Hi Cmdrs,
I am a great fan of massacre missions, but couldn't find any complete (to my own opinion) guide that would make it worthy for me.
Thus, I built up my own experience on that subject. Now I think it's time for me to share it.
If you like it, I'd love to know. But moreover, since it's a draft, I would like your constructive opinion about it.
There may be mistakes, confusing/unclear/outdated statements, missing hints, and so.
(not sure this it the suited forum, but since it's not a definitive guilde... more a first draft: it sounded the right place to me)
First of all, I am not a native english speaker. So there may be (and there will be) mistakes.
So the very first help you could provide is some language tips.
Also, I started writing this guide 7 months ago, and switched to on foot missions since. Thus, some statements may be outdated now.
Also remember this is built upon my own experience, and may not match your playstyle/build. If you have tips to have it match other playstyles / build, I am eager to learn about them.
The purpose of this post is NOT (yet) to provide a definitive tutorial, but to fix my draft. One it has reached V1.0, I will gladly share with whoever wants it!
Howver, if you want to take all or part of this to your own website / tool despite it's not complete yet, I don't mind as long as you credit me (my Cmd name will fit) for whatever you take from here (but the mistakes... since it's a draft, I will be ok if you don't credit me for them
)
I have a french version of it, that I will gladly share too (as soon as this one is close to completion)
Here it is :
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I am a great fan of massacre missions, but couldn't find any complete (to my own opinion) guide that would make it worthy for me.
Thus, I built up my own experience on that subject. Now I think it's time for me to share it.
If you like it, I'd love to know. But moreover, since it's a draft, I would like your constructive opinion about it.
There may be mistakes, confusing/unclear/outdated statements, missing hints, and so.
(not sure this it the suited forum, but since it's not a definitive guilde... more a first draft: it sounded the right place to me)
First of all, I am not a native english speaker. So there may be (and there will be) mistakes.
So the very first help you could provide is some language tips.
Also, I started writing this guide 7 months ago, and switched to on foot missions since. Thus, some statements may be outdated now.
Also remember this is built upon my own experience, and may not match your playstyle/build. If you have tips to have it match other playstyles / build, I am eager to learn about them.
The purpose of this post is NOT (yet) to provide a definitive tutorial, but to fix my draft. One it has reached V1.0, I will gladly share with whoever wants it!
Howver, if you want to take all or part of this to your own website / tool despite it's not complete yet, I don't mind as long as you credit me (my Cmd name will fit) for whatever you take from here (but the mistakes... since it's a draft, I will be ok if you don't credit me for them
)I have a french version of it, that I will gladly share too (as soon as this one is close to completion)
Here it is :
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The "Massacres" missions are well named...
My overall feeling is that they are not considered a very good source of income (ratio time spent / income).
Though, they may be more exciting than mining or exploring (according to what kind of game experience you appreciate, indeed). I will thus present here my method to make them as lucrative as possible.
This guide covers solo missions, but squadrons are governed by the same rules (note, I speak with no experience here: so feel free to correct me).
I'll refer to targets as "pirates" later on, but you can target a "non-bad" faction. But since it's less profitable (explanation below), I'm going to stay with this very idea.
Terminology:
- "campaign": the execution of (max 20) stacked missions
- "pirates": in fact covers all targets of the type "pirate", "gang", "syndicates", "mafia", and so. They are mostly wanted targets.
- "mission station": station that delivers the missions that we are looking for
- "faction mission": faction that delivers the missions that we are looking for (present in the first ones)
- "source systems": the systems where you will find "mission stations"
- "target system": the system where you will execute those missions
- "nice": without judgment, these are basically the factions that are not considered criminal, and do not own a (large) majority of wanted members
- "bad": it's the opposite. In general, I rather refer to this type of target as "pirates".
- "named target": a target which is the subject of an assassination / elimination mission, and which is identified in the title of the mission. It can be the main target ("assassination / elimination" / etc. type missions), or secondary ("ennemies in approach", bonus targets, etc.)
- "faction target": a faction whose members are targeted by a mission
- "mission massacre": a mission whose objective is the elimination of a type of target within a target faction. Warning: within a faction, there can be several types of targets, "bad" ("pirates", "smugglers", "deserters", "prisoners" etc.), or "nice" ("venerable general ", "civilians", etc.).
- "elimination mission": in the broad sense, it is a mission whose main target is a named target.
Introduction:
Before detailing the strategies, let us dwell on the general principles.
In a limited time (from 24 hours to a few days), you will have to kill a maximum of targets belonging to a specific faction, or even named targets of the said faction.
Several factions can target the same clan (commonly "gangs", "syndicates", or "pirates"), which makes it possible to accumulate missions which can be validated at the same time (common counter). Similarly, there are a few specific missions that require you to target a particular "pirate", usually (and preferably!) of the same target faction.
We can therefore guess that the effectiveness of these types of missions depends on the accumulation of missions targeting one and only one faction.
General principles:
Let's first focus on a few key elements to determine which system(s) you will settle in to carry out these missions.
- a system with many Celestial Bodies (CB) will be subject to many gravitational forces... so you will rarely be flying at full speed. On the other hand, a system with little CB will allow you to quickly reach a high speed and maintain it for a longer time.
- In Massacre Missions (especially when you have only 1 or 2 missions left to complete) targets will appear alternately at one end then the other of the system. Within a very large system such round trips can be extremely time-consuming. If the system also has many CBs, it becomes a real pain. In condensed systems with few CBs, on the contrary, we have the possibility to carry out our missions very quickly.
And regarding the choice of missions, the elements that must be kept in mind:
- most named targets ("execute known pirate") will chase you, so there is no need to "intercept" them. Just wait for them to do it for you...
- these named targets will sometimes FSD out while you are in the middle of a massacre
- be careful when accepting a mission: sometimes the factions from which you usually pick up your missions go to war with each other (sometimes because of you because you have changed the balance of power)... and if you don't pay attention, you will find yourself at odds with one of your employers.
- if you play the powerplay, note the allegiance of the system where you are going to get the missions: if it is your allegiance, you may benefit from bonuses : up to +150% (on bounds. Excluding mission reward).
- if you have taken care to draw the missions from the "nice guys", and the target is a "bad guy" faction (the "smugglers" are not part of it, for example, even if a not insignificant part of them them is wanted), you will face ships that are all "wanted". You will therefore accumulate bonuses from the authorities. They represent a substantial bonus!
- on the other hand, if you choose to target "nice" targets, you will accumulate fines, (bad) notoriety and will be chased.... thus not very rewarding!
- with "massacre" type missions, "mission objectives" of different levels of danger (1 to 5) will randomly appear in the target system (orange/blue markers). You will find a lot of grouped target "pirates" there (from 4 to 12 : max?). If you also have named missions, they may occasionally match one of these targets
- the grouped "pirates" (not named) do not attack if you have nothing that can be stolen from your holds (drones do not count), even if you knock out one of their colleagues. So you can kill them one by one quietly.
- On the contrary, if you have cargo that they want, they will all attack you
- Meeting an enemy squadron (denoted by ex. "1/3", "2/3", "3/3"): if you attack or intercept one of the ships, the others will automatically turn around against you.
- the amount of the reward gives a good idea of the target: 1M- => cobra MKIV, VIPER MPIII, etc. 2M -, vulture 3M - Fer de Lance, Federal Assault Ship, alliance chieftain, etc., 4M+ Anaconda, Frigate, Cutter (? purely theoretical because I have never seen a bad NPC in Cutter, nor any NPC in Cutter actually). Everything is poundered by the combat rank of the target.
- "Massacre" missions can require killing from 1 to 30 enemy ships, and can be rewared from a few 100k CR up to 45M credits (the "jackpot!" missions)*
- the stronger your reputation is in the faction, the most rewarding (but also dangerous!) missions you will be offered
- several massacre missions share their counter provided that they have been assigned by different factions (30 + 17 => 30 pirates to kill). Within the same mission faction, they accumulate (30+17 => 47 pirates to kill)
- the same mission faction can be present on several sites, so be careful not to put yourself in a complicated situation (120 targets to kill, may be a long challenge, especially when you also have a real social life...)
- there are usually several factions that target a single faction, and some (fewer) others that target the first ones. These latest will tend to make you counter-proposals (basically ignore/decline them, because it doesn't align with the strategy we are developping here)
Prospecting:
In order to find the right combination of target and source systems, the following rules must be respected:
- identify candidates with https://edtools.cc/pve. Of course, you can search by hand (always respecting the rules below), but it's more laborious.
- Target system:
- few CB (7-8 max), small extent (most distant object <5k sl)
- - Source systems:
- 1 or 2 systems (using edtools.cc/pve): it all depends on the number of "nice" factions present (at least 7-8 different ideally)
- at least 3 station missions, non-planetary (they are time-consuming beyond accetpable to my opov)
- no missions station too far away (at least for the 3 first ones... beyond, it does matter less : just ignore them): < 2k
- stations with many "official" factions (more likely to target pirates)
- if powerplay: systems that are operated by your power.
- try to have an "interstellar factors" service in one of your (reachable) mission stations: to recover the additional bonuses from factions not owning the missions station.
- if you are increasing your rank within a group (Federation or Empire), target a system corresponding to this authority. Rewards often involve a bit (or more) of reputation which will be a significant bonus in addition to credits.
- check the status of the factions: if they are at war with each other, it will limit the massacre missions towards the target systems
Preparation :
(in this order)
- stock up on drones (recovering high level materials is an interesting side bonus to these missions)
- refuel others / repair
- rebalance your energy (it's very frustrating to land in front of an "easy" target, and to find yourself running out of weapon juice though the target only has 3% armor left)
- check your real life calendar: the elimination missions must be completed within 24 hours and the massacres between 24h and 3 days.
- fill up on missions on the different stations (wait to pass the next ten minutes if you are not far away, to be able to have an additional set of choices)
- Empty your hold of everything that is not drones (avoid even holds if you do not want to recover materials) => to avoid attacks by a whole gang and be able to knock them out one by one quietly instead.
The interesting part : the massacre!
- in the case of a squadron, clear weak targets quickly. Usually it takes a few seconds to do this, if your ship build is efficient
- when you are intercepted: let it happen (drop out of FSD or turn speed to ). It'll serve you a target on a platter (sometimes several of them), and it's faster than intercepting it yourself.
- when you are intercepted or when you land on a mission objective, and you have named targets that have not yet been killed, expect to see one or more of them land on you. You may notice that, despite common sense, your enemies tend to fight each other instead of uniting against you...so sometimes it's worth waiting a bit if you've spotted a target following you. On the other hand, it is necessary that you take part in the elimination so that that the kill counts towards your missions (even a few blows on the ships are enough).
- it is generally not useful to intercept your named targets: they will do it for you.
- when you face a named target who intercepted you or that you intercepted, the system authorities will intervene (it may take a few minutes but they always end up coming). If you are in difficulty because the fight is unbalanced (a 2nd corvette that lands while you already had one under fire, for example), take a little distance and wait for them (but don't forget to give a few shots if you want their death to count toward your missions objectives)
- if you are really struggling, run away and switch to FSD. Named targets will find you later (or you will find them), and if they were damaged, they will still be!
- Be careful not to let other pirates complete one of your named targets without you having touched it: the mission will be considered a failure
- the bands of pirates will stay a few minutes on the spot, to scan you, then will disperse. After a few minutes, they will switch to SC one by one.
- when you come across a band of pirates, attack weak targets first, in this order (it's more a hint than a strict rule : you may reorder those according to your fight style / skills / ship): Viper, Cobra, vulture, alliance chieftain, Python, Fer de Lance. Depending on the dangerousness, the order can be different (the vultures become painful and therefore time-consuming when they are competent, because they spend their time rushing behind you. Pythons take time to kill. Low level FdL are far less dangerous and more fragile). High level FdL are usually dangerous opponents... Usually you don't have time to kill everyone, so you better optimize!
- It's tempting to hang around with collectors and scavenge materials, but your performance will quickly suffer. For my part, I let the low level materials accumulate until saturation, and I will only trade on levels 4/5. That way I only stock up on rare materials, and don't waste time on low level ones.
- some named targets will not be found in the target system. You will be asked to go to a system to meet a contact with info. It's a shame because a kill outside the target system (even if it's the right faction) will not be counted for your massacre missions... but the reward will still be interesting, so run (if you don't, you will loose rep with the mission faction, so it remains the best option). The bounty generated ("wanted" targets) will generally not be cashable on your target/source systems: it is for this reason that I advise to choose a mission system with an "insterstellar factor" service
- don't hesitate to come and collect elimination missions if you have completed your named targets: it will generate low level mission objectives which will help the other massacre missions (but keep in mind to collect missions over different factions) !
- you will accumulate a nice package of bonuses. They are to be collected on the target systems / and or sources.
- If you don't yet have a high reputation with a station's ruling faction, take advantage of the bounty delivery from the authorities to catch up
- If you are not confident on your chance of long-time survival, turn your rewards more often (bounds mainly, because they are lost when your ship is destroyed, while finished missions are still turnables).
Missions :
a word about the targets:
The different targets you may encounter (when dropping out of FSD on a "mission POI"):
- an isolated named target ship, with another ship from the authorities of the system: in general already fighting with each other. The target can be present in a squadron (generally 1 or 2: 1 vulture and/or 1 sidewinder). Generally non-aggressive because busy with authority.
- an isolated named target ship, with 3 neutral ("nice") ships stopped, including a ship in distress (that will ask for help). The target may occasionally be aggressive.
- a bunch of pirates of the same faction: non-aggressive if you have nothing to be stolen.
- ships in supercruise : which can belong to the 2 types of targets (named or faction). Aggressive if nominative (expect an interception on their part), more rarely if not.
a word about the missions:
- "massacre": kill a fixed number of targets of a specific type within a target faction
- "eliminate": kill a named target (if possible to choose in the target faction, or failing that in the same system)
Sometimes the mission comes with additional "bonus" targets.
They are named targets and can be identified and treated in the same way as official named targets.
the choice
- to start, it will be a question of rising quickly in reputation with all the mission factions (the exploration data trick also works, but only for the station owner). Accumulate the missions, but favor the one with reputation rewards (which will also boost your rank with the authority if necessary)
- avoid missions that require surface analysis (too much time consuming). You can identify them with a little logo (TODO : put an image here)
- avoid "<TODO : >" type missions (<TODO : reason>) (can't remember for now, but there is a specific kind you should avoid.... if anyone know what I am talking about.. )
- Distribute massacre missions well between the different factions : this is the number 1 rule of optimization, actually
- Even if it's tempting to take very juicy elimination missions (4.5M+), don't take too many.... it's always complicated to defend against 4 federal corvettes and their 8 wingmen!
- small targets, on the other hand, will generate some low level "mission objectives", which will allow you to complete other massacre missions more quickly (provided you followed the number 1 rule).
- it is very interesting to take juicy massacre missions (big profit) but be careful because they will generate high level mission objectives (4+) which will take a long time to farm: pirates take a long time to kill. They will also generate lower levels, but in limited numbers, and which will not return once exhausted. Taking a few "small" massacre missions will generate lower objectives (1-2-3) which will also count for other missions of this type (provided... n°1 rule)
- Once you have reached the max level for each faction, you can focus on credit missions.
Additional tips:
- when you have the choice between several massacre missions offered by the same faction, take the biggest ones first, and the smallest ones at the end. As long as the smaller one is active, it will generate targets of lower danger, which will count towards the big mission first. As missions accumulate within a faction (no parallelism), you will have a big mission easier thanks to the one waiting behind. This is the very one case where n°1 rule may be ignored.
- as long as you have unkilled named targets left in the system, some of them will invariably fall on you while you're busy with other targets (named or not). It is therefore always interesting to temporize before attacking, to allow us to benefit from the help (improbable but almost systematic) of non-aggressive faction targets that we have not yet attacked.
- however... sometimes 2/3 nominative targets will form an improvised squadron... (didn't happen often, and couldn't undestand how this scenario does trigger so fat). So no chance of them attacking each other. However, I have found that in these cases, only one of them attacks fully. The other tends to attack only with torpedoes, mines, etc. (I'm not sure if this is an intended behavior)
- Yield (time spent credit) can be set aside a bit in favor of a more "sociable" approach: leave your ship parked in a mission station with a lot of mission factions, go about your real life business (provided your personal activities allow it indeed), and come back from time to time to consult the table of missions (reminder: the missions are renewed every 10 minutes). This way you collect missions without being glued to your computer. And when you have accumulated your 20 missions, you can put yourself back in front of your computer to carry them out. Though your performance is degraded, the time you spend collecting your missions, which is obviously not the most interesting part, is made less hard.
- by using the tool https://edtools.cc/pve, we only find "exclusive" source systems, ie whose massacre missions (excluding war) only target the same target system. However, if you are struggling to collect missions from your usual factions (especially when they go to war with each other), it may be worth taking a look at the manned systems near your target system. Some may offer some massacre missions in the latter.
- sometimes you have to accept to switch to other systems if you realize that the chosen systems are too time-consuming or not profitable enough (for many reasons)... a good combination of systems / factions can ensure a great return (200M+/h and 75%+ time spent hunting) while the opposite can make the game tedious (50M-, 50%+ time spent looking for missions)
- for profitability, it is better to have a medium ship (FdL, python, etc.) than a large one. Large ship repairs limit gains, and well-played medium ships can complete missions faster due to their maneuverability. And the last but not the least : this will give you more options on missions stations (holding only medium landing pads)
- avoid expensive and above all with limited ammo equipment (torpedoes, for example): they do not fit with those missions where you will have to slaughter 100 ships in limited time)
- in the case of powerplay, and provided that you have chosen mission systems for your allegiance: if you choose an allegiance that boosts bonuses (A. LAVIGNY DUVAL, for example), you will then have to choose between 2 options: stay rank 1, and take advantage of the slight level 1 bonus without too much effort, or invest in level 5 (which will cost you around 50M and a few hours of transport A/R), and increase this bonus up by +100%. This 2nd option requires a small calculation of profitability... basically, how many bounty bonuses we will have to recover to compensate each week: first the 50M to accelerate the collection of allegiance materials, and enought to compensate for the 2/3 hours of lost revenue spent to deliver them (say 400M). That makes us 450M to compensate. Assuming the allegiance bonus is 100+10% (rank 5 + unfavorable ranking for your allegiance) => 450M (faction) bonus earned on bounties mean you have earned 450M of basic bounties (I'm only counting the 100% bounty bonus , because the 10% are acquired no matter you rank up or not). Assuming that we follow the optimization rules above, and from my experience, the bonuses accumulated at the end of an (average) campaign are around 20M. It will therefore take 23 campaigns to compensate. 1 campaign lasts between 1h30 and 4h.... At this stage, you have all the elements to determine if it's worth it (for my part, I don't devote enough time to the game for it to be profitable). And in case of doubt, you may have to look at the side bonuses (other rank bonuses, pleasure for this or that type of activity, etc.)
- AS a matter of facts, and to my OPOV, recovering materials is an interesting side bonus, but it still takes a long time. Moreover, they have a limited life span, and if you want to recover them all, you will have to wait between 2 targets, at the risk of seeing them leave the zone. I personally advise to let the level 1/2/3 materials pile up until saturation (300/250/200), so that you will only collect the level 4/5 materials Visit material brokers from time to time to balance with the ones you have less of. In this way, harvesting materials will have a fairly small impact on your profitability, and will always keep you a little ahead of the high level materials. And with experience, you'll distinguish between targets that are worth opening the bunker and dropping a drone, and others that aren't even worth opening the "targets" tab of your GUI. And if you follow the rule saying to kill them in order of increasing dangerosity, you will be closer to higher mats when the massacre is done at this very spot.
A few notes about my conf / personnal experiment:
- for my part, I mainly choose the credits or sometimes the materials when I can have them by 5 (and as long as I am far from the max). Even though I do not choose reputation-oriented missions I was able to reach the rank of Admiral in less than 10 days (2 to 3 hours per day on average). I have never tried the influence because the combination to obtain an adequate system becomes strongly improbable.
- With these rules, I run at around 170M/h (without powerplay), bonuses but also mission collection included. It represents around 250M per campaign. However, this income was only achieved after a week at this rate, so there is a bit of investment to be made beforehand. But after that, we can have good days (I have a personal record of 480 Million earned for a campaign, for 45 minutes of combat... even if that does not include the significant time spent collecting missions)
- I shoot with a fully upgraded PVE oriented Fer de Lance (of which there are plenty of examples on Coriolis): 4 pulse lasers and 1 multi cannon. Quite effective, including against corvettes and anacondas... less so against vultures (painful) and other FdL (dangerous, especially when equipped with railguns and chaff launchers). This is not a build tip in any way, just so you can gauge the feasibility of killing missions against that specific build.
- with this configuration, I very rarely got knocked out. In fact, it only happened twice, and each time with the same scenario: I turned a little too fast, and without the required visibility.... straight into a federal corvette, and with low shields... whoops!
Here it is.... hope this helps, and thanks you for your hints/advices/fixes.
Last edited:
