Can we have some sort of USS scanner, or a reasonable way to track targets, please?

[Riepah]

Hi there.

I am currently cruising aimlessly around in a system, waiting for some random encounter to tell me where to find my assassination target. And I am bored out of my mind.

It takes quite a while for a USS to randomly show up out of nowhere, only for me to check it, notice it's yet another pointless, single Clear ship, a wedding/funeral or what have you, just to spin up my FSD again and wait for the next USS to spawn.

Can we please have something in the game to influence this in any way? Maybe some scanner that'll pick up USS faster to tone down the wait between USS, or one that allows us to check what the USS is all about without dropping out of FSD to manually check it?

Even better, could we please get a more reasonable and realistic way of tracking our target, than "float around aimlessly in space hoping for somebody to randomly show up and tell me which system to go to next in order to fly around aimlessly until I randomly run into whom I'm supposed to kill"?

 

[Julio Montega]

Good suggestion,
would ease my mind, too.

 

[Riepah]

I'm bringing this thread up from the abyss, because I'd really like to hear a few more people's opinions on this. I think a USS scanner could go a long way in making this mechanic a lot more enjoyable and a lot less frustrating both -- though those "kill this specific target" missions should be separate from it, in my opinion. Would be nice to have those missions sending us to a select few systems, one of which will have our target supercruising around for us to interdict/get interdicted by.

 

[Dabba]

Go to the system, park, wait. Your USS will spawn within a few minutes. Its dumb, and lazy design, but seems to be the best way.

 

[Riepah]

Go to the system, park, wait. Your USS will spawn within a few minutes. Its dumb, and lazy design, but seems to be the best way.

Oh I know how the USS stuff currently works, I am not asking for an explanation, I'm asking for a change. Thank you, though!

 

[DUST2DEATH]

yes, RNG based mission content/locations must go.

I propose a use of the rader to look for a ping in the system, which you then have to home in on the signel. Mission objective contained in location. No RNG involved other then the initial placement of the point you need to find via ping.

RNG for Loot. RNG for mission choices. RNG for world generation etc. RNG for mission location with RNG for contents is just insane.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

i think part of the reason for the whole rng uss hopping is balance/timesink. if the missions were more straightforward they'd be too lucrative. I can do about 2 assassination missions in an hour, at 150-200k apiece plus any bounties on their head(usually 30-50k) that's 360k-500k an hour. That's a pretty good payout, if it was easier to find the targets the payout would be insane.

i agree it's pretty tedious but since the AI isn't that good, most of the "challenge" has to come from finding the targets.

 

[Riepah]

i think part of the reason for the whole rng uss hopping is balance/timesink. if the missions were more straightforward they'd be too lucrative. I can do about 2 assassination missions in an hour, at 150-200k apiece plus any bounties on their head(usually 30-50k) that's 360k-500k an hour. That's a pretty good payout, if it was easier to find the targets the payout would be insane.

Then adjust the payout and the targets. Who said our targets always had to be Anacondas? The target could be a Cobra, Viper, Asp, anything with some sort of reasonable combat capability. Adjust the payouts according to what you're going to face. It'd also be nice to have the target protected by a wingman or two - those would make the fight harder, but would not be required to be killed for mission success - you could snipe your target and run away from the bodyguards, or obliterate them all for their respective bounties.

I'm sure the vast majority of bounty hunters would happily accept rewards being lowered if the pointless and terribly boring process of randomly poking USS for your target was removed, I know I would. However, as long as virtually risk-free trading can be used to make similiar profit to avid bounty hunting, I don't think there's much of a balance problem, and from what I hear, trading done right can be ridiculously lucrative.

 

[DUST2DEATH]

Then adjust the payout and the targets. Who said our targets always had to be Anacondas? The target could be a Cobra, Viper, Asp, anything with some sort of reasonable combat capability. Adjust the payouts according to what you're going to face. It'd also be nice to have the target protected by a wingman or two - those would make the fight harder, but would not be required to be killed for mission success - you could snipe your target and run away from the bodyguards, or obliterate them all for their respective bounties.

I'm sure the vast majority of bounty hunters would happily accept rewards being lowered if the pointless and terribly boring process of randomly poking USS for your target was removed, I know I would. However, as long as virtually risk-free trading can be used to make similiar profit to avid bounty hunting, I don't think there's much of a balance problem, and from what I hear, trading done right can be ridiculously lucrative.

+100, absolutely

 

[madfish]

i think part of the reason for the whole rng uss hopping is balance/timesink. if the missions were more straightforward they'd be too lucrative. I can do about 2 assassination missions in an hour, at 150-200k apiece plus any bounties on their head(usually 30-50k) that's 360k-500k an hour. That's a pretty good payout, if it was easier to find the targets the payout would be insane.

i agree it's pretty tedious but since the AI isn't that good, most of the "challenge" has to come from finding the targets.

If you follow that logic then trading needs to be removed ASAP. I doubt there's anything even remotely as lucrative as trading. Everything else pales in comparison and needs to be more exciting / entertaining / streamlined.

 

[Riepah]

i agree it's pretty tedious but since the AI isn't that good, most of the "challenge" has to come from finding the targets.

Didn't see that edit until now, my bad.

I completely agree that the AI isn't good. But that exactly is a problem that should be directly addressed. There is no excuse for bad AI in a game that has "Dangerous" in its name and offers immersion as one of its main selling points. Also, pure RNG isn't challenging no matter how you look at it - but judging from your use of quotation marks, I suppose you already know that.

 

[saulysw]

I took a lower value kill mission recently, $30k instead of $150-$180k, and it turned out to be an Orca instead of an Anaconda. So it seems that one of your suggestions is now implemented, perhaps in a server update.

 

[Lobstris]

A lot more could be done with scanning for target locations or target trails, or communicating with AI for 'clues', whilst still in super-cruise. It would give more to do when super-cruising (allowing distraction and interdictions/interactions to occur) and would feel a lot less random than the present system.

 

[Titus Balls]

IMHO you should be able to scan a USS when you are within a 5-10Ls range and have at least some partial resolution such as "ships detected" or "canisters detected" type message.

The old "hunt the USS with my specific mission type" gets a bit tedious after the 20th USS with biowaste in it after a while.

And to the "WHHHAAAA YOU'RE TRYING TO MAKE THE GAME TOO EASY" crowd - not really, this is more about making it more fun. This isn't suggesting that it should tell you everything at that range, but just suggest what might be there - for all you know it *could* be a pirate masking their signal

 

[Space Elmo]

The most interesting bounty hunt I had was randomly finding a 40,000 Cred bounty whilst super cruising round a system. I interdicted him and KW scanned him. He took a few hits, was down to 30% hull then he jumped. I scanned his FSW and jumped after him. Found him legging it to the local port, Interdicted him again and this time got the bounty. Best fun I ever had and no USS in sight. That system has to be done away with because I am not sure of its need.

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The most interesting bounty hunt I had was randomly finding a 40,000 Cred bounty whilst super cruising round a system. I interdicted him and KW scanned him. He took a few hits, was down to 30% hull then he jumped. I scanned his FSW and jumped after him. Found him legging it to the local port, Interdicted him again and this time got the bounty. Best fun I ever had and no USS in sight. That system has to be done away with because I am not sure of its need.