Are all missions intended to be possible?

[Stealthie]

Just wondering if FDev have ever commented on this...

The best example I can think of is that sometimes you get an assassination mission where the target just flat-out fails to show up.
You go to the right system, honk, get given a target planet, go there and... nothing.
Wait at the right spot, look around the system, menu-log, restart the game, hop to a different system and back. Nothing.

I suppose it's plausible that you might not always find a target and the mission is doomed to failure.

So, is it a bug when this sort of thing happens or have FDev ever commented that it's intentional?

 

[Faded Glory]

Just wondering if FDev have ever commented on this...

The best example I can think of is that sometimes you get an assassination mission where the target just flat-out fails to show up.
You go to the right system, honk, get given a target planet, go there and... nothing.
Wait at the right spot, look around the system, menu-log, restart the game, hop to a different system and back. Nothing.

I suppose it's plausible that you might not always find a target and the mission is doomed to failure.

So, is it a bug when this sort of thing happens or have FDev ever commented that it's intentional?

I don't believe for a second that the scenario you describe is anything other than a bug.

To your question, no I don't think FD put missions out there that must fail. I've never heard any comments from devs regarding this, and while they are I'm sure content that certain activities take a bit of time to complete, I don't believe that they intentionally send you on a quest that is doomed to failure.

Edit: It seems you are not alone... Link

 

[RevLogos]

I haven't had the problem you describe. After a few minutes the mission target will spawn. Sometimes if I'm lucky the mission target will interdict me before I get to the planet. All the better.

There are two missions I have tried that are either un-survivable or un-doable (for a casual player).

One is the illegal Wetwork mission. You don't know what it is until you get to the system. Then discover you need to kill 40 civilians, or medical transports or something else where the NPCs are clean, and usually in a high security system. Then you get only 1 day 16 hours to complete. If I play say 1 to 2 hours in a day that gives me about 4 hours to finish. Problem is the spawn rate is too slow. I get maybe a few an hour. Repeatedly relogging helps some; but that isn't fun.

The other is the assassination missions where you first have to scan a comm beacon at a large high security site to get the location of your target. There is no stealth way to get in there that I can find. So breach the security barrier in the SRV, scan, drive like hell and get blown up by the three ships that were patrolling overhead.

Sure I could have a well shielded ship and try to get to it and take off before being blown up. But why risk a ship when the rebuy on an SRV is so cheap? Still I think getting blown up in the SRV is a fail. If anyone knows a way to do this without triggering the defenses I'd sure like to know it.

 

[Suvi Anwar]

I've had this happen at a somewhat uncommon rate all the way back to 2.3.x. Had quite a few mission fails because the target would just never show up. Had this happen on Assassination, and Liberate xxx missions also.

 

[Pumabear8]

Just wondering if FDev have ever commented on this...

The best example I can think of is that sometimes you get an assassination mission where the target just flat-out fails to show up.
You go to the right system, honk, get given a target planet, go there and... nothing.
Wait at the right spot, look around the system, menu-log, restart the game, hop to a different system and back. Nothing.

I suppose it's plausible that you might not always find a target and the mission is doomed to failure.

So, is it a bug when this sort of thing happens or have FDev ever commented that it's intentional?

This has happened to me a number of times, I just took to thinking it's the devs trolling the players, I don't wait around more than 10 minutes now, no show is wasted time and an abandoned mission to me.

 

[Jenner]

Pretty sure that's a bug. I can't imagine any mission is designed to be impossible.

 

[Stealthie]

I've had this happen at a somewhat uncommon rate all the way back to 2.3.x. Had quite a few mission fails because the target would just never show up. Had this happen on Assassination, and Liberate xxx missions also.

Uhuh,

When stuff like this happens it's easy to assume that the person is either being impatient, that they've misunderstood the instructions, that they're in the wrong place or that they aren't fully ware of their options.
I suspect these things account for some reported problems but not all of them.

As I said, I guess it is plausible that a target just might not appear (especially a "living" NPC target) so maybe it's intentional - although that would be the ultimate in iffy gameplay.
If it is intentional, you'd think there would be, perhaps, some kind of message acknowledging that the mission was a bust.

It doesn't happen very often but it happens enough, and it's been happening for long enough, that you'd think it would have been fixed by now.

 

[Faded Glory]

It doesn't happen very often but it happens enough, and it's been happening for long enough, that you'd think it would have been fixed by now.

You're right, it's been happening for a long time, but I still think it's a bug...

Someone would have come along and said if it were by design. One would assume / hope.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/335486-Assassination-Target-Fails-to-Spawn

 

[NecasekO]

I don't think there are any missions that are impossible on purpose, but some may be (almost) impossible due to bugs or bad luck / RNG.

One example would be the missions to "massacre" something like 40 pirates in a system that doesn't have a RES and the targets spawn one at a time, several minutes apart. For most players this is impossible since they can't (or refuse to) spend several hours just waiting for mission targets to appear.

Another example were the recent (already fixed / removed) missions to smuggle around 100 tons of corrosive cargo to Colonia. I don't think it's technically possible to do that.