Robogo, old school!

[GunnerBill]

Those Robigo missions were good fun. I have the excel spreadsheets I used to monitor my take from those missions and some nights I was bagging nearly 70 million Crs.

However don't let anyone tell you that it was easy as with multiple stops shipping in a Python it could take iirc 7 hrs! Often I was playing into small hrs.

All this in the mistaken belief that the Engineers update was going to require lots of cash!


Still I leaned how to boost a Py through the slot and land it hot at an outpost. In the end though I learned you can actually beat the station scan simply by flying nice and easy. No need for dramatic entrances.

Ahhh those were the days

 

[[DOOK] Droogie]

I am all for bringing in more danger. please please please.
just not at the 100mil per 1h:30m which you could get from Robigo without to much trouble to be honest.

Robigo was around 30m per hour on a average. That payment was fine, too. Money just opens up new opportunities, and the asp was the best ship for it, anyway.

Robigo was quite a lot of trouble, to be honest. Especially when you had pirates and security chasing you in the target system. They were relentless.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I remember those epic fail moments at Robigo.

I got insta-dicted on my first jump with 40+mil CR in missions once.
And of course, on my last jump to my first stop. Infuriating!
And not to mention getting tangled in the toast rack. Lol

Robigo has some of my fondest memories of ED.

 

[Zeeman]

I really loved the time sensitive missions - the ones where you had 30 minutes to get to the destination, and scan = fail. Every so often, I screwed up and realised I'd picked one of those up and wasted 10 minutes stacking missions - I've never cursed the various loading screens so much in my life, and had thought many times of posting for FD to stop all timers whilst in a loading screen, but figured it was part of the fun, and I ended up making them all anyway (once or twice with just seconds to spare).

Man, I'd love those missions back... With some better smuggling mechanics, where chaff slows scans, you are hounded a lot more by authorities, and where cold running actually has an affect on MPC's...

Z...

 

[d8veh]

I remember those epic fail moments at Robigo.

I got insta-dicted on my first jump with 40+mil CR in missions once.
And of course, on my last jump to my first stop. Infuriating!
And not to mention getting tangled in the toast rack. Lol

Robigo has some of my fondest memories of ED.

Here's some more memories:

There were normally no feds at Robigo, so you could take-off normally and jump away, but very occasionally, a lone fed would be there waiting, so that he could scan you as soon as you came out of the hanger. That used to drive people nuts. IIRC, some people got scanned in the hanger too.

Best of all, like all these money-making schemes, loads of people joined in, but didn't research properly how to do it. Every day, there was someone, who messed up, posting a thread about how the game was broken because he lost X million, and loads of others supporting him and suggesting he raise a ticket. Most of them seemed to think that is was unfair that the NPCs chased them down and stopped them from making their 60 million run successfully. It caused more sour grapes than anything else I've seen on the forum. I guess FD got rid of it to free-up their customer support.

 

[StiTch]

you took a mission called Shadow Delivery (Smuggling) to deliver X to X. You could stack these missions and they where very Valuable Multi Millions of Cr each so one run in say an ASP might bring you 20-40 million.

So, a Scan ANY scan from ANY ship would not only end that mission but ALL the Shadow Delivery missions you had at that time.

So taking these missions meant that you where interdicted 4, 5 6 or more times in the journey to deliver all. Some of these interdictions where 'Insta' interdictions, so you ended your jump at the star and no sooner had you come out of Hyper BANG you where interdicted.
The trick was to fight the interdiction or submit and at all cost EVADE the imminent scan, by either BOOST BOOST BOOST or fight the scanner.

You literally could not take your eyes of the screen fo a mo as you did not know when and where the next interdiction would come. You had to creep into a station to avoid a scan, creep out to avoid a scan......Bloody Brilliant Excitment.

Yup, this.

You would sometimes go from Robigo back to main bubble and see something wanting to interdict you after almost every jump. Many had to start in a cobra simply because it was fast enough to never get caught until you got back to station.

And then there were those that would park up next to a star, back end against the exclusion zone, and wait for the NPC to emergency stop out of SC as they hit the exclusion zone trying to get behind you...

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Here's some more memories:

There were normally no feds at Robigo, so you could take-off normally and jump away, but very occasionally, a lone fed would be there waiting, so that he could scan you as soon as you came out of the hanger. That used to drive people nuts. IIRC, some people got scanned in the hanger too.

Best of all, like all these money-making schemes, loads of people joined in, but didn't research properly how to do it. Every day, there was someone, who messed up, posting a thread about how the game was broken because he lost X million, and loads of others supporting him and suggesting he raise a ticket. Most of them seemed to think that is was unfair that the NPCs chased them down and stopped them from making their 60 million run successfully. It caused more sour grapes than anything else I've seen on the forum. I guess FD got rid of it to free-up their customer support.

Oh i had that scan on launch fail too. Lol
Brilliant.

People can't seem to cope with failure these days. Everything should be easy, failure impossible. I don't understand it. It's not fun if you can't fail. It's just an inevitable payday. Like being at work. Lol

I loved being chased by NPC's. Even if it was a bit odd. I'd rather FD tweaked those insta-dictions, rather than nerf the entire thing. That was my only complaint, was that those things were unavoidable. Everything else was fair and quite balanced.

These days, I run around with illegal cargo, a 300,000cr bounty, while pledged to PowerPlay, and what do i get?
The odd, suicidal Elite bounty hunter attacking me outside it's jurisdiction, so i can legally kill him. Yay....

 

[Zeeman]

And then there were those that would park up next to a star, back end against the exclusion zone, and wait for the NPC to emergency stop out of SC as they hit the exclusion zone trying to get behind you...

Guilty as charged. It made me giggle every time...


Z...

 

[Lord_aNOOBis]

I loved those smuggling missions! Earned my first big bunch of credits through robigo. I started with a T6 (or was it a keelback) went on to an ASP real quick (that was a game changer for smuggling) and ended up with a Python + several million credits left. Good times.

It was especially hard to deliver your goods to a heavily guarded military outpost. The ships would scan you on approach. To get through I needed good boosters, silent running, heatsinks and hella lot of good nerves.


I'm just afraid that it would be too easy nowadays. Even back in the day there was no system security ship I wouldn't outrun. With engineers it could be too easy.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

I definately feel some form of HIGH!!! risk.... high fun activity with HIGH reward is needed in game.

If smuggling was extremely difficult and skill based but gave high rewards that would be an attractive game play mechanic.

right now... people are earning money way to fast via exploits and shortcuts which a child could do. rewards needs to be scaled.

 

[bootsam]

These were great fun. Except for the scan detected failures right at the last second of docking. Those were soul destroying at times. I got very good at them but I still had the odd failure. They were tense and nervy sessions where you just could not take your eye off the ball for a single moment. Some trips were uneventful, relatively speaking, but some were interdiction after interdiction from the off. Esp the ones where you had to use an outpost. I really enjoyed those (except the failures).

They were high reward but you risked a lot off effort if you messed up and even the most careful and diligent journey could still end up as a fail.

But FD nerfed them because some dolt was more worried about other peoples fun rather than their own.

 

[Lordxenu]

I loved the Robigo missions I spent hours doing them they were far more than just a get rich quick scheme. I used them to buy my anaconda in the end but spent weeks if not months getting there. The heartbreak of getting scanned at your first station back in the bubble was real!

I was really upset when the scan fail mechanic left it feels like you're not really smuggling now if it just reduces how much you get paid why not just pay less to transport it in the first place!?!

 

[ExoForce]

Anarchy, outbreak. :x

 

[Fishy]

Silly question, but why don't you folks run secretive (generally criminal mastermind) type sightseeing missions? They take you on a long-ish tour, come with big rewards, can be stacked for a single final destination, may send NPC hunters after you, and will fail on scan providing the adrenalin on that final docking attempt.

They're basically exactly the same thing apart form the cargo description, and the fact that they're not available just in Robigo but at any station (though a station where you've got high rep with multiple factions will provide more choice). And most of these require cabin from economy to 1st class, meaning no Orca/Beluga required.

 

[Hugeness]

Silly question, but why don't you folks run secretive (generally criminal mastermind) type sightseeing missions? They take you on a long-ish tour, come with big rewards, can be stacked for a single final destination, may send NPC hunters after you, and will fail on scan providing the adrenalin on that final docking attempt.

They're basically exactly the same thing apart form the cargo description, and the fact that they're not available just in Robigo but at any station (though a station where you've got high rep with multiple factions will provide more choice). And most of these require cabin from economy to 1st class, meaning no Orca/Beluga required.

Nice one Fishy, others have mentioned something similar earlier in the thread.
Passenger missions isn't something i've done a lot of.
Is it the kind of thing you could do in a Cobra or other smaller ship? Would I need a spread of cabin types, or are these shady types usually First/business class?

 

[Fishy]

Nice one Fishy, others have mentioned something similar earlier in the thread.
Passenger missions isn't something i've done a lot of.
Is it the kind of thing you could do in a Cobra or other smaller ship? Would I need a spread of cabin types, or are these shady types usually First/business class?

Since they're VIPs, each mission will occupy a full module, even if they need less seats than what you have. These missions can require any cabin class, I've done some 20m ones in Economy class... And you can slot the passengers in any class of the requested class or below, so Business class cabins can also pickup Economy missions, etc.

For ships, any ship can do, really, but the module size will just limit what decent-sized cabin class you can fit. Typically, an Asp can fit a large enough 1st class cabin to accept any VIP mission apart from the Luxury ones (Orca/Beluga exclusives). If you want to stack missions, you'll need multiple cabins, giving a point to bigger ships, at the cost of more fun when boosting inside the final station.

 

[Hugeness]

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to give these a go later

If you want to stack missions, you'll need multiple cabins, giving a point to bigger ships, at the cost of more fun when boosting inside the final station.

I don't know mate... Boosting a silent Beluga through the slot sounds like a lot of fun! [yesnod]

 

[Tobias Reaper]

BRING ROBIGO BACK!!!!!!!