Rob

This is a so-called 'mission 9', a race-specific special mission. All special missions (rob, hiss, build fighters, selfrepair, dark sense) are executed in order of ship ID. That is to say that Host checks each ship from ID 1 to 500, and per ship checks if that ship should perform a special mission or not. So Lizard ship #16 would hiss before Privateer ship #237 would rob it, but that Privateer ship #237 will rob Lizard ship #418 before that ship would get around to hissing.

The Privateers are very skilled at robbing fuel and minerals from enemy ships using the "Rob Ship" mission. Enemy ships won't find out about being robbed until it is too late. Only ships with beam weapons can use the "Rob Ship" mission. To rob, a ship needs at least one kiloton of fuel onboard. Robbing does not cost any fuel (rather, it 'earns' fuel).

Robbing happens in order of ship ID's: first the lowest ID Privateer ship robs, then the next and so on. Ships are also robbed in order of ID: first the lowest ID enemy ship is robbed, then the next and so on. All Privateer ships set to Rob will rob as much as they can, starting with fuel (until their tank is full or there is no more fuel to rob), then all megacredits are stolen (each ship can hold a maximum of 10,000 MCs) and then in order Molybdenum, Tritanium, Duranium, Supplies and Colonists until the cargohold of the robbing ship is full.

Allied ships will not be robbed, unless the alliance is dropped first. By default, cloaked ships may not be robbed (this is configurable by the host person). Since cloaking happens before robbing, apart from movement through an addon (in Auxhost 1) this is the only way to escape robbing. The host person can configure the game to have a chance that the rob mission will fail.

Since robbing happens before towing, an enemy ship can be robbed empty and towcaptured in the same turn.

When a ship is robbed, any cargo (including fuel) dropped onto the planet that ship is orbiting will still be dropped. If a ship that is being robbed attempts to transfer fuel to an enemy or allied ship, that transfer is cancelled. If there is sufficient room in the fueltank of the robbing ship, the fuel will be robbed. Either way, the fueltransfer is cancelled. Cargo transferred to enemy or allied ships will not be robbed. However, if the transferring ship is robbed of all it's fuel the cargo will disappear.