Mission to bring grain to a grain exporter?

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

Ok, so while sat at Tun picking up charity missions for federal ranking between dealing with real life, I have noticed quite a few pretty silly missions and I'm wondering if there are any real reasons other than my theory that the mission system is just not connected to the BGS or the market at all.

I notice a mission to bring 4 tonnes of grain in, paying 15k or something. I looked at the system and galaxy map to see that the station Im sat in, Tun, exports grain for 250 a tonne. I buy the 4 tonnes of grain in Tuns market for 1k and sell it back to Tun for 15k - WTH?

What have I missed? Its not the only one, as I've stopped here and many other places to idle due to real life and picked up charity missions and these anomalous missions which make no sense at all, at least to me.

I thought the long range missions were bad enough, exposing as they did, the missions system for what it is, a disconnected random number generator, that would have you ship 10 tonnes of goods for 1.5M credits 400LY to a station that could buy them 10Ly away for 10k credits! Gods that typically had no logical reason to be in the source station in the first place, it being 400LY out on the edge of the bubble and a mining colony.

i doubt this is new, what feels annoying is its most likely very old and still this way.

Or is there some logic and reason that I'm just missing? (and not some handwavium use your imagination)

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I wonder if they are a variation on the donation missions, but I suspect it is just lazy programming asking for a random commodity.
What I don't like is these missions often say something like "help feed us, we are starving" and the effect of completing is to reduce famine. But this is in a station exporting huge quantities of food.

 

[Adept Geraden]

The answer to this is quite obvious, if you look at the minor faction that controls the station, versus the faction issueing the mission.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

The answer to this is quite obvious, if you look at the minor faction that controls the station, versus the faction issueing the mission.

I dont see how that explains it, sorry

How would any faction issuing the mission not just buy the goods in the station they live in for less money? I assume you are suggesting that one faction cannot buy from the other because of the faction conflict between them, right? I get that there is 'conflict' between them but that still doesn't explain it, I can buy the goods on the market, they can trade in the station with me, the station is an exporter of the goods they want to buy.

 

[Eminor]

Yeah, I raised a support ticket for this 9/10 months ago - and got this response:

"This is currently working as expected. If you feel strongly that this should be changed then please post on our forums so our developers and designers can take it into consideration for a future update."

Let's just say I didn't feel too strongly about it .

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

How would any faction issuing the mission not just buy the goods in the station they live in for less money?

When it's a donation mission, they aren't giving you money, just reputation. So even though it's a weak mechanic, it works. But paying you a premium for what they can easily buy themselves is a bit stupid.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

yes, if they had been asking for it for free it would have at least made some sense, anyway as already said above its been here for a long time and from the sound of it is something FD think is working correctly, personally I still think its another example of disconnected systems

 

[SMcA]

I notice a mission to bring 4 tonnes of grain in, paying 15k or something. I looked at the system and galaxy map to see that the station Im sat in, Tun, exports grain for 250 a tonne. I buy the 4 tonnes of grain in Tuns market for 1k and sell it back to Tun for 15k - WTH?

Maybe someone has a contract that they cannot fulfill and the penalties are greater than 15K.

 

[DaveB]

Doesn't matter what kind of mission it is.. The ruling faction controls the market. You won't (or shouldn't) see any missions from them to bring anything that they are exporting. If a minor faction, that may be in conflict with the ruling faction, wants something they may not be able to buy it on the open market there and so you may see supply or charity missions from the minor faction for it even if the ruling faction is selling it openly to everyone else. You're getting a premium for acting as a middleman.

 

[insanephoton]

It is very old. It used to happen quite frequently, maybe not so much now. The long distance smuggling thing has been partially fixed in 1.5 by making goods mission specific. You still might get a mission to haul biowaste 400 ly for a huge profit but you will have to haul it 400 ly. No more discarding it at the first opportunity and then buying some replacements close to your destination

 

[Vasious]

Grain, (like many of the commodities) is a very broad definition, running from rice wheat rye, and other cereal crops , grain legumes, oilseeds and so forth.

A planet might grow only a certain selection of them, adapted to the particular eco system, and might import other grains from other worlds.

That a planet that grows grain is asking for grain isnt that bad if they then only accepted imported grain for the mission.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Grain, (like many of the commodities) is a very broad definition, running from rice wheat rye, and other cereal crops , grain legumes, oilseeds and so forth.

A planet might grow only a certain selection of them, adapted to the particular eco system, and might import other grains from other worlds.

That a planet that grows grain is asking for grain isnt that bad if they then only accepted imported grain for the mission.

Good point, but they wouldn't be saying that they are starving when asking for it.
.
It doesn't even need to be a different grain. Several years ago, in Bali. My guide was saying that the locals couldn't afford the Bali-grown rice which was mostly exported, so the Balinese had to import cheaper rice.

 

[Privata]

Maybe its a placeholder? like the SS content?

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

Grain, (like many of the commodities) is a very broad definition, running from rice wheat rye, and other cereal crops , grain legumes, oilseeds and so forth.

A planet might grow only a certain selection of them, adapted to the particular ecosystem, and might import other grains from other worlds.

That a planet that grows grain is asking for grain isn't that bad if they then only accepted imported grain for the mission.

Except there is only one type of grain in the game and they did accept the same grain they were selling on the market.


I can see some (very little) logic in the two minor factions not buying/selling from each other despite sharing the same station. If I 'imagine' it's working as intended then I'm still left with the obvious point of 'why on earth do it like that and leave yourself open to question for NO advantage at all, simply don't have a minor faction ask for commodities that they could buy locally'


As for the long distance, well I'll wait to see how it is in 1.5 but if the commodity is still biowaste then it's still just biowaste.



anyways....

thanks for the replies

 

[Wasp0]

what always gets my goat, is the charity missions that are in the 'Un-available' missions. When you look at them some of them are for Elite this or Dangerous that etc etc. Is my money (Credit donations) not good enough for them? What is the difference in my Cr?

I find that rank discrimination and would like to report this to the ranking discrimination board for immediate investigation!

 

[Flavourless]

It is very old. It used to happen quite frequently, maybe not so much now. The long distance smuggling thing has been partially fixed in 1.5 by making goods mission specific. You still might get a mission to haul biowaste 400 ly for a huge profit but you will have to haul it 400 ly. No more discarding it at the first opportunity and then buying some replacements close to your destination

No, its still the same. Goods are just goods.
Just received 2mCr for hauling 2 tons of hydrogen fuel, where I sold the commodity to the issuing station and restocked in the destination station.
The mission system could and should be a core feature of the game, but it seems that FD prioritize developing nonsensical addons like PP and CQC instead.

We are stuck with illogical, non-context missions with ludicrous payouts that can be fulfilled in small cheap ships.

It is the same with the AI.
All those "Its hard to track you down", when the tracker just spawns at your location, and "That's the ship, the one with the big haul", when you don't even have cargo racks - let alone any cargo.
And the maintaining 1 km relative position during scans because the algorithms make use of data that wouldn't be available (player inputs are matched instantly by the AI)
The underlying coding is lazy and unsophisticated.

But then again, ED has become an arcade game, not the simulation that many of us hoped for. So I guess it's ok.

 

[Hadron-Higgs-Boson]

just to confirm something as I've just had the exact same thing again but last time I was not 100% sure it was the same ruling faction offering the mission.

The Station, Tun, is under the control of Tun Netcomms Services, the mission was offered by the same Tun Netcomms Services for 10 tones of grain, I bought the grain on the market, they have a huge surplus being a grain exporter, and used it to satisfy the mission.

sorry but this might be working as intended but it's not working correctly

 

[deMangler]

No, its still the same. Goods are just goods.
Just received 2mCr for hauling 2 tons of hydrogen fuel, where I sold the commodity to the issuing station and restocked in the destination station.
The mission system could and should be a core feature of the game, but it seems that FD prioritize developing nonsensical addons like PP and CQC instead.

We are stuck with illogical, non-context missions with ludicrous payouts that can be fulfilled in small cheap ships.

It is the same with the AI.
All those "Its hard to track you down", when the tracker just spawns at your location, and "That's the ship, the one with the big haul", when you don't even have cargo racks - let alone any cargo.
And the maintaining 1 km relative position during scans because the algorithms make use of data that wouldn't be available (player inputs are matched instantly by the AI)
The underlying coding is lazy and unsophisticated.

But then again, ED has become an arcade game, not the simulation that many of us hoped for. So I guess it's ok.

And this is a major reason there are many complaints of the game lacking content. The game has loads of content and richness - unfortunately the brain quickly learns to filter out non-useful information. Unfortunately information like mission text referring to starving people or implying a shortage of goods, or NPC chatter about the NPC's and Players shared environment, or even ship features that function differently whether you are an NPC or player (ie infinite ammo), all add up to it being more likely that the player will be mislead by paying attention to such "richness" - so no wonder our evolved brains filter it out and the game starts to seem empty and meaningless.

 

[Mikey2305]

I have seen this a few times but never had an issue with it. I rationalise it by imagining the stations as servicing the planets they orbit. Out of the billions of people and factions living on that planet, there will be those that export grain or whatever and those that dont have enough and therefore need to buy it. And sometimes there will be an intermediary willing to profit from that supply and demand. A bit like global capitalism really...

 

[Jex =TE=]

I dont see how that explains it, sorry

How would any faction issuing the mission not just buy the goods in the station they live in for less money? I assume you are suggesting that one faction cannot buy from the other because of the faction conflict between them, right? I get that there is 'conflict' between them but that still doesn't explain it, I can buy the goods on the market, they can trade in the station with me, the station is an exporter of the goods they want to buy.

We need a new meme

"One simply cannot buy from a faction" LOL

To answer your question, DB has a thing for randomly generated stuff it seems. The problem with random generation is that in the long run, it's awful. It's the cheapest and nastiest way to make your environment "live" and ruins immersion. The same immersion breaking that happens when I smuggle in X, get scanned and my fine is 10k but the sale price of the goods is 100k.

Obvious Random generator is....obvious.

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Except there is only one type of grain in the game and they did accept the same grain they were selling on the market.


I can see some (very little) logic in the two minor factions not buying/selling from each other despite sharing the same station. If I 'imagine' it's working as intended then I'm still left with the obvious point of 'why on earth do it like that and leave yourself open to question for NO advantage at all, simply don't have a minor faction ask for commodities that they could buy locally'


As for the long distance, well I'll wait to see how it is in 1.5 but if the commodity is still biowaste then it's still just biowaste.



anyways....

thanks for the replies

There's no excuse for it it's just naff programming. Nobody is going to pay 15 times the price just for you to buy the grain and then sell it to someone else when they could get anyone to buy it for them and if they're starving, they'd be stupid to pay so much when they could use that money to buy food and that's another thing - all these "factions" seem to have infinite amounts of money.