After having explored most of the world I turned my attention to other things in the game. Back to the plots, investing my money in this and that. Kitting out new ship types takes quite a lot of time with me sometimes having to look all over the place for the weapons I want in the quantities I want and also the basic ship equipment like jumpdrives and bio scanners are sold one part here and the other there so lots of jumping around to get all you need. Here I have help from a list I made where I tick things off as I get them.

Mrrr! Stubborn pirate pilots refuse to jump ship. I still want a Pirate Kestrel but have no luck getting them to bail out. They just die in a fireball instead. A couple of times to friendly fire too, even their own. Now I will go look for a Boron Angel TP instead, preferrably in Split space.

Now that I finally managed to finish setting up this fine little TP task force for boarding operations, I could already afford a Sirokos M7 (THE ship to conduct boarding operations from)...... :-D Actually, I just remembered I have no Ion Disruptors (ID) since they did not fit into my Scabbard nor into my Blastclaw Prototype so when and if there will be need for those, I must have a ship for that , of course. Hmm some M3s can fit it.

At 9d 9h 26min into the game I turned it into *** modified ***.

I thought I was smart buying a used M6 at a great discount; took it to the shipyard to have it repaired only to find out just how much too much I had paid for it. A new one would have cost me less (shipyard repairs are expensive) and been more convenient too as I could have upgraded the speed and some other things right when buying it. Reason I wanted it was because it was fast enough and could mount IDs. To really rub it in how dumb I sometimes act, I look at the laser capacitor... rub my eyes... double check and it is still only 7,000MJ :-(. That is quite a lot lower than I excepted a corvette to have. I own M3 heavy fighters with more. Well, it was my first M6 class ship as I still did not get around to boarding.

Now about 9d15h into my game. Sorry no pictures.

I always repair any bargain ships I decided to pick up to keep or sell, myself using the repair beam in my suit. If it's a large ship, like an M6 or large freighter, I just put a small paperweight on my CTRL button, and go make a snack or drink while it's repairing. You can also use your seta with your jumpsuit to speed things up greatly on those larger ships as well...just make sure you're near an equipment dock or such, so you can pick another up for your current ship that you ejected it from, so you don't have to slowpoke it around for too far. Here's how to do it, if you are unfamiliar with this procedure. Note: You don't have to be in the ship you want to repair to begin with, as in the video, you can be in any ship, that you have a seta in that you can eject and grab in your suit. Just remember, you loose the seta after re-entering any ship, thus, the reason to be near a station where you can pick another one up easily. Yeah, repairing those bargain ships at a station, pretty much negates the credits you save.

Well, I did repair it myself but more to punish myself. Those tricks you told about were all known to me from before but might of course enlighten someone else. As I see it, finacially speaking, I should already stop using a repair laser on anything where the hull points are cheap as I can earn more than the savings in the same time doing something else, more fun. This is of course in this particular play of the game where I have plenty of money and earn it fast.

About using the SETA while AFK: I only do it while stepping out to the kitchen or the lavatory, not for long times without me there to keep an eye on things.

Forcing the pilot of a Boron Angel TP to bail cost me ~800 notoriety pts (the math: ~12% drop at lvl 6. 6667pts from 0% at lvl 6 to 0% at lvl 7. 12% of 6667 = 800. Please correct me if I am wrong.) I can see how boarding a capital ship AND having to take care of its escorts hits your notoriety hard. I was happy to get it at 84% hull intact even if no gear was left.

Now back to my tricky plot mission then I will go look for more Pirate Kestrels again. Sooner or later I must succeed in getting one.

I must say, I really like this small mod that shows more info on your notoriety with the various factions.

Picture of the fruit of my latest action of piratism, a Boron Angel

Yes, but in those moments when you have to take a shower, eat or take care of some unwanted household chores, what better thing to do than repair those damaged captured ships!? Zontan999's method of weighing down CTRL or the mouse button is something I've also done shamelessly often.

Good luck! To be honest I've tried to hunt down quite a few since I've captured my first, but with no luck, as none have bailed out since. It really is a game of chance.

Congratulations on capping the Angel. It sounds like your M6 is a Hydra, which is probably the worst M6 in terms of firepower. A Heavy Centaur, or better yet, the Prototype version still mounts Ion Disruptors, but with much better firepower, and the Prototype even beats it for speed (although it must be earned or seized, not brought). It is interesting to note that in Albion Prelude, while M6 laser capacitors stayed the same, the regeneration rates were boosted to M7 levels.

Repair costs are ridiculous, you have to pay the percentage of the purchase cost you want to repair (i.e. repairing 70% damage costs 70% of the cost of buying a brand new ship). I got fed up with it and wrote a script allowing me to repair at a cost of 10 Credits per hull point, which is both notably cheaper, and (to me at least) more logical. I could post it if anyone is interested in it.

A Hydra it is indeed. I could buy whatever but will test the ship at least once first.

I am not fond of STs and even less of UTs (a kind of automated traders) but some automation is needed or I will go crazy. I found this advanced guide that will be just what I will use in order to learn how to set up automated trade routes using the CLS 2. This is the best guide I have seen so far even if some other explained a few points slightly better, or at least easier for me to understand. http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=334255

Imagine doing the Hub plot without any automation. A big fleet of TLs would be the way but not tempting.

Talking about TLs, I really must get around to buying one. Why is it so hard to choose? I will just go buy an Elephant for now as it must be useful to own the fastest TL around even if it has such a small cargo bay. But then I could also go on a boarding spree...

Wow, I never bothered trying to calculate the costs for repairing at stations...I knew it was a lot, but that's absurd. I don't really bother doing the seta trick I posted above, I have just been sticking to jumping out and using my paperweight on the keyboard, but I am sure it won't be too much longer before I get sick of even doing that, lol. Yeah, if you don't mind doing so, I think I might be interested in trying out your repair script for reasonable station repair costs...please post XD

I've been using an Orca, because I liked the hanger bay space it came with, but to be honest, so far I haven't needed the hanger. Might come in handy later...I'll see. Plan on also getting and Elephant before too long to help with all the station building. So far I am about a quarter of the way through the Ore portion of the Hub plot. Although it's a little tedious, I have been sort of enjoying hauling asteroids through the sector with the Ore Mines attached to make my mega-plexes..it's somehow therapeutic with the background music playing along peacefully

Oh yeah, congrats on the Angel!

You've got marines and an Angel now, right? Why not cap a Ryu? It's a pretty decent TL, except for its horrible steering rate. Quite a few of them end up jumping into Ocracoke's Storm (obviously from the jump gate leading south).

They're pretty easy to board and keep in check during a boarding, as they have a number of blind spots due to their sheer massive size and lack of turret coverage.

I agree with Hardrada here. It's either a Heavy Centaur Prototype or a Hyperion you really have to get. Besides these two, the Skiron is a personal favorite, though its turret weaponry is kind of a disappointment on an otherwise stellar M6.

I have an Angel and a Scabbard. Those two I got specifically for boarding with. Then I have a third TP, an Iguana Vanguard, that is the fastest TP in X3TC but I only use it for taxi missions and such. I also have marines but since I was running low on money a couple of days back and thought I would soon start using them on easier targets, I stopped training them.... so IF I want to board a TL, and yes I do ;-) (why pay when you can get for 'free'?), I would need to go on a boarding spree to get the marines' mechanical skill up from 60ish to 85+....or pay for more training, but I see that as a silly choice. Boarding any ship is best done in a sector not belonging to the same faction as the ship; a reminder to myself and everyone else.

The Hydra will most certainly be flogged in the near future but since I got it, I want to try it out a little first. At least it should be fast enough for supporting boarding operations. In Reunion I never got a corvette so this is the first I have ever owned in the X games.

Thank you Sir!

Talking about mods, I think I forgot to tell how the notoriety info mod worked out for me. It works REALLY SPLENDIDLY :-) but for one tiny detail: The Pirate ranking seems stuck where it is (low) no matter how many missions I do for Pirates all over the world. Now I wonder whether doing missions will not raise it but somehting else will OR if either mod or game is broken. It is still worth it in my humble opinion just not to have to keep looking the levels up three times an hour.

I also changed the pilot's name to Broke Nomor a while ago ;-P

52 ships: 2 TM; 3 TP; 31 TS; 1 M6; 10 M3; 4 M4; 1 M5 and 131 adv sats placed all over the world (a few systems with 2, otherwise single)

Picture to show what the pilot info says

I am working on improving my standing with the pirates and also looking for a pirate Kestrel to add to my fleet. After many hours of not seeing any of the desired ship type, I run into this task force (picture below) and they are all showing up as friendlies :-O Seems I have succeeded a bit in improving my rank with the pirates. Now I am debating whether to piss off the whole group, risk a swift death if that M2 hits me and take a chance to get a pirate Kestrel to bail or just leave quietly and go look for a pirate Kestrel pilot who is not so lacking in hostility towards me.

On another note: You readers do know of those info/advertisement screens placed here and there in X3TC, and I presume X3AP too, right. So here is a bit of fiction:

Broke Nomor (priorly called Brant Kert) asking someone:
Hey, you know the other day while zipping past one of those huge screens in my Kestrel, I saw it said something about No Man's Sky... and then I was already too far past to read more. I thought the sky was everyone's. What gives?

Hmmm... but why are you trying to be friends with those guys? Wanting to get your hands on those rare IBLs?

Are you on your way to becoming an interstellar outlaw like the Duke, or is it just temporary? :P

No need to be outright friends but just enough that not every pirate ship is red to me as to make some plots easier. The IBL is a capital ship weapon and I do not have anything bigger than an M6 yet, BUT the PBGs look toasty, I mean tasty. Those I want a bunch of. Their range is very low, otherwise good stuff. I know, I have been on the recieving end of them... The poor pirate faction is going to be my punchbag in the future.

Pirate faction standing is at -2 now and it might be good enough. If I can keep it at that and still get me a pirate Kestrel, I am good for now.