A star too far?

I am still a relatively "newbie" to ED but 2 days ago upgraded to a Beluga liner and began passenger trips from Wolf 54. I accepted to take 2 groups who wanted to visit "Mugi" + 1 more. This meant a 2 hop journey to Alpha Centuri and then a heading towards the Nav Beacon only 0.89ly away. Unfortunately this 0.89 ly was a contradiction in terms! After 45 minutes of boring travel the 0.89ly became in excess of 3,000,000ls and this took another 40 minutes.
I was asked to scan the beacon for data, which I did, but no information could be found and so after a further 10-15 minutes of searching I gave up and took 2 very unhappy groups back to Wolf 54.
I am more than happy with the game but is it really necessary to make such trips that long?
Are there other "hidden" horrors we should avoid?
 
a) yes, it is
b) RTM - or, in this case, the mission description. There usually are multiple hints available - even if the description doesn't state the in-system distance to the target
1) Alpha Centauri is a multiple star system. Guess where the game will send you?
2) You will probably have been offered an extraordinary sum for that trip
3) It's Alpha Centauri. If you've never heard about Hutton Mugs, you have now.
 
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I am still a relatively "newbie" to ED but 2 days ago upgraded to a Beluga liner and began passenger trips from Wolf 54. I accepted to take 2 groups who wanted to visit "Mugi" + 1 more. This meant a 2 hop journey to Alpha Centuri and then a heading towards the Nav Beacon only 0.89ly away. Unfortunately this 0.89 ly was a contradiction in terms! After 45 minutes of boring travel the 0.89ly became in excess of 3,000,000ls and this took another 40 minutes.
I was asked to scan the beacon for data, which I did, but no information could be found and so after a further 10-15 minutes of searching I gave up and took 2 very unhappy groups back to Wolf 54.
I am more than happy with the game but is it really necessary to make such trips that long?
Are there other "hidden" horrors we should avoid?

You gotta be careful accepting missions. Always read the fine print. Basically, when you see a number of random missions on the board, passenger or otherwise, and one or two of them pay substantially better, that's a red flag. There's almost always something off about them. Either your destination is far away from the star (like in your case) or some other major inconvenience is involved.

Back in my days, I made it a rule to never accept missions that payed 20% more than the average. There's always a catch.
So see what I mean, just go to Sol or neighboring systems and accept any mission that has Alpha Centauri somewhere in the text and pays more than others. You'll see what I mean.

At the very least, in this example, you're likely to score your free Anaconda ;-)
 
Assassination missions are the ones than frustrate me.
Fly here, kill Bob. You get there and Bob isn't there and instead you meet up with a PFY who says they saw Bob in another system.
So off you tootle to the other system..."Mission target found"...mint...what? 200k ls?! You...!!!!!!!!!

200k ls, that's hardly a long way, I've gone further than that for peanuts!
 
200k ls, that's hardly a long way, I've gone further than that for peanuts!
Yea, Hutton Orbital, Guardians, Shards...they were all known and planned in advance...but when you pop in for a quick kill and end up in SC for 20+mins it's not ideal...and frustrating ;)
My point was actually that reading the mission text, in some cases, does not always tell you that you have to travel huge distances to achieve your goal.
 
Yea, Hutton Orbital, Guardians, Shards...they were all known and planned in advance...but when you pop in for a quick kill and end up in SC for 20+mins it's not ideal...and frustrating ;)
My point was actually that reading the mission text, in some cases, does not always tell you that you have to travel huge distances to achieve your goal.

All missions with fixed destinations such as stations have the distance to target listed in the description, all of them. There are some where the target can change as pointed out in another post, yours wasn't one of these!
 
My point was actually that reading the mission text, in some cases, does not always tell you that you have to travel huge distances to achieve your goal.

Yeah .. I was wondering if passenger missions to POI's included that. I know station addresses do but tourist beacons less sure. Still that's what exploration is all about eh ;)

I've got into the habit of using time like this to make sure I'm caught up on the latest Galnets and most recently listened to the full CODEX reading on history of the Guardians. Does help and it's in game then, with a ship inspection on external cam, you're there.
 
All missions with fixed destinations such as stations have the distance to target listed in the description, all of them. There are some where the target can change as pointed out in another post, yours wasn't one of these!
I disagree. While the distance to target isn't in the mission text, 99% of assassination missions are a "sensible" distance from the star and you don't expect to be in SC for 20+ mins...the only time this happens always seems to be when you only have a quick 5-10 mins to play. Typical.
 
Forget the mug. There should be a Hutton paint job you earn by flying in a small ship from the jump star to Hutton 10+ times! The paint design should show free Anacondas, unhappy passengers and newbie tears in the design.
 
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I am still a relatively "newbie" to ED but 2 days ago upgraded to a Beluga liner and began passenger trips from Wolf 54. I accepted to take 2 groups who wanted to visit "Mugi" + 1 more. This meant a 2 hop journey to Alpha Centuri and then a heading towards the Nav Beacon only 0.89ly away. Unfortunately this 0.89 ly was a contradiction in terms! After 45 minutes of boring travel the 0.89ly became in excess of 3,000,000ls and this took another 40 minutes.
I was asked to scan the beacon for data, which I did, but no information could be found and so after a further 10-15 minutes of searching I gave up and took 2 very unhappy groups back to Wolf 54.
I am more than happy with the game but is it really necessary to make such trips that long?
Are there other "hidden" horrors we should avoid?
Usually if mission pays pretty well, there is a catch. Either you will meet somebody trying to shoot you, or you will have not so nice travel time.
 
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