WHO ARE THESE GUYS ?

Enforcers are sent after you when you've crossed the police, a gang, or a money lender. They are very intellegent pilots flying high-end, well armed Moths. They will follow you anywhere and are out for blood. If you kill one Enforcer, the offended faction will just send out another. Fortunately, they just send one at a time.

The Police Enforcers are by far the worst. They are called "Police Force". I use the term "Police Enforcers" to prevent confusion between the Enforcers and the Police faction as a whole. These guys fly the Police L-2000 with all the candy: Engine #3, Swarms, Laser Turret, Plasma Kannon. The other Enforcers fly the much slower Death's Head, but are very well armed.

The Police Enforcers all come from the Alpha Police Station. The collection agents originate from the place where you took out the loan. Gang Enforcers spawn from the relative gang's HQ.

WHY ARE THEY AFTER ME ?

Enforcers are sent out after you if you get on the bad side of someone and continue to commit infractions against the offended party or stay on their Wanted List for a long period of time.

The infraction system is a little complicated, but it goes something like this:

Police -- You can get on the Police Wanted List by killing an innocent pilot or attacking a Police Moth. In the case of attacking innocent pilots, you'll start out at a 25% bounty of $500. If you continue to kill innocents, you're bounty goes up in six stages to $2000. Any infraction past that point caused the Police to send a Police Force enforcer out after you.

Your bounty increases over time, too. Generally one level for evey day you're on the Wanted List. At about the $1000 level, other pilots will attack you for the bounty or to gain Police amnesty. This doesn't occur often. Just enough to be irritating. The good news is that the bounty-hunter is probably a pirate. If you kill him you don't get in any more trouble. Remember that you don't get amnesty or a reward for killing pilots who are targeting you. That's self-defense and you don't get rewarded for it. It's expected.

If you attack, or God forbid destroy, a Police Moth, a Police Force enforcer will be sent after you immediately. There's nothing quite as exciting as having hit a Police Moth by accident in a dogfight. He'll attack you. As soon as you've dealt with him, a Police Enforcer will come along. Now you're in the deep end of the swamp.

Gangs -- The Skinners and Scrubbers follow a system similiar to the Police, but you must attack their ships to cause an infraction. They add to your bounty with each infraction or for every day you stay on their Enemies List.

Once you commit an infraction or go a day at the $2000 bounty level, they'll send out an Enforcer called an Assassain. You may have met one in the demo. In the regular game, you rarely see them. Few bounty-hunters come your way for a Gang bounty.

Collection Agents -- These are Enforcers sent out when you don't pay off your loans. You get one day past your due date to pay off the loan with a substantial penalty. Otherwise, an Enforcer in a Death's Head will come looking for you. These Enforcers are tough, but the overall level of trouble dealing with them is lower.

HOW CAN I GET RID OF ENFORCERS ?

If you kill an Enforcer, another will just be sent out after you. If you don't kill an Enforcer, he will hound you for a day or two after you've cleared your record. If you survive, they still hinder your profitable pirating and trade activities.

In all cases it is important to clear your record as quickly as possible with the offended party. This generally won't get rid of the current Enforcer after you, but it insures that if you deal with the current Enforcer properly, another will not be sent out after you.

Even if you kill the Enforcer and get back on the Wanted or an Enemies List, you'll be at a lower bounty level and won't be dealing with another Enforcer. This is not true of the Police. They keep sending out Enforcers until you clear your record and deal with the current Enforcer.

Needless to say that the best method of dealing with Enforcers is avoiding them by getting amnesy before your bounty exceeds $2000.

After you've cleared your record, you need to either wait out the current Enforcer or kill him. There are a couple of ways to do this without the kill putting you back on a wanted list:

You can kill them in a manner that doesn't register in the game.

You can diable an Enforcer so he can't attack you, but is still alive another isn't sent out after you.

You can wait the Enforcer out. He'll usually leave you alone after you've cleared your record and kept it clean for a day or two.

KILLING ENFORCERS

The big point here is to kill the Enforcer without it being registered as a kill in the game. There are two ways to do this:

DEVASTATORS -- This is the easiest and surest way to deal with Enforcers. HardWar allows you to hit any pilot once before it is considered an attack on that pilot. If that initial hit is a Devastator, the Moth is destroyed before the action is considered an attack. This means that the current Enforcer dies, but another isn't sent out.

GroundBase -- Much like "bumping" described below, a GroundBase missile doesn't register as an attack. Nar Sluke who discovered this believes it's because the missile doesn't hit the Moth, but the ground below it. Three or four GroundBase will usually destroy a Moth without it registering as an attack. Don't use cannons or any other weapon except Devastators when using this technique. Bumping can be a good follow-up if you have the shields for it.

BUMP THEM TO DEATH ! You can ram your Moth into theirs as many times as you want without the action being considered an attack. If you keep bumping your enemy, it will destroy his Moth (or yours!). There are two good ways to use this technique against Enforcers:

BUMP THEM in a tunnel. Remember that Enforcers follow you. Go into a tunnel and wait for them. When they enter the tunnel, use your first, free initial hit to strip shields. Use your best missile or cannon. Now keep your finger off of the trigger. Start bumping your opponent hard. Try to force his nose into the tunnel wall so he'll bump himself trying to face you. Keep the bumping up until he blows or your shields are gone and you're starting to take damage. If he dies from your bumping, you're off the hook.

HANGAR BUMPING. If you can catch your Enforcer entering or leaving a hangar, you can try to bump him sideways in the hangar or otherwise prevent his entrance/exit. If he gets stuck in there for seven seconds after his entry/exit has been approved, the hangar will blast him to bits. Best part: you don't get blamed for the kill.

You get a free shot before you start bumping. I'd recommend a GroundBase in the above instance. I freezes them in the hangar and sucks up their alloted time to enter or exit. Remember not to hit them a second time with anything or you'll be blamed for an attack.

The above techniques do not   always work on Police Enforcers. The police tend to send out another Enforcer whenever the current one disappears for any reason. The best way I've discoverd to deal with Police Enforcers is to wait them out or prevent them in the first place by clearing your record once every Hardwar day.

DISABLING ENFORCERS

Disabling an Enforcer means to damage his Moth to the point where his weapons and engine will not work. This is very tricky and you may accidently kill a couple of Enforcers before disabling one.

This is a case where you should not clear your record beforehand. You should attack the current Enforcer, disable him, and then clear your record. No reason to clear your record just to have it sullied again with your attack.

As long as the Enforcer has any engine ability at all, he will be able to get his Moth to a garage for repairs and come back after you -- even under emergency thrust power. This isn't always that bad because it can take him a long time to do this if you've damaged his engine badly enough. The ultimate goal, however, is to completely disable his engine, thereby leaving him sitting throughout the rest of the game. As long as he's alive, another Enforcer will not be sent out after you.

Disabling a Moth is much easier said than done. The primary weapon used is the FireBurst for its unique ability to destroy a Moths engines. Unfortunately, there's no cannon available that specifically damages the engine.

The key here is to get in close and use FireBurst early. You may take several cannon hits while setting up your FireBurst strikes. Strip your enemy's shields to around 50%. Any lower and the barrage of FireBursts will destroy instead of disabling him. Now hit him with FireBurst until he quits moving. If he slows down considerably, switch to Laser Turret in hopes that his engines will give out before his hull does.

It does not pay to destroy your foe. If he's slowed down considerably, disarm him with Pulse Laser and let him go. You'll have a good while to go about your business before he crawls to a Moth repair shop.

Ideally, you will destroy his engines. Now use Pulse Laser to finish off his weapons. It won't take much. He's already got heavy general damage.

Again, remember that disabling a Moth is a very difficult task. I only do this completely and successfully about one time in five. The good thing about Enforcers, though, is that if you fail to disable them, you'll always  get a next time.