Newcomer / Intro Cargo collection on the edge of orbital flight.

Ilma

I
Hi, I have a mission to collect some lost artwork and the mission objectives spawn right on the edge of orbital flight. The items are falling towards the planet and have an erratic path that while difficult I think I am hitting the cargo scoop but the cargo isn't in my hold and the item is gone.

While I am sure that if I spent enough time a bit farther out they would spawn there I am trying to avoid a few conflict sites that seem to be NPC magnets. Plus this is kind of a fun challenge capturing falling items that is rather novel in the game.

But I do have a couple of questions, while I have learned to follow the path of an item I bump these ones tend to fly off more than the yaw limit, is there some way to approach them that doesn't have as extreme movements. Approaching them from a radially out position doesn't seem to make much difference.

Also it may be that I am collecting them too fast and that is why they don't show up in my cargo, if it is not a bug but is there a known max limit that you can scoop up an item before it is destroyed. I didn't see any form of message and there is no failed mission notification but as they tend to be dropping away at almost 100m/s I do have to approach them a bit hotter than I would like as their random movements quickly exceed my ships turning ability with 4 pips in Eng.

Thank you for any advice.
 

Section47ABH

S
If you wallop in to the cargo canisters you can and often will break them. And collecting fast-moving cargo canisters is an utter sod, I agree.

Try and manouvre so that you're drifting in behind the canister as it moves, the idea is to match trajectories and have just enough thrust that your overtaking speed is a few metres per second: it becomes much easier to catch the blighters then.
 

Ilma

I
Thanks CMDR, I'll probably go back to the interior and grab my vulture to see if it makes it easier. As one of the current CGs has me running in economy mode on the ASP anyway it won't be much more pain to do a short jump > 600ly trip.


I did just notice that they gave me a full 4 days to complete the mission, so they will probably all spawn there and a better handling ship may help.
 
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Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Hey that sounds like incredible fun :D
Anyway, as said above, scooping a moving object is challenging. It is better if you can fly with FA off, because it's easier to match vectors.
And as for the "disappearing" cargo, yeah, if you bump into it too hard, you destroy it.
For successful collection you should keep the relative speed under 20m/s The scooping aid will tell you when you're too fast by turning red and by the alarm.

edit: Oh, and about that CG - You do know you can buy a fuel scoop and be there in 20 jumps, right? :)
 
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[VR] Zakk

[VR] Zakk
These missions are indeed tricky. Bonus points for missions with moving cargo and an enemy wing jumping on you as soon as you start scooping.

Based on my observations (that aren't necessarily accurate):

The mission target for salvage missions spawns randomly when you are around the target planet. At first I had thought I had to fly around the planet to get close enough to a specific point in orbit. But these days, I will just fly near the planet, then set the thrust to idle. The result is the same - it will take anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, but the mission target will appear.

Advantage 1: if it appears while your thrust is idle, it will appear close enough for an immediate approach.

Advantage 2: you can determine where it appears. Stay as far away from the planet as possible, to minimize (and often eliminate) the effect of the target cargo tumbling towards the planet.

If you cannot avoid the gravitation effect (e.g. because the target planet is very close to another one, so you have to remain close to it), then let the target cargo fly past you and follow it on its way towards the surface. That way, you only have 2 axis to worry about (1 if you manage to follow in its exact path).

And if you accidentally destroy a target cargo, scoop the rest of the targets, go back into SC, and wait. It can take a while, but the mission target will reappear, even with the full number of required cargo items in the debris field.
 

Ilma

I
Zakk said:
These missions are indeed tricky. Bonus points for missions with moving cargo and an enemy wing jumping on you as soon as you start scooping.

Based on my observations (that aren't necessarily accurate):

The mission target for salvage missions spawns randomly when you are around the target planet. At first I had thought I had to fly around the planet to get close enough to a specific point in orbit. But these days, I will just fly near the planet, then set the thrust to idle. The result is the same - it will take anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes, but the mission target will appear.

Advantage 1: if it appears while your thrust is idle, it will appear close enough for an immediate approach.

Advantage 2: you can determine where it appears. Stay as far away from the planet as possible, to minimize (and often eliminate) the effect of the target cargo tumbling towards the planet.

If you cannot avoid the gravitation effect (e.g. because the target planet is very close to another one, so you have to remain close to it), then let the target cargo fly past you and follow it on its way towards the surface. That way, you only have 2 axis to worry about (1 if you manage to follow in its exact path).

And if you accidentally destroy a target cargo, scoop the rest of the targets, go back into SC, and wait. It can take a while, but the mission target will reappear, even with the full number of required cargo items in the debris field.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips, I finally made it out to sothis in my Vulture after a few touch and go moments due to a long run of unscoopable stars, well a long run in a ship that can only do 3 ~15ly jumps on a tank. Probably not as stressful for me as the T-7 I kept scaring off their scoop. We were on the same path for a while before I realized that running into a human Vulture in unpopulated space in open play is typically a stressful situation. Especially when they keep showing up several systems in a row. Hopefully they didn't get any heat damage high waking a few times in a row with no cool down before I took pity and switched to private.

I'll follow the tips and see if I can figure this out tomorrow.
 

Ilma

I
Thanks for the help everyone, Sothis didn't have any collector limpets and I needed the spaces for fuel scoops etc... When I made it down there in the vulture the conflict zones around the target were gone and I dropped the throttle to the minimum and the objective did spawn higher up. So while I did miss a chance to improve my combat skills I did finish the mission. It was worth it to see all of the local chatter from other players in more appropriate ships saying things like "A Vulture" and others replying "I don't believe it"

I am off on attempt to reach Pre Logistics Support Gamma directly from Sothis, It looks like there are enough KGB FOAM stars to make it happen although I will be doing a quite a bit of back tracking in the Aries Dark Region.

Thanks again for all the help.

Sothis_Vulture.png
 

Limoncello Lizard

Limoncello Lizard
Ilma said:
Also it may be that I am collecting them too fast and that is why they don't show up in my cargo, if it is not a bug but is there a known max limit that you can scoop up an item before it is destroyed.
Click to expand...
The maximum scooping speed is about 40m/s. The cargo scoop screen on the left will be highlighted in red if you are going too fast to scoop, you risk destroying the item by trying to scoop when this is red.

If you want to use limpets, B-rated collectors have the best range. The scooping speed applies to limpets as well, so if you are going too fast the item may be destroyed.
 
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