I found whether they gang up actually depends on which signal you enter. In some signals they don't care and others they do. I think it might be the ones tied to the wing missions where they gang up. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell (from what I could see) which signals are actually related to which mission apart from going by the nebulous level numbers. Alternatively, it's possible to just go to a RES and go after the pirates in there instead.
Pirate MM's post balance test
- Thread starter ADAMtheWELSHMANz
- Start date
Yes, it's hard to say exactly why ganging up happens, gave me an impression that it is tied to standing with faction you kill. If they don't gang up, it's much faster and easier to rack up kills than in RES, IMO. But idea of single commander being death star of a galaxy, killing hunders of pirates single handedly never sat right with me, so I'm trying to avoid massacres and the like when I can. Aside from the fact that PVE is more or less a snoozefest in this game...
As I replied in post #11 of this thread it's really not difficult to collect theae missions atm.
Personally I'm not going after max credits per hour but a balance of mats and credits by mixing in solo assasination missions (abandon any asking you to meet a contact as they really are a pita).
As for the gameplay been boring I don't follow. Loads of Cmdrs love a bit of haz rez BH'ing whether for the love of combat or testing a new build.
This just means they can earn a lot more than the 20-40m/hr they'd get without adding in a few missions for what they're planning to do anyway.
That quirk of the mission system really bugs me.... that is, in lieu of any other activity available, generate lots of a single activity. It really doesn't make sense.Damn, 11 systems offering MM's for Maia only!
I like sourcing my missions in just the one spot so that's a bit more hopping around and prep work than I prefer.
I suppose it means they never dry up, but do you get many hyperdictions as you travel around?
PVE
edtools.cc
What should be a good bounty hunting grounds: A single, wealthy faction surrounded by many, many pirates.
What actually makes the best money: Dozens of lawful factions surrounding a single, beaten-down pirate faction.
It's so counter-intuitive.
The boring part is collecting the missions... why? because it would seem you have a special system... for me to get 8 factions together at times takes HOURS... hours = boring.. if you mean... you pick them up from time to time... then were not talking a per hour money basis..
I really doubt people are consistently breaking 150m a hour..... hour after hour... yes... it comes in bursts... no way its like mining unless its a broken system
Some missions don't stack. Some do. Not sure what the mechanic is. From what I've seen it has nothing to do with cross faction or instance.
I've spent a lot of time at Barnard's Star trying to figure out massacre kill overlap. Still confused.
PVE
edtools.cc
This tool allows you to find systems where pirate MM's generate for only a single system which eliminates the HOURS of searching.
As for the stacking @Johnny-0-Sunday they ALWAYS stack if from different factions.
Make sure you're only selecting PIRATE MM's, not CZ's or the broken deserters/infected vessel ones.
Try the tool and you'll realize there are dozens of systems, if not hundreds, that'll allow thus kind of stacking.
Please test yourself before dismissing how broken this is atm.
PVE
This tool allows you to find systems where pirate MM's generate for only a single system which eliminates the HOURS of searching.
As for the stacking @Johnny-0-Sunday they ALWAYS stack if from different factions.
Make sure you're only selecting PIRATE MM's, not CZ's or the broken deserters/infected vessel ones.
Try the tool and you'll realize there are dozens of systems, if not hundreds, that'll allow thus kind of stacking.
Please test yourself before dismissing how broken this is atm.
EDTools worked just fine for me
Stacked loads of missions, made a killing (ba dum tss), got a juicy little CG reward and tomorrow I think I might buy some new A rated ships with the profits.
Oh.. are the deserter missions broken? I saw some of them the other night and was going to try one to see what they're like... guess there's no point if they don't work though
The best routine I found during this latest CG was to take 2-3 Massacres from as many factions as possible at Nelson Dock in LHS 54.
That way there was a nice steady flow of kills stacking, more missions queued up and signal sources all over Parutis to choose from.
I hunted until my Hi-Cap C4 MC ran dry, turned in some bounties, popped back and grabbed more missions if necessary, rinse & repeat.
Also FYI Assassination & Takedown missions also count towards the Massacre counter if it’s the same target faction as far as I can tell.
So that can come in handy or make things very interesting when you’re in the middle of a Threat 4 Massacre and both Corvette & Anaconda drop in on you to say hello
That way there was a nice steady flow of kills stacking, more missions queued up and signal sources all over Parutis to choose from.
I hunted until my Hi-Cap C4 MC ran dry, turned in some bounties, popped back and grabbed more missions if necessary, rinse & repeat.
Also FYI Assassination & Takedown missions also count towards the Massacre counter if it’s the same target faction as far as I can tell.
So that can come in handy or make things very interesting when you’re in the middle of a Threat 4 Massacre and both Corvette & Anaconda drop in on you to say hello
Sort of.
Infected ship missions are broken outright; no targets spawn at the site.
Deserters though.... mission targets spawn... the big difference here (which is mentioned here as a "would be nice if"...) is that all ships in the USS will attack you. This is usually around 8-10 vanilla ships of rank anywhere between novice and elite., and sizes from Eagles up to Pythons.
My tankaconda can burn through maybe two or three ships before having to run? A better pilot might be able to take them all, but the effort and skill is, obviously, drastically higher than a standard massacre.
Same here, I can mange maybe one or two before I have to bail out of those missions.
The ships aren’t particularly strong by themselves but with almost a dozen of them all firing at once it can go pear shaped very quickly.
God, stop making me miss wings of 10 sidewinders.... that was harder than you think, though also predated engineering.
The payouts can be pretty nice but they shouldn't be stacking. The ones I picked up at least weren't stacking nor paying close to what OP reported. One I saw wanted me to off 56 pirates for about 3 mil. Another one paid about 5 mil for killing 10. So it's very very random. I'd say the variability needs to be standardized a bit, and mission stacking lowered or removed depending on how much they end up paying.
@Commander Biscuit Were you allied with the factions as that boosts payouts dramatically.
Also, wing ones require many more kills, often for less pay than solo ones, which is what I'd hazard the 56 kill one was.
Also, wing ones require many more kills, often for less pay than solo ones, which is what I'd hazard the 56 kill one was.
The missions need to be from separate factions but for the same target faction in order to stack them.
Standard Massacres received a payout bonus along with bounties, however as yet the Wing missions have not.
So you’ll find Massacres for 12 kills paying out 5 million, but a Wing Massacre for 24 kills only paying 3 million for example.
FDev are still in the process of their combat balancing so we’ll see what happens.
You can tell the difference by the little blue symbol and writing in the mission brief, this means it’s a wing mission.
I work out of Wolf 562 and it’s not unusual for at least 4 out of the 8 factions to hand out massacres for the pirates in the neighbouring system the second I dock.
The missions usually range between 15-30m. So let’s assume a worst case scenario...
4x15m = 60m
+Bounties with new change...
25m...
That’s 85m credits for an activity that can potentially be done for you by the security services while you cruise around in a Sidewinder.
It takes very little effort to crank this number higher, certainty not hours.
And while you may be right that it’s not always consistent to do hour after hour I’d still argue that it’s broken AF...
Frontier used to jump on anything that resembled an exploit or anything that was allowing players to progress outside the scope of the game...
...and while I understand that there’s currently a pandemic and everyone is working from home that wasn’t the situation last year when everyone was shooting rocks and popping cores...
...so it’s now a mystery to me why Frontier have allowed their baby to end up in this state.
Its been said many times before but it really does suggest that they just aren’t connected with the game.
It’s like watching a toddler build a jigsaw, they just wade ahead adding more and more features with little regard to if the pieces actually make a decent picture.
All things require preparation. If using tool to find system to stacking massacres and few donates to reach ally rank are boring try mining without reddit, just fly and search your precious double painite
You don't need 8 "good" factions. You can still stack 2-3 missions. This is still absurdly good and I'm not sure if it should be possible. But I don't know, how change it. Additional buff for bounty and nerf massacres payouts? Removing ability to stack any mission? Smaller amount of targets?
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All things require preparation. If using tool to find system to stacking massacres and few donates to reach ally rank are boring try mining without reddit, just fly and search your precious double painite
You don't need 8 "good" factions. You can still stack 2-3 missions. This is still absurdly good and I'm not sure if it should be possible. But I don't know, how change it. Additional buff for bounty and nerf massacres payouts? Removing ability to stack any mission? Smaller amount of targets?
Leave pirate massacre kill requirements & rewards at the point they were prior to update, cross-faction stacking untouched. Cut bounty vouchers by half what they are now (maybe even two thirds), so basically around the level they were at a year+ (or whenever it was) ago before they got nerfed. I got 30 or 40 million in bounty vouchers alone last night in the 90 minutes it took to complete a massacre stack. Thats too much for vouchers. Unless they increased the tier requirements for bounty CGs, any future bounty CG will be completed in 2 or 3 days. The one time I managed to reach the top 10 (And eventually got kicked from the top 10 on the final day), it took the whole week grinding the HAZ each night to contribute 100 million for the CG.
I dont participate in assassinations, cz's, or anti-xeno, but I think they all deserve increases in rewards as they're each more dangerous than bounty hunting. Thargoids especially.
So basically make bounty hunting worthless for anyone unwilling to be a kraut and stack missions. As I see it, mission stacking was removed for a reason. Cross faction stacking remaining seems an oversight, and use of them, an exploit.
I expect FD to apply the nerf exactly as you demand. They'll probably look at credits per hour and if it's too high, determine the problem is the bounty vouchers. The fix will be applied with a hammer rather than a paintbrush as usual.