The Black Market will kidnap Hiro even if they aren't alive.

Found a bug in the game? Post it in one of the applicable sub forums depending on the version you are using. Tech support is also available in the Tech Support subforum.
Post Reply
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

The game does not seem to be capable of dealing with the player destroying the Black Market station in Rigel Aurelius, nor can it understand the player having blown up the Molotok guarding it. In the former case, the mission will be offered as usual, the Corporate Cruiser spawned will head to the station's wreck, and the generic message will appear upon docking with it. Furthermore, the destroyed station will be unlootable and will "show signs of a battle" despite no such battle occurring. In the latter case, Kate's congratulation message for destroying the Molotok appears upon mission start.

A simple solution to this would be for the mission to simply run a check for whether the station is alive before starting the mission, and skip it over if not, and to modify the mission text if the bounty hunter has already been destroyed, eliminating references to its presence. I will admit that I do not know how the problem of the station having a dock text that isn't logical when destroyed by the player can be fixed cleanly, but a somewhat inelegant placeholder method would be to either spawn an entirely new station elsewhere in the system for the mission(removing all mentioned errors in one fell swoop) or to despawn a generic Black Market station on mission start and immediately replace it with the special variant.
shanejfilomena
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1533
Joined: Tue Mar 22, 2011 8:43 pm
Location: Alaska
Contact:

I tested this : WOW....You are correct, And it is an Odd thing.
I NEVER destroyed that station and then tried my luck in the Arena..
Last edited by shanejfilomena on Thu Sep 25, 2014 6:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

Why not simply have the game add another black market station in for the mission when it's accepted, similar to the Ares communes that are added in for fleet missions if all of the ones in the system are destroyed, and either remove the station that is currently added to the system or change it to a generic version?
User avatar
Song
Fleet Admiral
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:27 am

Alternatively, spawn in a new station that's more....anonymous. And suitable for hiding a captive (the Black Market is rather...obvious). Maybe a container habitat or something similar to the corporate operations station in CorpCom?
Mischievous local moderator. She/Her pronouns.
JohnBWatson
Fleet Officer
Fleet Officer
Posts: 1452
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 10:17 pm

Shrike wrote:Alternatively, spawn in a new station that's more....anonymous. And suitable for hiding a captive (the Black Market is rather...obvious). Maybe a container habitat or something similar to the corporate operations station in CorpCom?
I like this idea.
User avatar
Song
Fleet Admiral
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 2801
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2009 4:27 am

Also in that case it'd be possible to make the mission a bit more complex. Kate says that Katami's been taken captive, and the player and her both go shoot up the black market OR go and dock with it if it's already dead. From there, data stripped from the stations mainframe leads to the station where Kat's being held captive, where Kate sends her goons in to free him while the player.....I dunno. Fends off those not-quite-molotok ships? Twiddles their thumbs? I dunno.

Hiro's ROM is quite a valuable prize, so that (plus maybe a little loot along the way) would still be a decent reward for an expanded mission. Having it be a mission to gather information from the BM station makes more sense: How else would katami survive a point-blank nuking? Very few stations have survivors after being attacked (Xenophobe-deaded CW settlements and the Chimera stations are the exceptions, IIRC), and it's not a reliable way to rescue a captive. Whereas grabbing the data, then having Kate make a forced-docking and assault while the player covers for her (can't use launchers because of the risk to the mission?) makes more sense AND fixes the "what if I kill the BM first" problem.
Mischievous local moderator. She/Her pronouns.
Post Reply