Extremely dedicated players who have a lot of time to study the subtle effects of the BGS and know how to find the hot spots to make good money have no problems with the mission board. However, more casual players who maybe have an hour to kill and just want to find a good mission to make progress in the game are struggling.
I'm as busy as anyone else - I have a family and a job. It's a question of attention in instances like this. I play the BGS, so I always look carefully at faction states anyway. I suspect that there might be a combination of factors, outside the bugged mission archetypes being withdrawn, that have contributed to the OP's impression. I don't do hot-spots or exploits by the way - I'm a homebody and work with several factions within a 35LY radius. I only ever really leave that area to do engineering, short-range exploration, or participate in focussed activities with my player faction.
I can identify with the OP here. I’d like to see the missions sytem be a bit friendlier to casual players and offer a better sense of progression to these players. The next few months my time in the game is very constrained, and when I get busy IRL I often don’t feel like logging it at all because it is hard to accomplish anything in this game in an hour.
I understand this completely - I have work commitments that make me a lot busier for half the year. With that said, it's entirely possible to make decent cash/rep/influence gains in an hour-or-thereabouts given a good relationship with a faction (really easy to gain right now - pal up with a faction before 3.0.3 drops on Tuesday is all I can say), the right economy, and a ship that can land on medium pads. In my experience, the best-paying missions are usually from outposts in extraction and refinery economies: They produce the highest value commodities, which strongly affects the base multiplier for the mission reward under normal circumstances. Agris can be really good too when there is a famine nearby. The same is true for industrial economies when there is an outbreak within a few jumps (say 30LY?).
I don’t think anyone wants easy mode, but it should be much easier to find decent and useful missions in this game that match your level of experience and the capabilities of your ship. Not crazy bonanza missions, but missions that feel like you are advancing in the game at a reasonable rate.
A T6 (3-4Mcr A-rated) is a fine delivery runner. 96t cargo will open up good delivery opportunities (44t and 88t) from extraction outposts to outposts in other systems. The only other ship that's actually
better for such high-profit missions is the Python, as it can run with >250t of cargo allowing you to stack two or even three of them. With regard to mission availability, choose rep +++ or rep +++++ mission rewards until you hit friendly. When you reach that status, the rewards get much more lucrative. Indeed, I'd even say do that until you get to allied - you can only lose minor faction rep by abandoning/failing missions or shooting their ships, so it's the goose that lays the golden eggs. Completing delivery missions also pushes the faction you took the mission from into a boom state, where mission rewards can be even better.
Basically, faction relationships and economy types underpin the rewards you receive. Choose a good one, and you'll make reasonable money pretty easily (although, of course, definitions of "reasonable" do vary!)
I really hope we get a focused feedback session on the missions system soon.
The mission system can always be improved. The latest patch made a huge difference to playability in that you can select the most appropriate reward for your goals. I absolutely love not having 4t of articulation motors foisted on me and attracting interdictions that only waste my time.
