Let's Kill Some Pirates !!

[CMDR Dumbfries]

During my recent adventures to unlock Professor Palin, I decided to take break and do a "kill x number of pirates" mission. Picked a relatively easy one, kill nine pirates from the notorious Ant Hill Mob. No problem.
I leave the station and head to the nearest RES. Plenty of pirates, but none from the Ant Hill Mob. I figure I'd try the nearest nav beacon. Nope. They are turning out to be quite the elusive bunch.
Look at the mission parameters again and it looks like they should be based in a neighboring system. Go to system, check the nearest RES, check the nav beacon and zero again.

At this point, I'm getting a bit irritated.

Fire up EDDB and locate them in Pleiades Sector IH-V C2-16.
Drop into the nav beacon.
Identify and and kill one of the slippery SOB's.
Check the mission panel and it still reads "0/9".
Delete mission.

I just want to sincerely thank whoever is responsible for wasting my limited gaming time. Thank you for breaking a mission type that used to function near perfectly when I first started playing this game over two years ago. I applaud you.

 

[damon8r351]

You have to look at the mission brief before you accept the mission, it will tell you where to find them. If it tells you can find them in RES's, then yes, you'll find them there and flying around the system. Sometimes it will tell you the mission targets can be found in conflict zones, in which case you will only find them there. Also, for the kill to count it has to say "Mission Target", if it doesn't then it won't count.

 

[Marra Morgan]

During my recent adventures to unlock Professor Palin, I decided to take break and do a "kill x number of pirates" mission. Picked a relatively easy one, kill nine pirates from the notorious Ant Hill Mob. No problem.
I leave the station and head to the nearest RES. Plenty of pirates, but none from the Ant Hill Mob. I figure I'd try the nearest nav beacon. Nope. They are turning out to be quite the elusive bunch.
Look at the mission parameters again and it looks like they should be based in a neighboring system. Go to system, check the nearest RES, check the nav beacon and zero again.

At this point, I'm getting a bit irritated.

Fire up EDDB and locate them in Pleiades Sector IH-V C2-16.
Drop into the nav beacon.
Identify and and kill one of the slippery SOB's.
Check the mission panel and it still reads "0/9".
Delete mission.

I just want to sincerely thank whoever is responsible for wasting my limited gaming time. Thank you for breaking a mission type that used to function near perfectly when I first started playing this game over two years ago. I applaud you.

Moral of the Story: don't kill pirates.

 

[CMDR Dumbfries]

You have to look at the mission brief before you accept the mission, it will tell you where to find them. If it tells you can find them in RES's, then yes, you'll find them there and flying around the system. Sometimes it will tell you the mission targets can be found in conflict zones, in which case you will only find them there. Also, for the kill to count it has to say "Mission Target", if it doesn't then it won't count.

It doesn't make that clear in the mission description. I went to the proper system and there were no pirates spawning from the Ant Hill Mob. There were pirates spawning from multiple different factions. The missions used to work just fine and were actually a fun distraction at one time. It didn't matter where you found the pirates as long as they were from the same faction. Looking for a "mission target" designation wasn't even a thing unless it was an assassination job.
The bottom line is that someone decided the old missions needed the special fdev treatment because I guess players having fun and earning credits at the same time isn't to be tolerated.