Cargo Rewards on Missions Should be Optional

[Johnny Cyclops]

FD need to fix this absurd 'game breaking' issue.

I have a Dolphin. I'm doing passenger missions. I'm 'forced' to have a small 4 ton cargo hold simply to accept passenger missions that include a cargo reward EVEN when I have no interest in the said cargo, and will sell or jetison it as soon as I am able.

Today I was carrying 2 tons of a routine mission cargo, along with mostly running passenger missions. I could not deliver my 11 passengers at their destination simply because I did not have four free tons of space!! I could not sell or jetison my two tons of cargo, because that would terminate the mission to deliver them.

My solution? Remove my class 3A fuel scoop and store locally. Buy an extra two ton cargo rack (it was all this surface port had available but it was just enough). I then had six tons of cargo space, with two used. I could then let the 11 grumpy passengers off my ship, receive four tons of "micro weave hoses" (I have zero idea what these even are!), that I immediately sold, then sold the two ton cargo rack, and reinstalled my fuel scoop.

This has got to be the dumbest game mechanism I've seen.

Really, to let 11 paying passengers off my ship, who did NOT travel with four tons of 'micro weave hoses' I effectively have to hold them hostage while ground crew remove my fuel scoop and install temp cargo racks. Why does the cargo even have to be loaded on my ship? It should just stay on dockside and I get an option to take it or leave it (sell, even)? In this case, the ground crew first loaded the four ton of hoses to my ship, then I immediately sold it back to the local market. Nonsense.

 

[Stupid_hippy]

'Game breaking'

lol

You chose to take on the missions even though you know about this mechanic,yet you didn't plan ahead and have enough room. Your choices got you in that position. That's your fault, not FD's.

 

[Teh Smoo]

'Game breaking'

lol

You chose to take on the missions even though you know about this mechanic,yet you didn't plan ahead and have enough room. Your choices got you in that position. That's your fault, not FD's.

This does not make the mechanic less stupid.

Kind of odd that there's even no way to even store cargo, or trade between players in a remotely secure fashion.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

'Game breaking'

lol

You chose to take on the missions even though you know about this mechanic,yet you didn't plan ahead and have enough room. Your choices got you in that position. That's your fault, not FD's.

Yes, 'game breaking' in quotes. It's a nonsensicle element to gameplay.

1. If I choose to setup as a passenger company, why limit my cabin capacity to be forced to take a cargo rack too
2. The cargo typically on offer seem to be the "ship component" type, and not generally traded commodities (which do have use to me). For me, the former have zero value (as I've only once looked at Engineering mods, and was not impressed by the time/effort it took). So these 'component' cargos (e.g. micro weave hoses) have zero useable value for me
3. I took the passenger mission with four available cargo slots. Later, I took another mission (to run cargo), which was still in the hold. I should have the option, when completing the passenger mission to either receive two or zero tons of the weave hoses.
4. Why do 11 tourists want to give me cash and "4 tons of micro weave hoses"? Why not something useful, gold, platinum, tea? Why do tourists, rebels, refugees continually dole out ship components?

It's just a shoddy game mechanic. As this is the suggestions part of the forum, I've provided my suggestion as to something that a) is awkward to workaround (but can be done) and b) suggested some improvements for FD. That you are fine with the mechanic 'as is' is great for you, and if I'm out of step with most other CMDRs that's fine too. ED is to be played "my way", and my way (of ignoring the needs to acquire 'component' cargos to unlock engineered mods, and choosing (at times) to be a passenger company), is hampered not helped by this element of poor gameplay design.

If you have a positive suggestion in this regard, please share it.

 

[concentric]

'game breaking' is certainly exaggerated but the OP is right nonetheless.
Say I fit an FDL for combat related missions. Why should I waste a precious compartment with a cargo bay? To be able to accept commodity awarded missions? With commodities next to worth- and useless? Nah, I'd rather ignore those.
If I actually did equip a cargo bay and cash in a few stacked missions, every third mission or so I get the 'storage full' message, so i have to go in my inventory and dump the useless stuff I just received (I don't even make the effort to sell it) before I can resume.
The way commodities are currently implemented it's just an annoyance (not a major one but still...).
It's like "Deliver this envelope for me" says the customer to the bike courier "here's your 5 bucks but you have to take this old washing machine, too!"

However, I'd prefer a different solution:
Instead of being asked to accept or reject commodities every time i cash in a mission I'd like to be able to set a cap for every type of commodity. Including the possibility to set the cap to 0. This requires the commodities list to include stuff you don't have (but already have discovered). Put a column "CAP" next to the "QTY" column with an up/down arrow next to it. If the cap is reached and you cash in a mission that rewards that commodity, you receive your payment but the commodity is rejected automatically.
Same goes for and all the more important with materials and data, as suggested by someone else already in another thread.
Every few ship or ground scans or cashed in missions I have to clear my storage of useless materials and data to make way for the stuff I really need. This includes looking up some of the stuff at Inara or using EDEngineer (which is a great tool by the way!) as I don't memorize what every single material or data is used for. It's an utter waste of time and being able to set a cap for individual stuff would be a great QoL improvement.

 

[Johnny Cyclops]

Building on concentric's, I do like being able to set a cap on cargo rewards, material rewards and data scans. I value collecting Elements but not Manufactured Materials (the latter have zero use to me, but accrue anyway). I've also missed delivering a mission because my Data store was full and the mission screen didn't offer me a 'hand in' option, and I flew away from the station/system before realising, when I've got a lot of missions on the go. Now every few days I check the Mats/Data and push everything back to a max of ten, but it's needless housekeeping if there was a better game design.

 

[Allchemyst]

As far as I can recall, the devs have indeed admitted that most of cargo rewards are redundant and want to tune them down or remove them.

Wether we'll ever get the option to choose money/cargo/materials or to just ignore cargo rewards altogether... Well, we all want it, let's hope FD eventually get around to doing it.

 

[concentric]

Now every few days I check the Mats/Data and push everything back to a max of ten

Exactly, except for stuff like CIFs, MEFs, EFCs obviously and things I need for planned engineer visits or jumponium mats when exploring...