Assassination mission failed because of RNG

[Horus Lupercal]

Hello,

In every assassination mission there is at least one point the player is at the mercy of RNG, where you have to wait for the contact or the target to spawn.

You can fail those missions with no fault of your own, losing precious reputation with that faction, just because RNG was not in your favour.

I say that is nonsensical and should be fixed - my suggestion is for the mission USS to spawn upon approaching within 1.0 LS of the planet that is the destination or have the informant spawn upon entering the system. Or simply sending the player a message.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Hello,

In every assassination mission there is at least one point the player is at the mercy of RNG, where you have to wait for the contact or the target to spawn.

You can fail those missions with no fault of your own, losing precious reputation with that faction, just because RNG was not in your favour.

I say that is nonsensical and should be fixed - my suggestion is for the mission USS to spawn upon approaching within 1.0 LS of the planet that is the destination or have the informant spawn upon entering the system. Or simply sending the player a message.

Never had that happen. Half the time my mission target actually decides to jump the gun & attempt to interdict me. Other times, I have been able to track my target via the Contacts Tab & interdict them.

 

[Prorokpl]

I was flying with my mission but I had still time so I was going to station for some fuel. I used my ADS and BOOM! my target spawn behind me in SC and interdict me in 1 sec. Is that normal? His destination should be 3,000 ls away from my location, that's what mission update said.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I was flying with my mission but I had still time so I was going to station for some fuel. I used my ADS and BOOM! my target spawn behind me in SC and interdict me in 1 sec. Is that normal? His destination should be 3,000 ls away from my location, that's what mission update said.

The point is that it is only an ETA, not set in stone. The whole thing is to be so the missions don't get too stale. I would love it if salvage missions occasionally worked the same way.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Assassin mission have a trigger, if you go to the target at your own pace, ignoring any mission suggestions about time, and honk with advanced discovery scanner, you get an update to which planet the target is at currently, and then you only need to go there and wait for the mission target to appear and drop in on it. Making the sugge

It didn't use to be like this, but instead you had to go to the target system and locate the target in super cruise and then interdict the target.


Back to the issue here, I have also encountered when such missions fail, despite having lots if time left before the suggested time in the mission, I have not to my knowledge even been in the system after taking the mission, but I had been doing other mission and moving around. I do not get the time frame given, as you if you are to slow to get you ship over there and actually trying to locate the target, it will fail on its own, before the time runs out.

 

[Factabulous]

Sounds like OP needs some practice to work out how the missions work - many missions in ED don't work quite the way the mission text implies...

 

[Faded Glory]

While I agree it's a bit redundant to have to wait around for a random amount of time when you've got to the place that the target will be, it's very unusual for the target not to show before the window of opportunity closes.

For what it's worth, there's no need to wait for the window of opportunity to open, if you head to the system and do the nav beacon scan / honk, the target will show up once you get to the target body. The window of opportunity is for when the target will appear in SC for you to interdict. You must however have found the target by the end of the window or the mission will fail. The 23 hour timer on the mission is how long you have to hand the mission in and collect your reward.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I was flying with my mission but I had still time so I was going to station for some fuel. I used my ADS and BOOM! my target spawn behind me in SC and interdict me in 1 sec. Is that normal? His destination should be 3,000 ls away from my location, that's what mission update said.

Quite normal. Assassination targets can turn up anywhere in the target system during the specified time window. Targets can interdict you, you can interdict them, they can be interdicted by authority, they can also show up if you drop into real space, such as a USS or Nav beacon. They can also be there before the specified time, but only in the mission specific USS.

But the OP is right in saying that there are some targets that don't seem to appear before the time runs out. The timer also doesn't seem to take system size into account, so you'll get the same timer if the target is around Proxima Centauri as it will for a normal system. The worst is when the body the target is supposed to be near is a star rather than a planet. I've had timers run out waiting for the USS to spawn near a star, but never near a planet.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

Have to agree with the OP, assassination missions are in a terrible place at the moment IMO. Gained a good chunk of my 'Vette rank through assassinations, and I refuse to go back to them until the RNG is atleast revisited, preferably removed.

The issue he's raising (as some reductive commenters seem to have missed) is that the effort/time required to complete a mission is variable, with an utterly staggering about of variance between miniumum and maximum.
You can drop into a system, during the window, and get the target interdicted/destroyed in 5 minutes flat, onto the next. You can also, through no fault of your own, be required to drop in during the in window - no target - go to nav beacon - no target - scan beacon - told to jump to a different system - jump to the system - wait for contact - SP to their wake sig - drop in - talk - jump back to system - SP to nav beacon - drop in - scan beacon - get a planet 100K LS away - SP to planet, orbit for 10 minutes - drop into USS - destroy target.
That is a ridiculous amount of variance, which only promotes frustration, and makes taking multiple contracts a gamble at best. Compare this to pretty much any other contract (I haven't done all of them) and assassinations stand alone as the most RNG heavy obnoxiousness on the mission board.

I try not to criticise, but I'm honestly amazed that no one at FDev thought to add a rubberband mechanic to the USS spawn, or that someone thought arbitrary forcing players to jump to a different system, only to be told to go back to exact same one they just came from, was enjoyable game design.

Thankfully pirate hunting missions have been buffed to compare to assassination income levels, when you can get a decent stack going. So my suggestion OP, is to do pirate hunting for cash, and cargo/data running for rep (and mats). Ignore assassinations until FDev rework them.

PS: Fair warning, pirate hunting missions are currently bugged. But they're still better than assassinations.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Sounds like OP needs some practice to work out how the missions work - many missions in ED don't work quite the way the mission text implies...

Here is my understanding of how assassination missions work basing on my experience so far:



1. Upon accepting the mission I get a destination (system) in which the target is supposed to spawn in within a given time frame.

2. Upon reaching the system I have to scan the navigation beacon or use an advanced discovery scanner while in SC to ascertain the target's actual location. This gives either a destination in the system (a stellar body, I'll refer to this as 3a) or a different system where an informant will appear (3b).

3a. I have to approach the target body to have the mission signal source to spawn. The target should also spawn within the system the destination is in within the designated mission time frame. The signal sources sometimes spawn instantly when I get within I think 5LS, sometimes they don't spawn for dozens of minutes on end, and I had instances where they never spawned at all. I noticed that switching modes/restarting the game sometimes makes them spawn instantly upon entering SC within the spawn zone, but that does not always work. Very rarely have I noticed the target spawning within the system in SC. Strangely enough, I had instances where I had multiple assassination targets in the same location, and upon being interdicted by one others would spawn in that instance as well, without being present in SC. Same happened once upon entering a mission signal source.

3b. I travel to the system the informant is supposed to be. They should spawn while I'm in SC and message me that they have the pertinent information, will move in on an interdict course and drop behind me upon zooming past. (which is frustrating but can be worked with by showin them your stern as they are on approach.) Then I have to drop into the signal they leave. I had one instance when after dropping into their location they haven't given any information. I dislike this outcome of the scan the most as it adds the most time of not doing anything interesting, and the informants have a nasty habit of not spawning at all, which is exacerbated in systems with multiple stars. Similarly as in 3a they do seem to spawn upon untering SC if I restart the game / change modes, if I'm lucky. Upon receiving the update on the target's location I revert to 3a.

What am I missing?

 

[clivewil]

i did several of these today and had some cases of the target not appearing.

often fixed by dropping out of cruise and then re-entering, the most stubborn one was fixed by quitting to the menu and then re-joining again (i chose to change modes too, not sure if it helped but the guy did show up)