That "Dishonored" video displays one of the issues I have with stealth in this game. Making my fucking gun invisible. Some of them, like the gun he's using, are iron sights only. Even rifles often don't have a targeting reticle. So I'm trying to line up a sniper shot and I can't see my own fucking sights. I get that camouflage makes you sort of invisible, but even to yourself?? Obviously I just need to git gud because that guy has no problem with it, but he's also not really lining up long distance shots which I do all the time from stealth.
On a different topic, I'm now an expert at stealing ships on planets, and I still don't have the ship I want. Since I'm bored at work I'll give some of my findings if anyone cares. At this point I could just buy my own ship, but I'm going to keep at it until I get the fucking ship I wanted! Most of you won't care about stealing mediocre ships on the ground (as opposed to piracy in space), so just skip the rest if that's you.
The original video clip talked about landing on the moon Wellish, in the Cheyenne system. I forget the planet it is next to, but it is towards the right of the system map. He said you need to land at the Abandoned Bionics Factory to initiate the events. I have since determined that is bullshit, he just got lucky that it randomly happened at that spot.
If you pick a random spot (or a PoI) on a planet and land, outside of scripted events there is a random chance that another ship will land somewhere nearby. They will almost always appear within 10 seconds of you stepping outside of your ship, and you can hear them very distinctly, but I always wait at least a minute or so. And it is entirely possible that some can land later, but unless you are actively exploring why wait? Just take off and land in another spot and do it again, it will be apparent whether or not it worked in 10 or so seconds.
Sometimes the ship just drops 4'ish guys off and then takes off again, and it is always too far away to get to before that happens. However, if it doesn't take off again within 30 seconds or so, it will likely stay and you can try to sneak on. It has nothing to do with Abandoned Bionics Factory or anything else, as I found one of those on another planet and tried saving and landing on it a dozen times and the event never happened.
It also seems that the planet/moon itself, and the location in space, has some effect on the chances of ships landing. I tried it a bunch of times in UC space and nothing ever happened. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I have way better luck with planets in the Freestar Rangers territory, which Wellish is in. Other locations may have good chances too, but I limited my scope a bit because I didn't want to stray too far, and the video happened on Wellish so I know it can spawn there, just have to get lucky.
I tried a bunch of other planets in those systems, and ships landed, and often totally different ships than what I see on Wellish. Again, could just be RNG since I don't really have that big of a sample size (maybe 50 total landings, with many of those just taking off again), but it is always possible that different planets/factions have different random ship landings. Could account for why I don't see Ecliptic or Va'ruun landing in UC space. And according to the video, Ecliptic is the ship I want. I've gotten a smaller one several times, just not the one I want.
It also seems that I get more landings if I choose the night side of a planet, but again, could be RNG. I also seem to get more on icy planets, but again, who knows.
Long story short, they might be able to land anywhere, but if you want the maximum number of chances go to Wellish and pick the night side, somewhere random, doesn't seem to matter. I've stolen like 15 total ships, a couple of UC, one colony ship even, many Ecliptic and Va'ruun, and my latest is called a Raptor and is pretty decent aside from the absolute shit cargo hold (220 maybe?). Of course I also took over a couple of pirate ships that attacked me, one is a Spacer Coyote that has something like 2250 cargo space, but is underpowered and slow. Still, holds more shit than anything else I have.
If you've seen the video talking about stealing the ship I mentioned, he says that you have to sneak on without the guards outside seeing you or it will take off immediately. That's mostly true. One ship I couldn't sneak past no matter what because of the excessive number of guards (seems to randomly be 2-7 or so, usually around 3-4). So I just sprinted to the hatch and clicked it (by the way, sometimes you have to lockpick it, but since it freezes time during that it is fine). It let me on, but since the guys had seen me, as soon as I loaded into the ship it took off and I had another blip black loading screen and now we were in space. I assume that if I hadn't clicked to get in, I'd be flying across the surface like that video above. Once you're on the ship you just kill a few guys and the ship is yours if you have the piloting skill for it. All the ones that have been on the ground first were the lowest level (is A the lowest, or C? I think A). One that attacked me in space, the Spacer Coyote, was a B and I had to leave it and go kill ships in the simulator then come back with improved skill so I could fly it away. It was actually still there, but slightly bugged with a turret activating out of nowhere and I had to leave and come back a couple of times to get the quest to steal it to pop up again.
One last thing. I see why they don't make it more lucrative, as you would quickly become stupid rich doing this, but it is kind of bullshit that I steal an entire fucking starship and can't sell it for as much profit as a couple of decent guns. You'd think there would be a stellar chop shop or something that at least pays for unregistered ships to part out. I often get more straight credits from the captain's safe. Oh, and once you sell one, make sure to immediately go to the Trade Authority kiosk nearby and sell the hundreds of foam containers and bowls and cups and shit that suddenly got dumped in your home ship's hold. Literally everything on the ship that can be looted gets dumped into your home ship after selling. Not entirely positive about safes that aren't picked or such, but cargo hold definitely moves. Nothing like trying to pick up shit in space but you can't because you didn't realize that your hold is now full of 500 notepads.
The only other thing of note is that if you get a ship you want to keep, you'll be flying around with dead bodies and blood stains until you modify the ship and move parts around to sort of refresh them. Not a big deal but kind of amusing.
I know, tl;dr, but I am bored and I have dedicated the last two nights to this. And will again tonight since I still don't have the ship in that video. I'm sure I could have completed some quests for a better ship by now, or even just earned enough credits to buy/build one, but I figure why not obsess about something like this now when I can actually use some of the ships, as opposed to later when I won't use any of them?
