News Skimmer Massacre Mission - Alteration

Whew! I thought you were only going to make them available in open. I figured that was about next. Glad to hear it.
 
Hello Commanders,

For mission balancing reasons, we have made a change to the Massacre Skimmer mission type: Commanders will now only be able to take up five of these missions types at a time.

This may be something we change in a future update and if it does, we will let you know.


Thanks for your understanding!

Translation = Play our way or find another game to play. Will do...

TigerTen SAS
 
For this content it sure was. But it's not unreasonable for something more dangerous, requiring more skill, like smuggling. But that has been cut out years ago. Sothis/Robigo, you will be fondly remembered. Mad dashes to the landing pad, up to 3 other ships dropping into the wake of a single interdiction, and one scan and it's over, missions failed and massive fine.

Yeah, exactly. I loved doing the Robigo Run, and unfortunately smuggling got entirely destroyed while I was away from the game for 18 months. It was my favourite thing to do! Plus, it's a fun career with all the mechanics in place and previously successful missions, I don't get why it got cut at the knees.

Smuggling missions don't even get a distance-in-supercruise bonus, or a choice to pick mission rewards from what I've seen in 3.0, and the cargo requirements are so so so high so I'm forced to use a Python or larger (and not make nearly as much as legal cargo missions for some reason, and those also have cargo requirements that are way too high).

Frontier, please bring back nice fail-on-scan smuggling missions. Send heavily engineered ships after us, I don't care. Just be sure to keep the cargo requirements low so someone can use, like, a Cobra or Courier or smaller to do the missions. Make them work best with smaller and cooler/faster running ships, but nicely stackable if someone is skilled enough to do it in the larger ships. I put this in the Suggestion thread a while back, and I'm not even sure if you're aware what state smuggling is in.

There was a bug in 2.4 (I also mentioned this in the "bring smuggling back please" Suggestion post) where each week after the servers came back online from the Weekly Tick, the old fail-on-scan smuggling missions could be found again in various places; both the old hotspots and normal Anarchy factions I ran across. I would do my best to play right after the Weekly Tick just so I could do a nice, fun smugglin' run, and a few hours after each weekly tick the missions would go away again.

Part of the problem with nerfing stuff like Skimmer Missions is that there's only 2 things that pay out big for players; if skimmers don't pay well then it's down to 1 thing (passengers). We'll handle nerfs or exploits being covered up better if there were a variety of ways to get paid. Bringing back smuggling with fail-on-scan and low cargo requirements would go a long way in giving a much more challenging way to get paid, and something fun for players to grind out.

At the very least, I hope Frontier has something about smuggling in the pipeline. It's a career that fits the world perfectly and worked great before, so it's just ODD that it's in such a state.
 
it seems 40m/hour is keep coming up. Most I seen for skimmer mission is 8m each and limit to 5 max means...…..40m each time. What is it with 40 million?
 
Yes, this was just too much. Making the price of a Cutter each hour is pretty broken. What Frontier needs to do is create some kind of gold rushes that don't feel exploity. Let the players find them, share them (or not) and once it's over it's over until the next one is found. Kinda like this but in a balanced and well implemented way, which reward the player for skillful flying and planning and not for mindlessly board hopping and missile firing.
 
Frontier, please bring back nice fail-on-scan smuggling missions. Send heavily engineered ships after us, I don't care.
...
At the very least, I hope Frontier has something about smuggling in the pipeline. It's a career that fits the world perfectly and worked great before, so it's just ODD that it's in such a state.

My favourite mission type used to be long range smuggling with fail on scan, where you could travel 300LY to or from some remote corner of the bubble but get scanned at the last minute and fail. It was one of the few things left in the game that involved some risk.

What Frontier needs to do is create some kind of gold rushes that don't feel exploity. Let the players find them, share them (or not) and once it's over it's over until the next one is found. Kinda like this but in a balanced and well implemented way, which reward the player for skillful flying and planning and not for mindlessly board hopping and missile firing.

+1.
 
My favourite mission type used to be long range smuggling with fail on scan, where you could travel 300LY to or from some remote corner of the bubble but get scanned at the last minute and fail. It was one of the few things left in the game that involved some risk.


+1.

Yeah, exactly! I mean, why aren't there even regular longer range cargo hauling or passenger missions anymore? I remember seeing some passenger transport that sent me 150ly away, but that might've been after the Weekly Tick as well (it was months ago, during 2.4). I've never seen them regularly since 2.4, but back in the day the longer range cargo missions used to be widely available.

The smuggling long range missions were the best, whenever those missions come up on Reddit people get wistful. I'd love for them to be even more challenging, but I remember loads of people writing about how they always got scanned and failed. It was likely a good challenge level, and for me they were my favourite missions by FAR and what got me hooked on Elite.

During 2.4, I'd literally drop whatever I was doing to get in the game after the Weekly Tick just so I could take advantage of long range smuggling missions being available. Everyone liked them, and old Robigo-level money is surpassed by passenger missions for a long time (and skimmers previously) anyway.

Frontier got rid of the exploit where you can sell the goods back to the black market of the station ya got the mission from (I never took advantage of that, I enjoyed the missions too much), and I just don't get why the missions are gone completely.

(And I really hope they keep in mind cargo requirements, especially if they want people to play in Open. You have to carry too much for both regular cargo hauling and smuggling, which often means you can't protect yourself adequately in Open. They got the requirements geared for PVE where you can go without a shield and be fine, it's pretty annoying)

There's a few things that I'm not 100% sure if Frontier knows regarding what missions are generating, and if they DO know, why did they make that decision? Like, there are no long range smuggling/cargo/passenger missions at all. Why remove a fun mission type? While I prefer smuggling, it's fun to take a 200ly mission to someplace I've never been before. Or, do they know that many missions available at Outposts can ONLY be done with a Python? Like, literally the only ship you can use. I assume they DO know that "fail on scan" missions are gone and that it was done on purpose... but why? That was great!

And why do the original 2 factions in Robigo (a system that just got new stations!) not offer missions despite me being long-Allied and they're in boom? They'd only offer missions immediately after the Weekly Tick in 2.4 and now in 3.0 they offer none after several flippings of the board... I just don't get it.

Hopefully they bring back previously successful and fun missions that already got NPC AI and dialogue and structures in place!

Not to keep rambling, but this also ties into an issue I've had since I came back to the game in November-- we get forced into using the larger ships too often if we wanna do anything cargo/smuggling mission related. I'd love to use ships like the Keelback or Cobra or whatever, but if I fly them then I can't take any smuggling or cargo mission. I'd even buy paintjobs and the ship kit for the Keely if I was actually able to use it, but I'm forced to use a Python or larger if I wanna be a smuggler.

There may have been discussions about all this while I was gone, that wouldn't be weird, but I don't see it discussed much and I think it's an easily solvable issue.
 
I might be alone in this but "I don't understand though!" do ya get me?

I'm with you... I'm Not Understanding at All! :mad:

Damned Nerfin Muffins! FDev seem determined to train wreck every missions type in the game. Those they can't easily train wreck due to the game mechanics, they limit how many you can take at a time... I'm sick to the back teeth with this Nerf after Nerf after f'n Nerf!

What's the matter? Afraid some people might 'enjoy' your game???
 
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WHY do you keep ignoring the SIMPLE, EASY and OBVIOUS solution to all mission balancing?

- Limit CMDRs to 1 mission of each type at a time for combat/data, 3 per type for Trading and Passenger (since they're already limited by capacity).
- Adjust payouts and rewards to match whatever they think CMDRs should get for the time, effort, and risk involved with the missions. Basically, have each mission pay out a "full stack" reward instead of having to stack 20 to get it.

That solves both major problems with missions: CMDRs arent forced to waste time refreshing mission boards to get a full in stack in order to play at max efficiency, and devs can balance missions individually without worrying about rewards getting multiplied by stacking. Plus it opens up EVERY station for running missions out of, not just the ones that have unusually high concentrations of a desired mission type, since you only need to be offered 1 good mission at a time.
 
Meh... I don't think gold rushes would be such a big deal if there was a reliable way to make enough money to play the game how you want to play it.

I love shipbuilding and engineering personally. Whether its an has res imp eagle, a hull tanked DBS with rails or a Vette with enough shields to ram a planet, I love playing with different setups. This... Gets expensive mega fast though.

I feel like whether your a "play the game" type or a "the game really starts after your ship is set the way you want it" type, the multiple grind aspect without any real, compelling, driving thematic element causes players of all types to burn out and rage quit.

I would love to feel compelled to save something in the game. Like the rescue missions when stations started getting attacked. Or have a big bad that shows up like fuggin Gary Oak at the worst times just to challenge you to a duel or have a trap set up on an escort mission or something. The narrative is the word I'm looking for. An actual personal narrative would rock.

Then the game might not have so many "i traveled 65k light years and all I got was this stupid screenshot" moments. (Btw totes otw to beagle point atm lol)
 
WHY do you keep ignoring the SIMPLE, EASY and OBVIOUS solution to all mission balancing?

- Limit CMDRs to 1 mission of each type at a time for combat/data, 3 per type for Trading and Passenger (since they're already limited by capacity).
- Adjust payouts and rewards to match whatever they think CMDRs should get for the time, effort, and risk involved with the missions. Basically, have each mission pay out a "full stack" reward instead of having to stack 20 to get it.

That solves both major problems with missions: CMDRs arent forced to waste time refreshing mission boards to get a full in stack in order to play at max efficiency, and devs can balance missions individually without worrying about rewards getting multiplied by stacking. Plus it opens up EVERY station for running missions out of, not just the ones that have unusually high concentrations of a desired mission type, since you only need to be offered 1 good mission at a time.


cause when I go to the supermarket, I buy a dozen eggs and leave 7 of them for someone else, cause I'm only allowed to buy 5!
 
cause when I go to the supermarket, I buy a dozen eggs and leave 7 of them for someone else, cause I'm only allowed to buy 5!

And I thank you for that, but please make them easier to find as my eyes aren't what they were.

I think going to single missions and no mixing of mission types would be great but then I am not a fan of missions as a day to day play style they should be for important extras like unlockings or ranking up.
 
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