If you were able to get Wing Assassination Missions to work, please share how you did it.

[Darth Llama]

I am at an all time level of frustration with this..

I mostly play Solo, I have a couple friends who play though and sometimes we like to Wing up. We got together Friday for some gaming and figured hey.. lets do some Wing Mission in Elite.. that will be fun!

Yeah.. it wasn't.


Wing Assassination missions were tested in Beta and reported as being broken, not only by me but many others. You can take the missions and share them with your wing, but the issue is there is absolutely no way that any of us can find to get all 3 (or even 2) wing mates into the same instance together. We tried several times and just like in beta.. same damn thing every time.. one guy fighting 1 on 6 while the other 2 guys are either millions of KM away or in a completely separate instance all together.

We tried all Nav Locking one guy.. didn't work.

We tried no Nav Lock and dropping into the OSS at the same time on a count down.. didn't work.

After a while, we got frustrated and gave up. So I have 2 questions..


1. Has anyone got these to work?

2. If your answer to #1 is Yes.. then for the love of god.. how?


And yes, I know you can do them single player.. take out the main target and run.. that's all well and good..but I want to play with my friends.

Thanks guys, sorry if this sounds a little like a Rant, but it was aggravating as hell. I was looking forward to playing some coop Elite and it sucked that it just didn't work.

 

[nosleepdemon]

Hey, remember back when they added hostage missions and they were fracked sideways in the beta and on release and they just didn't give a toss? Wing missions blow huge chunks and are bugged? Who'da guessed?? My sympathies to you OP, only one of my friends still plays Elite regularly, the other 6 or so quit long ago...

 

[Darth Llama]

Hey, remember back when they added hostage missions and they were fracked sideways in the beta and on release and they just didn't give a toss? Wing missions blow huge chunks and are bugged? Who'da guessed?? My sympathies to you OP, only one of my friends still plays Elite regularly, the other 6 or so quit long ago...

Thanks man, I'm probably in the same boat. After a few hours of trying to find any type of fun coop content we finally gave up and played something else.

Hopefully they get this fixed at some point, because the idea of Winged missions is actually really cool.

 

[rrobes]

The wing missions that end up near planets don't work very well, navlock is unreliable as is trying to drop on someone's wake.

If they are found a distance away, we have gotten the missions to work by letting one wing-mate find the target and slow down, let the other wing-mates get less than .1 LS away and the lead drops down with the others dropping on lead's wake. Navlock has worked as well.

Nonetheless, it's not stable in all circumstances. The lead terrorist ships can be worrisome, so enjoy.

 

[Darth Llama]

The wing missions that end up near planets don't work very well, navlock is unreliable as is trying to drop on someone's wake.

If they are found a distance away, we have gotten the missions to work by letting one wing-mate find the target and slow down, let the other wing-mates get less than .1 LS away and the lead drops down with the others dropping on lead's wake. Navlock has worked as well.

Nonetheless, it's not stable in all circumstances. The lead terrorist ships can be worrisome, so enjoy.

We couldn't get any of them to work, always ended up the same.. first guy to drop in had a 1 vs 6 while the other 2 flew around aimlessly.

If FD is willing to accept this as an answer, then that's pretty sad.

"They kinda work sometimes, if you get lucky and the mission is in the exact right place."

Now that's good game development. [big grin]

 

[JohnRoberts]

Wing Beacons?

 

[Stigbob]

Solo it.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Question - are you able to drop in on each other properly as a wing if you're not doing one of these missions?
i.e. if one of you just drops to a random spot can the others drop in as well with nav-lock or manually from the wing beacon?

Another question: does it matter who drops into the USS first? I have - rarely - had cases where I could create an instance and player B could drop in, but if player B created the instance I couldn't drop in.

Third question: with the nav-lock method, are you waiting for the person who dropped first to confirm arrival in normal space before enabling nav-lock? (You'll always end up some distance out if you don't, though usually keeping nav-lock on and manually re-entering supercruise to drop again fixes that)

 

[Darth Llama]

Question - are you able to drop in on each other properly as a wing if you're not doing one of these missions?
i.e. if one of you just drops to a random spot can the others drop in as well with nav-lock or manually from the wing beacon?

Another question: does it matter who drops into the USS first? I have - rarely - had cases where I could create an instance and player B could drop in, but if player B created the instance I couldn't drop in.

Third question: with the nav-lock method, are you waiting for the person who dropped first to confirm arrival in normal space before enabling nav-lock? (You'll always end up some distance out if you don't, though usually keeping nav-lock on and manually re-entering supercruise to drop again fixes that)

1. It seems to work ok if we drop into a Resource Extraction or when we exit at a space station. It just doesn't work with USS sources.

2. We tried with all 3 of us dropping in first and the result was the same every time. We were always separated. We weren't just separate from the first person either, all 3 of us were separate from one another.

3. We did not try dropping in solo and then enabling nav-lock while in the instance, I never thought of doing this. Would it even work? If I dropped in and then my friends nav locked me from right outside the USS would it automatically pull them in? It doesn't sound like that would work, but I never actually tried that.

 

[Arguendo]

I did a couple of those in a Wing yesterday and they appear to be a bit on the bugged side, but we did manage to get two people in the same instance.

First mission we were three players in the wing. One of the wingmembers found the target in SC, followed it and waited for it to lowwake. He then dropped on the wake and I dropped on his wing beacon. When I dropped, I only saw his wing beacon, but when I started chasing that he finally appeared in front of me. The last guy in the wing never managed to get in the same instance as us.

For the second we were only two. I followed the same procedure as the first guy above, and the other guy (third in scenario above) dropped on my beacon. I saw him momentarily in my instance and then he disappeared and we couldn't see each other, leaving me alone with the wing. He then lowwaked out of his insance and re-dropped on my beacon, and then we managed to get the same instance.

I've had other issues with dropping on the wing beacon in the last few days, but they are not related to the wing missions. Me and a buddy (first guy above) were doing some practice and when I dropped on his Wing Beacon I would find myself a long way away from him. First time I was 11ls away, and the second time 200+ls away. When I lowwaked out and continued I'd drop on his position again, but I always seem to be further away than I am used to. This may be what is happening to the Assassination Missions, so for all I know it's the Beacon instancing that's the issue, not the missions themselves. They just really showcase the isse.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

3. We did not try dropping in solo and then enabling nav-lock while in the instance, I never thought of doing this. Would it even work? If I dropped in and then my friends nav locked me from right outside the USS would it automatically pull them in? It doesn't sound like that would work, but I never actually tried that.

Yes - that's the best way to get nav-lock to work.

The problem is that if you have nav-lock enabled when the person drops, you get pulled down to where they were when they dropped, because the game hasn't yet updated their position to the USS instance - depending on speed and timing this can be anywhere from 50km out to multiple light-seconds. What you need to do is wait for them to drop and confirm the instance is set up, then enable nav-lock and you should come in almost on top of them. (First person in should be the one with the best shields, of course!)

Alternatively, rather than nav-lock, try selecting the person's wing beacon as a supercruise target once they've dropped, then fly onto that as you would a signal source, rather than onto the signal source itself. (They have a wider drop range than a standard signal source, too, though not as wide as nav-lock)

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

My friends and I have gotten them to work 4 out of 4 times.

Whomever finds the mission signal source first activates their wing beacon and then drops in. The rest of us follow.

The last one was really fun as it was 1 corvette, 2 FDLs, 1 Vulure, 1 cobra mk 3, and one Viper mk 4.

 

[Darth Llama]

Yes - that's the best way to get nav-lock to work.

The problem is that if you have nav-lock enabled when the person drops, you get pulled down to where they were when they dropped, because the game hasn't yet updated their position to the USS instance - depending on speed and timing this can be anywhere from 50km out to multiple light-seconds. What you need to do is wait for them to drop and confirm the instance is set up, then enable nav-lock and you should come in almost on top of them. (First person in should be the one with the best shields, of course!)

Alternatively, rather than nav-lock, try selecting the person's wing beacon as a supercruise target once they've dropped, then fly onto that as you would a signal source, rather than onto the signal source itself. (They have a wider drop range than a standard signal source, too, though not as wide as nav-lock)

Interesting, I'll give that a try.. thank you.

I will say though, that this system is obviously broken.. how would they expect people to know that? I mean, I understand that different people think things through in different ways, but as a player, I never would have thought to use Nav-Beacon that way.

I'm not sure how they expect people to know this. Still, I appreciate the tip, and I will surely try it.

My friends and I have gotten them to work 4 out of 4 times.

Whomever finds the mission signal source first activates their wing beacon and then drops in. The rest of us follow.

The last one was really fun as it was 1 corvette, 2 FDLs, 1 Vulure, 1 cobra mk 3, and one Viper mk 4.

Just to verify then, you guys don't use nav-lock at all? You just use the wing beacon as the drop point correct?

 

[biohazard15]

Solo it.

This.

Assasination missions are bad even in solo. Adding wing instancing problems makes already wonky mechanic barely playable.
One solution might be creating a persistent USS, akin to CZ, and spawn terrorists minute or two after the first player entered the USS (thus activating the instance and spawn timer). It would at least give players some time to converge.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Just to verify then, you guys don't use nav-lock at all? You just use the wing beacon as the drop point correct?

Yes, no Nav lock at all. Just activate wing beacon and other members targeted that and dropped down.

We did have problems on the second one we tried, as it was my mission, but one of my wingmates found the mission USS. He deployed his beacon and went in, followed by my other wingmate (only 3 of us that time). Shortly before I was able to drop down into the wing beacon, the mission USS popped up for me. I thought I'd just manually discovered it and and switched to it instead. That was a MISTAKE. I dropped into a duplicate spawn and was the only one there, while my other two friends were in the other instance. They were in an FGS and Anaconda - both only moderately engineered - while I was only in my fully 3.0 re-engineered Corvette.

I immediately realized what had happened. Locked back on to the wing beacon, quickly jumped into supercruise (ignoring my spawns) and then dropped down into the beacon. Just in time, too, as both had lost their shields and the Anaconda had it's PP crippled at 15% (he didn't have his power priorities preset).

After that, we've never had a problem. We always stay relatively close to each other. Whomever finds the mission USS first deploys the beacon, makes sure everyone else is ready and then drops in first. Everyone else then drops in on their beacon. Works great.

Could these be better designed? Yes. They shouldn't spawn the mission USS for other players once the first one has spawned if they are going to be different instances. They should also have instructions on the mission saying "whomever finds USS, or interdicts target, should deploy wing beacon so other wing members will arrive in same instance."

The first three fights were kind of dull, as it was always the same six ships - Anaconda, FDL, Vulture, and other small ships. The fourth one was really fun, with that highly engineered enemy Corvette, 2 FDLs, Vulture, Cobra mk 3, and Viper MK IV. We had our hands full with that one.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

This.

Assasination missions are bad even in solo. Adding wing instancing problems makes already wonky mechanic barely playable.
One solution might be creating a persistent USS, akin to CZ, and spawn terrorists minute or two after the first player entered the USS (thus activating the instance and spawn timer). It would at least give players some time to converge.

Not a bad idea, but then they'll have to adjust the timing on the NPCs. We had about 5-10 seconds after the first person drops in before the enemy ships attack. If the other wing members have to wait 1-2 minutes, all their going find is your wreckage (or if you're a combat god, the enemy wreckage).

 

[Dan Bender]

I think there's a couple of things that are contributing to this.

First, there's two things a wing signal nav-lock does, depending on where the signal's source (your wingman) actually is:
* If your wingman is in normalspace, then the signal is interpreted as "Disengage FSD HERE" when you get close enough.
* If your wingman is in supercruise (or initiating a SC jump or hyperjump), then the signal is interpreted as "Dis/Engage FSD NOW."

The second one is important, as that seems to be what's happening to you. If you're close enough, the game will have mercy on you and instance you together. If not, you'll get dropped wherever you are at the moment the leader exits supercruise. I've had this trouble during rescue debriefs, where I forgot to disengage nav-lock and when he drops I'm also forced to drop, hundreds of light-seconds away. It doesn't magically teleport you to the same location.

This works well for "static" nav targets like RES and stations, since your navcomputer slows you on approach and you tend to bunch up with your wingies and often end up being close enough. But it's awful hard to ensure that happens when you're all in supercruise chasing someone. Even if you think you're close, you're probably separated by light-seconds or tens of megameters, which is usually too far to pull you in correctly.

The other thing that may be a problem is that the game (still) doesn't handle instancing very well. Remember when multi-crew was first introduced and everybody was being kicked on SC drop? The engine was having trouble connecting all players to the same instance simultaneously while it was also trying to establish the instance in the first place. Which it choked on (and still does). If everyone is set to drop as soon as the instance changes, then it's going to try to do the same thing, usually badly because it's trying to connect four individuals to an instance that doesn't yet exist. Better to let the interdictor drop and establish the normalspace instance, then connect your friends sequentially to it. Should work much better.

 

[Muetdhiver]

So far I did three of them in wing. Worked flawlessly everytime.

Navlock works as intended and we both got out at 2km form each other.