Massacre Missions - Don't do them for 3 reasons

[SquirrelEyez]

Hi there,

I've been grinding Federation credits through mission cargo hauling, but decided to try something to spice it up with some friends possibly. I setup a nice combat Anaconda, took a bunch of Massacre Missions (thinking they'd stack... learned they don't on top of my other problems) and went at it for a few hours.

Reason #1: Too many kills required in too little time. I'm not even a bad combat pilot... it is just simply too hard to kill the required number in 24 hours. 70 kills?! Sometimes more or less than this. It might be reasonable to even cut these mission numbers in HALF it is so ludicrous right now. I tried for about 5 hours.

Reason #2: NO KILL COUNTER on the missions. This is such an easy fix. Please let us know where we are at in the mission. EDIT: Learned kill counter is hidden in the transaction mission tab, far bottom. I suppose it would be nice if this was more visible, but there IS a kill counter.

Reason #3: Enemy ships will frequently FSD out of the system once you get them to low hull integrity. WHAT???

If all three of these problems could be addressed, it might actually be fun to do some of these Massacre missions. As of right now... they should just be considered bugged/broken.

EDIT: After reading comments and playing more and in wings, I've learned Wing massacre missions are actually pretty fun (minus the bugs that occur from time to time). Solo massacre, however, still has that problem of too high kill count, UNLESS this was truly designed to be "end-game" content... ie requires engineered ship.

 

[Morbad]

If the kill count isn't something you feel you can accomplish, refrain from accepting the mission.

There is a kill counter on massacre missions; check the mission description in your transactions tab.

NPCs that at least go through the motions of trying to save themselves when a fight is going against them are vastly better, IMO, than those that only line up to die. If you can't disable or destroy them quickly, think about adjusting your tactics or loadout.

 

[Arkadi]

If the kill count isn't something you feel you can accomplish, refrain from accepting the mission.

I wonder if there are many commanders out there who feel they want to take those missions. Replacing point 2 with: shield cell spamming AI, and either I am a noob or my feedback cascades (one medium, two small rails) don't really help much.

edit: I don't think this is a pc specific issue

 

[Morbad]

I wonder if there are many commanders out there who feel they want to take those missions.

They can be worthwhile for the INF or materials.

Also adding point4: shield cell spamming AI, and either I am a noob or my feedback cascade doesn't really help much.

You need to keep in mind that feedback cascade must be delivered during the SCB spin-up time, which means you have, at most, five seconds to get your hits in. Additionally, the bigger the SCB the more feedback cascade you need to maximize the charge reduction; it takes about five hits from a small feedback rail, or three from a medium, to reach that 90% reduction on the biggest SCBs.

 

[[PS4] Filthymick420]

You take massacre missions for warring factions and do them in high cz's. They usually aren't that bad. Wing massacre missions do stack between wing mates. If each of you take one for 70 then you all only need 17-18 kills. 40 mill x4 = $160,000,000. You can do this in less than an hour.

 

[metatheurgist]

Haven't done them for a while but you do have to be smart about taking them. Just like you don't take a courier mission without checking the distance to port, always check the target faction and system has RES and the targets in adequate number. Some factions are flagged as "good guys" and basically don't produce pirates. This was supposed to have been fixed a while ago but ... these things have a habit of recurring.

 

[SquirrelEyez]

If the kill count isn't something you feel you can accomplish, refrain from accepting the mission.

Really? That's straight up denying there's a problem with the mission type or room for improvement. How many people do you actually think are actively accepting and doing these missions?

"NPCs that at least go through the motions of trying to save themselves when a fight is going against them are vastly better, IMO, than those that only line up to die. If you can't disable or destroy them quickly, think about adjusting your tactics or loadout."

I disagree in this case, because the time limit is 24 hours and real life people don't have the time to have these valuable mission ships escaping all the time. Keep in mind that you might be able to destroy these in your souped-up engineered ship, but other players will not be able to in a reasonable time frame. It's too frustrating to have them FSD out after so much time spent in combat against them. However, if the kill counter was reduced, this would make FSD escape less a problem.

 

[SquirrelEyez]

You take massacre missions for warring factions and do them in high cz's. They usually aren't that bad. Wing massacre missions do stack between wing mates. If each of you take one for 70 then you all only need 17-18 kills. 40 mill x4 = $160,000,000. You can do this in less than an hour.

Yeah I went to a high conflict zone. I did not know this about wing missions stacking though... that actually might make them feasible, but for wings only. thanks

 

[SquirrelEyez]

I wonder if there are many commanders out there who feel they want to take those missions. Replacing point 2 with: shield cell spamming AI, and either I am a noob or my feedback cascades (one medium, two small rails) don't really help much.

edit: I don't think this is a pc specific issue

I did not know about shield spamming AI, but it makes sense now. I've spent inordinate amounts of time trying to bust particular ships' shields that seem to never go down or stay down for long... now I know why!

 

[Factabulous]

The OP is complaining about the only type massacre mission that isn't broken.....

 

[Morbad]

Really? That's straight up denying there's a problem with the mission type or room for improvement.

In the case of the CZ missions, yes, I think those are fine.

How many people do you actually think are actively accepting and doing these missions?

Quite a few. Anyone with an interest in shifting minor faction influence is going to be taking stacks of these missions during states of war or civil war, because they are easy ways to multiply the influence contribution of victory.

The OP is complaining about the only type massacre mission that isn't broken.....

Most of the other kinds also work, they are just less straightforward and involve a lot of hopping around between mission signals in SC.

 

[Factabulous]

Most of the other kinds also work, they are just less straightforward and involve a lot of hopping around between mission signals in SC.

Last time I tried massacring tourists etc none were shown as mission targets, so they were literally impossible. Unless you're saying that some eventually turn up correctly tagged, which is cool, but really all mission target USS should contain at least 1 mission target - IMHO

 

[Morbad]

Last time I tried massacring tourists etc none were shown as mission targets, so they were literally impossible. Unless you're saying that some eventually turn up correctly tagged, which is cool, but really all mission target USS should contain at least 1 mission target - IMHO

In my experience, targets of a specific faction, regardless of what occupation they are, tend to show up as correctly tagged and every blue mission USS I've dropped into has had at least one mission target. Most of my experience with this are the massacre x number of pirates, and these are often very quick to complete, with 4-8 targets per USS for the wing missions.

 

[Factabulous]

In my experience, targets of a specific faction, regardless of what occupation they are, tend to show up as correctly tagged and every blue mission USS I've dropped into has had at least one mission target. Most of my experience with this are the massacre x number of pirates, and these are often very quick to complete, with 4-8 targets per USS for the wing missions.

Yup - pirate massacres are fine (my original point ). The naughtier massacres for tourists / passenger craft etc always seem bugged to me (in that they don't get tagged as mission targets and don't count towards the mission). Haven't done any for a couple of months though - so may be fixed

 

[Old Duck]

Really? That's straight up denying there's a problem with the mission type or room for improvement. How many people do you actually think are actively accepting and doing these missions?

The kill count is almost always too high for me. I do CZs for the BGS, so I usually only need to do one or two a day, and I'd get downright bored if I had to do the countless number of CZs needed to scrap 50 or 70 ships. It would be one thing if CZs were filled with Eagles, but I'm just as likely to be focusing on a Cutter (or worse, a capital ship) than I am an Eagle.

Sure, the pay is good, but I'd much rather there be more smaller missions like "Destroy 10 enemy ships for 1 million credits" that I could stack as time allowed than these risky "Kill 100 enemy ships for 20 million credits". I say risky because as a BGS player, I don't want to fail a mission given to me by my faction!

 

[Morbad]

Haven't done any for a couple of months though - so may be fixed

I'll mix a few in to my election missions later today and double check.

 

[GraphiteGB]

As in the general topic on these missions...
When the target is medium to large class You don't aim for hull damage first, you aim for Module damage First.. hull damage is for small ships and secondary for bigger ships
If the target is using fast regen shields you sub target the shield gen this means you don't have to swap back to shiels removing on targets... this is for Pyhton, anaconda, cutters...
If Posssible you then target FSD or jump to power plant targeting... and keep targeting power plant as the RNG will generate an explosion at set RNG points even if the hull is still over 98% the explosion can trigger still...
If doing CZ you need corrosive ammo these are war ships not cry baby pirates the army can afford full armour refit... Your sides AI will help, target ships they have allready started or completely removed shields from, if they have started to remove armour even better...

You have a few dozen Helpers in combat zones you are not fighting alone the AI can help...

 

[SquirrelEyez]

As in the general topic on these missions...
When the target is medium to large class You don't aim for hull damage first, you aim for Module damage First.. hull damage is for small ships and secondary for bigger ships
If the target is using fast regen shields you sub target the shield gen this means you don't have to swap back to shiels removing on targets... this is for Pyhton, anaconda, cutters...
If Posssible you then target FSD or jump to power plant targeting... and keep targeting power plant as the RNG will generate an explosion at set RNG points even if the hull is still over 98% the explosion can trigger still...
If doing CZ you need corrosive ammo these are war ships not cry baby pirates the army can afford full armour refit... Your sides AI will help, target ships they have allready started or completely removed shields from, if they have started to remove armour even better...

You have a few dozen Helpers in combat zones you are not fighting alone the AI can help...

thanks for tips... I'm starting to think maybe these are "end-game" content when my ship is more fully engineered, but perhaps it's doable with some of these tips? I dunno.. I am running a [4] Beam Laser [3] 2x Engineered Overcharged gimballed multicannons and the rest turreted weapons on my anaconda to cover blind spots. I've tried module sniping but from my experience with this setup it's pretty slow.. the hull blows up first. What do you think I can do with my setup currently? Ammo conservation is also a problem... so I'm tending to look for more energy weapons.

 

[SquirrelEyez]

In the case of the CZ missions, yes, I think those are fine.

Ok.... I don't feel like I suck in combat although I know I can improve. Do you think I need to engineer my stuff to make this kinda thing more possible or just change my loadout? Anaconda, running [4] fixed Beam [3] 2x gimballed overcharged mutlicannons [3] turreted burst laser on my underside hardpoint, and my other hardpoints are also turreted with a mix of energy and kinetic to take care of blind spots.

 

[Screemonster]

The only thing that bothers me about massacre missions is that once you hit allied, they stop offering you the ones that are to only kill ten or so, and instead the board is full of a dozen identical massacre missions per faction, all wanting 70-odd kills.

I mean, sure, back when they stacked and one kill counted for all active missions this was great, but now?

If you're gonna fill the board with multiple massacre contracts for war / civil war, at least have some spread on them so I can just take missions to match however many I feel I can take on today. Like, a couple of each of 5, 10, 20, 50, 70, etc.
(also, missed opportunity in not bringing in a "deliver decisive victory" mission type that requires you to complete an x-intensity zone and all optional objectives, independent of the number of kills)