Does Anyone Else Find Bulletin Board Combat Missions Terribly Nonsensical?

Deadlock989

Banned
Deadlock989
Yep. It's awful.

I've stopped playing for 4 days because I was sent on a mission by a faction to assassinate bounty hunters in a neighbouring system. My targeting computer identified one of their own ships as a viable mission target, I didn't notice the faction because of the bright red text saying MISSION TARGET underneath. When I got back I was wanted by them but they accepted the death of their own bounty hunter as a valid completion of the mission. I gained rep for the mission, lost it for the kill, and am now wanted by them for the mission target they accepted for 4 days with no way to pay it off. Can't really progress very well with that faction while they hate me for doing what they asked me to do, so I've little choice than either to abandon the previous 2 hours of play completely and go elsewhere in the galaxy, or just not play at all for 4 days while the bounty expires.

Just nonsense.
 
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Witcherman

Witcherman
>generates a random mission

Yeah, their randomly generated mission system is pretty weak-sauce. You'd think that they would have the missions separated out a little more thoroughly so that they, at the very least, make sense, but apparently that is not the case. Because of this terrible inconsistency, for "Naval Rank" missions, I only take delivery missions.
 
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Arry

Arry
Witcherman said:
>generates a random mission

Yeah, their randomly generated mission system is pretty weak-sauce. You'd think that they would have the missions separated out a little more thoroughly so that they, at the very least, make sense, but apparently that is not the case. Because of this terribly inconsistency, for "Naval Rank" missions, I only take delivery missions.
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Very wise.


I just got 7 differant ranking missions, it has been ages, but they turn up in the end, just over shot a station, not good.
 
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Vasious

Vasious
Titler said:
I think you've missed my point; you can't easily tell which ones are asking you to kill "Good" guys.

You know the faction that is sending you, if only from the "Associated With" line, but the faction they're asking you to kill is hidden, unless it's in the flavour text, and if so it's not clear except from experience which ones those are. Are "Generals" always going to be Imperial Navy? As I'm in Imperial space, I'd guess so, because the mission will spawn in said space too; but the mission itself doesn't make that clear.

And quite apart from the nonsense it makes of in game fiction, it's also atrocious game design; I know some people here mistake masochism for challenge or pleasure, but forcing players to spend 5-10 minutes downtime just for a new set of missions, and then have them second guess the meaning of vague text before knowing if they can make any progression right now for their chosen goals is just really, really alienating.
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For Kill lists:
The ones that tell you to kill people that aren't Pirates or smugglers; anything else like you will be killing good guys
Trader? Sounds like they will be clean/innocent, after all the kill mission is to destabilize to target faction reading the blurbs
Bounty Hunters? Sounds like they will be clean, as it is revenge killing for the bounty hunter taking out some of the criminal elements in the mission giving faction.
Authority Vessels? Most definitely trouble. Yes the mission might say they are corrupt, but you have to cross in to a different jurisdiction where their friends are. If there was hard evidence of their corruption, you an independent be paid to kill them?
Activist? Going to be illegal as if they could be legally moved on, the Authority vessels would have done so.
Nomad? Basically refugees

Any Assassination mission you have to assume will get you in trouble as it a paid murder.
If you are lucky they happen to be wanted where they are, but it is still paid murder of a Powerful or Influential individual, expect it to be a crime as they will be hanging around where they expect the law to protect them.


In All cases you are nominally an Independent Member of the Pilots Federation and not a member of the Faction issuing the mission so you are
Expendable
Deniable

You even get a blurb about any jurisdictional issue you may encounter are you own problems.
in 99% of the cases you need to travel to a different system where there is a different minor faction jurisdiction who likely does not considered you kill list legal, unless the target are wanted as a happy coincidence.

But the Naval Missions? The Navy has the Authority to issue kill warrants on Clean citizens of its own state during peace times?
 
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andrak

andrak
What I find nonsensical is that in the whole of a solar system they've only got 6 things that need done. Really!

It should not be a bulletin board it should be a task list of hundreds of missions filterable by combat/exploration/smuggling/trade etc

The current mission implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
 
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ocflyer

ocflyer
I think everyone is overlooking some Bulletin Board mission basics:
1. For pirate missions, carry some gold in the cargo hold. This helps incentivize the target to fire on you in case the pirate isn't wanted in the current system. Wait for them to fire on you and then rescan to make sure they're wanted before opening fire.
2. For military assassination missions, I have yet to encounter a target that isn't mad that I've confronted them (i.e. head-to-head KWS scan). So, wait for the target to fire on you and then rescan them to make sure they're wanted before you open fire.
3. Authority assassination missions are lose-lose because the ships almost always hail from the major faction that you're trying to make nice with.
4. Bounty hunter and trader assassination missions are lose-lose because they don't fire on you if you carry valuable cargo and they almost always hail with your major faction.
5. Nomad assassination missions aren't associated with any major faction so no negative rep.
6. Charity missions gain instant rep with the minor and major faction. I do ALL of these that I can. I've got 50M cash so what's a few thousand credits for a high reputation hit.
7. Trading missions gain moderate/low rep increase but they're very profitable and I do ALL of these that are at my trading stops and a few that require only a minor deviation from my trading stops.
8. Courier missions gain moderate/low rep increase and I do many of these that are along my trading route.
9. Naval Ascension missions come in a variety of scenarios. You don't have to accept the assassination missions. Just keep visiting other stations in your major faction to get a better mission assignment.
 
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Arry

Arry
Arry said:
...and now it won't let me finish a simple delivery mission.
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Won't let me finish ranking mission. Tried logging out and everything I know, but won't let me deliver cargo. Rep is heading for the big white telephone.
 

Titler

Titler
ocflyer said:
I think everyone is overlooking some Bulletin Board mission basics:
1. For pirate missions, carry some gold in the cargo hold. This helps incentivize the target to fire on you in case the pirate isn't wanted in the current system. Wait for them to fire on you and then rescan to make sure they're wanted before opening fire.
2. For military assassination missions, I have yet to encounter a target that isn't mad that I've confronted them (i.e. head-to-head KWS scan). So, wait for the target to fire on you and then rescan them to make sure they're wanted before you open fire.
Click to expand...

Even if they fire on you now, you still take the local faction reputation hit for killing someone belong to that faction. And as negative actions require 4x or so positive actions to recover, and Naval ranks are based on having increasing numbers of local factions being Allied to you, in the process of raising reputation you lose it in at least 1 other system. This wouldn't be so bad in turn if there was some easy way to work out where all the Allied systems who are increasing your promotability were, so you could annoy others rationally... but there's not.

As mentioned, the only way to be sure to help without hurting yourself seems to be trading, smuggling, Charity, or specifically Kill Pirates missions instead.
 

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You

Banana's_Are_Good_For_You
I think it's part of the game.
Basically, if you don't think and plan before you act, this game will trip you up and pretty hard sometimes.
Pretty much in the same way the real world can.
 

Deadlock989

Banned
Deadlock989
Titler said:
Even if they fire on you now, you still take the local faction reputation hit for killing someone belong to that faction..
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That would be fine if the local faction was actually some kind of enemy of the faction that gave you the mission. It might actually feel like you were doing something coherent to affect the local power balance. But as in my experience above where a faction simultaneously rewarded and penalised me for killing its own members, that's usually very far from being the case.
 

Deadlock989

Banned
Deadlock989
To be brutally honest though, I've stopped caring since the whole local factions thing was flattened beneath the completely separate layer of Powerplay stuff. Two totally non-interacting political systems that slide on each other without touching, like Alan Bennett in a bed full of baby lotion.
 

ocflyer

ocflyer
Titler said:
Even if they fire on you now, you still take the local faction reputation hit for killing someone belong to that faction. And as negative actions require 4x or so positive actions to recover, and Naval ranks are based on having increasing numbers of local factions being Allied to you, in the process of raising reputation you lose it in at least 1 other system. This wouldn't be so bad in turn if there was some easy way to work out where all the Allied systems who are increasing your promotability were, so you could annoy others rationally... but there's not.

As mentioned, the only way to be sure to help without hurting yourself seems to be trading, smuggling, Charity, or specifically Kill Pirates missions instead.
Click to expand...

True. It goes without saying that you shouldn't accept pirate hunting missions if the pirates are associated with the major faction that you're trying to play nice with. So, assuming the pirates are with another major faction or independent, then wait for the pirates to fire on you and carry that gold to give them a reason to fire on you.
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
My personal favourite at the moment are the mining missions:

Miner: Hi! I'm here about the ad. you placed for 4 tons of platinum?
Mission: Er, yes...<sniff>...Are you a tycoon by any chance?
Miner: ...What's that got do with anything?
Mission: Well, we only accept platinum from tycoons you see...not just any riff-raff that walks off the docking port.
Miner: But I have 4 tons of platinum sitting in my cargo hold! Now! Doing nothing!...Whatever...
 
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