Long Range Smuggling/Transport Missions

[korombei]

Hey Cmdrs.

Can anyone confirm if these are still available? Before 2.4 hit I was able to occasionally find fail on scan smuggling missions into the bubble from places like stepping stone base and a few others, and also saw a fair amount of long range transport/data courier missions to Colonia etc. These seem to have vanished now - am I just having bad luck, or were they pulled completely?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I think all the fun fail on scan missions were nerfed, in favour of "don't get scanned, but it doesn't matter if you do, here's your gold star for trying" missions to appease the whining crowd. Lol

 

[bootsam]

Yeah, the anti fun brigade moaned that people were enjoying themselves AND making money. So even though it has no impact on their game, the fact other people are doing fun stuff annoyed them and they whined like little piggies until it got nerfed.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Yeah, the anti fun brigade moaned that people were enjoying themselves AND making money. So even though it has no impact on their game, the fact other people are doing fun stuff annoyed them and they whined like little piggies until it got nerfed.

No no no, it wasn't them, it was the Netflix CMDRs that weren't happy when they couldn't smuggle while watching Netflix and alt tabbing to check Facebook.



I think us CMDRs who want a challenging and fun game, need to unite, and whine like little babies, then maybe FD will listen to us for once.

 

[Factabulous]

C'mon people - can we have some more accurate animal anologies plz

whine like little babies

Babies ... more known for crying

whined like little piggies

Piggies known for oinking

According to wikipedia, only mosquitoes whine*

* Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_sounds

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

C'mon people - can we have some more accurate animal anologies plz



Babies ... more known for crying



Piggies known for oinking

According to wikipedia, only mosquitoes whine*

* Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_sounds

Well I was going to say "whine like women", but it seems somewhat offensive and sexist. Especially since I know more men that whine anyway.

But babies don't give a crap what we say, so I changed it.

 

[korombei]

Ah I'm not talking about the ones from Robigo or whatever - these were available from anarchy factions at locations like Lemmy's Rock, Pirate's Lament, and Stepping Stone Base (as above), and normally offered around 1mil or over for a 1-200 LY trip if I remember right. Maybe they were fine on scan instead? I did a few before 2.4, although they were rare. The mission boards for those isolated places either had nothing or the long range missions. Now there just seems to be nothing.

I know they're not in the same league as Robigo (I never got the chance to try those), but they were a bit more interesting than the normal ones you get from anarchy factions to nearby systems. Shame if they've gone, as having all these cool remote stations and factions is a bit pointless if you can't actually do any missions for them (apart from passenger missions anyway).

On a related note, I do really really hope they change the title of some of the smuggling missions. No one anywhere in any fictional or real setting has ever smuggled anything 'for the fun of it' [wacko][wacko]

 

[Lightspeed]

I'm seeing plenty of "sneak in X" .... "sneak in Y" missions. Took one delivering tobacco the other day.

 

[Rozete]

few days ago i stacked missions from local anarchy faction to supply reinforced mounting plates, exhaust manifold and some other stuff thats scatterd arround the bubble. so i added fuel tank to compartment 4 on my python and off i went. after return these long range smuggling missions started to appear; range 200+ly, paying 1+ to 5+ mil. took a few.. but then i swapped back fuel tank for cargo rack, and missions were gone
i dunno if theres any correlation with ability to cover 200+ly without refueling, bring in those scatterd goods or it was just a coincidence, but yea.. missions are there

 

[Scoob]

Every transport missions I've seen has either been a one-jump hop to a neighbouring system, or a 20k ly run to Colonia. I for one would love to see more multi-hop trade missions to keep things interesting.

The mission system does need some love though, it's simply inadequate as it stands. It should react dynamically to the player. I.e. Turn up in a T9 equipped for trade then the Mission Board would connect you with more people requiring goods to be carried. Same thing if the player turns up in a Passenger Liner, more Passenger missions. I'd love to see missions offered where the player loads up on a variety of goods, then has multiple drop-off points. These could be "chained" that when a player drops off the first load, perhaps additional goods are added to go to the next location.

Basically, as it stands, there's rarely enough to keep a player loaded up once they get larger ships or specialise in primarily cargo or passenger runs. The largest Cargo mission I've seen was for just over 200 tonnes, usually I see no more than 180. Great when you've just got your Type 7, less great in a 720t Cutter - unless you get RNG lucky and find multiple missions...very very rare for me.

I know I've drifted off-topic a bit, but we do need more missions to transport stuff, as well as multiple offers so we never travel half-empty. It'd be great if we could leverage the higher Cargo / Passenger capacity of some of the larger vessels. More longer-range but smaller amount missions for smaller ships with decent jump range would be great too, as would missions that are more hazardous for those with armed trade ships. Basically, rather than the apparent pure RNG mission system we have now - I regularly see more missions I cannot take than those I can, due to ship size, capacity, loadout etc. - the game looks at what we're flying and generates missions based on that, with some RNG thrown in. Basically, the local factions - or rather their "heads of commerce" or their "travel agents" would be aware of the ship that's landed and its capabilities and heavily bias their mission offers towards taking advantage of it. Obviously better and higher paid missions would still come with rep, that's only fair. No 10 million credit missions for the new guy! lol.

Scoob.

 

[Scoob]

few days ago i stacked missions from local anarchy faction to supply reinforced mounting plates, exhaust manifold and some other stuff thats scatterd arround the bubble. so i added fuel tank to compartment 4 on my python and off i went. after return these long range smuggling missions started to appear; range 200+ly, paying 1+ to 5+ mil. took a few.. but then i swapped back fuel tank for cargo rack, and missions were gone
i dunno if theres any correlation with ability to cover 200+ly without refueling, bring in those scatterd goods or it was just a coincidence, but yea.. missions are there

That's actually really interesting, almost suggesting that the game did react to your loadout. Sadly, I often see the opposite. I.e. I'd travelled to a distant (from my "home" system) location in my DBX. When I arrived I noticed lots of 120-180 capacity cargo missions that were paying well. Just simple stuff to a nearby system though. I return later in my Anaconda equipped for Trading - took a bit longer to get there than in the DBX - I land and there are no such trade missions any more. I bounce around for a bit, doing other things, return and still no trade missions. I know some of those previously offered trade missions were to locations I could not visit in the Anaconda due to its size, that's fine, but plenty were to Large docks too.

As an aside, I do regularly see more well-paid Cargo missions that are limited to Medium pads. Why these smaller Outpost generate proportionally more I don't know. However, it's a little frustrating to see several 4-9 million credit Cargo missions on offer, knowing that I can only take one as I'm in my Python and the Dock is off limits to Large ships.

Note: I'm Trade Elite, so I should get some decent offers right?

Scoob.

 

[Lightspeed]

Every transport missions I've seen has either been a one-jump hop to a neighbouring system, or a 20k ly run to Colonia. I for one would love to see more multi-hop trade missions to keep things interesting.

The mission system does need some love though, it's simply inadequate as it stands. It should react dynamically to the player. I.e. Turn up in a T9 equipped for trade then the Mission Board would connect you with more people requiring goods to be carried. Same thing if the player turns up in a Passenger Liner, more Passenger missions. I'd love to see missions offered where the player loads up on a variety of goods, then has multiple drop-off points. These could be "chained" that when a player drops off the first load, perhaps additional goods are added to go to the next location.

Basically, as it stands, there's rarely enough to keep a player loaded up once they get larger ships or specialise in primarily cargo or passenger runs. The largest Cargo mission I've seen was for just over 200 tonnes, usually I see no more than 180. Great when you've just got your Type 7, less great in a 720t Cutter - unless you get RNG lucky and find multiple missions...very very rare for me.

I know I've drifted off-topic a bit, but we do need more missions to transport stuff, as well as multiple offers so we never travel half-empty. It'd be great if we could leverage the higher Cargo / Passenger capacity of some of the larger vessels. More longer-range but smaller amount missions for smaller ships with decent jump range would be great too, as would missions that are more hazardous for those with armed trade ships. Basically, rather than the apparent pure RNG mission system we have now - I regularly see more missions I cannot take than those I can, due to ship size, capacity, loadout etc. - the game looks at what we're flying and generates missions based on that, with some RNG thrown in. Basically, the local factions - or rather their "heads of commerce" or their "travel agents" would be aware of the ship that's landed and its capabilities and heavily bias their mission offers towards taking advantage of it. Obviously better and higher paid missions would still come with rep, that's only fair. No 10 million credit missions for the new guy! lol.

Scoob.

I am Friendly/Allied in a system in Boom state and am seeing so many cargo haul missions in my Python, I am bringing in my T-10. So it depends on at least two factors:

The System State and your relationship with the local factions.

 

[Scoob]

I am Friendly/Allied in a system in Boom state and am seeing so many cargo haul missions in my Python, I am bringing in my T-10. So it depends on at least two factors:

The System State and your relationship with the local factions.

I was in a similar situation, at least Friendly, reported Boom state but usually no more than one cargo mission at best. Conversely, when I was flying out of Sothis Mining, I'd often see several cargo missions, but as no large ship can dock there (Outpost) I could only ever take one as they were for 120 -180 units of cargo.

So yes, you're right regarding player reputation with the Factions and current economic state, this influencing the number and payout of missions is fine. However, often I still see no missions appropriate to my current ship and loadout. As a fairly experienced player, I expect this and might just fly elsewhere, but for newer people it much be quite confusing potentially having nothing on offer that you can actually do.

That said, there is a LOT of RNG in this game so users experiences can vary. For example, I only fit Economy Passenger Cabins when I'm wanting to do passenger runs as 95% of the offers I see are for Economy class runs. However, my friend swears he rarely sees the need for Economy Class, so he runs a mostly Business and First Class loadout.

Scoob.

 

[korombei]

few days ago i stacked missions from local anarchy faction to supply reinforced mounting plates, exhaust manifold and some other stuff thats scatterd arround the bubble. so i added fuel tank to compartment 4 on my python and off i went. after return these long range smuggling missions started to appear; range 200+ly, paying 1+ to 5+ mil. took a few.. but then i swapped back fuel tank for cargo rack, and missions were gone
i dunno if theres any correlation with ability to cover 200+ly without refueling, bring in those scatterd goods or it was just a coincidence, but yea.. missions are there

Good to know. I never normally take those supply missions, so I wonder if they have something to do with it? If they're still out there I guess I'll have another look. What system was it just out of interest? Near/in the bubble or outside?

I'm seeing plenty of "sneak in X" .... "sneak in Y" missions. Took one delivering tobacco the other day.

Yeah I have no problem with these, it makes sense. It's only a minor le of course but really easy to fix I assume. Just remove 'for the fun of it' entirely. 'Smuggle x units of y to z' is totally fine, I just wonder why 'for the fun of it' was ever added.. maybe to show how 'crazy' those anarchy factions are eh? [blah]

I was in a similar situation, at least Friendly, reported Boom state but usually no more than one cargo mission at best. Conversely, when I was flying out of Sothis Mining, I'd often see several cargo missions, but as no large ship can dock there (Outpost) I could only ever take one as they were for 120 -180 units of cargo.

So yes, you're right regarding player reputation with the Factions and current economic state, this influencing the number and payout of missions is fine. However, often I still see no missions appropriate to my current ship and loadout. As a fairly experienced player, I expect this and might just fly elsewhere, but for newer people it much be quite confusing potentially having nothing on offer that you can actually do.

That said, there is a LOT of RNG in this game so users experiences can vary. For example, I only fit Economy Passenger Cabins when I'm wanting to do passenger runs as 95% of the offers I see are for Economy class runs. However, my friend swears he rarely sees the need for Economy Class, so he runs a mostly Business and First Class loadout.

Scoob.

Yeah it can seem very random at times. I really hate the idea of board flipping but I might give it a go to see if I can get any of those long range ones. There doesn't seem to be that many transport missions in general for me at the moment either. I remember just after 2.4 hit there were loads of missions and lots of variety (for me at least), and then they had to patch it again and it seemed to go back to how things are now. Having said that my personal experience isn't necessarily indicative of anything of course, as you say there's a lot of variables/RNG at play so could well just be that.

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

Maybe it's just me, but in my humble opinion and acute observations. When I change ships or a load out from say cabins to bins, because a system is offering more of one than the other. The board slowly changes to the other. Which means the RNG is using your data such as changing ships to make it less conducive, thus causing you to basically explor other avenues or basically other systems. It basically a bait and switch technic.

 

[Range Roger]

OP

I can confirm that the long range smuggling missions are still available. I was offered one last night. It was to smuggle 108 slaves over a distance of 150ly with a reward of 5m.

I did not take the mission because I am currently trying to get the faction (The Purple Clan) that offered me the mission out of power as the controlling faction.

Last year, when the Purple Clan were only a minor faction in the system, occasionally they would offer me up to 8 of such smuggling missions. It was me that put them in power as the controlling faction to see if the smuggling missions would increase. But the smuggling missions stopped completely. I screwed up, so I am working to put things right again.

If you are looking for similar long range smuggling missions then I would suggest that you look at industrial systems around the edge of the bubble. Travel around the systems and check the 'more devious' types of minor factions to see what they are offering.