Beginning to Dislike Mission Misdirections

[Junky Juke]

I'm totally avoiding assassination missions as I know you'll get often the Orca buggy one.
I'm totally avoiding pirate kill missions in USS as I know it will zero my target count when I'll meet the damn "bla bla bla" guy.
I'm totally avoiding pirate kill missions that bring you to unhabitated systems.

The only way to successfully accomplish pirate kill missions is to go to nav points and pew pew pirates until you get satisfaction.

It's not cool, it needs some serious implementation and fix.
Out.

 

[Terry Bruge-Hiplo]

Annoyingly, you can't seem to abandon those "abandon" missions either. I had one (Abandon your attempt to kill pirates in Liaedin) sitting in my log for nearly 2 months until I got sick of seeing it and flew all the way back to the start area to hand it in!

'Oh, no, deliver your five tons of monkey dander to OUR station!'

fnar

 

[Cryptonomica]

Yeah, it's a really annoying mechanic. It wouldn't be too bad if it was a rare occurence, but since it's pretty much darned guaranteed to happen for every mission when you visit your first or second USS, it ends up being just a tad OTT. At least give us a Yes/No button in the mission UI so we can actually make a choice!

Add to this the fact that gaining the "alternative" mission usually breaks (or wipes progress on) the original mission, and you've got a pretty broken system.

Mind you, the entire mission system seriously needs a second pass by the dev team, along with a huge boost in content/variety (including missions in the higer payout bands for people with larger/better fitted ships).

 

[Landge]

*cruise, cruise, cruise...*
"Oh, USS!"
*drop out*
'Oh, hello there trader! I hope I'd find you!'
"Ugh..."
*return to FSD, cruise, cruise, cruise...*
"Oh, USS!"
*drop out*
'Hello there trader, I've been searching everywhere for y-'
"For the love of..."
*return to FSD, cruise, cruise, cruise...*
"Another USS, PLEASE be a pirate..."
*drop out*
'Oh thank God, trader you have no idea how dire things a-'
"GAH!"
*BACK to FSD, cruise, cruise, cruise, cruise, cruise, cruise...*
"Fourth time's the charm..."
*Drop out*
'Hey there, you want to make some REAL mon-'
"FIRE ALL $%*%$& WEAPONS!!!!"

lol My sentiments exactly!

 

[Goilveig]

I'm totally avoiding assassination missions as I know you'll get often the Orca buggy one.

1. Very, very easy to see which ones are Orcas. They have 40k rewards instead of 150k rewards.
2. Orca killing missions seem to be working - I have no problems completing them, apart from them not being all that fun or profitable.

 

[Heracles]

Was he wanted in the system you were in? Even after a KWS, if he's clean in the current system it seems it's illegal to touch him. I've been caught by this one too...

My solution is to deploy hardpoints and let them fire first. They then become "wanted" in the current system. They sometimes issue a threat message "you have enough cargo for all of us". Ensure you have your "report crimes against me" set to on.

Lol hard to reproduce?! What the heck game are these guys playing? (Incredulity not directed at you.)

I get an issue on 4 out 5 kill missions. The same NPC issue that OP mentioned. Offer to switch sides, and it RESETS my kills I get this offer on literally EVERY kill mission, but only resets my kills 4/5 of the time. This is incredibly unfortunate since the doggone USS are so hard to get the ones you want anyway! (Kill pirates is admittedly not AS rare a USS, but still pretty uncommon) Also got a mission where for 3+ hours only 1 out of the 2 required smugglers even spawned.

Worse is the federation mission where killing the target ruins your rep with the federation lol.

So we get missions that do not have targets spawn, missions where your kill tally is reset, missions where you can't turn in upon completion, missions where completing the objective actually hurts your rep, and all the missions are some "cross my fingers, hope my lucky card turns over" and the target I actually need even pops... after an hour plus at least of mind-numbing meandering around a system hoping and hoping, searching and searching and searching and sear....

As of last night, I stopped doing these USS missions.

I haven't done a great many of these, so can't comment on the percentage of errors.

This is worrying. I wonder what sort of "beta" testing has been done! Surely faulty AI subroutines can be tracked and isolated? In my years of Flight SIM experience, I know software has been released, add on aircraft/program's, that allow the buyer to debug it, issuing patches after the sale.

I hope ED gets to be all it can be. It's got the potential.

Workaround:
For the 'kill x of y ship type' missions, rather than visiting USS (triggering counter-offers) I suggest going to the Nav Beacon. Not every wanted ship you find there will be a pirate, but they keep coming, so with a few minutes of pew pew it's not hard to collect enough pirates to satisfy your mission.

They will usually fire on you first. It's what I have found.

 

[Whiterose]

Always carry cargo, and wait for them to fire first.