So you want to kill people, in fact you want everyone and anyone and get paid squillions doing so right? If so then read on...
Firstly you will want to pick a suitable area of space to operate in.
Secondly you will want to upgrade your ship at every opportunity.
Thirdly you have to know your ship, and its capabilities.
Finally make credits.
Where to begin?
A PLACE TO CALL HOME
RANKINGS AND REPUTATION
SHIPS
WEAPONS
SHIELDS
CARGO SPACE AND HULL REINFORCEMENT MODULES
MISSIONS
BOUNTIES AND REPUTATION WITH FACTIONS
MISSION STACKING
I will continue to edit and evolve this guide as new information becomes available and try to keep it up to date with the new season expansions and updates as and when needed
Feel free to post suggestions to add to this guide and let me know if there is anything incorrect
Cheers and Kill Safe Commanders o7
Firstly you will want to pick a suitable area of space to operate in.
Secondly you will want to upgrade your ship at every opportunity.
Thirdly you have to know your ship, and its capabilities.
Finally make credits.
Where to begin?
A PLACE TO CALL HOME
Firsly move away from your starter system, you do not want to be constantly fighting for kills with other commanders.
Find a suitable system that matches your ethos being either an independant or being alliance, federation, empire aligned.
Ensure the system has decent outfitting shop and ship selection in its shipyard, or that there is a nearby high tech system that will meet these requirements for you.
Make new friends with all of the minor factions in this sytem, and perhaps in a couple of the neighbouring systems, try to get them all to allied status, this will make it so more missions become available.
A nice place for starting out in will also have some ongoing conflicts in nearby systems, but it's not that important initially as we can play with the BGS to get conflicts to happen as well, this helps later on to increase the types of number of concurrent missions.
Find a suitable system that matches your ethos being either an independant or being alliance, federation, empire aligned.
Ensure the system has decent outfitting shop and ship selection in its shipyard, or that there is a nearby high tech system that will meet these requirements for you.
Make new friends with all of the minor factions in this sytem, and perhaps in a couple of the neighbouring systems, try to get them all to allied status, this will make it so more missions become available.
A nice place for starting out in will also have some ongoing conflicts in nearby systems, but it's not that important initially as we can play with the BGS to get conflicts to happen as well, this helps later on to increase the types of number of concurrent missions.
RANKINGS AND REPUTATION
Building up your ranking in combat and trading and your reputation with the local factions will actually help get better higher paying missions. I mention trading because sometimes it's helpful to pose as a trader when doing pirate assassination missions as having a decent trade mission on your books often means pirates will tend to find you more often than you having to find them... This gives you a serious advantage when it comes to the interdiction aspect.
High ranking in combat and reputation with the mission givers minor faction will actually allow more lucrative missions to appear on the BBS for you to take so there are more mission choices later on in the game when you have ranked up and built up your reputation with the your home base's minor factions.
High ranking in combat and reputation with the mission givers minor faction will actually allow more lucrative missions to appear on the BBS for you to take so there are more mission choices later on in the game when you have ranked up and built up your reputation with the your home base's minor factions.
SHIPS
If you are just starting out in the basic sidewinder, I suggest you do delivery and supply missions initially for all your sytems minor factions to build rep up to allied with each of them, this WILL give you credits at the start with which to upgrade from there, you will want to have enough credtis to buy and fit out an Eagle, Viper or a Cobra MK III before taking on too many combat related missions.
Alternatively, fly to the local nav beacon or resource extraction point and kill steal wanted ships from authority ships by targetting ships that the authority ships are firing on when the ship is nearly dead and the firing the last few shots to kill the ship. This can net you a lot of credits quickly but will not build reputation with the local factions and might actually cause you to damage your reputation with the faction(s) the wanted ships are affiliated with, this can be recovered later so it's not such a big deal.
You will use a variety of ships over the course of your assassination career, upgrading and moving up when you have the funds is always a great idea. You are often better off maxing out your current ships potential then using it to save up for the next base ship hull and some upgrades to it before you actually sell your current ship and make the new ship home.
It does pay to keep your old ship if you can be patient and wait to get into your next ship in case something goes wrong you have a good fallback position to an already maxxed out ship you are comfortable with and know inside and out.
It takes time to get used to a new ship when you upgrade, to work out its capabilities and its limitations... So while you are working that out, having a ship you are also confident and capable in stored away is handy in case you find your new ship hard to master or lose it in battle.
As our chosen career is one frought with a high potential of ship destruction it is highly advisable to never leave dock without adequate insurance buyback. I fatal mistake many make is to underestimate the ability of murphys law, what can go wrong will go wrong when you least expect it to go wrong.
A common progression ladder would be
Sidewinder
Eagle / Imperial Eagle
Viper
Cobra
Diamonback> / Imperial Courier? (never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Vulture
Federal Drop Ship / Federal Gunship / Imperial Clipper? (never owned a clipper so cannot say for certain)
Python
Fer De Lance? (never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Federal Assault Ship?(never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Anaconda :- This would be the pinnacle combat ship at this moment but probably unsuitable for gathering the missions as you really need something that can land at both outposts and stations to maximise your potential, perhaps having a shuttle ship (hauler, sidewinder etc) stored in your home base shipyard might be the way to go for mission gathering then jump into the Anaconda to perform the missions.
I personally reccommend aiming for the Python, as it has multiple landing options with its medium pad requirement and not having the need to change ships to gather missions from outposts.
Alternatively, fly to the local nav beacon or resource extraction point and kill steal wanted ships from authority ships by targetting ships that the authority ships are firing on when the ship is nearly dead and the firing the last few shots to kill the ship. This can net you a lot of credits quickly but will not build reputation with the local factions and might actually cause you to damage your reputation with the faction(s) the wanted ships are affiliated with, this can be recovered later so it's not such a big deal.
You will use a variety of ships over the course of your assassination career, upgrading and moving up when you have the funds is always a great idea. You are often better off maxing out your current ships potential then using it to save up for the next base ship hull and some upgrades to it before you actually sell your current ship and make the new ship home.
It does pay to keep your old ship if you can be patient and wait to get into your next ship in case something goes wrong you have a good fallback position to an already maxxed out ship you are comfortable with and know inside and out.
It takes time to get used to a new ship when you upgrade, to work out its capabilities and its limitations... So while you are working that out, having a ship you are also confident and capable in stored away is handy in case you find your new ship hard to master or lose it in battle.
As our chosen career is one frought with a high potential of ship destruction it is highly advisable to never leave dock without adequate insurance buyback. I fatal mistake many make is to underestimate the ability of murphys law, what can go wrong will go wrong when you least expect it to go wrong.
A common progression ladder would be
Sidewinder
Eagle / Imperial Eagle
Viper
Cobra
Diamonback> / Imperial Courier? (never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Vulture
Federal Drop Ship / Federal Gunship / Imperial Clipper? (never owned a clipper so cannot say for certain)
Python
Fer De Lance? (never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Federal Assault Ship?(never owned one so cannot say for certain)
Anaconda :- This would be the pinnacle combat ship at this moment but probably unsuitable for gathering the missions as you really need something that can land at both outposts and stations to maximise your potential, perhaps having a shuttle ship (hauler, sidewinder etc) stored in your home base shipyard might be the way to go for mission gathering then jump into the Anaconda to perform the missions.
I personally reccommend aiming for the Python, as it has multiple landing options with its medium pad requirement and not having the need to change ships to gather missions from outposts.
WEAPONS
You will want to fit weapons that suit you.
I personally use gimballed beam and pulse lasers because I do not wish to faff around with worrying about having perfect targetting, this usually allows me to continue to get hits on a target even when I cannot keep them 100% in my forward fire display.
NPC's can and do chaff you, I suggest you take the up close combat approach when they do fire off chaff by getting as close as possible without ramming them and open up the guns as that minimises the effects of their chaff.
If you prefer fixed weapons then by all means fit them, in fact on small agile craft like the Sidewinder, Viper, and Eagle they make a lot of sense, as you get into larger ships you might find that fixed weapons are not as good overall compared to using gimballed weapons that allow you to fire on your target while manouvering around the battlefield.
I personally use gimballed beam and pulse lasers because I do not wish to faff around with worrying about having perfect targetting, this usually allows me to continue to get hits on a target even when I cannot keep them 100% in my forward fire display.
NPC's can and do chaff you, I suggest you take the up close combat approach when they do fire off chaff by getting as close as possible without ramming them and open up the guns as that minimises the effects of their chaff.
If you prefer fixed weapons then by all means fit them, in fact on small agile craft like the Sidewinder, Viper, and Eagle they make a lot of sense, as you get into larger ships you might find that fixed weapons are not as good overall compared to using gimballed weapons that allow you to fire on your target while manouvering around the battlefield.
SHIELDS
Always fit the best shielding you can afford along with at least 1 SCB and one shield booster if space on your ship allows for it.
CARGO SPACE AND HULL REINFORCEMENT MODULES
As an assassin you will not have a lot of need for cargo space, and early on in the smaller ships such as the eagle, viper or even sidewinder, you will not want any cargo space once you are performing combat missions, you will be better off fitting the best hull quality reinforcements you can buy. Hull reinforcement modules will lower your jump range, but that should not really be much of an issue.
There will be times when you do want to carry some cargo, where you can use it as an advantage to bait a particular type of target.
Hull Armour can drastically increase your survivablity should your shields drop, so do not ever underestimate the need for it. Upgrade your hull armour as soon as practicable, personally I would not go above Military Grade unless you are specifically targetting ships that only carry lasers in which case you will want reflective armour.
Initially I would recommend getting 'A rated' Shields, 'A rated' Power Distributor, 'A Rated' Power Reactor, in that order. My reasoning for this is that with A rated shields, you can take more hits, which will allow you to be able to deal more damage for longer, then increasing your weapons and system capacitors will mean you can fire your weapons longer, finally increasing your reactor rating will actually cool your ship as more reserve power is available as well as allow you to then upgrade things like Thrusters, FSD, Sensors and Life Support.
With regards to sensors and life support, do not underestimate them, upgrading sensors can allow you to see targets before they can see you, allowing you to identify HUD contacts from further away means you can make a world of difference when it comes to fast moving battle areas and can give you some early warning... Better rated Life support can be used to advantage in some situations where you need to switch off your life support system for power management or when your canopy is breached and you have a long flight time to your nearest safe dock.
At a minimum you should go to D rated Sensors and Life support for the lower weight for increased jump range
Unless you have cargo I suggest turning the Cargo Hatch off in the modules, this gives you extra available power which in turn lowers overall heat levels. Heat management is something you need to consider when using high powered energy weapon only loadouts.
There will be times when you do want to carry some cargo, where you can use it as an advantage to bait a particular type of target.
Hull Armour can drastically increase your survivablity should your shields drop, so do not ever underestimate the need for it. Upgrade your hull armour as soon as practicable, personally I would not go above Military Grade unless you are specifically targetting ships that only carry lasers in which case you will want reflective armour.
Initially I would recommend getting 'A rated' Shields, 'A rated' Power Distributor, 'A Rated' Power Reactor, in that order. My reasoning for this is that with A rated shields, you can take more hits, which will allow you to be able to deal more damage for longer, then increasing your weapons and system capacitors will mean you can fire your weapons longer, finally increasing your reactor rating will actually cool your ship as more reserve power is available as well as allow you to then upgrade things like Thrusters, FSD, Sensors and Life Support.
With regards to sensors and life support, do not underestimate them, upgrading sensors can allow you to see targets before they can see you, allowing you to identify HUD contacts from further away means you can make a world of difference when it comes to fast moving battle areas and can give you some early warning... Better rated Life support can be used to advantage in some situations where you need to switch off your life support system for power management or when your canopy is breached and you have a long flight time to your nearest safe dock.
At a minimum you should go to D rated Sensors and Life support for the lower weight for increased jump range
Unless you have cargo I suggest turning the Cargo Hatch off in the modules, this gives you extra available power which in turn lowers overall heat levels. Heat management is something you need to consider when using high powered energy weapon only loadouts.
MISSIONS
If and when you see combat missions on the board, look at the system where they are to take place AND look at the target type. There are some hard to find targets given such as NOMADS, I do not reccommend taking these ones as they can be quite a pain to complete.
Take any of the normal type of combat missions, kill traders, kill civillians, kil pirates, kill bounty hunters, kill authority ships, and conflict zone missions.
TARGET TYPES
Killing Civilians
Killing Traders.
Kill Bounty Hunters.
Kill Smugglers.
Kill Authority Ships.
Kill Pirates.
Kill Named NPC
Take any of the normal type of combat missions, kill traders, kill civillians, kil pirates, kill bounty hunters, kill authority ships, and conflict zone missions.
TARGET TYPES
Killing Civilians
These are all non military, non pirate and non authority ships, so traders, miners, smugglers, celebrities and bounty hunters all count as civilian targets.
These missions create civil unrest and will most likely you end up with murder bounties placed on your head. You can use these things to your advantage, if you are wanting to manipulate the system you can target a specific minor factions ships, if you have concurrent kill authority ships, killing a civilian will cause the authorities to arrive to investigate especially if you play with your target until they arrive.
They can usually be easily found at a systems Nav Beacon or interdictable from Supercruise. They can also appear in Unknown Signal Sources
These missions create civil unrest and will most likely you end up with murder bounties placed on your head. You can use these things to your advantage, if you are wanting to manipulate the system you can target a specific minor factions ships, if you have concurrent kill authority ships, killing a civilian will cause the authorities to arrive to investigate especially if you play with your target until they arrive.
They can usually be easily found at a systems Nav Beacon or interdictable from Supercruise. They can also appear in Unknown Signal Sources
Killing Traders.
Typcially trade class ships, Haulers, Adders, Cobra MK III, Lakon T6, Lakon T7, Lakon T9.
These missions create civil unrest and will most likely you end up with murder bounties placed on your head. You can use these things to your advantage, if you are wanting to manipulate the system you can target a specific minor factions ships, if you have concurrent kill authority ships, killing a civilian will cause the authorities to arrive to investigate especially if you play with your target until they arrive.
Often they can be found at navigation beacons as well as being interdictable from supercruise and in Unknown Signal Sources
These missions create civil unrest and will most likely you end up with murder bounties placed on your head. You can use these things to your advantage, if you are wanting to manipulate the system you can target a specific minor factions ships, if you have concurrent kill authority ships, killing a civilian will cause the authorities to arrive to investigate especially if you play with your target until they arrive.
Often they can be found at navigation beacons as well as being interdictable from supercruise and in Unknown Signal Sources
Kill Bounty Hunters.
Typically combat or multi role ships such as the Viper, Cobra MK III, Vulture, Diamond Back (both variants), Python, Fer De Lance, Federal Gunship, Federal Dropship, Federal Assault Ship and Anaconda
When checking their loadout after your initial scan they will have a K-Warrant scanner and an interdiction module nearly every time. Occasionally they do not have the K-Warrant scanner.
They can usually be found at Nav Beacons, and Resource Extraction Zones (All except Hazardous REZ)
You will definitely incur a bounty if you fire on them while they are clean, you can possibly manipulate this by flying through their line of fire and getting hit if you are clean causing them to become wanted with a minor bounty whereby you can then attack them with impunity but I have not personally verified this tactic.
When checking their loadout after your initial scan they will have a K-Warrant scanner and an interdiction module nearly every time. Occasionally they do not have the K-Warrant scanner.
They can usually be found at Nav Beacons, and Resource Extraction Zones (All except Hazardous REZ)
You will definitely incur a bounty if you fire on them while they are clean, you can possibly manipulate this by flying through their line of fire and getting hit if you are clean causing them to become wanted with a minor bounty whereby you can then attack them with impunity but I have not personally verified this tactic.
Kill Smugglers.
These can be Haulers, Adders, Asp Explorers, Lakon T6, Lakon T7, Cobra MK III typically. They can be found at Nav Beacons, interdictable from Supercruise and at Uknown Signal Sources.
They can appear as either Clean or Wanted. They will often respond with a message when you interdict them saying something along the lines of "Don't I already have enough problems worrying about the law" or words to that effect.
If you attack clean ones, you will have a bounty for murder placed on you.
They can appear as either Clean or Wanted. They will often respond with a message when you interdict them saying something along the lines of "Don't I already have enough problems worrying about the law" or words to that effect.
If you attack clean ones, you will have a bounty for murder placed on you.
Kill Authority Ships.
These are combat craft, typically Eagles, Vipers, and Anacondas are the standard authority ships (not to be confused with NAVAL ships)
Naval ships do NOT count towards authority ship kills. Only ships labelled as System Security Service count.
You will ALWAYS incur a bounty for firing on and killing these ships and the bounty is HIGHER than other non authority ships. You will affect the controlling factions reputation in the system by attacking these ships. Their responses to attacks tend to scale a little bit, so if you take out a single Eagle, you might find that the first lot of reinforcements are a couple of Vipers but it quickly turns into a furball with Anaconda reinforcements arriving shortly after so be smart about taking these guys on and only take them on in small numbers, individually is best, if you get surrounded by 3 or more small authority ships they can quickly make short work of you.
They can be found in supercruise and Unknown Signal Sources and REZ, they can be coaxed into Nav Beacons and REZ by killing clean ships causing them to arrive to investigate. You can also have report crimes against me turned on and then engage a wanted ship in combat and they will turn up.
Often when taking on this type of mission it's best to leave report crimes against me turned off.
Naval ships do NOT count towards authority ship kills. Only ships labelled as System Security Service count.
You will ALWAYS incur a bounty for firing on and killing these ships and the bounty is HIGHER than other non authority ships. You will affect the controlling factions reputation in the system by attacking these ships. Their responses to attacks tend to scale a little bit, so if you take out a single Eagle, you might find that the first lot of reinforcements are a couple of Vipers but it quickly turns into a furball with Anaconda reinforcements arriving shortly after so be smart about taking these guys on and only take them on in small numbers, individually is best, if you get surrounded by 3 or more small authority ships they can quickly make short work of you.
They can be found in supercruise and Unknown Signal Sources and REZ, they can be coaxed into Nav Beacons and REZ by killing clean ships causing them to arrive to investigate. You can also have report crimes against me turned on and then engage a wanted ship in combat and they will turn up.
Often when taking on this type of mission it's best to leave report crimes against me turned off.
Kill Pirates.
These typically are Sidewinders, ASP, Diamonback, Vulture, Eagle, Imperial Eagle, Imperial Courier, Imperial Clipper, Cobra MK III, Python, Fer De Lance, Anaconda, Adder, Federal Assault Ship, Federal Gunship, Federal Dropship.
They can be found at Nav Beacons, Resource Extraction Zones, Strong Signal Sources, Unkown Signal Sources and interdictable from supercruise.
They can appear in gang wings containing up to 8 sidewinders but at this time only killing one of them will add to your mission count, the rest will not count.
I strongly reccommend knowing what you are in for and having a plan of action should you wish to interdict a wing of 8 or should you want to drop into a SSS.
The only effective plan of attack for the wing of 8 is to drop in and take out 1 then jump back into supercruise before you get overwhelmed, do not underestimate the firepower of 8 sidewinders even against a heavily armoured ship like a Python, they can make short work of you if you are not fully prepared.
You will earn bounty rewards when taking out pirates than can actually exceed the mission payout depending on the pirates you engage.
They can be found at Nav Beacons, Resource Extraction Zones, Strong Signal Sources, Unkown Signal Sources and interdictable from supercruise.
They can appear in gang wings containing up to 8 sidewinders but at this time only killing one of them will add to your mission count, the rest will not count.
I strongly reccommend knowing what you are in for and having a plan of action should you wish to interdict a wing of 8 or should you want to drop into a SSS.
The only effective plan of attack for the wing of 8 is to drop in and take out 1 then jump back into supercruise before you get overwhelmed, do not underestimate the firepower of 8 sidewinders even against a heavily armoured ship like a Python, they can make short work of you if you are not fully prepared.
You will earn bounty rewards when taking out pirates than can actually exceed the mission payout depending on the pirates you engage.
Kill Named NPC
These are all usually interdicted from supercruise, but can also be found in Unknown Signal Sources in the targets system.
Celebrities :- They typcially fly in an Orca. Often with some entourage so be prepared to tank being hit by the sidewinder / eagles while killing the target. You will incur a murder bounty for killing this target
Military (leader, strategist etc) :- Often in a Federal Dropship or other large military ship, with some support craft occasionally but that depends on the mission difficulty.
It will often not be an easy fight, you will be taking of a capable combat vessel and there could well be fighter support involved. Plan to tank while taking out the main target and get out fast.
You will incur a murder bounty for killing this target and some negative REP with the targets minor faction in that system.
Escaped Prisoner - Typically flying a python or vulture from the ones I have encountered. You may earn some bounty money if they are wanted or incur a bounty if they are clean in the system you kill them in.
Pirate Lord :- Typically flying an Anaconda and sometimes in a Pythoin, sometimes with fire support ships. You will earn a decent bounty reward as well for killing them.
Others as added by Mr Gr3y
Bloody Hand - Anaconda
Criminal Mastermind* - Viper
Deserter* - Eagle up to 2 Wing
Hero
High Clerk
Idol
Military Strategist -Federal Dropship up to 3 Wing
Moniker
Most Wanted/Villain* - Anaconda
Pirate* - Python/Viper
Prisoner* - Eagle up to 2 Wing
Religious Leader - Type-6 up to 3 Wing
Ringleader* - Viper/Eagle/Eagle up to 3 Wing
Terrorist*- Anaconda/Python
Winging up with a friend can be helpful for completing these missions until you are in a heavily armed and heavily fortified combat craft like a military grade Federal Gunship, Federal Assult Ship or Python. You would have your wing mate(s) help you bring down the main targets shields and hull to a low percentage then you would finish off the target and your wingmates would take on any fire support ships that are in the vicinity drawing their fire from you.
Celebrities :- They typcially fly in an Orca. Often with some entourage so be prepared to tank being hit by the sidewinder / eagles while killing the target. You will incur a murder bounty for killing this target
Military (leader, strategist etc) :- Often in a Federal Dropship or other large military ship, with some support craft occasionally but that depends on the mission difficulty.
It will often not be an easy fight, you will be taking of a capable combat vessel and there could well be fighter support involved. Plan to tank while taking out the main target and get out fast.
You will incur a murder bounty for killing this target and some negative REP with the targets minor faction in that system.
Escaped Prisoner - Typically flying a python or vulture from the ones I have encountered. You may earn some bounty money if they are wanted or incur a bounty if they are clean in the system you kill them in.
Pirate Lord :- Typically flying an Anaconda and sometimes in a Pythoin, sometimes with fire support ships. You will earn a decent bounty reward as well for killing them.
Others as added by Mr Gr3y
Bloody Hand - Anaconda
Criminal Mastermind* - Viper
Deserter* - Eagle up to 2 Wing
Hero
High Clerk
Idol
Military Strategist -Federal Dropship up to 3 Wing
Moniker
Most Wanted/Villain* - Anaconda
Pirate* - Python/Viper
Prisoner* - Eagle up to 2 Wing
Religious Leader - Type-6 up to 3 Wing
Ringleader* - Viper/Eagle/Eagle up to 3 Wing
Terrorist*- Anaconda/Python
Winging up with a friend can be helpful for completing these missions until you are in a heavily armed and heavily fortified combat craft like a military grade Federal Gunship, Federal Assult Ship or Python. You would have your wing mate(s) help you bring down the main targets shields and hull to a low percentage then you would finish off the target and your wingmates would take on any fire support ships that are in the vicinity drawing their fire from you.
BOUNTIES AND REPUTATION WITH FACTIONS
When you kill clean ships you will incur a murder bounty on you and when you kill ANY ships of a given minor faction your reputation with that faction will degrade.
Having a bounty or hostile reputation IS NOT the end of the world as we know it. In fact having a bounty can make it easier for certain mission types.
One key thing to remember is when your ship is destroyed you are returned to the last station you docked at, so if you have a heap of missions to kill clean ships in a particular solar system then dock at a neighbouring system that is not controlled by the same minor faction as the targets system before jumping to engage the mission targets, you do not want to be returned to a station controlled by a minor faction that has a bounty on your head because you will have to pay out the bounty at the insurance screen if you do.
At the moment there is an unintentional way to clear the bounty and that is by buying a sidewinder and having the system authorities where you have the bounty destroy your ship. Personally I think this is pretty lame when there are other ways to handle it.
The simplest being to move around the area of space you call home, maybe have 4 - 5 systems within 30 LY radius of your home base where you have made allied status with the minor factions there and use them as mission givers so when one set of systems gets too hot, you jump to another set of systems where you can continue your assassination career until the bounty timers run down and it gets convereted to a legacy fine (7 days bounty, 7 days dormant bounty)
Having a bounty on your head AND being hostile with a controlling minor faction really is no problem as long as you are not scanned by their station when you are docking or by their authority ships while you are doing something else or interdicted by them for a random scan etc.
Avoiding the scan is usually a trivial affair but sometimes you still get scanned, be prepared to deal with that as and when it happens, Chaff can help confuse a scan, but its not 100%, running away under max boost and all pips to engines while firing chaff can help, and so can getting outside of their scanners range. Another way to deal with it when a station refuses docking permission due to scanning as hostile is to jump back to supercruise and then drop back out at the station and request docking once at the 7.5KM range then get into dock ASAP.
For getting into stations unscanned there are smuggling guides that you can follow or you can use the tried and true method of lining up from 5km to 7km and boosting in through the slot which requires you to hit your landing gear and full reverse thrust at the right time, its something different to each ship and thruster combination and you will get a feel for it the more you do it.
Another way for dealing with the issue of the bounty timers is to use that time to explore the universe or persue a different way of making money for a time, such as taking on long distance smuggling missions or long distance cargo missions until your bounty timer has expired... That is an individual thing, me personally I just do not let the bounty bother me and eventually I go do something else for a little while and the bounty times out and I then pay out the legacy fine, usually I have made 50- 100 times as much money doing the assassination missions than the legacy fine is... Occassionally I bite off more than I can chew and I get killed and that wipes the bounty anyway
Having a bounty or hostile reputation IS NOT the end of the world as we know it. In fact having a bounty can make it easier for certain mission types.
One key thing to remember is when your ship is destroyed you are returned to the last station you docked at, so if you have a heap of missions to kill clean ships in a particular solar system then dock at a neighbouring system that is not controlled by the same minor faction as the targets system before jumping to engage the mission targets, you do not want to be returned to a station controlled by a minor faction that has a bounty on your head because you will have to pay out the bounty at the insurance screen if you do.
At the moment there is an unintentional way to clear the bounty and that is by buying a sidewinder and having the system authorities where you have the bounty destroy your ship. Personally I think this is pretty lame when there are other ways to handle it.
The simplest being to move around the area of space you call home, maybe have 4 - 5 systems within 30 LY radius of your home base where you have made allied status with the minor factions there and use them as mission givers so when one set of systems gets too hot, you jump to another set of systems where you can continue your assassination career until the bounty timers run down and it gets convereted to a legacy fine (7 days bounty, 7 days dormant bounty)
Having a bounty on your head AND being hostile with a controlling minor faction really is no problem as long as you are not scanned by their station when you are docking or by their authority ships while you are doing something else or interdicted by them for a random scan etc.
Avoiding the scan is usually a trivial affair but sometimes you still get scanned, be prepared to deal with that as and when it happens, Chaff can help confuse a scan, but its not 100%, running away under max boost and all pips to engines while firing chaff can help, and so can getting outside of their scanners range. Another way to deal with it when a station refuses docking permission due to scanning as hostile is to jump back to supercruise and then drop back out at the station and request docking once at the 7.5KM range then get into dock ASAP.
For getting into stations unscanned there are smuggling guides that you can follow or you can use the tried and true method of lining up from 5km to 7km and boosting in through the slot which requires you to hit your landing gear and full reverse thrust at the right time, its something different to each ship and thruster combination and you will get a feel for it the more you do it.
Another way for dealing with the issue of the bounty timers is to use that time to explore the universe or persue a different way of making money for a time, such as taking on long distance smuggling missions or long distance cargo missions until your bounty timer has expired... That is an individual thing, me personally I just do not let the bounty bother me and eventually I go do something else for a little while and the bounty times out and I then pay out the legacy fine, usually I have made 50- 100 times as much money doing the assassination missions than the legacy fine is... Occassionally I bite off more than I can chew and I get killed and that wipes the bounty anyway
MISSION STACKING
Try to have a home system where there are many starports and outposts as well as a number of different minor factions that you can visit to get similar missions in the same target system(s). This will maximise your return on your time.
If you have 1 mission to kill 20 Pirates and 2 other missions to kill 10 and 15 pirates respectively in the same system, then while you are killing the 20 pirates you will complete the other 2 missions of killing 10 and 15 pirates so you earn maximum credits for your time spent as you only need to kill 20 pirates in total to complete all the missions in this example.
It's not uncommon to have 4 or 5 missions of the same target type and system and often you can stack various mission, such as having 4 - 5 kill pirate missions as well as 2 - 3 kill trader mission and a few kill authority missions and they can all work in together, for example if you go to a USS and there is a pirate and a trader, you can kill the trader and the pirate and the authorities will turn up and you can kill them too, thereby working towards completing all 3 different mission targets.
If you have 1 mission to kill 20 Pirates and 2 other missions to kill 10 and 15 pirates respectively in the same system, then while you are killing the 20 pirates you will complete the other 2 missions of killing 10 and 15 pirates so you earn maximum credits for your time spent as you only need to kill 20 pirates in total to complete all the missions in this example.
It's not uncommon to have 4 or 5 missions of the same target type and system and often you can stack various mission, such as having 4 - 5 kill pirate missions as well as 2 - 3 kill trader mission and a few kill authority missions and they can all work in together, for example if you go to a USS and there is a pirate and a trader, you can kill the trader and the pirate and the authorities will turn up and you can kill them too, thereby working towards completing all 3 different mission targets.
I will continue to edit and evolve this guide as new information becomes available and try to keep it up to date with the new season expansions and updates as and when needed
Feel free to post suggestions to add to this guide and let me know if there is anything incorrect
Cheers and Kill Safe Commanders o7
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