I'm loving USS's (just me then?)

[Cmdr Moschops]

So recently I was trading and ranking up around Achenar and after reading something about Sanna (didn't really take notice of the story, I can never take the stories in) I realise I'm just next door to this Anarchy system I know has a black market. Having just an hour on my PC before going out I drop into solo mode and look for a USS or two to see if I can get a few credits or some cargo.

Over the next hour I find several pirates who seem pretty miffed that I'm carrying nothing, but as they're wanted I show them no mercy. I found an Anaconda nest where three or so security anacondas are taking out a wanted anaconda. I scan him and hang back a bit until the feds have taken his hull right down. I make my move and come out 54k wealthier. A few more pirates later and by bagging a few floating slaves, leather and rare works of art I quit the game over 100k the richer when time was up.

Ok, one thing I did overlook was that when I was last in Sanna it was an Anarchy but now (and I did read this so I should have known) it's under Federation rule. So attacking one clean sidey with a small bounty resulted in a large bounty on my head... and then the penny dropped!).

Still, although I could probably have made more credits trading it was a very VERY enjoyable hour after a week with the Cobra laid up in the hangar.

 

[ChaseBears]

it's not bad the first few times.

the problems with USS:

*gets very repetitive, because there's very few USS templates
*mission runners having to troll USS after USS to do their missions, totally and frustratingly dependent on RNG
*quite obviously randomly generated
*gets samey, since there's not many templates
*The AI is never actually doing things when you drop into them, like if i drop into a USS with police, pirates, and bounty hunters, literally everyone turns and scans me first. the bounty hunter would rather KWS me than go after the Wanted guy right there, really?
*i get this sense of deja vu pretty often
*the whole 'cruise at 30 km/s for infinite USS' thing is pretty weird

 

[shrinkshooter]

You're loving them because you haven't seen all of the signal source spawn possibilities ten thousand times each like the rest of us.

 

[Dweezil_Moon]

no .. not just you. The problem with game forums is that the people who write the most are those who don't actually play the actual game and are "armchair game designers" : they know best what is wrong with the game, have all the perfect solution so that the game is super successful and without their help Frontier and David Braben will be bankrupt very very soon because the game sucks. If you happen to actually like the game you are misguided and you obviously haven't played enough games in the past to know better.By the way, you are probably not a "serious gamer", which basically mean that you do enjoy games instead of seeing them as unpaid work.

sigh ...

USS could use a tiny bit more variety but as they are now they ARE fun.

 

[Cmdr Moschops]

Thankfully I haven't seen the Mineral Magpie, wedding or funeral barges recently, just lots of pirates, Anacondas and cargo. I hardly ever do the missions for black boxes etc.

 

[Tenshi]

I have seen a small wing of npc pirates attacking a lone hauler sometimes in a USS that is always a fun fight to have.

I like USS sites as well.

 

[Riepah]

USS wouldn't be a bad idea in general, but their current implementation is horribly immersion breaking and nonsensical. Also very frustrating when you need a specific USS and keep getting pointless ones.

 

[anday]

Yeah.. I loved that one time cruising for a good hour at minumum speed, staring at nothing but my navigations tab. Only to get my pirate kill mission reset to zero kills by some random NPC and his laughable "alternate mission path" shortly before finding my final pirate USS.

But I got to see dozens of funerals and weddings so I got that going for me which is nice.

 

[MadMarchHare]

I like the USS system its an easy and efficient way of picking up cargo for BB mission turn ins, without having to pick up the mission first then go out and look for the right one etc. Does need more variety I expect that will come in time though.

 

[Ben Ryder]

"I'm loving USS's (just me then?)"

Me too. I love the fact that they are there if you want to try something different and add some adventure to your play.

 

[Vampyre111]

Yeah.. I loved that one time cruising for a good hour at minumum speed, staring at nothing but my navigations tab. Only to get my pirate kill mission reset to zero kills by some random NPC and his laughable "alternate mission path" shortly before finding my final pirate USS.

But I got to see dozens of funerals and weddings so I got that going for me which is nice.

Yep, I hate that guy. resets the counter and offers me something like 1000cr to abandon a mission paying me 15 times that and I have to start over thanks to him.

 

[deMangler]

I like USS's for what they are. The equivalent of Random encounters. But not as a substitute for event driven content.
I hope that their use has been only temporarily extended to be a placeholder for mission events. It is just wrong that to fulfill many mission you can just go somewhere, sit in super-cruise, and wait for the right USS to pop up. I hope this is placeholder for persistent NPC's and proper event driven content. At the moment it makes the game seem like any other two dimensional wait for the spawn MMO.

 

[Darkflame]

Second

I also hope at some point for a little more interaction possible. Not necessarily much, but it would be nice to share a few lines of dialogue with NCPs found out and about.
Pass my congratulations on to a wedding brigade, that sort of thing

 

[Traceracing]

I'm another who cruises at 30 awaiting USS' and often a 150Ls journey to a starport can take an hour or more.. but I usually get to bounty hunt a good number of NPC's and tonight had my first exchange with Technology Acquisitions Inc who paid me almost 20k for 15 tons of computer parts

Just a pity USS' are like buses... wait for ages then 3 come at once....

 

[carlisle]

Sanna was an Anarchy? I went there a few days ago when I read that things were going down there. Since arriving I did some bounty hunting, but could decide which of the factions was in favour of what, and which to favour and try and build rep with. Sanna Free sound like they should be the independence favouring ones but they are Federation allied whereas the Official Sanna League are independent and from their description seem to favour independence, but have really low influence.

Now I'm in holiday and will be back in two weeks, it'll probably already have gone down by then and I'll return to a very different Sanna from the one I left behind.

 

[Rhysling]

I haven't checked enough out yet to get bored with them. I tried a few early on and they all seemed to be dogfights (with one or two dodgy big ships wanting "tech - no questions asked") so I steered clear. But lately I've been doing BB missions from platforms, fortunately I've picked up the correct USS within 2 or 3 goes - beginner's luck? The weirdest one was for rare art - dropped into the shattered remains of a craft with a few canisters dotted about. Still not seen a wedding, though.

 

[Castor_23]

I love USS too. It's like a kind of a german "Überraschungsei". I noticed that they repeat themselves but it's still kinda fun.