Slaves

(Note: written for version 1.3.8)

Slaves are a mechanic that does not have a lot of purpose in the game yet but are used for the instructor quest the player can obtain on the Arbuq station in the AR6 system. Slaves can also be sold to a slave merchant on any pirate station. Torturing them seems to have no effect so far.

Obtaining slaves
There are two ways of obtaining slaves in the game right now.

Slave webs
The first way is to kill enemy ships (small fighters or heavy capital ships). If the player destroys a small ship, there is a chance for an escape pod to emerge. If a capital ship is close to dying, lots of escape pods will be launched. The player can use a slave web on these to get a slave.

Distress Calls
There is a randomly encountered mission where the player receives a message by someone who has been captured by pirates. He can then scan the system and go to the signal to destroy all the pirates and choose to capture that person afterwards as a slave for himself.

This mission is pretty rare and morally questionable though. Actually there are two kinds of this mission and only one of them offers the opportunity to catch the prisoner in the end.