This is just one example of how missions are fun in ED. Wellcome.
3 Weeks WASTED
- Thread starter ImaGuest
- Start date
Those extreme long range explorer passenger missions are a waste of time if you do them for the credits. In the time spend getting to the destination and back you could take a lot, really a lot of easier missions and earn more.
The other day I had a 20 Mcr VIP 3-stop sightseeing tour. Not a criminal, not a wanted VIP, nothing too far away (longest distance between tourist spots: less than 200 ly). Finished in one hour.
IF you already decided to go to that location or spend x days exploring, then those missions can provide an extra income, BUT you need to be prepared.
You need to know how to avoid interdictions - not how to survive interdictions, how to not getting interdicted at all or how to evade/win the interdiction.
You need to know how to get into a station fast - knowing how much your ship drifts, how long it takes for the boost to wear off, that stuff.
You need to know how to get out of SC in front of the mail slot - 45° angle from the pole of the planetary object the station orbits. It helps if you know the station…
You need to know how to stop your spaceship from high speed to 0 in the shortest possible time.
You obviously need to know how not to get scanned.
As others already mentioned the easiest way not to get scanned is getting into the station fast. Flying around 200 m/s is fast enough at the final approach (last 3-4 km before the slot). Boosting in a straight line until 3-4 km is very, very helpful.
You don't want to have to do a lot of maneuvering, fly around the station at a save distance (10-20km) until the mail slot can be passed in a straight line.
Observe the system security. You want them to fly around in nice circles and not doing something else (like chasing a criminal).
Observe the traffic. You don't want a T-9 or Beluga coming through the slot the moment you reach it. If any ship is coming straight at you, then boost and jump into SC and try again. (Got one Alliance Enforcer flying 9 km to me just trying to scan me - I was already ready to jump when the "scan detected" message came. Scan didn't count, passenger happy).
Now the fun begins:
Boost until you can request docking.
Boost once more until you are at around 3-4 km, let the speed bleed of to around 200 m/s.
The moment you are through the mail slot set thrusters to 0, deploy landing gear and point the nose slightly down to the ground and increase the downward thrust. This will get you out of the line of sight from the NPC security and it will kill your speed.
Dock. Earn cash.
Planetary outposts are more complicated. You need to wait away enough not to attract the security NPCs, but close enough to see them and their flight patterns. If they are facing away from you (select the ship to see it's orientation) - boost to the landing pad and hope the best. If you see a security ship turning to you - boost away. Repeat until you are docked.
And by the way, many passengers don't like hull damage. Don't get hull damage while exploring. Fly extra careful.
The ship only has to fly around 200 m/s ideally without boost. Agility is not needed. Flying to the mailslot in a straight line is all that's needed. If he dropped out of SC not in a good position, then boosting away from the station in a straight line and then flying around the station at a distance of 10-20 km (depending on how save he wants to be) until he can boost to the mail slot in a straight line.
Hang on, how many times did you get scanned in total? Famous Explorers go from Happy to Unhappy on the first scan, not Happy to failing the mission. If you knew you were only one scan away from failure, did you pull out all the stops to avoid that scan? (Including waiting several km from the station until the cops are distracted by other craft, Silent Running, sprinting in).
I accidentaly took a secretive mission yesterday. So I gave it a try in my trade/passenger Conda, with a top speed of 190 without, 270 with boost. It is entirely possible to sneak into a station, but not without danger. You jump in, fly 8-9 km out, line up with the slot, and boost like a maniac towards the door. Ask for clearance in range, then lower the landing gear at around 2k to slow the ship down last second. You might bump it, but should make it inside alive and fast.
Generally big ships are going to get scanned unless you rush in or sneak i, that's how it goes, bigger ships attract more attention from police, that is all working as it should. Silence running is not a guarantee that you won't get scanned, not knowing how you used silent running I obviously can't say what you did wrong, but generally silent running alone doesn't mean you are perfectly stealthy, keep heat low, engines off, and drift in works quite well in my book the last times I've tried it, drift with no thrusters and silence running until near grate, then power on and pop in before anything happens. Even if you get a 'scan detected' you shouldn't get fully scanned since they don't follow you in, (unless this has changed?)
The not fun part is that it isn't really smuggling. It's an explorer who wants to scan something. Why does that explorer have to be secretive.
Smuggling criminals or wanted VIPs - that's ok and I agree fun - but explorers requiring weeks of jumping? That's really cruel and a not very enjoyable game design in my opinion.
Oh! I am unfamiliar with this mission type. Sounds like one to avoid for those not used to smuggling. That's a lot of risk in time invested.
its presumably to add some element of skill, as literally nothing else will prevent a guaranteed payday. With stacking that leads to silly stuff. OP would have been instantly Elite from scratch!
Its still way, way too easy, but at least it is possible to fail them.
Yeah, one really needs to read every line in those passenger missions. Apparently a) every maniac mastermind criminal wants to go sightseeing or b) nobody can know that said explorer wants to go to Sag A. Though the most hillarious one for me had to be the criminal mastermind that secretly wanted to visit a prison colony...
I'm all on board with the little short transport or sightseeing missions (say, under 1000LY) failing completely if you don't meet the criteria.
But why do the extremely long ones require any sort of failure mechanism? A 24,000LY one (over 48,000LY round trip) is a significant investment of game time. I don't think that requires a total-failure option to provide some 'risk' - I think the time commitment alone is enough. If anything, just reduce the payment somewhat. "I'll deduct 10% from your pay each time you are scanned!" or "I'll deduct 1% from your pay for every 1% of hull damage you take while I'm on board."
But why do the extremely long ones require any sort of failure mechanism? A 24,000LY one (over 48,000LY round trip) is a significant investment of game time. I don't think that requires a total-failure option to provide some 'risk' - I think the time commitment alone is enough. If anything, just reduce the payment somewhat. "I'll deduct 10% from your pay each time you are scanned!" or "I'll deduct 1% from your pay for every 1% of hull damage you take while I'm on board."
Probably hull damage.
Apart from the ways people explained, noone forces anyone into any ship. If someone wants to do no-scan missions, one might consider a different ship. Also, noone forces one to stack them either. The more you stack, the less ships can do it.
Its the same old as always: greed, lack of planning, feeling entitled to rewards while blaming someone or something else for messing the only thing up that could go wrong. Eventually leading to an all cap ragerant online.
Like those "high risk" VIP sightseeing missions where absolutely nothing happens? Those missions that pay between 4 and 20 Mcr for something that takes between one and 1.5 hours? Those missions that can be stacked without adding risk?
Mission rewards aren't always about risk. I get mission that pay 1.4 Mcr for one single haul of 24t stuff to a 14 ly away station - ranked mostly harmless. I get missions that offer a higher pay just because the destination station is 500 Kls away from entry point.
A lot of missions offer an - almost - guaranteed payday. Making VIP explorer missions, that require the player to spend weeks to accomplish those missions, harder than most much, much easier and faster missions is not really a good thing.
Different strokes for different folks. What you propose is the definition of grinding games: just investing a stupid amount of time with an (almost fully) guaranteed reward.
I think that is terrible gameplay, I'd feel like a hamster in a wheel. At some point you want Elite Explorer to mean more than "congrats, you have succesfully pressed that jump button two billion times. Have a sticker."
This i think is the key issue.
Long missions like that has little RISK but plenty invested TIME.
A better solution would be to have a gradually lowered payout depending on events during the trip.
If it is a 50% chance of scanned or not scanned at the end of the journey the only real risk is at the very end.
Nobody would do those long range explorer VIP missions as a way to grind credits. Those missions are among the most ineffective ways to get credits in the game.
Yes, I think I addressed this with my other posts in this thread.
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![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
TBH regardless of if OP screwed up or not, there is so much to the missions accross the board which could (should) be done to make these far better and make sense.
take a criminal mastermind who must not be scanned...
surely he should be saying "sorry stuff off mate" if someone offers him a ride in a slow ship....... as much as the orca / beluga have the luxury cabins, imo ships like the cobra and the viper IV and the Diamond Back should be the ones those under the radar choose to hide in (because less likely to be scanned)
Also really we need more reputations, so the really high paying smuggler missions would only go to those with a good number of successfully completed smuggling missions under their belt. this gives a real risk reward for the smuggler stackers..... ie stack 4 missions and stuff them all up, you lose all your smuggler rep as you just failed 4 missions in a row (and potentially get the faction who gave you the 4 missions putting a contract on you).
The issues with the passenger missions making no sense logically is just 1 symptom of the missions (or the game?) in general in that there is just not enough complexity to the BGS and in the mission generators or game logic.
take a criminal mastermind who must not be scanned...
surely he should be saying "sorry stuff off mate" if someone offers him a ride in a slow ship....... as much as the orca / beluga have the luxury cabins, imo ships like the cobra and the viper IV and the Diamond Back should be the ones those under the radar choose to hide in (because less likely to be scanned)
Also really we need more reputations, so the really high paying smuggler missions would only go to those with a good number of successfully completed smuggling missions under their belt. this gives a real risk reward for the smuggler stackers..... ie stack 4 missions and stuff them all up, you lose all your smuggler rep as you just failed 4 missions in a row (and potentially get the faction who gave you the 4 missions putting a contract on you).
The issues with the passenger missions making no sense logically is just 1 symptom of the missions (or the game?) in general in that there is just not enough complexity to the BGS and in the mission generators or game logic.
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