I still find CNBs faster. The mission targets can be sort of fun but it takes time to get to each and they're a bit hit and miss.
At CNBs I just have lots of fun and the way they can kick off in big battles is great.
How to do massacre missions with 80+ targets
- Thread starter grantcurell
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At CNBs I just have lots of fun and the way they can kick off in big battles is great.
You need to do it in reverse... Find a good target system with a mission system (ideally, just one target system per), rather than just try to find the mission systems first then hope the target system is OK.
I still do the non Wing missions sometimes, usually to "top up" one faction to match the total kills required.
I'd rather do that then wait an excessively long time for the perfect missions.
Deleted member 182079
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Yeah, not how I play the game though unfortunately. I usually go somewhere, see what's on the board, and if nothing good shows up I move on. I do have an adopted backwater system though, which I flipped a while back into Anarchy, and achieved that by winning two civil wars in short succession. It was a borderline chore though (because I didn't know whether I'd force some opposition so did CZs each day until I won enough days).
For that those missions are worth doing, if just as a nice bonus since I'm killing ships anyways. I normally don't bother with them though on their own since I find them too grindy.
Anything above 30 ships for a single player is just silly really (unless you really enjoy repeatedly shooting ships for hours on end). The timer on them only makes it worse - if I had a week to do them I'd probably take them more often but understand it's a BGS thing (presumably).
Yeh the week timer helps.
I usually kill 30 ships in about 30 minutes easy so I'll only take them when I know I'll get an hour in that day.
Endlessly killing ships is the life of someone who loves combat so...
The trick is, go for the really weak targets first. Slaughtering eagles and the like ploughs through the counter way faster than chieftains etc. And I'll happily slaughter non mission targets if they have a bounty and no quick targets are about. Clears the spawn field for more ships.
But sure, if you are nomadic, these missions don't make any sense at all to do.
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Deleted member 182079
D
30 ships in 10 minutes? I seem to remember taking missions with up to 60 targets and it took me at least 30 minutes if not longer (edit - I think it was closer to an hour but admittedly I also cleared the CZs usually of the Spec Ops ships, which for some weird reason don't count towards the mission)... though that's in CZs, maybe pirate ones are softer targets.Yeh the week timer helps.
I usually kill 30 ships in about 10 minutes easy so I'll only take them when I know I'll get an hour in that day.
Endlessly killing ships is the life of someone who loves combat so...
The trick is, go for the really weak targets first. Slaughtering eagles and the like ploughs through the counter way faster than chieftains etc. And I'll happily slaughter non mission targets if they have a bounty and no quick targets are about. Clears the spawn field for more ships.
But sure, if you are nomadic, these missions don't make any sense at all to do.
Either way, I know how to go about them, it's really just that the repetitiveness gets to me after a short while. 30 targets max would be a fair number for me personally.
I used to be part of a squadron whose members would share wing mission rewards - I'd make hundreds of millions for doing sweet FA, which ultimately didn't really sit well with me, so I burned about 2.5bn credits on transferring my Vette & Cutter to Colonia (and back). Though I admit they are definitely more fun while playing in a wing.
Yeap, i usually dont bother with non-wing CZ missions, unless there are none. But even then i pick the ones that require the smallest number of targets and that offer g5 materials.
After you've repped up for your Cutter in Ngalinn you can stack several pirate hunting missions from the various minor factions to kill in the adjacent Mainani system for mats. There is a Haz Res there, but you will need to park up your 'vette in a nearby system and use a small or medium ship to take on the missions in Ngalinn. I fly down there in my Cobra and I'm now using this Corvette build instead of my previous PvE Anaconda which has a similar loadout with beams and PA's.
PvE Corvette
PvE Corvette
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Sorry that was a typo, 30 minutes it should say. It can depend obviously on rng but if you get a wing of 3 mission target eagles, or the odd wing of 3 where two are master/expert rank, then that's 3 kills in less than a minute usually.
They're almost all softer targets than their CZ equivalent (even though they are frequently deadly or elite ranks, still often softer). And, of course, you can easily control what attacks you (not so easy in CZs).
Appreciate you're experienced enough to know most of this though. I'm saying it more for the benefit of the op or others in a similar boat.
The main jist of my point is that bounty hunting (even without the rather exploity feeling wing sharing) pays way more credits than mercenary work and, more importantly, pays plenty in relation to most other careers, subject to a number of circumstances but all of which are entirely under the control of the player.
It's actually that last caveat that I really like; with minimal effort or lacking knowledge, it appears to pay really badly. But with some effort and knowhow (along with ranking up), it has a really high ceiling for credits potential.
And, to be honest, that's how I think everything in the game should be.
In combat zones, cycle through enemy targets, looking for either small weak ships, or ships already being attacked with low or no shields. Kill them, then engage the next similar one. Multicannons are faster than beam lasers, but you need to rearm, so it depends on how easy that is.
80 ships is going to take some time, there's no way around it..
80 ships is going to take some time, there's no way around it..
These high-count-target massacre missions were easier to get done in the past... a while back Frontier buffed NPC ships quite a bit and now I don't take anything over 8 targets to kill. Even flying a Cutter/Corvette, they are just not worth your time. These missions really need a big overhaul to get rewards in relation to time/risk more in line to what's required to accomplish it.
Hat tip to https://forums.frontier.co.uk/members/danquememe.255987/
s.orbis.zone
An Alpha strike Ganker should be very effective in Massacre missions.
Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
s.orbis.zone
An Alpha strike Ganker should be very effective in Massacre missions.
Those missions have a bug.
Someone at FD got their numbers around the wrong way, and Wartime massacres (which that one is) either require you to kill too many ships, or reward too few credits.
In more detail, if you inspect massacre mission rewards closely, you'll find each one offers 500k reward per kill. Wing or Non-Wing just changes the quantity, the reward per kill stays the same.
Except Wartime massacres. They offer 333k per kill for non-wing missions, and 666k per kill for wing missions. Have a closer look and you'll see.
Note: Figures are for Elite-rank, Allied-Rep missions
I'm obviously doing it wrong...these are the only ships I look to target in my shieldless, all-rail DBS.
Mindless credit farming is just not on my agenda...which is why I've never mined (apart from Selene Jean's tedious requirements, ofc) & why I'll never own a FC.
Urghh one more ledge to that moral high ground...urghhhh...'made it!
Hmmmm, 'smug mode' level-up attained....feels geurrrrrd!
"Low-credit reward" is not the issue now with massacre missions... not sure if it is even feasible to kill 80+ NPC ships within the time the CZ is present in the system. Most war or civil war states are gone in a couple of days.
So... considering the state for the CZ to spawn is maintained for 2 days... as you'd be clearing one after the other speeding up the end of the war.
In the past, when these missions were asking for that high of a kill count, the CZs would never stop spawning enemy ships and the CZ would not end.
So... considering the state for the CZ to spawn is maintained for 2 days... as you'd be clearing one after the other speeding up the end of the war.
In the past, when these missions were asking for that high of a kill count, the CZs would never stop spawning enemy ships and the CZ would not end.
It's not more than 2-3 hours of play. A high CZ takes about 30-45 minutes (depending on a few things) and you can easily rack up 20+ kills during that time.
Mission is only good for 24 hours, so... ?
Glad to see you're getting the engineering work done. It really is night and day.
Pretty much what you're finding about the big kill missions. By the time you do the risk/reward and time limit analysis = it's a bad deal. UNLESS you're working the BGS, then the credits are a bonus and not the goal. Add in the engineered NPCs. CZ vipers are a huge PIT.B . Total bullet sponges.
I usually pass on these missions.
If the mission is a Conflict Zone massacre mission, then include a small turret with long range pulse so that you get credit for NPC kills that you tag with the turret within the last X seconds of the kill. This will attract more attention to you so be prepared to include point defence if you find that the opposition uses missiles. Also, include a pair of fighter bays because you get credit for those tags as well - very useful for tagging fighters at a distance.
For like 1-3 targets, and then your frag cannons are out of ammo.Coriolis EDCD Edition
A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous
An Alpha strike Ganker should be very effective in Massacre missions.
When doing massacre mission stacking, I use a PVE Conda with 1 huge long range beam with heat vent, 5 x long range plasma slug rails, and two small long range pulses, one with emmissive and the other with scramble spectrum. Has a bunch of shield boosters, a few shield cell banks, a collector limpet controller, cargo hold and limpets (for gathering mats that drop) and plenty of hull and module reinforcement to round it out.
It's terribly boring to fly, because you can virtually just park and rotate like a turret while zapping targets. You bank from time to time if your shields start to drop, you do it with crimes on so the cops help, and you stack as absolutely many missions as you can, from as many surrounding systems as possible so you get the maximum reward for the time spent.
You then wing in friends / randoms / whatever when it comes time to collect the payouts, making it an easy way to essentially "give away" money to new players or whatever.
I learned all this from Cow: