Interdiction
Interdiction is a term for when a ship is intercepted by another vessel during supercruise mode. When a ship is interdicted, it automatically drops out of supercruise mode and into normal flight mode. This could be by NPC security forces, bounty hunters, pirates, or other players.
If you are interdicted by security forces it's usually because they want to scan your ship for illicit cargo, and/or they want to scan to determine your criminal status. If either scan turns out to be positive they will open fire on your ship. You will know its a security vessel as a message will pop up telling you to stop and after a short time telling you that you may continue.
The same goes for bounty hunters. They will interdict you and scan your ship to determine your criminal status. Of course, they will open fire if any bounties are revealed.
Pirates currently act in two ways when they interdict you. They can just show up and start firing on your ship, perhaps to encourage you to jettison some cargo in a bid to distract them and escape. Alternatively they can send you a message instructing you to, "Give up your cargo or die!" or something of a similar nature. Some pirates will scan your ship first before sending any messages. The end goal of the pirate is to relieve you of your cargo, and they do not generally care if you live or die during the process.
Interdiction Tips
It's possible in the beta 1.03 to escape harm's way when being interdicted. There are many reasons for wanting to do so. For example, if you're in a larger ship with a full cargo of goods and you don't want to lose any of it because it can be very expensive to replace. Or, if you have a criminal record in another jurisdiction and don't wish to be penalised for it. Plus, nobody wants to be bullied by pirates.
There's always the option to turn and fight during any interdiction. However, if space combat is not your forte here are a couple of solutions:
As soon as you are dropped out of supercruise align with your destination and hit the boost button and instantly turn flight assist off. This will maintain your maximum boost speed giving you the opportunity to escape. Once your Frameshift Drive comes back online, supercruise away. Just as the drive finishes charging, let go of the boost button. Generally the NPCs will not catch
up to you using this method. no longer possible as of beta 2
- Stealth can be used to escape interdiction as well, activating silent running as soon as you see radar contact should give you time to escape, keep some heat sinks handy. this is nearly imposable as the interdiction tether pulls you out of supercruise and puts you behind the person that interdicted you.