Anyone who has worked for the Zidagar knows the "disable an Arada" mission. You should also know how annoying it is, because almost every time you warp into the system, there's already a Zidara or an Azdgari Warship waiting there to make short work of the Arada before you disable it, meaning you have to warp back to Outpost Maloch and get the mission again. Eventually, I just started immediately warping out again the instant I saw the Zidara or AW. Well, one day I entered the system (I think it's DSN-4922), and sure enough, there was the Zidara, with its Zidagar Fighters waiting with bated breath. I set course for Maloch and jumped out just as the target Arada jumped in and the fighters started to pound on it. When I docked at the outpost to refuel, I got a message thanking me for succeeding in the mission! Apparently, I managed to exit DSN-4922 in the second or two the Arada was disabled before being destroyed. This is a good trick for this mission, if anyone would like to use it, but the timing might be tough to get down (or you might just get lucky like I did).

You will never believe this next tale of Zidagar weirdness, but I know what I saw, and I will go to the grave believing it. This story is ABSOLUTELY TRUE, but, of course, you are free not to believe it, since I have no proof to offer. Having given fair warning, here is what happened:

I landed on the planet Zidagar, and went to that most essential of spaceport establishments, the bar. I got a typically melodramatic message ("let every attack be as our last!") that informed me of my next mission. Nothing out of the ordinary, driving off Azdgari raiders from the system. So I took off in my trusty Crescent Fighter and engaged the enemy, specifically, I high-tailed it out of there and let those God-forsaken Azdaras (only ship I can't outrun) and warships duke it out with the Zidagar, and challenged something more reasonable, Aradas, or actually they challenged me by chasing me. I was making decent progress on the two Aradas when the rest of the Zidagar finished off their battles and took them out for me, but I still heard phase fire, so I went back toward the planet. I found three Zidaras fighting a lone Azdgari Warship. I stopped to watch until it was destroyed so I could land and be payed. Suddenly, I thought I saw something strange, two of the Zidaras were fighting EACH OTHER! The battle with the warship was intense, so I wasn't sure at first, but then a Zidara was disabled an drifted away, and I knew for sure because another Zidara moved in and destroyed it! I didn't have a chance to scan the destroyed vessel, but I know of no Zidaras flown by renegades, Ambrosia employees, or anyone other than the Zidagar, and their weapons shouldn't hit each other, so it couldn't have been that one hit the other and got it pissed off.

Well, there you have it, let me know your opinion of this story, but I will once again reaffirm that it is ABSOLUTELY TRUE!

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I've seen two fighters duke it out before.

the phased beam hits the ship and they get ticked off about it

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The difference in
insantiy and ingenious is
measured just by success.

Hmm...odd. I saw this with 2 UE Destroyers way back when I was doing cargo runs in my Shuttle. But, before they began duking it out, one of them killed me! Or I assume this is what happened, I wasn't looking at the monitor until I heard the klaxxons going off. After I was dead, the two began fighting! I wasn't able to scan the guys to see who the 2 were, because I was dead. Perhaps it's a bug?

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- Captain Stud Beefpile
- UE Naval 238th Squadron
- Azdgari Squadron "Firebird" Leader
- Member of the Zacha Renegade Elimination Corporation

Well, if one ship hits another ship accidentally the accidentally attacked ship will fight back. One I was in DSN-1810, and I had disabled a Voinian Frigate in my Azdgari Warship the S.S. Black Star, (which was no real big deal), but the Destroyer was close to the Frigate and fired a rocket just as the frigate blew up, and there just happenned to be a Freight-courier between the frigate and destroyer when the destroyer fired the rocket! So then they duked it out and of course the destroyer won. And this happenned also to be a Frontier Express Freight-courier, and Fr. Express is allied with the UE! I once challenged the U.E.S. Earth and more UE Fighters than I could count came pouring out, as well as Hunters, and when I got close he fired a huge barrage of Blaze fire, from about 10 or 9 turrets!!! Weird things happen in EV and EVO at random, not just when you work for the Zidagar. Also, when you edit a 'dude' with ResEdit or EV Edit the 'dude' automatically loses its default government. "Very very strange things have been seen by my experienced and wise eyes", so says me, the captain of the S.S. Black Star, my modified Azdgari Warship.

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ESPilot, interesting what you said about ResEdit. Something like this must have happened to cause one of the ships to have its government changed so that its weapons could hit other Zidagar ships. I just thought of another possibility as well, ResEdit reveals that Zidagar warships are made up of several governments to begin with (escort vs. Azdgari, escort vs. Igadzra, etc.), that just have the same transponder ID in the target window. And since ships of different gov'ts can hit each other (this explains the destroyer vs. the FC), bang!

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StarStrafer- What you witnessed was a Zidagar Zidara fighting the S.S. Moonbaby. It is a trader vessel, a Zidara to be exact.

-REDCHIGH-- You saw John Cook, the legendary barbarian accountant, a member of the Ambrosia team who attacks EVERYONE... and flies a UE destroyer...

There's a little backwash from a old fart thats been up and down the anal track of this game forty-two times...

Thanks for the information, Alien. I just assumed there were no trader Zidaras because I had never heard or seen one before. I'll have to look for that one some time, it must be pretty rare.

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I've seen the same thing happen with Zidaras vs. Zidaras, and I think it's because unlike the primary weapons, phased beams can hit ships of their own alignment.. and when you see how close in all the Zidaras get when taking on a warship, you can see how easy it is for them to hit each other, and then feel the need to kill each other :).

Ahh.. reading further is informative... so presumably one of the Zidaras was in the system for the purpose of the mission, and the other was just there out of happenstance.

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(This message has been edited by MartiNZ (edited 03-13-2001).)

Aye, tis a rare one.. I think there are two trader Zidaras.. But MartiNZ is quite right.. Those phased beams tend to jerk people about...