Any passenger mission guides or tips?

[Elysianknight]

Noob here.... about 50 hours under my belt. Was wanting to give passenger hauling a go as its something I haven't done yet. Any tips to get me going?
Got a keelback and bunged in some cabins. Reasonable jump (No engineering, obviously)
Profit less important than exploring this element of the game....
One thing I wanted to ask: see on missions about various factors that reduce 'satisfaction '.... what's that actually mean in game terms? Less money? Less reputation?

Thanks

o7

 

[Spacecat]

When docking with wanted passengers, go fast.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

Sure, here is some tips. It can be very rewarding. Find a tourism economy in Boom or a high pop system at war. You can haul business people or refugees. Named passengers often are criminals. Hauling criminals is great though too, just remember to pack a heat sink and plan on smuggling them in. Getting scanned with a criminal is instant ship destruction. But don't worry, it's easy to avoid. I'd recommend something faster like a cobra or dolphin to get started. Go to Rhea and haul to those neighboring fed systems to get fed rank or go to Cubeo and haul people for imperial rank.

 

[DNA-Decay]

How I made my Billions.

https://inara.cz/cmdr-logbook/3414/20492/

Halfway down under: Money.

 

[d8veh]

Whatever ship you use, make it as fast as possible, and choose a ship type that can be made to go fast. Don't fit any weapons because they slow you down and I doubt you'll win any battles. You need the speed to escape from interdictions after submitting and to smuggle criminals into the station. In the beginning, don't accept any missions that involve taking criminals to a planet base because it's much more fifficult to avoid scans there.

 

[Shiro Akai]

One thing I wanted to ask: see on missions about various factors that reduce 'satisfaction '.... what's that actually mean in game terms? Less money? Less reputation?

Thanks

o7

High chance of failing the mission, to be exact.

It works that way - if the passenger is picky then he would DEMAND you to avoid scans and hull damage. Now, bad case scenario. You jump to the destination but enter too close to the star - emergency drop. As a result you take hull damage - passenger mails you with a warning to be more careful. His satisfaction level drops but it's still ok. Next you arrive at your destination and got scanned by local authorities. You get another angry mail from your passenger (quick question - how he knows that you were scanned?) with his satisfaction level dropping to a dangerous level. And now docking - finally at destination. But while in mailslot some Beluga forces her exit and pushes you into the wall - minor hull damage. Passenger going nuts, breaks the contract and demands that you deliver him to the nearest station this instant*.

In the end you made an effort, transferred passenger to where he wanted but you didn't got paid. Because.

* - imagine that request while flying to Colonia, you're 15k LYs away from nearest station and he ORDERS you to stop there right now. If you won't comply fast enough (timer is really short) they will simply leave your ship in a life pod. 15. Thousands. Of. Light years. From. Any. Civilization... You must be terrible pilot for someone to act like that.

In short - read carefully the description, search for "criminal", "wanted in some systems" (byt we WON'T tell you which ones, usually the destination one), "demanding". These are mine words. As in mine sweeper.

 

[Ayerc]

1) Passenger Requests typically aren't worth the trouble credits-wise and they won't cause mission failures if ignored. Only consider them if it's enjoyable for your play style.

2) Being Allied with System Factions will net you better paying Passengers. It also helps reduce the frequency of security scans when docking, helping with completing the Illegal Passenger Missions.

3) "Sightseeing" passengers (go scan a beacon(s) and return) raise your Exploration Rank, Transporting passengers (from Station A to Station B) will raise your Trading Rank. Check the mission's recommended rank icon if you're unsure or want to double-check before accepting.

4) Transport Passenger payouts are linked to the distance of the final destination station. If you do decide to work Passengers for credits, look for a station a decent distance away from the jump-in star. I look for destinations around 100k Ls away. They're not so far that you spend a long time in Supercruise, but the payouts are still relatively good (I average about 50M/hr with VIPs, can hit close to 100M when mission rolls are excellent).

5) Named VIP Missions will hog the whole cabin, whereas "## of Passengers" Missions can stack within the same cabins if space permits (but they won't split across different class cabins). This essentially creates two outfitting strategies: First/Business Class Cabins only focusing on VIPs, and Economy Cabins only focusing on stacking as many Econ Passengers as possible. Either pay very well, so it tends to boil down to your individual play style. I prefer VIPs as it doesn't require board hopping.

6) Passenger Liners (Dolphin, Orca, Beluga) are the only ship types that can fit Luxury Cabins.

One thing I wanted to ask: see on missions about various factors that reduce 'satisfaction '.... what's that actually mean in game terms? Less money? Less reputation?

As Shiro mentioned, this is essentially a tell that the Passenger is fickle. As long as you complete without them demanding being released at the nearest station or ejecting (Mission Failures), then you'll get full rewards at mission completion.

 

[Elysianknight]

Thanks for all the tips Cmdrs, plenty to digest there...

 

[Shiro Akai]

For starters look for missions like: "refugees seeking transport", "politicians seeking transport", bulk passenger runs in general. They pay significantly less and are like regular cargo missions. Pick at A, deliver to B. Named missions, like "Virginia LaCroix want to.../is seeking .." pay better, millions for a mission but very often come with strings attached (wanted or demanding, often both). Also, pay REAL attention to destination. Many times they offer regular pay for 20k+ LYs trip (like SagA*).

For the reasons above I skipped on passenger missions altogether for the time being. Tried that once, pay was quite good but that attitude of "cargo"... They offer a price for a destination, I agree, we have a contract. THEN, after take off, passenger one-sided changes the agreement. Instead of going to A, he now wants to go to Y (which is 3x farther then agreed). He also demands high luxury commodity (like 15t of beer), which source "by accident" is exactly opposite to our destination. Drop wanted on top and you have a ticking mine in your pocket that can go off at any moment. Taking everything under consideration the pay he offers now doesn't seem so good.

Especially when he can change the mission objectives while I can't raise my fee. Hey - extra wishes are extra paid after all.

Keep that in mind in your endeavors and it may save you some frustration.

 

[Ayerc]

Taking everything under consideration the pay he offers now doesn't seem so good.

Especially when he can change the mission objectives while I can't raise my fee. Hey - extra wishes are extra paid after all.

These additional requests are completely optional and can be ignored without fear of loss of happiness, nor original rewards.

There is a known bug, however, where not completing the optional request will cause the mission rewards selection screen to not display all (3) of the choices. The first choice (credit payout) disappears, and the other (2) shift to the left. The selection slot remains the same though, so selecting the far left option will still choose the original credit payout.

Where it gets frustrating is 1) not being able to select the third option (often Engineering Mats or Reputation/Influence gains), and 2) if one of the remaining displayed options has cargo space requirements that exceed your current cargo rack capacities, it renders that "slot" unselectable. It is not as frustrating as that sounds, however, and FDev have said they are working on a fix.