Newcomer / Intro Mission changed to abandon killing pirate?

[Silk_Sk]

So, I took a mission that required me to kill 4 pirates. Fine, I'll go kill 4 pirates. I went to the target system, found an unidentified signal, and checked it out. The pilot there was acting super guilty "hey, you don't have to kill me, let's work something out, etc." but I wasn't sure if he was a pirate or not. But, then I saw in my transactions tab that my mission had changed. It was now "Abandon killing pirate" and it had a new destination. The description now said "Do you really want to be the kind to kill innocent people for a few credits?" and some other stuff about an alternative.

So, now I'm assuming that this guy IS a pirate that I'm being paid to take out and that I have a choice between killing him or joining him. I don't like not completing jobs so I kill the guy. BAM! 6000 price on my head for destroying him and I'm now a wanted man. In the words of the great Star Wolf "What the heck?" If he was a pirate, why do I now have a bounty for killing him? What's more, my mission still showed as "abandon killing pirate." and had a target station. There isn't even an option to back out of it. What happened to my original mission? Why, if I killed the guy, do I still have the option the joining his side? Come to think of it, why is that now my ONLY option? None of this makes any sense. I just want to kill pirates.
:S

 

[Andovar]

I'll agree, these "mission changers" can be a bit confusing.

When you do a basic scan on someone, unless their status shows as Wanted, you can't shoot or kill them without getting a bounty on your head. (unless you're in an anarchy system, where there are no laws or rules)
Basically this guy was just contacting you on behalf of the guys you had set out to kill.
In the end, you have 2 options:
1) ignore what he said and go find and kill your pirate targets anyway
2) abandon the mission and go to whatever station he mentioned to collect your reward for abandoning it.

The choice will also affect your reputation. So If you're trying to build rep with whoever initially gave you the mission, abandoning it will hurt your rep with them.

 

[Silk_Sk]

The choice will also affect your reputation. So If you're trying to build rep with whoever initially gave you the mission, abandoning it will hurt your rep with them.

But I never had a choice. As soon as I ran into that guy, my original mission disappeared. I thought it might reappear if I killed him, but it didn't. I don't even have the option of NOT joining his cause (no abandon button), which makes no sense whatsoever. It seems I have a bounty on my head for trying to do a mission that I have now unintentionally abandoned by killing someone whose allies now want me to join the side of the people who I was hired to kill (and I apparently forfeited my mission by doing just that) in the first place. Is there any way to fix this?

 

[Andovar]

The original mission actually isn't gone.
The text has changed, but part of the "specs" should still show a target count. If you were to go ahead and start finding and killing the pirates, you'd see the counter in the mission description increase, and once you got to 4, you'd be able to go turn it in and get your reward.
Like i said, confusing, i know...

I'm hopeful that they'll cleanup this mechanic a bit in one of the upcoming patches.

 

[Silk_Sk]

The original mission actually isn't gone.
The text has changed, but part of the "specs" should still show a target count. If you were to go ahead and start finding and killing the pirates, you'd see the counter in the mission description increase, and once you got to 4, you'd be able to go turn it in and get your reward.

Nope. Nothing. Here's a screenshot.

http://i.imgur.com/WeFjIUM.png

Full disclosure, I also tried another mission except instead of pirates, it was "Warzone" and the exact same chain of events happened. The pirate mission is gone because I just went to the station and accepted to join them because I wanted it out of my transactions list. However, this Warzone mission is in the exact same state as I've described in my first post. As you can see, there are no targets, and no option not to join them. This is exactly what I was looking at in the pirates mission earlier. The only way to get this mission off my list is to go to that station and "start a new life."

 

[SpydersByte]

It seems like the guys who change the mission for you happen every single time you take a "kill X" type of mission which seems pretty stupid to me. It offers you a chance to kill the opposite faction... ie. if you're going for pirates the alternate will usually be authority ships, or if you were assigned traders it may switch to pirates. I'm guessing it's so that each method of play can do each mission. Your pirates mission alternate and the pic you linked are different things though, a warzone is not a "X number of Y faction" mission, it's a conflict zone which functions differently. I've never seen a warzone alternate, but it looks pretty obvious. I would think if you land at the station listed without entering the warzone you'll have a turn-in. For your original pirates mission though, it should function as Andovar said.. you'll have the option to kill either to complete the mission. Sometimes it will reset your progress though.

As far as the ship giving you the alternate.... if it doesn't say "wanted" you are going to get a bounty for kill it, regardless of how suspicious it seemed.

Odd that there's no abandon button though.... not sure about that.

 

[Silk_Sk]

It seems like the guys who change the mission for you happen every single time you take a "kill X" type of mission which seems pretty stupid to me. It offers you a chance to kill the opposite faction... ie. if you're going for pirates the alternate will usually be authority ships, or if you were assigned traders it may switch to pirates. I'm guessing it's so that each method of play can do each mission. Your pirates mission alternate and the pic you linked are different things though, a warzone is not a "X number of Y faction" mission, it's a conflict zone which functions differently. I've never seen a warzone alternate, but it looks pretty obvious. I would think if you land at the station listed without entering the warzone you'll have a turn-in. For your original pirates mission though, it should function as Andovar said.. you'll have the option to kill either to complete the mission. Sometimes it will reset your progress though.

As far as the ship giving you the alternate.... if it doesn't say "wanted" you are going to get a bounty for kill it, regardless of how suspicious it seemed.

Odd that there's no abandon button though.... not sure about that.

As I said, this Warzone mission is in the exact same state as my pirates mission was. As soon as I killed that guy, that's what my mission changed to. There was no longer a kill option. No abandon option. The exact same as this warzone screenshot.

 

[Marcns007]

I dont understand them either and I have been playing a long time, maybe the developers think they make sense.

 

[SpydersByte]

As I said, this Warzone mission is in the exact same state as my pirates mission was. As soon as I killed that guy, that's what my mission changed to. There was no longer a kill option. No abandon option. The exact same as this warzone screenshot.

Not sure what to tell you then :/ I've had those annoying alternates come up dozens of times but they've always shown the counts for both paths, I've never had an option to just abandon them.

 

[Andovar]

Ok, so in addition to confusing, seems they're also buggy.
Unless that is working as intended, and they're forcing another mission path on you without a choice. In which case they should at least offer an 'Abandon' option so you can and drop it and not be forced to support a faction you don't want to.

Can't hurt to open a ticket on it. Just don't expect a quick response. From what I can tell, they're still pretty backlogged.

 

[Silk_Sk]

Ok, so in addition to confusing, seems they're also buggy.
Unless that is working as intended, and they're forcing another mission path on you without a choice. In which case they should at least offer an 'Abandon' option so you can and drop it and not be forced to support a faction you don't want to.

Can't hurt to open a ticket on it. Just don't expect a quick response. From what I can tell, they're still pretty backlogged.

Okay then. If I do give in and join that faction that I didn't want to join, is there any way out of it? What happens if I just keep killing their guys?

 

[the100thmonkey]

Might Warzone instead be an NPC name, and this is therefore an assassination mission?

How much was the reward offered initially for successful completion of the mission?

 

[Silk_Sk]

Might Warzone instead be an NPC name, and this is therefore an assassination mission?

How much was the reward offered initially for successful completion of the mission?

I think around 10 or 11,000. I forget. There were multiple targets, so no it wasn't assassination. I had to kill "3 warzone." I'd cringe but the grammar in the game is atrocious anyway so I don't let it bother me.