1.63.6 - Poltergeist Protocol

...new problem (actually seems to be a bug this time - reproducible and everything).

Got hit by a thruster plume right after winning a race, and as my ship was going up in flames, the game crashed. Given that it was kind of a terrible way to lose a ship, I was tempted to alt+f4 but the game locked up before my ship exploded... then just closed on me with no warning.

On relaunching the game and trying to repeat the dive and race again, the "Bring it on!" answer when asked if I'm challenging the ship was flagged (incorrectly) as a "hang up" option, but continued the conversation properly. When I tried to rematch, the line was (again) tagged as a "hang up" option, but this time, actually behaves like one. Which prevents me from rematching.

Since the previous update (Farthest Orbit), I've had a good amount of free time and... I found a problem I was *hoping* this hotfix was going to address, but it doesn't seem to have done so.

Within 5 minutes of starting most dives, and so far in the past 3 days, I've only lasted more than 10 minutes on one dive out of more than 20 attempts, a ship comes in with high-EMP microwaves and shuts my computer down (I'm sure you know the kind, don't want to give too many spoilers). If I'm in one of my bigger and heavier mining ships, even if I see the first LIDAR ping and immediately decide "hail error" = "gtfo", I can't get my ship to return to Enceladus before the attacker starts shooting and burns my computer out, preventing me from leaving by constantly resetting the course calculations. If I try to run somewhere else, it can easily outrun me and does the same thing. If I fight, I get my ship trashed, and spend more in repairs than I made from the dive because it only lasted a few minutes.

I like the game's combat. I like these enemies. I had fun when I'd go 20 or so dives without seeing one, then have a rough fight that one time, but return with enough ore to cover my costs. But I *don't* have fun when they show up literally every 5 minutes and make actually mining in the space mining game an impractical way to try and play.

I also don't like that the Obonto Habitats seem to have a non-aggression pact with these ships, not even helping to defend a friendly ship that's being attacked while docked with their station. When a friendly station with more point defense weapons than my ship could ever mount is literally holding my ship in place and collecting resources from me, I feel like I should be a *LITTLE* safer than "fend for yourself" when I come under attack and those attacks are hitting the station as well.