Amazing new assassination missions and rewards

Truesilver

Truesilver
Wow - 3.0 has turned the mission/reward system on its head, at least as far as assassinations go.

Last night I had only a short time to play. I wanted to practise some stuff with my new 3.0 PvP build against an NPC, 1v1, before I go fer real against a Cmdr.

So, I thought I'd go to the Bunda Anarchy and interdict an Authority ship (they can't summon help in an Anarchy).

Before undocking at Jameson, I checked the missions board just in case I could make a few mats from the jump.

And there it was: Assassination Mission. Bunda. 5 x MEF.

5 x MEF?! Good griefer ... that's 45 x CIF! To kill one informant??

Mercifully remembering to fit an Adv Disco first, I hightailed it to Bunda.

One scan of the system and a couple of minutes later, the guy had been paid the wages of sin and I was jumping back to Shinrarta looking for another mission.

Before RL sleep beckoned, I'd done 5 of these missions, all paying 5 x g5 mats. Two MEF, three BioTech. I did see many EFC also but I was only taking missions to Bunda, cuz Anarchy, and they were for elsewhere.

If a Cmdr had told me in 2.4 that Frontier would in 3.0 be offering me 45 x CIF to shoot up one easily-found NPC, honestly I'd have wondered if his Powerplant was leaking.

After five missions, a few possible improvements occurred:

- All five targets were in Anacondas

- At least four had the same scenario

- Two had the same name!

- Only one deployed an SLF

- All five were rather helpless against maxed RNG and a PvP gameplan

- It is possible that Frontier may need to re-code to take into account Anarchy systems. Specifically, there was an Authority partner-in-crime that might have been supposed to help the target, perhaps even summoning assistance, yet couldn't fire on me because my killing his informant didn't register as a crime. (In other words I may have been circumventing some of the intended difficulty mechanics, in an Anarchy.)

In short, some more variety and challenge would be welcome. (I may be about to be pitchforked for saying this, but tbh I think the challenge should be increased to justify the otherwise excellent reward.)

Either way, though, this is the PvE the game offered me last night:

- An activity I wanted to do, for its own sake

- The chance to practise a task requiring user skills

- A reward I desired

- Both destinations (start/end) convenient to me

- No bugs/frustrations (eg targets spawned fine)

All of the above seems such huge progress. I repeat that being handed 45 CIF (in one mission) for doing the very thing that I would have wanted to do anyway feels like a revelation.

Overall I think my Cmdr last night felt that his experience and equipment were put to good use by an employer that valued them and him. Slight overkill, perhaps, but he can live with that.

Good job, Frontier. Real progress!
 

Maro-Val

Maro-Val
Me and my friends also had fun last night with these missions and gathered some important mats. They will probably disable those missions too.

On our case in 4 missions, we had twice a cutter and twice a corvette, as the target person.
 

Aashenfox

Aashenfox
I still need to upload it, but I will....an exhilarating battle between my solo FGS and a 'new wing assassination' of the standard composition: Annie, FDL, AspS, Viper mk3, Vulture, Cobra. I killed in the order: FDL, Vulture, AspS, Cobra, Viper, Annie, and limped home with 8% hull and almost no ammo. Was a hell of a fight tho, thought I wasn't going to make it at a couple of points.

Same observations as you really, too common composition, too common tactics. Glad there hasn't been a fighter for me yet, that would have tipped the scales and made it super hard to do in a medium without gimping tactics, like kiting and separating the herd.

As for CIF, I consider that 3.0 fixed what was previously a HUGE issue. That a grade 3 mat was simultaneously the most important and hardest to farm in the game (arguable, but you know what I mean). Now it's as trivial as any other grade 3, so I'm going to say 'definitely working as intended, at last'.

Maro-Val said:
Me and my friends also had fun last night with these missions and gathered some important mats. They will probably disable those missions too.

On our case in 4 missions, we had twice a cutter and twice a corvette, as the target person.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I've had the exact same composition some 6 times now. The one I describe above.
 
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fruitbat

fruitbat
Doing these wing assassination missions on your own is fun. So far I've had cutters, corvettes and annies.

I only think that the main ship is more engineered though, would like to see its escort pack more punch as well.
 

Lawlazyboy

L
I don’t see why frontier couldnt add an addition threat level option to every mission (maybe just for Elite). So if you want a challenge it will give you one :)
 

Muetdhiver

Muetdhiver
Those new assassination missions is exactly what we need more off :

Decent paying, difficult missions with good rewards. With the new piracy targets it's by far
the best PvE combat gameplay released (along with the thargoids) in the full last year.

What we don't need more off : Silly kill 127 pirates bounty farming missions.
 

Zieman

Zieman
Aashenfox said:
Interesting, I've had the exact same composition some 6 times now. The one I describe above.
Click to expand...
Of the maybe a dozen such wing assasination missions (kill terrorist leader), all but one had that exact composition. In that one exception the target was sporting a Cutter.
Oh, once I saw the target in supercruise flying a Corvette, but as I didn't have interdictor fitted, I had to find the mission USS and there he was in an Anaconda. [wacky]
 

Cocalarix

Cocalarix
Like others said, the wing assassination missions are a really good challenge now. Killed 3 engineered Corvettes in a wing of 6, although the wingmates melt quickly.

Muetdhiver said:
What we don't need more off : Silly kill 127 pirates bounty farming missions.
Click to expand...

I'm not even sure how they thought that number of mission targets is reasonable, don't think they've tried to complete one.
 

Truesilver

Truesilver
Thanks, all.

To be clear guys, my five missions in the OP, each of which yielded 5 x g5 mats (25 x g5 total), were not Wing missions.

I am going to try solo-ing the Wing missions next. But out of interest, how do the mat rewards compare?
 

Lily from anim.o.v.e

Lily from anim.o.v.e
See this is where RNG si good to make diversity on who you hunt, but no these compositions are superlimited in variety. I guess that is related to the shipp you use?
I realised my cutter never gets interdicted by some exotic combos when i trade or such, always FDL's or condas. Why not just 3-4 smaller ships? This felt so boring after qa while i just avoid the battles because they even resolve identically in a boring way not worth to spent my time participating in them.
 

[VR] DDM_Reaper20

[VR] DDM_Reaper20
I had a very pleasant experience taking a wing assassination mission on my own. The wing consisted of an Anaconda (the target) and some smaller ships.

The Anaconda had phasing sequence lasers, cutting directly through my shields and bringing my Corvette's hull down to 80% before I cleaned up (reactive armour w. thermal, heavy-duty HRP). THAT was FANTASTIC. Even better, I got FIVE Biotechs for that!
 

fruitbat

fruitbat
Truesilver said:
Thanks, all.

To be clear guys, my five missions in the OP, each of which yielded 5 x g5 mats (25 x g5 total), were not Wing missions.

I am going to try solo-ing the Wing missions next. But out of interest, how do the mat rewards compare?
Click to expand...

Same rewards, just more fun. The main target has more engineered mods particularly weapon specials. The escort ships i think are standard fodder.

As it stands, i can still comfortably solo them in my corvette with a couple of shield cells usage. Would have to think about it much more if the wingman were bumped to the same engineering level. That would be even more fun.
 
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Truesilver

Truesilver
fruitbat said:
Same rewards, just more fun. The main target has more engineered mods particularly weapon specials. The escort ships i think are standard fodder.

As it stands, i can still comfortably solo them in my corvette with a couple of shield cells usage. Would have to think about it much more if the wingman were bumped to the same engineering level. That would be even more fun.
Click to expand...

Understood. I might take some limpets to gather all the mats from the carcasses. I'd like the additional challenge and that way I'd feel I was getting some additional reward also. Scooping them all individually from like 7 ships would probably be a bit much (and they'd time out)...
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
It is very heart warming to hear such feedback. I agree biggest issue with high end rank ships has been always a) challenge b) rewards. If both feel right to experienced players, that's good starting point for mission system how to tweak it further.
 

Cmdr Ultra

Cmdr Ultra
Wing Assassination missions are really good.

1st time I fought an Engineered Cutter wing I had to High wake out to survive.
2nd time I killed him but still had jump out away from the wing.

Then I fought an Anaconda wing and killed them all.

My Vanilla shield generator isn't helping, I need to look into that.
 
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