo hull" for some reason they weren't in my shield cargo hulls, god knows why, and I figured I could just run away and be fine. Instead after telling the patrol ship no, they attempted to murder me and I had no choice but to hit engage. This is where the issue comes in.

Now, I content I shouldn't be forced to take penalties with my relations to other side of an engagement which I do not want to be a part in. If the enemy is attempt to outright shoot me down, I shouldn't have to take a penalty to my relationship with that place not be the victim of murder(or theft in the case of expeditions,) but this was a different class of bad design. So my question: Is there some mechanic I could have used to escape that encounter that wasn't "turn in your goods." because giving you the option to say no, and not warning you it will force you to go hostile, is a just plain unfair. I want to know for certain before I call it bad design outright.

[Modo44]

What happens if you refuse to comply with police orders IRL? What happens if you refuse to comply while brandishing weapons? Exactly this. For all intents and purposes, colonized systems are inside a faction's borders. Worse than IRL, there is no international law protecting you, only whatever the local government (worse, actually a military junta, corporation, etc.) says goes. So while it is not pleasant, you are the little guy, and s*** out of luck, unless/until you bring the bigger fleet.

[SCC]

Shielded Cargo Holds only decrease the chance that illegal goods will be found, though I don't know how exactly does it work.
In addition to that, if you are forced into a pursuit battle and get away while doing no hull damage (or minimal, not sure) to the enemy, you will only get a -5 or so rep hit, instead of instant hostilities.

[sector_terror]

What happens if you refuse to comply with police orders IRL? What happens if you refuse to comply while brandishing weapons? Exactly this. For all intents and purposes, colonized systems are inside a faction's borders. Worse than IRL, there is no international law protecting you, only whatever the local government (worse, actually a military junta, corporation, etc.) says goes. So while it is not pleasant, you are the little guy, and s*** out of luck, unless/until you bring the bigger fleet.

And I'm not here to play real life the game literately. I'm here to play starSector. Telling someone "the consequences for this are a negative reputation loss" and blindsiding them into realizing the real consequences is "being marked kill on site and lose all ability to trade with an entire faction right on the spot," is not particularly fair. To top if off, it's base game design you should always give the players an out if possible. A player should have to go to fairly distant lengths to end up a situation where they lose safe access to an entire section of map and/or get attacked on the spot. Hell even if we take "realism" into play, real police arrest you for being a smuggler or trading heavy criminal goods like truckloads of harvested organs. They dont like you go with a minor fine, so the rules of reality can't be assumed anyway.

But thank you for answering the base question, I had no decision in the matter, I was caught in a dialogue trap I'd forgotten about given how rarely it matters after finding what shielded cargo holds exist. I got blindsighted

[sector_terror]

Shielded Cargo Holds only decrease the chance that illegal goods will be found, though I don't know how exactly does it work.
In addition to that, if you are forced into a pursuit battle and get away while doing no hull damage (or minimal, not sure) to the enemy, you will only get a -5 or so rep hit, instead of instant hostilities.

I thought it was 100%, thank you for that info I'll dump my illegal good ASAP from here on. and yeah, trying to control the amount of damage midway through an active fight is difficult, and a full pursuit wasn't an option. The game -made- me fully engage so I couldn't have had a choice since those battles don't end until the enemy retreat fully.

[SCC]

If you can't retreat, this means the sum total of your ships' DP is over 150 or over 40% of your battlesize. Since the game can't force you deploy your whole fleet in this situation, it forces you to fight. Hm, Alex probably should get rid of 150 DP hard limit and instead use just 40% of battlesize (or 50% to be a little bit more lenient). It would have the drawback of somewhat favouring bigger battlesizes, but I think it would be worth it for convenience.

Hell even if we take "realism" into play, real police arrest you for being a smuggler or trading heavy criminal goods like truckloads of harvested organs. They dont like you go with a minor fine, so the rules of reality can't be assumed anyway.

To be fair, patrols in Starsector are less like first world police and more like second world military, and you typically don't travel unarmed yourself. Nevertheless, perhaps the option to fight the patrol should be made more obvious that it will make you fight, and maybe also the player should get the ability to bribe the patrol.

[sector_terror]

If you can't retreat, this means the sum total of your ships' DP is over 150 or over 40% of your battlesize. Since the game can't force you deploy your whole fleet in this situation, it forces you to fight. Hm, Alex probably should get rid of 150 DP hard limit and instead use just 40% of battlesize (or 50% to be a little bit more lenient). It would have the drawback of somewhat favouring bigger battlesizes, but I think it would be worth it for convenience.

Hell even if we take "realism" into play, real police arrest you for being a smuggler or trading heavy criminal goods like truckloads of harvested organs. They dont like you go with a minor fine, so the rules of reality can't be assumed anyway.

To be fair, patrols in Starsector are less like first world police and more like second world military, and you typically don't travel unarmed yourself. Nevertheless, perhaps the option to fight the patrol should be made more obvious that it will make you fight, and maybe also the player should get the ability to bribe the patrol.

agreed. It's more the noob trap where you can end up, by either forgetting or just not knowing, that you cant say no and escape from a patrol, just cut yourself from a 1/3rd of the galaxy. Losing the Dictat or the Luddics isnt a huge deal, and thus not quite as aggresious, but for the league or hedge boys, it's nasty. But yeah, if I'd had that message of "you may not be able to escape the patrol, which may lead to becoming hostile with faction," on the first option would have made a world of difference. I basically got forced into reloading outright and losing 2 hours because of something I accidentally into. The first time it happened it was an accident, I hit a wrong key and lost all the progress I'd made all night.

Oh and, as for the size thing. That is adjustable without mods in settings.json. Mine is set to 15k supply cost for deployment before the run option gets turned off explicitly to stop this very problem from ocuring because I hit "2" instead of "1" on my keypad. I might raise the .4(40%) to .8 or .99

[SCC]

Oh and, as for the size thing. That is adjustable without mods in settings.json. Mine is set to 15k supply cost for deployment before the run option gets turned off explicitly to stop this very problem from ocuring because I hit "2" instead of "1" on my keypad. I might raise the .4(40%) to .8 or .99

It's 0.4 because that's the minimum DP assignment you can have, when you are outnumbered 2:3 or more. More than 0.4 might lead to battles where total deployed DP of your and enemy's fleets is above the battlesize.

[Megas]

This sounds like something a story point could fix next release.

[IonDragonX]

So my question: Is there some mechanic I could have used to escape that encounter that wasn't "turn in your goods."

Jettison all your legal cargo temporarily = illegal goods are guaranteed to be in the shielded holds.

[sector_terror]

This sounds like something a story point could fix next release.

Excellent point, though it still should be labeled before your accidentally end up in a terrible scenario based on a missed button pushed or a menu variant kaizo trap. But yeah its more of what I'm looking forward to. But good sir, are you a sadist? Reminding me what is coming out knowing I know not when? do you enjoy the pain you have sent on this forum?

So my question: Is there some mechanic I could have used to escape that encounter that wasn't "turn in your goods."

Jettison all your legal cargo temporarily = illegal goods are guaranteed to be in the shielded holds.

Fair....though I suspect that might be an unintented sort of cheat. Plus, as has been pointed out, I wasn't even full on shielded cargo it just doesn't register 100%. This could explain why even after turning them in the first time my remaining 500 still got caught directly after, but only on the second inspection.