Mission Status at remote stations/outposts

[evanevery]

I think most of us know where the more popular grinding places are. ...and the MOST popular of these are pretty distant from one another. Some places are good for grinding money, some are good for grinding rank...

I'm aware of EDD database and the station info. The EDD will show station status but I don't know of any way to determine if missions are currently being handed out. After leaving Fed Ranking System "A" because of a lockdown, I flew a long way to system "B" to grind for $$$$ (~40 hops). Meanwhile, I watched the EDD until the lockdown on system "A" cleared. So I packed up and flew the long trip back to system "A" only to find out that no missions were to be had anywhere in that system or its neighbor. So, I flew over to different Fed Grinding System "C" (about another 40 hops). But once again, not many missions to be had and only on one side of the "partner" system, so I flew YET ANOTHER 40 or so hops back over to System "B" (to grind for $$$). ...and then Mission Failed, Mission failed, Mission failed so I rage-quit and went for dinner....

So, I'm NOT looking for recommendations about alternatives to grinding (its what I choose to do), but I am interested if anyone has any better method to determine real time status of mission availability at specific stations (BEFORE I spend an hour hopping over to check it out). EDD has some related info (controlling faction status), but it doesn't seem to correlate to mission availability. ...or am I just missing something?

 

[goemon]

you need to have the system map data.

in that case, you can read all states of all factions in the left hand tab.

basically, we get 20 missions per mission board. factions in boom will have ~6-8+. factions in outbreak, famine and similar ~4+. factions with no states 2-3.... now, if you have 6 factions in a system, and two of them in boom, and another in famine, the 2 factions you want to rank with have no state, the boom and famine missions will eat up all mission slots.

i know this for having a couple of good sources for kill pirate systems ... but if too many factions are in boom or famine or similar in those systems, those missions never reach the mission boards.

that said - the mission boards are erratic, which is why i don't earn my CR by playing the mission boards. but for navy ranking you have no alternative.

another tip: get a ship with a better jumprange. if i'm not sure whether a mission board is worth it, i take my DBE which can be anywhere in the bubble and its edges in 5-10 jumps, and check it out. the next shipyard is never further than 4 jumps away, where I'll have the ship i want transfered afterwards, playing those missions which my DBE can do till it arrives.

 

[evanevery]

10-4 on the "taxi" ship. I've been considering a optimally outfitted DBE or AspX (just for running light, no cargo, shields, weapons)...

I've already had my Courier transported to my current fed rank grinding location (just for data delivery missions) and I leave it there. I use my heavily outfitted "A class" Python to run cargo missions at my $$$$ grinding location - and just for general transportation. My Cutter is still back in the hangar waiting for me to finish a proper defensible refit before I dare pull her out of the garage (with a 30M+ rebuy)...

So obviously, I've got my Imperial rank grinding done (Prince 90%) and now I'm working on Fed Rank Grinding (Lt Cmdr 30%) just in case I want a Corvette at some point. But I also need to make $$$$ so I can finish the refit on my Cutter so she's a more formidable "target"...

I kind of like the grind - as long as its productive. But I don't like doing 80 hops total in one evening just because 2 of my favorite systems are "offline" and then when I get to my 3rd location all the missions are insta-failing....

The Internet EDD will also tell you the status of all factions at a station, but it doesn't seem to correlate too well regarding availability of missions... Sometimes there's lots of missions even during a lockdown and other times there are no missions when there is no "special" state at all ("none")...