Massacre Mission with no targets

Draconus

Draconus
I've had a bit of a hiatus from the game and thought I'd get back into it and refresh myself. I saw a mission for a nice bonus that required me to kill 53 ships of a faction in a system and took it as I always found the combat to be the most interesting.

I begin by cruising around the system looking for targets to interdict, almost immediately I pull a wing of 3 mission targets and get a buzz after chalking 3 of the 53 right off the bat. I then spend the next hour or so looking for more targets and find none apart from the odd big ship I know I can't take. I then start to wonder what the info notice is on about "Discovered mission related signal source", so I assume that it's the navigation item with a blue arrow next to it - in my case it was the nav beacon. In around 2 hours of play I pick up another 4 targets and the brief moments of combat are sandwiched between long periods of lock, scan, repeat. I notice some combat on the far side of the beacon, just before getting in range of my weapons I have time to see 3 targets getting cleaned up by around 6 security ships... great. I jump out of the beacon and back in to refresh and try and get rid of some of the excess security ships (it seems like they just accumulate indefinitely if you stay at the beacon long enough), but now I'm getting frustrated and the last thing I want to do is spend another 40 min scanning ships to find nothing.

Why is it so hard to find mission targets for a mission called "massacre"? Maybe I'm unlucky or I'm doing something wrong, but this has been a massive drag and certainly does not inspire me to continue getting back into the game.

Anyone got any tips?
 

deleteduser

D
The blue arrow is the thing your ship is closest to.

The Mission Signal can be discovered by scanning the nav beacon. Point your ship at it, then target it, then wait. After System Data Download, enter SC and filter Signal Sources. Your Mission Signal Source will be in blue text.

[EDIT] - As Windscreen Smudge says below, most/all of my Massacre Missions have taken place in Combat Zones. This will be written in the mission text.
 
Last edited:

Windscreen Smudge

W
No combat zones in the area? Usually there's a CZ with the targeted faction in it, from my experience. That may have changed, they've done a lot to the missions I haven't caught up on.
 

Deadlock-3000

D
If the RNG gods favour you, then you will find all the targets you need in a Resource Site (hazardous or otherwise) or a Compromised Nav Beacon. Regular nav beacons can work but they're often slim pickings.

Don't take massacre missions if the destination system doesn't have any of those. The mission system doesn't care whether there are any decent sources of bounties in the system or not.

And never stop to tie your shoelaces in a revolving door.
 

Clifra Jones

Clifra Jones
Draconus said:
Thanks, I had no idea you needed to scan the nav beacon! All great tips, thank you :)
Click to expand...

Scanning the nav beacon wil show the Misson USSs int he system. You can also do this with the FSS.

If you are talking about Pirate Massacre mission, my experience has shown me a few things.

1. Do not take a mission to a system with far away stars/planets. It will inevitably show the Mission Objective way far away from the jump in point.
2. If available, stack missions from 2 different factions. I have observed that this causes more targets to spawn in Super Cruise than just one mission. (I much prefer hunting the targets in SC than jumping into the Mission USS)
3. Related to #2, Stack a wing mission along with your single player missions, these will have somewhat larger kill numbers but they last for days. YOu can re-stack single player until the wing mission is done. This IMO also increases the # of targets that spawn in SC.
4. Sometimes it just don't work! You will only see targets in the Mission Objective USSs. I have also had missions that never ever spawned a Mission USS no matter what I did. So I abandoned and moved on.
 

Sooden

Sooden
seem it was answered well so...

Cant find any targets? maybe the NPC have you on a block list :p Stop ganking NPC!
 

sollisb

Banned
S
Jump to System
Open FSS
Move the thing at the bottom to the far left Signal Sources
Move the pointer over all of them, and some will be your missions USSs
Fly to USS, enter
Kill what you can, leave re-enter

There's bug whereby, a few ships will spawn that you need, and immediately wake out. So you have to keep doing it, or like I do, just give up and not do them. Mining pays better :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom