A complaint from an average player on the thargoid war supporting missions (E.G. Evacuations)

[Cursedgam3r]

I'm a returning player, I last played during the thick of the Thargoid invasion when systems left and right were openly burning.

However, when I try to play my favourite missions now (evacuations and collect escape pods from damaged installations and starports) there are none. Anywhere. I'm currently docked in a burning planetary outpost and there's no missions.

Asking around and the like, I've found out that there's a huge amount of people doing the AX missions. An estimated 40x the amount expected to participate. It's Sunday, and all the thargoid missions are complete since the tick on thursday. I was told that the missions are typically completed by end of Friday. I work a minimum of 40 hours a week, often 50+. I cannot play the thargoid war at all because the events are completed too fast. I get that the thargoids are cleared out fast but if a station/outpost is still a burning wreck, why are there no missions?

I paid to play this game during the beta on the Xbox One a long time ago, back when you started at Ackermann Market in Eravate. I paid again so I could play on PC, and transferred my account when the console version got discontinued. I've played this through a lot of the major updates, but now I kinda don't want to play anymore because the missions I enjoy doing are completed before I even have time to play. Missions that kind of don't really affect the war.

 

[Jack Brolin]

It is rather frustrating, I love evacuations and appreciated that they could make a significant contribution to the war effort after the rebalance but it seems to have gone too far when there's no missions left by the weekend. You raise a good point about the missions no longer being available once the progress bar is compete, this isn't the case with post-Thargoid recovery AX reactivations, giving players the whole week to play them for fun or rewards, (and loot!) it should probably work like that so folks don't miss out on their favourite gameplay.

 

[SergMx]

It is rather frustrating, I love evacuations and appreciated that they could make a significant contribution to the war effort after the rebalance but it seems to have gone too far when there's no missions left by the weekend. You raise a good point about the missions no longer being available once the progress bar is compete, this isn't the case with post-Thargoid recovery AX reactivations, giving players the whole week to play them for fun or rewards, (and loot!) it should probably work like that so folks don't miss out on their favourite gameplay.

Maybe we should have moved the cycle change to Friday.

 

[Brrokk]

It is rather frustrating, I love evacuations and appreciated that they could make a significant contribution to the war effort after the rebalance but it seems to have gone too far when there's no missions left by the weekend. You raise a good point about the missions no longer being available once the progress bar is compete, this isn't the case with post-Thargoid recovery AX reactivations, giving players the whole week to play them for fun or rewards, (and loot!) it should probably work like that so folks don't miss out on their favourite gameplay.

I see no reason why those fun missions shouldn't continue to be available for individual rewards after the Thargoids are defeated in a system.

In fact, didn't FD express a willingness to consider that recently? I forget the details.

 

[Greasetrap42]

I used to like the evac missions as a fun easy thing to do. Maybe I just picked the right evac missions by chance, but I used to transport the passengers to a reasonably close Rescue Ship.

Last week when I did a couple evac missions I had to transport them to an Rescue Ship crazy far away, there were at least 4 Rescue ships significantly closer. I actually used an in-between Rescue Ship as a refueling point! And there were dozens of populated systems with big space stations that my route passed by. It made absolutely no sense.

I did several runs and made 1/2 billion, then stopped because it was way too mind numbing. The excitement around the burning station was easy but fun, but that was very brief in comparison to the rest of the boring missions.

 

[Jack Brolin]

The rescue ship they want dropping off at is dependant on the allegiance of the controlling faction. It shows the destination on the mission details. Shop around

 

[Greasetrap42]

The rescue ship they want dropping off at is dependant on the allegiance of the controlling faction. It shows the destination on the mission details. Shop around

Ya, unfortunately can't really shop around. If there is only 1 or maybe two stations in need of evac.... well, that's all you get.

Its like doing Robigo Runs, except 8 jumps each way so fuel stop req'd in maxed out passenger ship. Or a small fuel scoop. Not much fun after 2 or 3 runs. I probably won't ever do them again.

 

[Jack Brolin]

Well you could never do them again or you could just check the destination before you accept a mission, I feel like you've learned the wrong lesson here but you do you

 

[Kira Goto]

Well you could never do them again or you could just check the destination before you accept a mission, I feel like you've learned the wrong lesson here but you do you

While you can read the mission description, at the same time, I feel like Frontier could/should perhaps have tied the missions to closest rescue ship instead of allegiance, especially when they moved them closer to the Thargoid front. I fail to see why an independent faction rescue from Cocijo would send you 200+ ly to Bertschinger when there is one right there. Or just generally because they are obviously working together for matters like the rescued Titan captives who come from a superpower.

... and even before the rebalance invasions would clear out within a few days or by the weekend anyway, due to their infrequent nature and popularity. Though yes, it's a bit much for them to clear so quickly under the current balance when they have a timer that lasts weeks for the large majority of them, which by itself effectively eliminates the risk of Thargoids capturing a system when Frontier don't want them pushing outward. But maybe the extremely overdue Thargoid plot twist/pushback will change things just clearing up when the weekend has barely started... not that I know how it will end up looking like, only that Frontier has hinted at it with GalNet. Two months ago (ish).

 

[Greasetrap42]

Well you could never do them again or you could just check the destination before you accept a mission, I feel like you've learned the wrong lesson here but you do you

You have to travel to the station to look at the missions and check the destinations. In a boat that is designed to carry passengers, not jump across the bubble checking each station that has evac missions. Okay, sure you could use a long-jump-range bubble hopper and then ship-transfer your passenger ship and wait 30 min. for it to arrive. All for a station that might be done with the evac missions in a couple hours anyway, particularly the more 'pleasant' ones that aren't 300,000 Ls from the primary star.

Nah, in future weeks I'll leave the station evac stuff for others. The hassle followed up with the boredom isn't worth the credits.

 

[Jack Brolin]

The bubble is tiny. Why aren't your passenger ships optimised for jump range? This is a you problem
Nah Kira has a point they are rather nonsensical at times. I do still feel that simply jumping to the next nearest invasion system is a better workaround than giving up altogether but like I said, you do you

 

[Kira Goto]

One can also check the detailed system view on dcoh.watch and refer to its handy info of which rescue megaship the evac missions will go to…

The unfortunate part is that Cocijo’s location on the east end of the Bubble means its rescue missions will always end up getting sent to the rescue ships 200+ ly away. Raijin, meanwhile, is usually around 80-100 depending on the location of the system under attack/alert. Can go as low as 70 though, apparently.

Thor… Thor isn’t launching attacks because of terrible placement which didn’t offer it great targeting ‘opportunities’, and isn’t helped by being focused as the counterattack target. So needn’t worry about it. It will probably also be vulnerable in a week and two days unless Frontier flick a magic switch where the Thargoids just randomly abandon its remaining systems on this Thursday, for no reason. (Aside from the case where it moves with those Thargoids, then it still won’t be vulnerable)