Does Anyone Know How the Game Decides if a Ship is a Mission Target?

[Cmnd Fulsom]

So, I took a massacre mission for 24 "smugglers" in a system, it doesn't really matter. The point is, I'm supposed to murder 24 "smugglers" of a given faction. Now, I've found exactly one of these guys and they weren't any different, a wanted member of this faction, but with mission target on the scan. I'm curious to know, how does the game determine if a given ship will be a mission target, what separates a ship that is a "smuggler" from one that's simply wanted? Also, where would one loiter around to find the most smugglers, as I clearly am not in this location.



Stay frosty,



Cmnd Fulsom

 

[Quantis Trap]

Here's an oldie but still mostly good link I think.

It is much nicer now that we get that mission target message!

I need to try one or two again to see how close this still is.

Please let us know, when you've completed it, what you perceive may be different now.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

So, I took a massacre mission for 24 "smugglers" in a system, it doesn't really matter. The point is, I'm supposed to murder 24 "smugglers" of a given faction.

Generally it's equipment - smugglers and pirates are both wanted, but pirates will have a manifest scanner and interdictor (and often also hatchbreakers) and will tend to fly multiroles and combat ships rather than freighters and multiroles.

If the nav beacon isn't compromised, you might find quite a few smugglers there. They also show up quite a bit in station traffic - if you can find an outpost (smaller NFZ) you might be able to get a bunch of them before they dock or after they launch.

They're also plentiful in supercruise in most systems, but finding one for the right faction might take a while.

 

[Schlack]

So, I took a massacre mission for 24 "smugglers" in a system, it doesn't really matter. The point is, I'm supposed to murder 24 "smugglers" of a given faction. Now, I've found exactly one of these guys and they weren't any different, a wanted member of this faction, but with mission target on the scan. I'm curious to know, how does the game determine if a given ship will be a mission target, what separates a ship that is a "smuggler" from one that's simply wanted? Also, where would one loiter around to find the most smugglers, as I clearly am not in this location.



Stay frosty,



Cmnd Fulsom

Targets for pirate massacre missions are bugged to hell, smugglers are probably the same.

In the pirate examples, pirates are spawning, are wanted, are from the right faction, in the right system and are not mission targets. Any mission with more than a tiny number of target kills required is impossible to complete. Until its fixed you can ignore these as useless clutter on the mission board.

 

[Troz]

Could be that this is related to the current massacre mission bug introduced in 3.0.2.

Thread is here if OP wants to add his or her voice:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-faction-pirates-not-quot-mission-target-quot

 

[Shiro Akai]

Roll 6 with this:

?

 

[Sapyx]

The "problem", as I understand it, is that NPCs are generated with an "archetype" - their basic character class, from which they may not deviate. This archetype cannot be directly seen by us, but it determines their likely ship type, loadout, behaviour and the messages they say. Pirate, smuggler, trader, miner, bounty-hunter, whatever. These "Massacre" missions require targets of that specific archetype, though I think the "kill civilians" MMs include several archetypes (miner, passenger, trader).

Once the Archetype for the NPC is generated, it then calculates whether the ship is Wanted or not. Certain archetypes are more likely to be Wanted than others. Pirates are almost always Wanted. Smugglers usually are, but might not be. Bounty-hunters and Traders are almost never Wanted, but they still might be. Thus, a "kill pirates" mission doesn't include all Wanted ships, because a Wanted target might not be a Pirate archetype.

Where are you looking for your smugglers? You'll find them around stations, and in nav beacons; they almost never spawn in RES sites.

 

[Cmnd Fulsom]

The "problem", as I understand it, is that NPCs are generated with an "archetype" - their basic character class, from which they may not deviate. This archetype cannot be directly seen by us, but it determines their likely ship type, loadout, behaviour and the messages they say. Pirate, smuggler, trader, miner, bounty-hunter, whatever. These "Massacre" missions require targets of that specific archetype, though I think the "kill civilians" MMs include several archetypes (miner, passenger, trader).

Once the Archetype for the NPC is generated, it then calculates whether the ship is Wanted or not. Certain archetypes are more likely to be Wanted than others. Pirates are almost always Wanted. Smugglers usually are, but might not be. Bounty-hunters and Traders are almost never Wanted, but they still might be. Thus, a "kill pirates" mission doesn't include all Wanted ships, because a Wanted target might not be a Pirate archetype.

Where are you looking for your smugglers? You'll find them around stations, and in nav beacons; they almost never spawn in RES sites.

I loitered around the nav beacon for about half an hour and hardly saw any wanted ships at all, and no mission targets, flew around in super cruise for quite some time and didn't have much more luck, tried loitering outside the system's sole outpost, but unfotunately I was having serious connection problems tonight, so I never was able to finish my mission. C'est la vie.



Stay frosty,



Cmnd fulsom

 

[Sapyx]

And this highlights the other main issue with the massacre missions: it's simply not very good at calculating how possible it is to finish them within the time period. Recent changes to ship spawning has made the issue much worse, in that ships can now spawn from literally any faction in the game, not just the half-dozen factions that are present in the system. This significantly dilutes the number of possible targets, which were already quite low. I do not know if the game is supposed to increase the probability of mission targets spawning, but it doesn't.

Personally, I will still take combat zone massacre missions (which are easily attainable), and massacre pirate missions if the number of targets is less than six. Other massacre targets are frustratingly impossible for me.

I'd also recommend avoiding "wetwork" missions completely, since you don't know what your target archetype and victim count is going to be until after you accept the mission.