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[GrizzlyAdamz]

A mundane reason for snipped power cords & detonated robots? If we don't kill all the humans in this first attack, they'll get suspicious/antsy, and start to suspect things. Not good for a second attack, nor for staying hidden.
If we do pull off everything perfectly, how do we intend to keep the ship functional? We still don't know enough about their tech, or language, and would have to ferry our science drones & lab equipment out there to do so.
If we don't keep the ship functional, it starts appearing on the military's radar. Hmm, that's strange, this pirate vessel's turned into a ghostship. Signs of struggle & sabotage....just a handful of km from that (suspected) xeno ship.

I suspect they're quite a ways- it took what, 2 days for our stimmed-up fliers to get there?

@Morrigi
Nonono! Just because we're already here doesn't mean we have to stay here. Sunk cost fallacy.




-edit
What do you fellows suggest we do once we've wiped out the crew? How do we handle the ship itself? What about the affiliates of the men on-board?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As an example, we might be bringing down the personal interest of some badass space-bounty-hunter type, ("My brother was on that ship, and I'm going to find him. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you let my daughter go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.")

[~Neri]

Lets use the vents to locate any possible way to escape, as well as ways to blow up disable them, as well as all the power and com systems, then killfrenzy!

[Aklyon]

How did I manage to miss this awesome game's return?

I suggest stealth, and perhaps a bit of sabotage...

[Noxes]

GrizzlyAdams makes some good points, and as awesome as dealing with a bounty hunter could be I think I'm going to vote to end the recon mission. We've ascertained a few key facts which may come in handy later (namely that we can readily infiltrate these pirate vessels) and haven't given away too much in the process. We didn't really learn much about the ship itself (should've expected that, these are B Scouts) and the whole thing may have been stupid risky, but hey no harm no foul XD

[Morrigi]

This entire mission will have been a massive waste of time if we bring nothing back with us and we won't get another shot at it soon, seeing as how the scouts took two days to get there as the crow flies. Furthermore, it is likely that the pirates will notice their mysteriously exploded sentry drone and put two and two together - weird shit moving around in the vents and a security system disabled. They will know something was there regardless.

As for the supposed fallacy, this is not a economic or business decision, but a military operation. We sent troops on a recon mission and if they come back wih no new information then that mission is by definition a failure. We already knew that they had a big-ass hunk of metal on treads roaming around before we sent anyone, so why would we launch a recon mission to find out what we already know?

And the government probably isn't going to give a damn that some poorly maintained pirate rig broke down. They might send a small patrol out but we could probably pacify or evade it wih little difficulty. We need to disable the rig for future salvage and learn as much as we can from the humans and their equipment.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

This entire mission will have been a massive waste of time if we bring nothing back with us and we won't get another shot at it soon, seeing as how the scouts took two days to get there as the crow flies. [...]

As for the supposed fallacy, this is not a economic or business decision, but a military operation. We sent troops on a recon mission and if they come back wih no new information then that mission is by definition a failure. We already knew that they had a big-ass hunk of metal on treads roaming around before we sent anyone, so why would we launch a recon mission to find out what we already know?

There is literally no difference between business decision-making and military decision-making. This is behavioral science; a gain is a gain, a loss is a loss, and sunk costs shouldn't figure into our decisions.

From the wiki:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Many people have strong misgivings about "wasting" resources (loss aversion). In the (following) example involving a non-refundable movie ticket, many people, for example, would feel obliged to go to the movie despite not really wanting to, because doing otherwise would be wasting the ticket price; they feel they've passed the point of no return. This is sometimes referred to as the sunk cost fallacy.


Economists like Ernest Dupuis III argue that sunk costs are not taken into account when making rational decisions. In the case of a Yankees ticket that has already been purchased, the ticket-buyer can choose between the following two end results if he realizes that he doesn't like the game:

    Having paid the price of the ticket and having suffered watching a game that he does not want to see, or;
    Having paid the price of the ticket and having used the time to do something more fun.

In either case, the ticket-buyer has paid the price of the ticket so that part of the decision no longer affects the future. If the ticket-buyer regrets buying the ticket, the current decision should be based on whether he wants to see the game at all, regardless of the price, just as if he were to go to a free Yankees game. The economist will suggest that, since the second option involves suffering in only one way (spent money), while the first involves suffering in two (spent money plus wasted time), option two is obviously preferable.

Why did we send the scouts anyway?

Furthermore, it is likely that the pirates will notice their mysteriously exploded sentry drone and put two and two together - weird shit moving around in the vents and a security system disabled. They will know something was there regardless.

True, we already have done some damage (to ourselves). But that doesn't mean we should do more. One crazy occurance can usually skate under the radar as "well, that's friggin wierd", but if we start snipping cords we can kiss that goodbye.
I doubt our sleep-deprived witness would come forward unless he comes to truly believe he didn't just imagine something- as in if the crew finds cut cords in addition to the gibbed sentrybot.

And the government probably isn't going to give a damn that some poorly maintained pirate rig broke down. They might send a small patrol out but we could probably pacify or evade it wih little difficulty. We need to disable the rig for future salvage and learn as much as we can from the humans and their equipment.

And when the patrol either goes quiet or they report on the horror-film-situation inside, what would happen? The gov would get an awful lot more interested. Keep in mind the thing's going to be sitting there for at least two days, likely more- we only have the three scouts there now, so they'd have to do all of the initial salvage/cleaning work themselves.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Oh, Grizzly you are boring and assume that worst things will happen... I like risk\reward ratio here . There are quite a lot of tech and at the very least we need take samples of their tech

[Noxes]

The problem as I see it (and why I voted for bugout) is that we don't know how many crew this craft has (so killing them all with 3 scouts is a bit chancy), the scouts aren't overly intelligent (so recovering more useful information or doing anything too technical is a gamble as well), and the ships is something like two days as the crow flies from Our hive (so getting more competent personnel on site will take time). About the best non-escape outcome we could hope for is the scouts succeeding in killing enough people anyway and maybe grab one alive, so we have something to show for this mission, but that leaves us with a lot of potential clean-up to worry about (depending on how the Government feels about the pirates and this situation in particular). Given that the government will likely have some degree of knowledge of our presence at this point, they would likely be able to put 2 and 2 together regarding 'the incident'.

Anyway, that's just my two cents.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Oh, Grizzly you are boring and assume that worst things will happen... I like risk\reward ratio here . There are quite a lot of tech and at the very least we need take samples of their tech

Hey, hope for the best and expect the worst right?

What are these rewards? So far the risk is high, but what we can gain from this is dubious- even if we wanted specific parts, (say the communications setup for instance), we don't know what human tech even looks like; if we wanted to bring anything back with us, it'd be a grab-bag of possibly-broken bits and pieces that we'd have to identify. Ever tried identifying a machine without frying it? Mmm, the wonders of AC. Meanwhile, we've got the whole 'the now kaput sand crawler is sitting out in the middle of nowhere for 4 days, just begging for prying eyes to find it' problem.

If we want pieces of their tech in order to learn more about it, a better place to start would be the semi-deserted botanical facility.

[RAM]

Scouts: move fast, kill everything.

[escaped lurker]

Scouts: move fast, aquire human samples. Living, if possible with minimum threat.

We can still turn this into a succsessfull operation, mainly by aquiring more information about our current enemy. After killing - or detaining - all of them, we then can take that ship back to our base, for a wealth of rare materials. For that, keeping the jamming active would be a main priority.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

We can't drive it back because we can't  access to their machines- we don't know their language, we don't know their tech, and even if we did, we don't have a compatible form; we'd be steering with our mandibles & typing with our claws. Try to have the hostages operate it? Even if we could communicate with them, we'd have to  hope they don't turn off the jamming equipment/blow the thing up. Assuming we grab the right humans, (the ones that can operate it).

[Xantalos]

I have to agree with Grizzly - why are we here?

[javierpwn]

We could always try to extend our mind unto their pitiful human-brains..... That's an instantkill; at least from the last game it was.

Otherwise, acquire human samples(preferably live), sabotage power/engines to bring the ship back down.
It can be recovered later with minimum danger

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Assuming no one else comes by to examine it/looking for it. What happens when their jamming equipment goes offline? What about other pirates that presumably use it as a base/merchant/whatever? What about relatives of the crew?(space-bounty-hunter)
Humans are a social species- it isn't like we can wipe out the only pirate hiveship in the area, (possibly this hemisphere), and no one will know the difference.
Plus: '"Charlie, do you read?","Yep, this is Charlie. What do you have for us watchtower?","Charlie, Administration just picked up what looks like a broken down dune-crawler in sector Alcatraz-Bravo-Bravo-Parrallel...","...You mean those bastards finally slipped up?!","Yep,",".... LET'S CATCH US SOME PIRATES, BOYS!"'