Newcomer / Intro Help! Planetary explorer mentor mission - too difficult?

[nutbar]

I'm still a rookie and so decided to follow the beginning missions; started with planetary exploring and I've come to a follow-up mission where I have to hack a beacon thing at Higginbotham Penal Colony which is a high security facility.

Circling overhead is one to three (depends when I come in for my landing to attempt the mission) npc elite pilots, and on the ground the facility has a rather large tresspass zone. There are several defense turrets and about 5 drones flying about.

My first attempt to hack the beacon, which is somewhere in the middle of the complex, was to snipe everything outside the tresspass zone. It was going fairly well until the ships above started firing on me and my ship. I escaped with 33% hull thankfully.

My second attempt was to just tresspass and try to scan as quickly as I could. I thought I had lined up for a quick in-out, but the beacon was behind structures so my first run just resulted in everything firing at me and my SRV blew up - escaped in my ship again (better off this time since I had boosted sys/eng to run away quickly).

The mission payout is 10k and it's a training mission for hacking - is this for real? Is it really supposed to be this hard? Who would seriously try to hack a data point in a high security zone *with* areal ships patrolling? If those ships weren't there, I could do this by sniping, but those ships always rain down on me and I can't even get close to attempt a scan and run.

Can anyone help? I've even tried looking for videos of people doing this mission, but haven't found anything yet [blah]

 

[d8veh]

There's no penalty for getting your SRV blown up, so plan the best way in and out, but mainly the way in. Try not to panic. Go in and scan. Once you have the data, you've completed the mission. If your SRV gets blown up, you find yourself back in the ship. perhaps dismiss it first. There are sometimes more than one beacon. If you have a choice, check which ones are public and private. That only shows when you target them in turret mode. If you scan a private one, you become wanted and everything shoots you straight away. If you scan a public one, nothing happens until the timer times out, so you have time to get away.

 

[nutbar]

This station isn't that easy - for me at least. There's a perimeter that extends quite a ways out around the entire station, so I'm about 500m away from the beacon when outside the tresspass zone. Once I enter, by the time I would make it close enough to scan (if I was able to drive right up and not look for it behind structures), I'd already be wanted and getting shot at. My second attempt I drove right in and by the time I got close, even though there was a wall in front of me, everything was shooting me.

Now the issue is compounded because I've got a bounty on my head from my last attempt and it doesn't expire until after the mission will expire, so as soon as I drop in, those ships orbiting would start shooting me. From what I've read, since it's high security and they're already flying, backup would warp in if I engaged them.

All this for just 10k cr - normally I wouldn't even bother, but I was hoping to complete it since it's a follow up training mission. I just didn't thing they'd make it this difficult (low sec would have been nicer, or maybe hacking a public beacon and not have it behind a tresspass zo

I've watched some videos and I don't know how people apparently do it - they go in and hack stations, the alarm goes off that they're tresspassing, but nothing is shooting them?

 

[Para Handy]

............... since it's a follow up training mission. ......................

What? Never heard of anything like that. Where did you find this?

 

[nutbar]

What? Never heard of anything like that. Where did you find this?

Completed a mission which was the "welcome" mission I think. Got the email telling me who to see for more missions of specific types. Went to Aulin - Kuo City for planetary exploration missions and took the first training mission there. They have you pick up cargo containers - easy. Next mission they have you pop a power plant, also not so difficult (it was a very small base). After that, I got this one. I can tell you the faction and mission giver if you want.

 

[Para Handy]

Completed a mission which was the "welcome" mission I think. Got the email telling me who to see for more missions of specific types. Went to Aulin - Kuo City for planetary exploration missions and took the first training mission there. They have you pick up cargo containers - easy. Next mission they have you pop a power plant, also not so difficult (it was a very small base). After that, I got this one. I can tell you the faction and mission giver if you want.

No need. I have no interest in doing them just wondered where they came from as they are not listed in the training menus. Do they actually say "training" in the mission descriptions then?

 

[nutbar]

No need. I have no interest in doing them just wondered where they came from as they are not listed in the training menus. Do they actually say "training" in the mission descriptions then?

Good question, not entirely sure until I check. I know the first one did, and what's different for these is that you get constant mission emails telling you specifically what to do next (set course to x, land at y, deploy srv, target z, etc...) to walk you through the mission step by step. They're also chain missions, so directly come from having completed the initial training mission.

 

[Factabulous]

That sounds new - my advice would be to abandon the mission of just pick ordinary missions to do. Those base assault missions are complex so I'm surprised that they would include them in any training missions.

 

[Para Handy]

As Factabulous says that sounds new - never even heard mention of this sort of thing. Thanks for the info.

 

[nutbar]

Those base assault missions are complex so I'm surprised that they would include them in any training missions.

Should I perhaps file a bug? There's really no way this should be an in-game training mission (I know there's the sims which cover this same topic, but even it's not this difficult) if it's meant to really be at this high-sec base.

 

[aRJay]

Should I perhaps file a bug? There's really no way this should be an in-game training mission (I know there's the sims which cover this same topic, but even it's not this difficult) if it's meant to really be at this high-sec base.

Not sure about a bug report. Remember in the 34th century they have a very tough attitude to training once you have left the academies for example the least harsh is swimming where they only use deep unheated water however so you don't get too cold they do give you a nice thick coat to wear and to ensure that it doesn't float around and get in the way sew some bricks in the pockets.

As with the others I didn't encounter training missions when I started so they are probably less than a year old, chained missions are very recent.

 

[nutbar]

Not sure about a bug report. Remember in the 34th century they have a very tough attitude to training once you have left the academies for example the least harsh is swimming where they only use deep unheated water however so you don't get too cold they do give you a nice thick coat to wear and to ensure that it doesn't float around and get in the way sew some bricks in the pockets.

So, I filed a bug report...