Massacre the <insert faction here> Ships Frustration

[Newt Loranas]

I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this and I'm sure I'll not be the last by a long way.

These missions are a real sanguinary thorn in the hindquarters.

I've long worked out that when it says, for example, to kill "Euribya Blue Mafia" ships it means ONLY the ones with "Mission Target" on the scan. You can't just clear out any old pirate and these targets are few and far between!

This has just nobbled my progression from Lord to Baron in the Empire. My mission ( should I choose to accept it, which I did) was to kill 24 EBM pirates in 24 hours (in Eurybia). It turned out to be impossible!

I was scouting the Eurybia system for over 6 hours last night and came across 1 - count ONE - mission target which I was unable to kill as it was a FDL in a group of 4 who's friends turned out to be toting corrosion damage weapons and I suffered several bouts of "extreme module damage detected" and my drives were quickly toast.

I saw MANY, count MAAAAAANY, EBM ships without the "Mission Target" tag, but of course they don't count. Oh no, heaven forbid that shooting ships of the faction you've been asked to shoot actually count towards completing your mission!

Yeah I did the rounds of res sites ( res SITE singular, in Euribya) flying around and the nav beacon, but zip, nada, nothing.

So at 5am I gave up and went to bed. Got up at 2pm had only a couple of hours before I had to go to work and still found nothing so I was forced to abandon the mission as it would have expired anyway by the time I finished work.

Now I'm scouting the boards and just not getting a replacement progression mission

Anyone got any tips on completing massacre missions in a timely fashion? Am I doing something wrong or was I just very unlucky on this one?

kind regards

R

 

[Drelthar]

Never tried anything but massacre missions which concern conflict zones, which have consistent targets, so, can't help there.

I am interested however, in how you came across NPC's with corrosion weapons, as, engineered weapons on NPC don't yet exist. They were removed a long time ago due to bugs.

 

[M00ka]

Check to see if the targeted faction is at war with mission giving faction. It that is the case, the targets will all be located in a CZ.

I have found for massacre missions if the number of targets is large then it is normally a CZ hunt.

 

[Newt Loranas]

Never tried anything but massacre missions which concern conflict zones, which have consistent targets, so, can't help there.

I am interested however, in how you came across NPC's with corrosion weapons, as, engineered weapons on NPC don't yet exist. They were removed a long time ago due to bugs.

Definitely not CZ related, I checked. The mission said use FSD Interdictors and search in Resource Extraction Sites, Signal Sources and Nav Beacons.

@Novo Mundus - I had no idea they couldn't have corrosion weapons. I only know they were corrosive because the computer voice said "extreme module damage detected" and the info window in the top right said something about "corrosion" I can't remember the exact text, I narrowed my eyes firmly at it. I've also had "Thermal attack detected" from NPC's and "Impulse Attack detected" from NPC's.

I've only engaged in battle with a player once since I came back to the game.

 

[Chris Simon]

I think there is a bug, actually.
I've been ding these for past two days (cos' I like them) and I have noticed that (especially in RES) when there is a wing of pirates from the target faction, only the leader counts (and is shown) as "Mission target".
It's really weird and prolongs things quite a bit. Especially when you are supposed to kill 40 of them, for example.

If you want, submit a bug report. I've been meaning to do that the whole week, but I'm a lazy fart.

 

[Newt Loranas]

I think there is a bug, actually.
I've been ding these for past two days (cos' I like them) and I have noticed that (especially in RES) when there is a wing of pirates from the target faction, only the leader counts (and is shown) as "Mission target".
It's really weird and prolongs things quite a bit. Especially when you are supposed to kill 40 of them, for example.

If you want, submit a bug report. I've been meaning to do that the whole week, but I'm a lazy fart.

Yeah it's been like that the whole 2 months since I came back to the game, so I thought that was normal. I was offered massacre 72 ships for about 10 million. I said no (remembering how long 72 ships was likely to take )

I've done and completed massacre missions previously, but I've had to really put in the hours to complete within the time limit.

 

[Newt Loranas]

I'm going for a bath and a sulk. Catch you guys in an hour when I'm, possibly, feeling less murderous.

 

[Chris Simon]

Yeah it's been like that the whole 2 months since I came back to the game, so I thought that was normal. I was offered massacre 72 ships for about 10 million. I said no (remembering how long 72 ships was likely to take )

I've done and completed massacre missions previously, but I've had to really put in the hours to complete within the time limit.

I've done 62 ships (Four missions, 20+20+12+10) in under an hour, yesterday. The most important thing is to do a bit of research, prior to accepting the missions (it's best if you are familiar with all the surrounding systems) and chose a system that has High and HazRES (Or a compromised NavBeacon) you can also pull pirates from SC. With a bit of luck you can do one pirate per two minutes, that way - I had a lot of practice in this when doing Powerplay and undermining Feds.

But anyway, if whole wings counted as mission targets (as I suppose it SHOULD be) things would go three times faster.

I'm going for a bath and a sulk. Catch you guys in an hour when I'm, possibly, feeling less murderous.

Aw. Take it easy. The line between fun and grind is really thin in Elite.

 

[Newt Loranas]

I've done 62 ships (Four missions, 20+20+12+10) in under an hour, yesterday. The most important thing is to do a bit of research, prior to accepting the missions (it's best if you are familiar with all the surrounding systems) and chose a system that has High and HazRES (Or a compromised NavBeacon) you can also pull pirates from SC. With a bit of luck you can do one pirate per two minutes, that way - I had a lot of practice in this when doing Powerplay and undermining Feds.

But anyway, if whole wings counted as mission targets (as I suppose it SHOULD be) things would go three times faster.

Aw. Take it easy. The line between fun and grind is really thin in Elite.

Yeah the thing is the mission specified that I had to kill them in the Eurybia system (I picked the mission up in Ninabin) I've been missioning around here for 2 months and Chris and Slyvia's Paradise Hideout is basically my home. While there were plenty of EBM ships around almost none had "mission target" on them.

Am I not restricted to killing them in the specified system?

Also a bath while watching 2 episodes of Rick and Morty helps most angst.

 

[Newt Loranas]

Finally, got another Imperial Navy progression mission.. This one is take down a Pirate Lord ( again EBM in Eurybia ) He's going to be Elite but I should be ok.