Mission Stacking Discussion

[Riverside]

For surface scan missions:
What would be, if they would work right? For each mission a separate landing point and separate progress of the mission? Not "scan one to complete 20" but "scan 20 points at 20 planets to complete 20 missions"

This would solve the problem without nerf in any direction

Nailed it. Having all missions (with different destinations) complete from one location is just another one of those bugs that frustratingly doesn't get fixed for ages, and players get used to it being part of the game.

Just fix the (major) bugs first, then see if the mechanism actually needs to be drastically changed. What the OP describes is probably how it's supposed to work for all we know.

 

[DocDelicious]

Just wanted to say quickly that you can pick up more than 20 of the surface scan missions as long as some of them are the regular type and some are the military ones. You can stack up to 40 of them if you get a good board and that's usually worth about 60mil minimum.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Nothing wrong with mission stacking indeed if you have say a beluga passenger ship it is the only way to give the ship purpose.... However on some mission types the stacking is broken. FD acknowledge this but it is apparently hard to fix. IME folk don't moan about stacking but just tend to moan that FD are not trying to fix. Funnily enough the one OP suggests needs to be changed is one where stacking DOES work in logical manner (deliveries)

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Like I said, (did I say it?) I have nothing against stacking loads of missions. I do it all the time, it's just that some missions are clearly broken (surface missions), or just weirdly simple(data delivery).

I really miss Robigo Smuggling. It was one of the few missions that actually had a really good risk Vs reward.
In fact, the risk could have been much higher, IMHO.

The only problem that needed fixing at Robigo was the selling the slaves back to the station.

We don't seem to have any missions you can actually fail anymore.
I don't even see those super impossible surface scans in the middle of high security settlements anymore.
Those were poorly paid, but incredibly fun, and usually impossible. Lol
We just seen to have those search zone scan missions, that are so simple and easy they shouldn't be worth as much as they as. Lol

BRING BACK THE FUN MISSIONS FD!



CMDR Cosmic Spacehead

 

[MarkAusten]

People should play the game and not game the play.

Mission stacking is fine. If you see a mission to the same place that you already have one, go for it. If you're sitting on a pad for three hours logging in and out of various game modes you're not really playing a game at that point.

If you do want to do that, feel free, but you're only cheating yourself in the end.

In one of my previous jobs I was a motorcycle courier and having received long distance job I and my controller would then ring around to try and find either something else going in that direction something to bring back, some times this would take a coupe of hours. It depended on the time I was supposed to deliver the first job. In may experience for non-urgent jobs this was normal practise.

I view this as analogous to mode switching so I have no problem at all with this mechanic.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

There are two kinds of mission stacking.

The first involves logging in and out over and over, until your mission list is full, usually of the same kind of mission, typically massacre or scan missions, as they can be completed at a single location. The makes certain types of players wet themselves in frustration because they don't believe in this sort of thing. They don't have to, but they pile in here calling this an "exploit", when really it's just a mechanics thing.

The second is similar to the first, but involves either traveling to different stations in the same system, or simply sitting on a landing pad waiting for the next mission board update. In the end, you wind up with the same kind of thing - a full list of missions to the same place(s) or for the same activity. This does not offend the above mentioned group nearly as much.

But here's the thing - nothing will satisfy this group of players short of the mission list being cut down to a limit of 1 mission at a time, worth 1 credit. These folks simply need to butt out of everyone else's play style, play their own games and mind their own business. A lesson a growing portion of society needs to learn badly, before it collapses.

Utter bunk. Most don't care about players doing it but they want to see it fixed because... You know some of us want a game which makes sense, and mechanically works as intended (unless you truly think 20 of the same missions stacked are deliberately meant to compete on 1 scan?)


Edit just reading the fix log on 2.4 it seems FD have finally started to try to fix

• Ship kills, and actions to complete planetary hack and disable missions will now only contribute to a single mission, this will be the earliest mission accepted

....
It's took an age but it seems 1 exploit may be dealt with now.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

I feel I may have posted this a few hours too soon. Lol

 

[Nervous Energy]

Way to drive even more people away.

This game is for the unemployed, part time zero hr contracts and the retired.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

^^This^^



^^And this^^



^^This is unfortunately typical of the factually incorrect, ill thought out, condescending, drivel that constitutes many contributions to this forum^^
An exploit is using a game mechanism in a way that was not intended. Like getting multiple rewards for completing only one task. Just saying.

^^^But none of this^^^ This is a less fortunate, typical, thought-not-possible, didn't-read-it, couldn't-understand-it-if-it-were-drawn-in-crayon example of why intellectual discussions about issues that polarize only a fraction of people so much are not possible.

 

[Rozete]

game itself stacks missions for me :O

Spoiler

one of my in game goals is to create mini bubble inside empire, federal, alliance space, where ill be allied with all the minor factions througout at least dozen systems ...just because. so i run and stack these missions not for money at all. its rep im after. and i welcome all fixes, that disallow to finish stack in one place via one action

 

[Bomba Luigi]

The easy answer is there should be high profit systems where you can get lots of high proft missions and get rich - based on whats going on in the system. Economy, politics and all that. And of course, when lots of people coming doing it they go away. Basic suplly and demand kinda stuff. Finding such systems or working to create such situations could be its own professions people specialize in.


Of couse, as easy as the answer is - implementing it in the game isn't.

 

[Rozete]

heres another example of mission stacking. supply misions
[video=youtube;4r0F4EP1wes]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r0F4EP1wes[/video]
and i think 20 mission cap limits us too much, because very very rarely i actually can not fit all supplies needed to complete all 20 in one little loop using python. i would like to use t9 for this, but its clearly an overkill

 

[Crank Larson]

The easy answer is there should be high profit systems where you can get lots of high proft missions and get rich - based on whats going on in the system. Economy, politics and all that. And of course, when lots of people coming doing it they go away. Basic suplly and demand kinda stuff. Finding such systems or working to create such situations could be its own professions people specialize in.


Of couse, as easy as the answer is - implementing it in the game isn't.

But there are these systems already. Outbreak and famine systems are good for earning lots of money. I've had a 9.8 million credit passenger mission from an Outbreak station where a CEO wanted to get out. Taking basic medicines to an Outbreak system will earn around 3000 credits per ton, while taking food to famine systems also pays very well. In fact, searching out these systems is a lot more fun than just running missions from a home system.

 

[Kaocraft]

Utter bunk. Most don't care about players doing it but they want to see it fixed because... You know some of us want a game which makes sense, and mechanically works as intended (unless you truly think 20 of the same missions stacked are deliberately meant to compete on 1 scan?)


Edit just reading the fix log on 2.4 it seems FD have finally started to try to fix

• Ship kills, and actions to complete planetary hack and disable missions will now only contribute to a single mission, this will be the earliest mission accepted

....
It's took an age but it seems 1 exploit may be dealt with now.

Do we know how the updated planetary surface scan missions work, yet? Are all destinations unique or does it still spawn multiple missions all pointing to the same system same planet same search area same exact long/lat for all missions? This has always been the problem with these types of missions. The stacking issue is entirely incidental to the fact that the POIs for EVERY mission on a given planet, ALL spawn in the exact same location.

 

[insanephoton]

Utter bunk. Most don't care about players doing it but they want to see it fixed because... You know some of us want a game which makes sense, and mechanically works as intended (unless you truly think 20 of the same missions stacked are deliberately meant to compete on 1 scan?)


Edit just reading the fix log on 2.4 it seems FD have finally started to try to fix

• Ship kills, and actions to complete planetary hack and disable missions will now only contribute to a single mission, this will be the earliest mission accepted

....
It's took an age but it seems 1 exploit may be dealt with now.

The state of play in 2.3 is even worse than you describe. It is possible to complete 20 Planetary scan missions without even scanning a single datapoint You just have to be in the same instance as someone else scans them.

 

[Stealthie]

The one thing that bugs me about scan missions with the whole "Sideycide" thing.

It makes no sense, and there's no consistency in lore, that you suck the data out of a surface base and then immediately beam it back to a station (often in a different system) and the mission is complete, thus allowing you to Sideycide and avoid the trip back.

If this is a thing, how come data-delivery missions exist at all?
How come you cant beam exploration data back to Universal Cartographics by the same method?

Surely it shouldn't be that hard to update the mission template so you have to obtain the data and then arrive back at the station with it before you get "mission complete"?

 

[Tarman]

But there are these systems already. Outbreak and famine systems are good for earning lots of money. I've had a 9.8 million credit passenger mission from an Outbreak station where a CEO wanted to get out. Taking basic medicines to an Outbreak system will earn around 3000 credits per ton, while taking food to famine systems also pays very well. In fact, searching out these systems is a lot more fun than just running missions from a home system.

That's the kind of nomadic gameplay I did for a long time. I've been doing a lot of regional PG work in the last while but lately having the supported faction constantly involved in brushfire wars while I'm trying to work on system influences is getting old, and getting back out doing this kind of disaster relief/naked profiteering again could be the change I'm looking for right now. I also smuggled a lot of weapons so maybe I can stir up some trouble for people too. Thanks for the reminder. o7