Investigation into the "Mysterious Stranger"

[djadjok]

It's indeed easy to think that it could just be a random occurrence with a low probability. One thing I can relate about this is that I have never gotten any of the 5 TO missions that I've been offered before I have done numerous missions for a faction (or factions) and been well past allied with them. Is that definitive evidence? Not by itself.

Exactly that. In the assembled database so far there is no recorded evidence of cases that differ from the described situation.

Also, all of the TO missions offered to me were upon completion (handing-in, if you will) of missions while docked at station. I've never received any in the way described by @Max Bothin. Make of that what you will...

Same can be applied here. At least one known TO mission assignment mechanics directly relates to mission completion and I think we have already enough evidence of this (direct time coincidence on log-file level, special text added to the mission completion screen)
However an existence of multiple TO-assignment mechanics (for the same pool of TO-related locations) is still a valid assumption - contrary is not proved so far + "rumors". More - the "other side" of TO-mechanics - location generation and appearance (at least in in case of the Bubble) in fact groups some different mechanics ("patches" as they have been extended over time) not completely same in their nature - like original "crashed ship" sites and - later - TO-related messages attached to some settlements and "unidentified wreckage" sites - all that had been added later (even not mentioning "extended" versions in Colonia).
Ok, after this obligatory remark I must admit that I personally don't believe in that theoretical case of "multiple" TO assignment procedures. So far my current explanation of related "rumors":
1)If I'm not wrong with my data it has taken THREE YEARS (three, Karl!.. if not four) for commanders just to notice that there is always some "special" text added to mission completion screen that marks TO mission assignment. Even that at some stages there were some very special attention payed for TO's. Commanders are not as attentive as we'd like to think. Yep, also there are other understandable factors that do reduce effectively our attention at the time TO mission arrives. And no other simple log/record based methods to track those events.
2)I know that the following argument is "bad" and "not immersive". But I have invested quite some time in the investigation of some other surface-related missions, their timeline, behavior, etc. Sorry, but we all know well that at least some of them bugged (they were bugged in 2016 and some of them still bugged up to now). In particular that concerns mission related inbox messages. Sometimes they arrive with quite a big time lag... or even require logoff/login (if not complete restart... and repeat of preceding steps).
So far some TO-related "rumors" on my opinion do relate to either (1) or (2). Anyway I have no any "better" explanation for the moment.

The suggestion that TOs might be a way to send us away from an "area" we've been spending a lot if time in is an interesting one. As you saw from my previous post, I don't claim any definitive and/or quantifiable evidence in my experiences with these.
That said, my experience doesn't suggest this because I would have expected to have gotten a TO mission in my current situation. I've been playing pretty aimlessly for some time now (no real goals in mind) and have spent an immense amount of time in a handful of systems just running missions for Mats/encoded Mats and for credits, etc. The vast majority of these missions have been run from the same system and the same base.
...and, having said that, I do realize that probability doesn't really work that way either. The chance of a hit is the same each time you run a mission; it doesn't change based upon the number of times that you run a mission.

In fact that is not a suggestion - mostly an established fact=)
I'm quite sure that IF your commander haven't received it already recently AND IF your commander works somewhere inside the borders of the Bubble then the next TO mission (today - 8/06/2020 up to the next Thursday) will direct him to this site - Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-16_{body 2}{type:CS}{var:UW_2H}{coords:[5.19,143.15]}
A little journey to Pleiades. Even that this site do not belong to the very first list of available TO-related sites - historically - imagine that journey - without guardian booster... or even without engineered FSD. And on a not travel-oriented ship? And you have only two weeks to do it. Good enough as distraction? =)
And all that concerns missions and their types - so far the best candidates are reputation gains and number of missions for a given faction (both factors are quite linked).
And yes - evidently I'm still working on the topic

o7

 

[djadjok]

Heads up. Global timetable for Tip Off related crash sites has been shifted (delayed) for 1 tick this Thursday (i.e. this server maintenance has been "ignored" and sites have not changed their respective states) - probably affected by the FC patch. Many thanks to all commanders who have helped to clarify this situation (Ian Doncaster, Paulina Smith, TheGilmster, Requese).
Note 1: this concerns also the timetables published in the spreadsheet linked in my signature. Hope to correct them in order to reflect this changes.
Note 2: Probably the same issue have affected also timetable driven megaships jumping (have not tested).
Note 3: According to some archived records, that is not the first time this situation occurs. Similar 1 tick shift has been observed at least once earlier in 2016-2017

 

[djadjok]

Heads Up, commanders!
I invite all commanders who are still interested in the Tip Off in-game mechanics and it's functionality as it was intended by design to check this post and check/confirm the related issue. In brief - since the FC update the time-dependent part of TO mechanics is broken (just stopped in it's state as of 4/06), same concerns megaships scheduled jumping.

 

[djadjok]

As an update - issue was flagged as "confirmed" (and acknowledged) the same day.

I don't count that it will be of any kind of priority.

So far the last tick (25/06) has been also "skipped", and we have now a 3-tick delay from the earlier established timetables. This time I have't tested traveling mega-ships, beside one "special" - the "Conduit". Surprisingly It still jumps according to established timetable, so it's probably depended on a "different" mechanics.

 

[Psyral]

I think I've solved the Tip Off missions.

This is the twentieth wreckage we've searched. Are you going to say what we're looking for or not?
I keep telling you, there is nothing out here worth finding.

...
Ok. Maybe I didn't solve it. But it does fit how we all feel about these (Well at least how I feel).

 

[Beng_Ammon]

I just got one of these.

What do i need to do to help you guys analyze this stuff?

 

[djadjok]

I just got one of these.

What do i need to do to help you guys analyze this stuff?

Hi! In fact the first thing to do - is to check if the mission directs to one of the already known sites (or not) - Bubble or Colonia tabs in this google spreadsheet
o7

 

[Stellar Shepherd]

I've completed the Borminus A2 at Harrison's Progress today.

Message upon completion was

Scanned Message:
Corporate Data Log: Files attached as per your requirements.
You were right, he was visiting illegal clubs almost three times a week.
Someone in his position should really have known better. Check out the Holo-data - I promise you it's juicy stuff!

 

[Beng_Ammon]

Hi! In fact the first thing to do - is to check if the mission directs to one of the already known sites (or not) - Bubble or Colonia tabs in this google spreadsheet
o7

This one!

Svarogich_{body:3 a}{type:ST}{var:L3M}{name:Barnes Landing}

IDL0189

cfm

114.34375

-203.78125

101.53125

254.77

Svarogich

3 a

2.15

-84.56

 

[IPFreely]

After receiving the message a couple of times and having nothing pressing to do - I decided to pursue this message and see what's up -
So I travelled a couple 100 Ly and put in the coordinates - (We didn't have the probes then) - After several trial and error attempts, I finally got to the correct location -
A crashed ship as proclaimed - BUT - nothing to recover -
Either someone beat me to it, or something else was going on -
Frustrated, I used the SRV and collected a large number of mats -
Seems that mats were increased in that area than was normally found at other sites -
Arsenic, Mercury, and Polonium were major finds within a 2Km radius of that location - (If I remember rightly, the amounts collected were around 15-20 of each) -
Even found a crashed satellite with the regular collection items at the extreme edge of that radius - After that, I have ignored those messages as being not worth the effort -

 

[djadjok]

This one!

Svarogich_{body:3 a}{type:ST}{var:L3M}{name:Barnes Landing}

IDL0189

cfm

114.34375

-203.78125

101.53125

254.77

Svarogich

3 a

2.15

-84.56

This one is pretty known. Directs to a planetary settlement, message can be scanned without alerting defenses, however that has been done quite a number of times.
Nowadays one must receive more than one tip off - probably 5 or dozen - in a short period of time (less then 2 weeks) in order to get still unknown locations.

After receiving the message a couple of times and having nothing pressing to do - I decided to pursue this message and see what's up -
So I travelled a couple 100 Ly and put in the coordinates - (We didn't have the probes then) - After several trial and error attempts, I finally got to the correct location -
A crashed ship as proclaimed - BUT - nothing to recover -
Either someone beat me to it, or something else was going on -
Frustrated, I used the SRV and collected a large number of mats -
Seems that mats were increased in that area than was normally found at other sites -
Arsenic, Mercury, and Polonium were major finds within a 2Km radius of that location - (If I remember rightly, the amounts collected were around 15-20 of each) -
Even found a crashed satellite with the regular collection items at the extreme edge of that radius - After that, I have ignored those messages as being not worth the effort -

I can only suppose that most probably that was in system HIP 14840 (or Carichilo?)
Years ago that was a known any many times reported bug.
And yes, it was corrected (and other bug have been created instead, yes)
So if you will be directed yo any of those particular locations now, fly there and land on mentioned coordinates.. or better just using DSS arrive to the destination via nav.panel...
There will be nothing =)
Except "there must be a crashed ship here"...
... and yes, it will be there, in fact. Not exactly there, but ~4.5 km's away from the supposed (and DSS marked!) coordinates.Whith a scannable data core and a Tip Off end message=)

 

[Psyral]

From discussions with @djadjok in the IRH (Independent Raxxla Hunters) discord, it seems the key to getting these is just doing a lot of missions in a very short time span. I got 5 of them by grinding from Baron to King (7 ranks) in a day. I just stacked missions back and forth between two Empire systems. I probably won't be doing any mission grinding for a bit (at least not to that degree) since I've already hit Admiral and King. .. But I have gotten the occasional one offs from BGS-ing The Dark Wheel for the "Turning the Wheel" initiative.

 

[Crimson Echo]

Competing the tip-offs does not seem a end in and of it self. I am starting to suspect that the 'competition' we as supposedly racing to the objective of the tip off mission may not just be abstract fluff text, but a hint that a special npc of some sort will spawn. There are some lines in Legacy that sort of suggest these tip-offs might be from the club. (Hammer refused to work for those who hide their identity etc. Which in the case of Legacy is the Imp navy and possibly by extension Denton Patreus(the attack on Freeholm is very much his MO). (which would fit in with the MIC being the core of the Club)

Which could mean our competition may be the real DW?

 

[djadjok]

Competing the tip-offs does not seem a end in and of it self. I am starting to suspect that the 'competition' we as supposedly racing to the objective of the tip off mission may not just be abstract fluff text, but a hint that a special npc of some sort will spawn. There are some lines in Legacy that sort of suggest these tip-offs might be from the club. (Hammer refused to work for those who hide their identity etc. Which in the case of Legacy is the Imp navy and possibly by extension Denton Patreus(the attack on Freeholm is very much his MO). (which would fit in with the MIC being the core of the Club)

Which could mean our competition may be the real DW?

Sorry, but no.
There is no competition, no racing.
And there is no "hidden identity" - only your commanders own lack of attention (Yes, at certain moment your commander can see the real sender credentials, but only once and only at a particular stage of Tip Off mission assignment)

PS: The only "race" you have - is the one with established timetable for "crashed ship" sites. Once the "clean up " team (on the date mentioned in the mission text) finish its work, then the train is gone for the next 3 months. It's not in anyway a competition between commanders.

 

[CMDR X]

Just want to share this. I was topping off my rank grind for the Cutter (data missions Ngalinn >< Mainani), when I received the Mysterious Tip.

I was going to delete it but said, what the heck why not. It was to the Bhrima B 3 a site. It is in the spreadsheet linked above, row 28.
The scan message was the canned one I saw a few times earlier in this thread about "were going down, etc". It was a fairly large
wrecked vessel but couldn't really make out what type. The whole site was between two steep mountains. It had 3-4 skimmers
shooting at me and one burnt cargo rack with some mats in it. I forget what kind though. Here is the log entries:

X.
edit: added other screen snip

 

[Dreaders]

Here's a tip. Stick to one burning station, and just keep doing them quickly. I've been getting my first tip offs (and dying trying to get the data from settlements). The tips I've got are in the sheet, but they are coming fast - best opp for research I guess if you want to generate a lot of tips in a short space of time. It seems to confirm that it's completing many missions in a short duration for factions you are over-allied with. Note I always pick REP+ options.

 

[djadjok]

Here's a tip. Stick to one burning station, and just keep doing them quickly. I've been getting my first tip offs (and dying trying to get the data from settlements). The tips I've got are in the sheet, but they are coming fast - best opp for research I guess if you want to generate a lot of tips in a short space of time. It seems to confirm that it's completing many missions in a short duration for factions you are over-allied with. Note I always pick REP+ options.

Yep, doing evacuations from burning stations and rep+ missions so far looks like a natural choice for Tip Off grinding (however to my surprise I haven't received many of them this time).

Settlements do contain the "corporate data log" family of messages, and I'm pretty sure that we have all of them (a week ago I've posted an example of how to scan settlements for Tip Offs - for the one on Torno 3). I count more on crash sites, but they are more rare.
Tip Off missions by their mechanics tend to send you as far as possible from your current location (the first received are always the furthest in the set of all currently available - permanent and freshly activated ones), next " a bit closer" and so on, so the order of Tip Off mission assignment for all commanders doing missions in the same system and at the same tick are the same.

Subject where I'm not sure is the effectiveness - for Tip Offs - of doing missions for more then one minor faction (at least while staying in the same system). It's hard to judge without many samples of quantitative data (and the latter is hard to obtain). So far I have had the impression that only the minor faction most "worked on" by commander - in a given system - do contribute to Tip Offs. Now I've became suspicious that if always staying in the same system then doing missions in parallel also for the other factions as well have not only zero influence, but even can affect negatively the rate of Tip Off mission assignment. However this is just an impression and can be completely wrong.

 

[cmdr borschtl]

I've got a tip off mission from a mysterious stranger to report. It led me to a security site with a beacon. After scanning this led me to worldcraft themepark but i'm stuck now. Can't find a hotel here. Is this a known mission? Does this lead any further? Are there other missions connected to this? I didn't know where else to post since the forum is a chaos and i don't feel like reading thousands of pages of threads. If someone knows more please let me know.

was a security facility there. After scanning its main beacon i got this:

now i'm stuck. Shouldn't this lead further? Where is the hotel? How do i get the money laundering files?



edit: reading last few comments in the thread: i was aligned with Aislin Duval powerplay faction and also allied with all the minor factions in the system. So maximum alignement for the system i guess. Message popped up a minute after i allied the last faction. I have also elite rank in exploration if that matters.

 

[cmdr borschtl]

I'll continue with getting allied now with all factions in the orbital of new california. I'll update here if something comes from it.

 

[djadjok]

I've got a tip off mission from a mysterious stranger to report. It led me to a security site with a beacon. After scanning this led me to worldcraft themepark but i'm stuck now. Can't find a hotel here. Is this a known mission?

Yes, this is a known Tip Off related location.

Does this lead any further?

This particular mission ends at this point (when you had got the message and the credit voucher).

Are there other missions connected to this?

Hmm. In fact the particular message you've received belong to the "Corporate Data Log" group, that do contain 24 members in total - so you can find other pieces on other locations. However I suppose that all messages from this particular group are already known.

I didn't know where else to post since the forum is a chaos and i don't feel like reading thousands of pages of threads. If someone knows more please let me know.

That's look like a good place. In fact I'm collecting all Tip Off related locations, so you can always check if the one you've received is the new one or not by looking in the Tip Off spreadsheet (check the link in my signature).

edit: reading last few comments in the thread: i was aligned with Aislin Duval powerplay faction and also allied with all the minor factions in the system. So maximum alignement for the system i guess. Message popped up a minute after i allied the last faction. I have also elite rank in exploration if that matters.

In order to get Tip Offs one must do missions (many) for at least one faction. Anything else is not a requirement (but - probably - can affect the rate of their occurrence).

o7