Legal Assassination Missions : remove wrinkle "Hack Data Point to attain Target location"

[Deleted member 38366]

Just had to abandon two Assassination Missions to the same System.

Missions were picked specifically with Mission Filter "Legal" to avoid any illegal actions.

However, upon arrival in the Target System, I received the Mission wrinkle "Hack Data Point to get Target location".
The Data Point was in a High Security + Installation with Air Support, making it physically impossible to ever legally attain the Data (Data Point 2.5km inside the Trespass Zone).

Thus, a few major issues exist with that Mission wrinkle :

• it invalidates the "Legal/Illegal" Mission Filter by adding an illegal wrinkle to an otherwise and intended legal Mission type
• this occurs RNG, entirely outside of Player control
• above means the sheer existence of this RNG wrinkle invalidates the entire Assassination Mission branch if one intends to remain legal and ensure Mission Completion (due to the risk of having to abandon it if the wrinkle occurs)

• on top, what is a component that isn't a part of any common Combat Ship Build? Unsurprisingly, that's.... an SRV.
• this means the Player lacking the SRV has to turn around, fly back home, dock the Ship, retrofit an SRV or change Ship and return; perform the Hack, then return, hop back into the Combat Ship and then proceed into the System once again to complete the Mission. All due to an arbitrary and unrelated Mission wrinkle. (I assume one could lay waste to the entire Installation and then possibly scan it with the Ship Data Link scanner, but that'll incur a ton of Bounties)

Additionally, an illegal Mission branch already exists : Hack Data Point Missions.
If I wanted any of those, I had chosen those and not opted for the Combat Mission branch instead.

So it makes virtually zero sense to send Players through those additional hoops, just to waste their time and all while offering absolutely no Bonus for the additional Tasks and Time and illegal nature of an otherwise legal Mission.
(worst-case, the wrinkle Installation is owned by the exact same Faction that sent out the Player in the 1st place)

PS.
Extremely annoying, especially because the condition "can't legally complete this MIssion" didn't become apparent until I had already flown home again, switched Ships (SRV), flew back, approached & landed on the Planet and approached the Installation.

 

[Factabulous]

What type of assassination missions? I've been doing quite a few Pirate / Pirate Lord / Deserter and not had one make me do that, only ones like the Terrorist ones, but they always told me upfront, didn't redirect. Interested in what I'm missing / need to look out for

I always scan those data points using my ship (the data points aren't as picky about distance as Planetary Scan Jobs, so I don't have issues in the FdL, or the Mamba I think ). (Though obviously that is for the Terrorist Assassinations as I haven't come across your wrinkles).

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Mission Title was "Kill known Terrorist Leader XYZ" and issuing Faction was in State : Expansion for what it's worth, 2 Missions that got this wrinkle.

Been doing alot of Exploration and hadn't touched Assassination Missions in a longer while, so this new Mission wrinkle caught me by surprise - and a very negative one at that.

Two other Missions to the same System worked as expected (1x Wing and 1x Normal Mission), FSS discovered the orange Mission Objective Signal Sources within the System, no issues with those.

 

[Factabulous]

Hmmm, Terrorist Assassinations always (for me) involve scanning a Base first, so I'd assumed they always were 'illegal'. I don't use the mission filters, so it could be that they need tweaking for those missions.

Not sure I'd call it a wrinkle - more of a step (as it's listed as something you need to do and is part of all the Terrorist Assassinations). Wrinkles are more something you get optionally while the mission is playing out. Main assassination wrinkles are 'they left, go here to meet a contact to find where they are' and 'X pilots have been sent to take you down' (and I suppose the 'don't die for a bonus').

Then there are the follow-up mission 'we sent you to kill the wrong guy, kill this one as well'

If you stick to killing Pirates / Pirate Lords / Generals / Deserters you should always be fine. Avoid Terrorists and Politicians, both of them are always illegal AFAIK.

 

[sandkid]

I do find these kind of missions to be troubling - they're certainly not impossible, but OP is right that they tend to be misleading about what level of crime you'll be committing if any. Same thing happened for a long time with just planetary scan/salvage missions where you'd commit crimes against your own contractor to bring them drumroll their own data?

Agreeing with points already said - I'd call it a wrinkle, too, in your specific case. Bad typing and coding, really...the mission ought have a description similar to Wetwork that more or less states you'll probably/may be doing some illegal work to get the target. I mean, it is an assassination - not a bounty hunt. Assassinations aren't ever legal. I'd suggest a rewording of the mission text to help clarify that.

Now on a separate but related topic, these missions leading to massive bases that you can't infiltrate without triggering the alarm - SRV or ship - is kinda silly. I love a good firefight-snatch-and-grab, but more often than not these really aren't reasonably balanced. Having to effectively wipe out an entire installation's defenses with your ship/SRV just to figure out where one dude is...that's kinda silly.

But only because the payouts suck. If the payout matched the effort, it'd be just fine. You're Tom Cruise going on a hellacious adventure to catch one dude - and it pays.

 

[King Drax I]

I second this. I always avoid these 'interface' missions now. Shame as they are usually a bit better paid.

 

[Thalinor]

I just posted about this exact same problem in another thread because I’m a noob who couldn’t be bothered to use the search feature. Anyway, I second this post as it’s still a problem. I had a pirate kill mission today that I had to abandon because I got all the way to the end of the mission, only to find out I needed to land on a planet, and do something illegal to find the pirate. The mission description didn’t have the planetary landing “horizons” icon, it didn’t mention planetary landing, it didn’t say I needed a SRV and it didn’t say I may end up having to do an illegal action to complete the mission, in fact when I searched for the mission I put on the search filter “legal”. This is definitely an issue, I have replicated it twice myself. It’s not every pirate kill mission but it does happen.

I have horizons and love landing on planets, but wasn’t fitted for the mission and didn’t want to “commit a crime” to complete it.

 

[Red_Beard_98]

I may be wrong on this but, if an assassination mission has the symbol indicating Horizons content (that blue symbol in the corner), is it not likely to have a "scan this data point" aspect to the mission? I always avoid assassination missions with Horizons content for this very reason and have never been required to scan a data point to continue. I do a decent amount of these missions too.

Edit: I agree with you on the filter for legal missions only, that is misleading and probably should be fixed.

 

[dm06]

Could it be that "Legal" is related to current star system?.. I mean, smuggling is expected to include transporting illicit carfo to current system that's why it is illegal. Killing somebody out there is not a crime for local factions.
The only filter I use on missions is a "combat".
I did such missions, no problems to get to data point usually in SRV (especially if you are clean there). Couple times I scanned the point using my ship after killing everybody because they destroyed my SRV.

 

[Schmack]

It's only terrorist missions. I avoid them. It's a shame too because they are often offered by some of the lower factions during certain states, and they are easy to mistake for pirate kill missions, so when you accidentally accept one you basically end up canceling it out. Same with infected vessels. This removes a high percentage of mission scenarios for combat pilots.