Civil War inconsistent/pointless missions

[Alone Wulff]

So, I'm bored of combat (for now).

I have a system with a Civil War where I'd like one particular faction to win as it would give my own PMF an advantage (trigger an election later on instead of a war).

I'm looking at the only non-combat missions available - surface installation scans. I've noticed that the target faction doesn't seem to ever be the faction they're at war with. How could an illegal scan at an installation of a faction unrelated to the war, help the war effort? Surely it would be more helpful (and realistic) to steal data from the enemy??

I don't really pay much attention to missions for a faction at war, I just do a few sessions in a CZ and wait until the war ends. Are there any other missions you've noticed are a complete waste of time during wars?

I'm going to have a go at rescuing hostages planet-side, see if adds any fun. I don't understand why the hostages are in a system where neither of the warring factions are present though... but there ya go.

 

[Spaceman Si]

There are some real head-scratchers of missions between factions in conflict..

One of my favourites is where “couriering data vital to the war effort” is transporting data to another system that benefits the opposing faction directly on delivery.

Another is doing a scan job where the target faction is stated, but the target installation is owned by a different faction altogether.

Making sense out of some of them doesn’t seem possible

 

[Alone Wulff]

So... the hostages I need to rescue are 40m UNDERGROUND!!! Aborted that tripe!

I took a planet scan mission also, a public data beacon - why has the enemy left their data lying around for Joe Public to access??

I don't think I can be bothered with the thrid mission to 'recover' 2x landmines. Really? What good will that do that a cargo run of 200+ landmines won't? Are these 2x landmines actually covert war plans disguised as landmines?? How exciting.

I hope FDev's delays to fix bugs will include a revamp of mission-related content. Because right now I'm very underwhelmed!

 

[Red Anders]

Unless they changed this in the BGS update, would this be a good time to mention that regardless of what the mission text says the only player actions that actually influence the outcome of a conflict between two minor factions is combat in CZs?

 

[Alone Wulff]

Unless they changed this in the BGS update, would this be a good time to mention that regardless of what the mission text says the only player actions that actually influence the outcome of a conflict between two minor factions is combat in CZs?

I already knew that, not sure how many others do though. I was just 'pretending' other missions made a difference, just to break up the monotony of "Enemy Spec Ops inbound, watch your six!".

 

[Red Anders]

I already knew that, not sure how many others do though. I was just 'pretending' other missions made a difference, just to break up the monotony of "Enemy Spec Ops inbound, watch your six!".

No worries, I get bored after about half an hour in CZs myself which is why the only system I've ever flipped was a small independent on the edge of Empire space.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Unless they changed this in the BGS update, would this be a good time to mention that regardless of what the mission text says the only player actions that actually influence the outcome of a conflict between two minor factions is combat in CZs?

Bounty vouchers also have an effect (and did before the BGS update too)

According to Frontier at least some mission types do have an effect on war outcomes as of 3.3.

 

[Red Anders]

Bounty vouchers also have an effect (and did before the BGS update too)

According to Frontier at least some mission types do have an effect on war outcomes as of 3.3.

Bounty vouchers affected war and civil war? Not arguing with you (many people are more informed as to the BGS and its workings than me) but it's the first time I've heard that.

As for any changes post-3.3 I haven't seen anything about that (or indeed looked) so that's good to know, I always though it was a bit off that the mission text suggested that missions affected the outcome when they actually didn't. Do you have a link by any chance, or can you remember which mission types make a difference?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Bounty vouchers affected war and civil war? Not arguing with you (many people are more informed as to the BGS and its workings than me) but it's the first time I've heard that.

I saw a couple of wars won primarily by factions bounty hunting in systems they owned, and taking the bounties across to systems in war they wanted to win. Certainly would work in an uncontested war if you preferred that to CZs.

As for any changes post-3.3 I haven't seen anything about that (or indeed looked) so that's good to know, I always though it was a bit off that the mission text suggested that missions affected the outcome when they actually didn't. Do you have a link by any chance, or can you remember which mission types make a difference?

There's this picture from the BGS livestream

which certainly implies that missions can affect wars, but doesn't say which sorts.

I can't remember if anyone's checked by type or not.

 

[Alone Wulff]

Bounty vouchers affected war and civil war? Not arguing with you (many people are more informed as to the BGS and its workings than me) but it's the first time I've heard that.

As far as I've tested (a while ago though) only bounties on ships of the opposing faction. The massacre missions can be completed outside of CZs, which is really the only way to do them now kill counts are much lower in CZs.

 

[Red Anders]

Thanks to both of you for that. I actually prefer bounty hunting to CZs so I'll bear that in mind for a start. I'm out at Colonia at the moment and contemplating a trip to Beagle Point before I head back to civilisation so I probably won't have chance to do much experimentation with other mission types but I'll add it to my long-term plans. By which time it will probably have changed again

 

[Alone Wulff]

Thanks to both of you for that. I actually prefer bounty hunting to CZs so I'll bear that in mind for a start. I'm out at Colonia at the moment and contemplating a trip to Beagle Point before I head back to civilisation so I probably won't have chance to do much experimentation with other mission types but I'll add it to my long-term plans. By which time it will probably have changed again

There's a lot of hanging around for massacre missions or general bountying for faction specific ships. I love a good bounty hunt session in Haz Res but hunting specific faction pirates, unless they control an Anarchy system, can also get a bit boring.

 

[Drelthar]

It's pretty silly that factions don't hand out missions within the same system, against the faction they are at war with, that directly affect the war outcome.

Really silly.

And by silly, I mean unintuitive.

 

[Red Anders]

There's a lot of hanging around for massacre missions or general bountying for faction specific ships. I love a good bounty hunt session in Haz Res but hunting specific faction pirates, unless they control an Anarchy system, can also get a bit boring.

Anything would get boring if we do too much of it (with the possible exception of sleeping with Kat Dennings) but I find CZs to be monotonous in the extreme. I don't take the 'kill 87 pirates' missions for the same reason but I'm perfectly happy to go hunting a few, so on the rare occasions that I'm looking to actively influence a conflict I'll definitely be at least mixing that in with a CZ session or two.