Why I don't take assassination missions

[_Fissure]

I normally don't like to come to the forum to complain, but come on:

50,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Anaconda.
62,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Fed Corvette with duel PAs

Is this for real? Shouldn't the value of the assassination scale with the ship?

I interdicted the Anaconda, and he rammed my Cobra just as I finished my spinning. Bam, one shot, dead.

I interdicted the Fed Corvette to try and game it. You know, let him shoot me and wait for the Feds. Feds never showed, I abandoned the mission.

Seriously, what's with low level assassinations having top tier ships as targets?

/rant

 

[aRtFuL]

I played a couple of assassination missions where it was to 320k Cr to kill some guy in Imperial Eagle.

That was quick money if there ever was one.

 

[_Fissure]

I played a couple of assassination missions where it was to 320k Cr to kill some guy in Imperial Eagle.

That was quick money if there ever was one.

*sigh* so messed up. I wouldn't even tough a 320k mission with a 10 ft poll as a result of my experiences, yet apparently there are eagles just waiting to be killed.

 

[John Shepard]

Last three assasination missions I did

Kill X

1 Anaconda
2 vulture escorts

This was I recall, 100k something

Kill Y
1 Anaconda
1 eagle
1 vulture

250kish

Kill Z

2 anacondas

120k if Ir ecall correctly.

 

[Brimstone]

I'm sorry about your experience OP.


but, the other day I picked up half a dozen assassinations, and they were all for celebrities in Orcas.

 

[Muzz UK]

These missions get harder and end up being worth a lot more money as you gain rep and rank. My complaint with them is you never know if the target is going to be WANTED or if you have to shoot some innocent person thats going to get a bounty on your head! Please make that more clear on the mission tab Frontier!!!!

I did find I needed to improve my load out and pilot skill with these but any ship with a good pilot can kill these targets.

 

[Laste]

I normally don't like to come to the forum to complain, but come on:

50,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Anaconda.
62,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Fed Corvette with duel PAs

Is this for real? Shouldn't the value of the assassination scale with the ship?

I interdicted the Anaconda, and he rammed my Cobra just as I finished my spinning. Bam, one shot, dead.

I interdicted the Fed Corvette to try and game it. You know, let him shoot me and wait for the Feds. Feds never showed, I abandoned the mission.

Seriously, what's with low level assassinations having top tier ships as targets?

/rant

Whats tough is you can hang out at a high or haz res, and get much higher payouts per target.

 

[rootsrat]

I normally don't like to come to the forum to complain, but come on:

50,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Anaconda.
62,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Fed Corvette with duel PAs

Is this for real? Shouldn't the value of the assassination scale with the ship?

I interdicted the Anaconda, and he rammed my Cobra just as I finished my spinning. Bam, one shot, dead.

I interdicted the Fed Corvette to try and game it. You know, let him shoot me and wait for the Feds. Feds never showed, I abandoned the mission.

Seriously, what's with low level assassinations having top tier ships as targets?

/rant

The value of mission reward highly depends on your 1) Standing with the issuing faction and 2) Your rank in the given trade. If you're Allied with the issuing minor faction and have Elite in Combat you should see much better payouts. Patiently work on your reputation with local factions and it should get better for you!

 

[Trafalgar Law]

The value of mission reward highly depends on your 1) Standing with the issuing faction and 2) Your rank in the given trade. If you're Allied with the issuing minor faction and have Elite in Combat you should see much better payouts. Patiently work on your reputation with local factions and it should get better for you!

I can't say I've ever noticed getting better paid missions for being Allied. You do (or used to before they nerfed mission availability) get more missions though. Being of a higher rank in the area of expertise does give you better paying missions, although these payouts seem to be lower than the pre-horizons missions (for example the two missions the OP posted would probably have had 2-3 times the payout in 1.3/1.4).
.

50,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Anaconda.
62,000 Cr assassination: Fully kitted Fed Corvette with duel PAs

Is this for real? Shouldn't the value of the assassination scale with the ship?

The ship type of your assassination target is determined by the type of mission and the payout seems to be determined by your rank, e.g. a kill pirate lord/criminal is usually an Anaconda (or a Corvette now), a deserter is usually in an Eagle with a wingmate, a terrorist or military strategist/general is usually in a Python (often with escorts) and so on. You'll soon learn the patterns if you do lots of these missions (These patterns seem to be the same in 2.0 from what I've seen so far, although I don't know what type of ships are in the 'can you kill good' missions as I refuse to take them for failing basic literacy).
.
A final note, I've noticed the lower ranked Anacondas in pirate lord type missions, constantly trying to ram me when I'm in my Fer-de-Lance, although you can dodge once aware of this issue, the constant attempts make these missions much harder now as sooner or later they're going to connect so I no longer consider doing these missions in anything smaller than my Imperial Clipper (any high hull strength ship would be ok, I keep my FdL as light as possible to give it a workable jumprange).

 

[M4rt1n]

Btw those 50-100k Annies & Corvettes have low rank (novice-expert), so they are quite lame tbh, and gigantic bounties to boot your paycheck (250-300k).
I really love those missions. Sadly these days (1.5-2.0) I cannot reliably find systems that consistently spawn them. Do you guys know where to look?

 

[rootsrat]

I can't say I've ever noticed getting better paid missions for being Allied. You do (or used to before they nerfed mission availability) get more missions though. Being of a higher rank in the area of expertise does give you better paying missions, although these payouts seem to be lower than the pre-horizons missions (for example the two missions the OP posted would probably have had 2-3 times the payout in 1.3/1.4).

Maybe something has changed in 1.5 / 2.0 or the local reputation impact is only minimal? Not sure to be honest.

 

[drholliday]

The only purpose for the missions is to rank and do smuggling/mining. For everything else missions are just a major repetitive PITA that's simply not worth it.

If you're Allied with the issuing minor faction and have Elite in Combat you should see much better payouts.

Not really. They are a lot better than 50,000 but still not worth dealing with. For 500,000cr you have to jump there, find him, pull him or wait until he jumps into a USS, kill him and return to cash in. In a res site you make those 500,000cr much faster and usually also easier. With the exception of stacking smuggling and mining missions they are only good to get some starting money because you can quickly make a couple of bucks without having to invest much into the ship.

 

[rootsrat]

The only purpose for the missions is to rank and do smuggling/mining. For everything else missions are just a major repetitive PITA that's simply not worth it.



Not really. They are a lot better than 50,000 but still not worth dealing with. For 500,000cr you have to jump there, find him, pull him or wait until he jumps into a USS, kill him and return to cash in. In a res site you make those 500,000cr much faster and usually also easier. With the exception of stacking smuggling and mining missions they are only good to get some starting money because you can quickly make a couple of bucks without having to invest much into the ship.

The only thing is, Elite is not about max profit per hour mate. With that mindset you'll never be happy in this game.

 

[Urbanski101]

These missions get harder and end up being worth a lot more money as you gain rep and rank. My complaint with them is you never know if the target is going to be WANTED or if you have to shoot some innocent person thats going to get a bounty on your head! Please make that more clear on the mission tab Frontier!!!!

This.

I don't touch them unless it is very specific that it's a pirate, terrorist, pirate lord or other wanted figure.

The mission descriptions are actually a touch embarrassing - 'Kill Dave. Earn Credits' - really? That's it?

Or the worst offender 'We need people who kill good. Do you kill good?'

I can only think that these missions/descriptions were a rush job to get 1.5 and Horizons shipped - it also means the BGS can pick any random ship and status which I'm sure is quicker than programming in the ship and status.

And yes the rewards are supposed to scale with your rank and rep but it also seems quite random to me at times.

 

[drholliday]

The only thing is, Elite is not about max profit per hour mate. With that mindset you'll never be happy in this game.

That's true. But they aren't exactly engaging or even interesting either when you've done a couple of them. That's why I said what I think they are good for. Credit farming IF you smuggle or mine or if you want to grind for ranks. Otherwise they are just not worth it. Not credits and not otherwise.

 

[rootsrat]

That's true. But they aren't exactly engaging or even interesting either when you've done a couple of them. That's why I said what I think they are good for. Credit farming IF you smuggle or mine or if you want to grind for ranks. Otherwise they are just not worth it. Not credits and not otherwise.

Yes, I agree on that. When you do a new mission for the first couple of times it can be interesting. After a while it can get old though... I don't know what's the solution in this kind of PG mission system though. Unless there is a dedicated team of people inventing new missions all the time it will always get repetitive after a while. These new chain missions and planetary mission added a lot to variety, but they're currently bugged as we know. I'd give it a patch or two and revisit then, see how it feels.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I've never seen anything other than anacondas. Wait - ONCE I got a T9 as target. I guess it depends on the target description. I don't do them anymore. When I started out they were impossible and now they just don't pay enough. There's also a tendency that factions offer missions to take down their own guys - which quite contradicts my intentions.

 

[Adam Lusardi]

Yes, I agree on that. When you do a new mission for the first couple of times it can be interesting. After a while it can get old though... I don't know what's the solution in this kind of PG mission system though. Unless there is a dedicated team of people inventing new missions all the time it will always get repetitive after a while. These new chain missions and planetary mission added a lot to variety, but they're currently bugged as we know. I'd give it a patch or two and revisit then, see how it feels.

Think you answered your own question. Having tier two npcs and as you attack they offer chain missions to save there skins i.e. come "wing up" with me on a smuggling mission......and the plot unfolds.

 

[drholliday]

I don't know what's the solution in this kind of PG mission system though.

They need to get the core mechanics right (most of that is already there but carelessly implemented) and then indeed hire some folks who get the content right and figure out how to snip them properly. It's not that much of a technical issue. It's how to use what's there and fill that with life what FD is miserably failing at. Not wasted resources because you can recycle the guys for CGs, which suffer from the same problem.

 

[Alric]

Look on the bright side, if you stacked smuggling missions, didn't even try to deal with the complications, didn't get lucky and did fail everything as a result but just turned in that one none fail on scan mission you happened to take, you'd only make about ten times more money.