Molotok Bounty Hunter's spawn rate annoying as hell

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fix_the_molotok
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I've destroyed several Black markets so in some systems I am constantly getting attacked by Molotok Bounty Hunters. Not that they are any threat to me, but they spawn way too quickly. Sometimes I even cant kill one before another one comes after me (I play freighter, so I cant always keep up after them when they runaway without shields). It makes game really annoying and such systems are overall impossible to play. What can I do in this case? In the end if I cant do anything inside the game with this, is there any kind of console command to decrease spawn rate or something like that?
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The only way to stop more Molotoks from spawning is to pay off the Black Market. This is automatically done when you dock at a Black Market station and have enough money to pay them. (If you do not have the money when you dock, you die instead.) If you "destroyed several Black markets", you probably owe them a million or so credits.
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fix_the_molotok
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PM wrote:The only way to stop more Molotoks from spawning is to pay off the Black Market. This is automatically done when you dock at a Black Market station and have enough money to pay them. (If you do not have the money when you dock, you die instead.) If you "destroyed several Black markets", you probably owe them a million or so credits.
Are there any cheats to disable Bounty Hunters?
JohnBWatson
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G.O.D. mod lets you alter your player data, allowing you to massively reduce the crime payoff cost or remove the record of the crime entirely.

Link: http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=1455

I agree that the Black Market's tendency to send Molotoks after war heroes who regularly destroy Dreadnoughts and control weapons more advanced than any other ship in human space is a bit strange. A solution to this could be a playerlevel or Fleet rank cut - off, so that the Black Market doesn't send their vastly outclassed bounty hunters to their deaths time and time again.

There's also the fact that the Black Market is vastly weaker than anything else out towards the end of where their stations spawn. Perhaps they should be relocated to a smaller range of systems near St. Katherine's Star, and their Bounty Hunters should taper off, ceasing to appear once the player reaches the midpoint of the Ungoverned Territories.
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You are expected by the end of the arena to be able to survive an attacking Molotok. What this means for me, is that I have a consistent supply of 800F mags from Rigel Aurelius onward.

It's kind of broken when you know how to exploit it but that can be said about the entire game.
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fix_the_molotok
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JohnBWatson wrote:G.O.D. mod lets you alter your player data, allowing you to massively reduce the crime payoff cost or remove the record of the crime entirely. Link: http://xelerus.de/index.php?s=mod&id=1455
Thanks. I will consider it.
Xephyr wrote:You are expected by the end of the arena to be able to survive an attacking Molotok. What this means for me, is that I have a consistent supply of 800F mags from Rigel Aurelius onward. It's kind of broken when you know how to exploit it but that can be said about the entire game.
I have no problem surviving it, but I cant kill it fast enough (freighter + upg. smartcannon) to normally proceed with the rest of my business. Plus yeah, that can be exploited really hard.

Maybe it should be filed as a bug, shouldn't it?
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pixelfck
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I don't think this is a bug.

The idea is that the Black Market is an entity that does not tolerate attacking them: they are a crime syndicate and they have no scruple retaliating in force. In other words: it is more or less working as intended.

Keep in mind that you triggered the attacks yourself by choosing to destroy their stations. If you had chosen to either leave them alone or trade with them, they would not have set the bounty hunters on your tail.

You can stop the attacks by paying off your depth (dock at a any Black Market related station and have a lot of credits ready) to the Black Market or -since the bounty hunters are spawned by either a Black Market station or a Black Market shipyard- by destroying all of those two stations in a a system. The first option will stop the Bounty Hunters from spawing in any system (unless you attack them again) while the last stops them from spawning in the system you cleared.

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JohnBWatson
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pixelfck wrote:I don't think this is a bug.

The idea is that the Black Market is an entity that does not tolerate attacking them: they are a crime syndicate and they have no scruple retaliating in force. In other words: it is more or less working as intended.
I would disagree. While an organized government would have an obligation to protect or avenge the lives of its citizens, even against an impossibly powerful foe, a crime syndicate has no reason to needlessly send enforcers to their deaths, especially considering that they are supposed to be bounty hunters, and thus have no reason to take up a mission likely or certain to cost their lives.
You can stop the attacks by paying off your depth (dock at a any Black Market related station and have a lot of credits ready) to the Black Market or -since the bounty hunters are spawned by either a Black Market station or a Black Market shipyard- by destroying all of those two stations in a a system.
This, by glitch or by intention, is false. While Bounty Hunters will not spawn in systems that start out without any Black Market stations, destroying the ones present in a system will not cause the Molotoks to stop coming. In other words, a system in which all BM stations are destroyed is still treated as Syndikat territory.
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pixelfck
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JohnBWatson wrote:I would disagree. While an organized government would have an obligation to protect or avenge the lives of its citizens, even against an impossibly powerful foe, a crime syndicate has no reason to needlessly send enforcers to their deaths, especially considering that they are supposed to be bounty hunters, and thus have no reason to take up a mission likely or certain to cost their lives.
You are off course free to disagree, yet, it is working as intended. The beauty of Transcendence however is that you can change any behaviour you don't like by simply writing a mod :-)
JohnBWatson wrote:This, by glitch or by intention, is false. While Bounty Hunters will not spawn in systems that start out without any Black Market stations, destroying the ones present in a system will not cause the Molotoks to stop coming. In other words, a system in which all BM stations are destroyed is still treated as Syndikat territory.
Ah, yes. My fault. The wreck objects inherit the event handlers from the non-wreck edition of a station. Again, you could quite easily change this behaviour with a mod (in fact, I may include this change for the next version of Black Market Expansion).

~Pixelfck

Edit:
If you really, really, really, want to stop them spawning, start the game in /debug mode, open the debug console (F9) and enter:

Code: Select all

(objSetData gPlayerShip "blackMarketCrimeCost" Nil)
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fix_the_molotok
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pixelfck wrote: Edit:
If you really, really, really, want to stop them spawning, start the game in /debug mode, open the debug console (F9) and enter:

Code: Select all

(objSetData gPlayerShip "blackMarketCrimeCost" Nil)
Ah thank you too.

I actually have some additional thoughts on bounty hunters. Even when it poses no threat to you it is still quite annoying because it is marked as a 'friend' and sometimes it becomes quite annoying to target him.
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fix_the_molotok wrote:
pixelfck wrote: Edit:
If you really, really, really, want to stop them spawning, start the game in /debug mode, open the debug console (F9) and enter:

Code: Select all

(objSetData gPlayerShip "blackMarketCrimeCost" Nil)
Ah thank you too.

I actually have some additional thoughts on bounty hunters. Even when it poses no threat to you it is still quite annoying because it is marked as a 'friend' and sometimes it becomes quite annoying to target him.
That's been a problem for a while now. More than a bit strange that Ferians, CSC Antarctica, and the Aquilas start registering as hostile the moment they are aggro'd, yet Molotoks sent specifically to hunt the player down still show up as green. I believe it's because minimap color is determined by faction rather than individual attitude towards the player, though I could be incorrect.
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JohnBWatson wrote:
fix_the_molotok wrote:
pixelfck wrote: Edit:
If you really, really, really, want to stop them spawning, start the game in /debug mode, open the debug console (F9) and enter:

Code: Select all

(objSetData gPlayerShip "blackMarketCrimeCost" Nil)
Ah thank you too.

I actually have some additional thoughts on bounty hunters. Even when it poses no threat to you it is still quite annoying because it is marked as a 'friend' and sometimes it becomes quite annoying to target him.
That's been a problem for a while now. More than a bit strange that Ferians, CSC Antarctica, and the Aquilas start registering as hostile the moment they are aggro'd, yet Molotoks sent specifically to hunt the player down still show up as green. I believe it's because minimap color is determined by faction rather than individual attitude towards the player, though I could be incorrect.
 More specifically, it’s the faction’s relation to you. The Black Market is, on the whole, still neutral in regards to the player; it’s just those specific ships that have orders to attack you. You can still dock at their stations, after all — it’s going to cost you a lot to do so at this point. It’s kinda like how you can attack a Salvager Nomad and not have every Nomad howling for your head afterwards, except the Black Market is a lot more persistent and a lot less forgiving.
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JohnBWatson
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More specifically, it’s the faction’s relation to you.
Right. That's also why the minimap dots grey out on death - no more you.

Of course, things like the Ferians actually change factions when angered, which only adds to the strangeness.
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