Offers

[ser_aerochorro]

Something that has always bugged me: when I am destroying a ship and it offers a payment in order to live, should I accept it or destroy the ship? I know that when a pirate offers a bribe, the best thing is to attack him until he offers a better one(if you destroy it you don't win almost anything), and that with slavers it's best to accept the slave because having new members rules, but what about the other ones? Is there even a difference?

[ultramoose]

depends on what you need really.
so far ive noticed some patterns but they may be imaginary.
if a ship offers you a bribe to stop shooting them, and you decline. destroying them seems to typically yield much more scrap than they offered, or the same amount of scrap and missles instead of drones or drones instead of missiles, depending on what their offer was. i think the first part is accurate, and the second one is is just a pattern recognition bias

[Kurio]

I find that if they offer more than, say, 4 of drones/missiles, the additional scrap I get from destroying them is usually less valuable. If you're boarding them instead, it's more of a toss-up (but if you're boarding them, you shouldn't damage them enough to force the surrender message!).

[Aerowind]

Generally, a surrender will get you more fuel/missiles/drone parts but less scrap, while going on to destroy them will get you more scrap but few of the other resources. It just goes down to what you want.

I would also always take the slave offer, unless you already have a full crew. I feel the need to tell you though that if you crew kill a slaver ship, there's a chance of either getting a random crew, or being able to choose between three different races of crew.

[zarakon]

Depends on what you need and how much they offer.

In general, surrender offers contain more fuel/missiles/drones and less scrap. But there's no guarantee of that. Sometimes you'll get less of everything for destroying them, sometimes more of everything.

If they're offering a good sum of a resource that you're desperate for, take the offer. If you're fine on resources or they don't offer one that you need, you're probably better off destroying them.

A good formula is to add up the scrap plus the scrap value of each resource that you actually care about in the offer, then compare that to the average salvage for destroying a ship in your current sector. Don't count resources that you have plenty of because having more won't help you and you can't sell your extras.

[Mr. Mister]

Surrendering slugs offering a surprise tribute are quite different, since that can vary from just fuel, to powerful weapons and augments, and even a ship unlock quest.