Saving a Station Late
This is a guide about technically saving a station while profiting from its situation.
Some Systems have missions that show you where a station is being attacked.
Once the station is within radar range, enemies will start to appear close to the station. As long as you are in that range, they will slowly destroy it.
Normally, you would instantly move in and defeat the Pirates (or die trying). However, that way you will not receive the resources that the station carries without attacking it yourself.
The Concept
The idea is, that you stay within loading range so that the enemies don’t despawn, but not move within visual range, or otherwise the enemies will start focusing your ship. This range is referred to as „Wait zone“ for the rest of this guide.
This guide will cover three Strategies that you can use:
Strategy Nr. 1: The Standard Way
With this Strategy you will get a moderate amount of resources while station survives.
It is recommended that you do a quicksave (CTRL + S) while being in the „Wait zone“. You should occasionally check out the Situation to see how destroyed the station is and revert back if you want to wait more.
Once the pirates have destroyed the station enough to get close to its cockpit/reactor you should move in and defeat them (or, again, die trying). You should give yourself enough time to fight all of the enemies as there is usually one or more pirate sentries there that will not engage you until you’re in range and could potentially destroy the station while you’re fighting the others.
If you have successfully defeated everyone, you can make contact to the station and collect your prize. The main prize however are the resources that used to be the station and are now free to be used or sold by you. The station will however collect those resources to repair itself so you have to be quick at collecting them.
This will give you a big economic boost while still having the station survive.
Strategy Nr. 2: Taking Over
With this strategy you will take over the station that the pirates destroyed for you. This will prevent you from accepting any of the quest that it would normally give you.
Instead of fighting the enemies, you can just wait in the „Wait zone“ until the station is destroyed. This is when the neutral (Standard: Grey) ping on your map vanishes. This will also fail the mission (if you already accepted it). The Pirates will now start to patrol around the wreck. After you fought them (and survived) you send crew into the wreck of the station and repair it. To which extent you want to repair it is up to you. The previous crew will not become yours, so make sure that you have enough to control the station.
You are now the proud owner of a whole station. This will give you the biggest boost in economy, but you will have access to less missions. This may or may not give you problems with gaining fame, so you may not receive as much crew as you normally would.
Note: You are technically not saving the station anymore, so this shouldn’t even be in this guide.
Strategy Nr. 3: The Unethical Way
This strategy may or may not be recommended, depending on what weapons the aforementioned turret is using. If it requires ammunition, it may not be as efficient as a turret that uses lasers.
This is because, with this strategy, you move in to fight instantly. The goal is to beat all of the enemy ships but leave the turrets alive. After beating the ships, you will move out of weapon range of the turret(s) and wait for them to destroy the station to your liking. From here you can choose between Strategy 1 or Strategy 2.
Note: Since you just sit there while the station is being attacked, it is incredibly unethical. This is why the strategy is called the way it is.
Guide made by CraftingCatIX