Horizons Mission Failed - Again

[vernonator]

Okay - I am a newbie so take that into consideration. I have been playing for a week or so and am flying a fully upgraded Cobra. Moved my way down in to the empire and am doing some missions around Sifjar. Took a "hold this package until contacted" with 22min left. Fine I say, will bop to the target system, head to a nearby RES get a few kills and wait for my contact - I flew around the that system for 90 minutes and was never contacted. Real life interviend and I had to jump off. Came back to the "mission failed" message - nice.

Took another "hold this for a while" mission - it had 14 min left. Flew to the target system, hit a RES for a bit. When I ran out of ammo I headed back to the station. Leaving the station I get the a message from my contact "follow my wake" RIGHT as that displays I get interdicted and dropped out of FSD. After killing the Viper (who had no shields? ) - my contact is nowhere to be found. I fly around again for 45 min and finally get the "mission failed" message.

Are these typical results? I did do one successful mission in between these two - but come on for the piddly amount they pay (around 100k for me right now) these missions are WAY more trouble than they are worth, or am I doing it wrong?

Help a newb out....

Thanks

Cmdr. Vernonator

 

[Gold Member]

Wasting time hitting Rez's on very short mission times probably doesn't help. I never do anything else until the mission is complete. And you're right about the payouts. They don't seem like they are worthwhile, but remember to check the reputation gains when you take the mission. Often that makes it worthwhile, especially if the mission itself isn't all that difficult.

 

[Kezha]

14 minutes on a mission means I will either not take it, or set every bit of my power to max and hit the throttle to get from A to B at lightspeed it is an incredibly short time and faffing about is usually not an option for any mission below 30 minutes.


You likely spent 7 - 10 minutes just getting to that res place in the first place, time does really fly.


Most missions do give quite a minute amount but it all tends to build up with ranks and rating as well as ship capabilities. for anyone looking to make some fast bucks RES is the best way still I guess till you can get an ASP or something that can do smuggling. That is what I did and manage to make 10-20 million a day now, up from the 3-5 million from bounty hunting.

Whilst NPC interaction goes through the roof I've taken to start enjoying taking 20-30 missions that is information running, paying 200k up to 1 mill each its more fun having to plan out a route and stick to it, because all time is critical and even if they have a limit of 3 hours to deliver, time is of the essence when you have that many missions to hand out. and to run away from the hoard of NPC's that will wanna follow you at the same time, makes it a bit more challanging I think anyways

Edit: my average time is of the essence run would look abit like this:

 

[shambles1980]

you have to target the person you are meeting. then you will see his wake becomes the target. even after being interdicted his wake should still be there, just have to find it "would be a grey marker on your scanner/radar"
find it and target it.

if its gone jump out of the system and back in the guy will probably be back flying around looking for you.
but from experience they don't always show up. (possibly aren't meant too as pirates may have killed them or something?? idk)

 

[Wes Mattix]

I've done a few of these missions. This is what I've gathered:

1. When you first take it, there will be no expiration time. All it will tell you is who you'll eventually need to contact. Maybe it also says the system at this point, I'm not sure.

2. After a certain amount of time (I don't know how long) the mission will update and at this point you'll know everything you need to: the system, the contact, and the time frame. At this point, the mission is also given an extremely short expiration time. From what I can tell, the time frame given (say, 1:15 - 1:25) is always longer than the expiration time for some reason.*

3. Once you have that, go to the system and fly around in supercruise until you see the contact say something in your comms panel. Open up your nav panel, go to contacts, find the contact, and target him. Eventually he will turn into a low wake which you can approach like a space station. There doesn't appear to be any distance marker so it's kind of annoying, but eventually it should work out.

4. Once you drop out of supercruise, the contact will tell you where you finally need to drop off the stuff.


*This only happened to me once so don't take it as fact, but I could have sworn the mission expired but I was able to make contact and advance to the next stage anyway. I only had 2 minutes left when first jumping into the system, then I had to find him, and then I overshot his wake, and there's just no way all of that didn't take longer than 2 minutes. It could be that the upper end of the time frame that the mission gives is the actual expiration time, and the typical expiration time display is just wrong.

 

[shambles1980]

its not an exparation time..
its a time in hours,, (say, 1:15 - 1:25) this is not 1 mins and 25 seconds.
its saying the guy will be in that system any where between quarter past 1 and 25 past 1.

 

[Wes Mattix]

I just got another one of these. This one didn't work out so well.

First time I found the contact I got interdicted immediately after, as usual. Part of me finds it hilarious that the unnecessarily frequent NPC interdictions that everyone hates is partly causing most of these new missions to break, like FD is double-dipping in the "frustrate our customers for no reason" dip, but oh well.

So I leave the system and come back. Baron Munchhousen (yes, that was his name) appears again and leaves a low wake very close to the star, on the opposite side of where I was. Obviously I had to be careful, but that didn't leave me enough time before the wake disappeared right before I reached it. Leave and come back again.

This time I find the illustrious Mr. Munchhousen just fine and follow his wake easily. He goes through the usual rhetoric. "All the details are on your panel, should you need them." Oh, but they aren't, Baron. Unfortunately, the quest didn't update. I'm sitting here in space starting at the contact. The mission just flat out didn't work.

You're welcome for the $60.

 

[Gold Member]

I just got another one of these. This one didn't work out so well.

First time I found the contact I got interdicted immediately after, as usual. Part of me finds it hilarious that the unnecessarily frequent NPC interdictions that everyone hates is partly causing most of these new missions to break, like FD is double-dipping in the "frustrate our customers for no reason" dip, but oh well.

So I leave the system and come back. Baron Munchhousen (yes, that was his name) appears again and leaves a low wake very close to the star, on the opposite side of where I was. Obviously I had to be careful, but that didn't leave me enough time before the wake disappeared right before I reached it. Leave and come back again.

This time I find the illustrious Mr. Munchhousen just fine and follow his wake easily. He goes through the usual rhetoric. "All the details are on your panel, should you need them." Oh, but they aren't, Baron. Unfortunately, the quest didn't update. I'm sitting here in space starting at the contact. The mission just flat out didn't work.

You're welcome for the $60.

Did you have to buy the mission for $60 or something?

 

[r3per]

Board missions are a complete joke. Don't even waste your time. The ones that do actually work pay so little it's insulting. Just trade or shoot wanted NPCs - only good ways to make cash after 1.5. Just don't use a Shield Cell in combat - complete idiocy on the idea to make SCBs over heat ships - seriously, you'd have to be a moron to think this would be a good idea. Just another fun stealing check mate. Brilliant marketing strategy - make game so hard everyone gets frustrated and stops playing. Time to take the Cutlass out of the hangar.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Board missions are a complete joke. Don't even waste your time. The ones that do actually work pay so little it's insulting. Just trade or shoot wanted NPCs - only good ways to make cash after 1.5. Just don't use a Shield Cell in combat - complete idiocy on the idea to make SCBs over heat ships - seriously, you'd have to be a moron to think this would be a good idea. Just another fun stealing check mate. Brilliant marketing strategy - make game so hard everyone gets frustrated and stops playing. Time to take the Cutlass out of the hangar.

Meanwhile plenty of us are making hundreds of thousands-even millions-of credits, & repping up all the while. Sounds like you just want instant gratification.

 

[Bartizan]

The hold package missions were very poorly thought out and implemented. Just a terrible design all around and waste of time. Edit: I try not to be negative, but those missions are garbage.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

The hold package missions were very poorly thought out and implemented. Just a terrible design all around and waste of time. Edit: I try not to be negative, but those missions are garbage.

I actually find them to be quite cool, though they can always do with more tweaking (greater range of wait times, payouts & danger). I also look forward to when these missions form part of the chained mission system

 

[Marc_Hicks]

The hold package missions were very poorly thought out and implemented. Just a terrible design all around and waste of time. Edit: I try not to be negative, but those missions are garbage.

My hope is that they will also make these missions available from *off* of the bulletin board. For example, you reply to a distress call &, once you've helped them, they ask you if you can take this package off them & deliver it to a contact at a set time. Or you drop out at a weak signal.source & scoop a black box or trade data etc. You get a mission update telling you to meet with a contact in system X, at a given time, who will reward you generously for it (though sometimes it might be an elaborate trap set by pirates).

Of course, when combined with a fully chained mission system, a simple distress call could lead to a range of dangerous missions across half a dozen systems. Just a thought. All the pieces are certainly there though.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Just as an example. You drop out at a salvageable wreck, & find a black box. You scoop the black box & get told that you need to meet with a contact in the Sirius system. You meet the contact, & they tell you that someone in Procyon is interested in the black box. After you deliver the black box, you get told that the pilot of the ship is a hostage who needs rescuing in Wolf 359. After you rescue the hostage, you then get a job to assassinate the guy who arranged the kidnapping in the first place. All of that is possible, once they link together all the component pieces.

 

[shambles1980]

the mission pops up in your com link (chat window) you have to scroll the tabs to the one that has it. you read the thing then it gets updated.

 

[vernonator]

Honestly I am finding that most missions are well - less than adequate lets say that.

Last couple "kill missions" I tried failed due to "stealth" companions. Let me explain - I had one hostage rescue mission (my combat rank is Competent), find El Chapo and rescue the hostage he has - fine. I cruise around the target system a bit and viola I spot him in my contacts window with no one else nearby and no indication that he is in a wing (remember this) he is in a FDL so should be no problem. I interdict him, drop out of FSD and ? There are THREE ships there - my target (FDL), a Fed Dropship and an ANACONDA. ALL 3 already marked enemy and lighting me up. I am flying a fully upgraded Cobra WITH A shields and booster - but the 3 of them made short work of my shields and dropped me to 65% health before I could boost out and jump to FSD. Mission Abandoned.

This exact scenario happened again not 30 min later - kill order on some military guy, find him, no other contacts not in a wing, interdict and BOOM there are three of them there all gunning for me right away - boost out, jump to FSD and again Mission Abandoned.

I have also had two missions fail because the target flew into planetary orbit and was gone (I DON'T have Horizon's) - kinda turned me off of missions for a while. Not sure if RES hunting is enough to keep me interested and I am NOT going to grind a damn trader - BORRRIIINNNNGGGGG.

 

[almostpilot]

The hold package missions were very poorly thought out and implemented. Just a terrible design all around and waste of time. Edit: I try not to be negative, but those missions are garbage.

You chose the right word to describe them.

 

[SirAdelaide]

Still broken after the patch.

 

[B.Roberts]

Still broken after the patch.

It looks like it. Was trying some missions in Horizons and nothing looks right so far. Payments miserable compare to any other kind of activity ( not sure about mining ), descriptions for some missions is very unclear at least. I am Baron / Expert / Broker, allied or friendly in most of the systems in few hundred LY range with purposely built Courier and looks like there are quite few missions available for me. Ship is too small, rank or rep is not good enough and such. Boring. Flying my T9 and making truck load of money in no time much more profitable but much more boring. So I am back to chasing wanted ones. So far this is the only reasonable thing to do (for me personally). C'mon FD, fix our missions please, it was much better before Horizons.