Newcomer / Intro Need help with "Assassinate Deserter" mission, and observations from a new player

[AirBear]

Only been playing the game for a week so I think I still qualify as a "newbie". I now have a maxed out Cobra MkIII:

http://edshipyard.com/#/L=A020,Hf50...AcI0Aqq0B3_0BK40Bb60,,7RA0072007204xo0mpT0nE0


Been doing all cargo and data runs making good money but getting a bit boring. Only been interdicted once and I made short work of him. Picked up a "Kill Deserter" mission. Went to the system scanned the nav beacon. Soon the target showed up. I closed to about 1.5km and opened fire. After a brief dogfight I killed him, then about 10 seconds later I joined him floating in space courtesy of the Internal Security Forces. What's the procedure for a mission like this? Am I missing some kind of scanner I need? There's a few experienced players in my fleet but they haven't been on this weekend.

On a separate note I'm really enjoying the game, it has a VERY steep learning curve and I think it's essential to get into a group with voice chat where some experienced players can help you. The training missions and videos barely scratch the surface. I've had a Thrustmaster 16000M since I first bought the game in Dec. 2014, I gave up on it then because there wasn't room to pack my joystick in the luggage and I was on the road 18 days a month. Now I'm on extended medical leave and have lots of time to play. I broke down and ordered the TM Throttle which should arrive tomorrow, I've installed Voice Attack and am learning to use that. I may get the Oculus Rift VR headset but want to make sure I'm comfy with Voice Attack first.

And the best thing about the game? YOU CAN'T SPEND LOTS OF $$$$$ ON IT!!!!! (which is good because I'm spending it on hardware!) I got hooked and spent 100's of $$$ per month on "freemium" games, I love Elite because about the only $$$ you can spend are for "eye candy" stuff. There's no "premium time", no "premium ships", etc.

Thanks,

AirBear

 

[Hell Razor5543]

The likelihood is that your target was clean in the system you were in, which means that (from the perspective of the Authorities) YOU were the criminal (sorry about that, but that is how the game works). If you do decide to get the Rift CV1 be prepared to say goodbye to lots of your free time (it is THAT immersive); I know because I have one. Anyway, here is my usual welcome spiel;

First, let me welcome you to the Elite: Dangerous Galaxy. My rule 2 is; Have Fun (it is just a game, but WHAT a GAME!).

The learning curve is so steep (it has an overhang!) that the mountain goats go around in teams, roped together (and even then they may fall off, but that means the Vultures get to eat!). However, when you master something, and do it well, the buzz is worth the effort. To my mind the most important skill to master is landing your ship. Until you can do this nothing else matters (how can you complete a mission, for example, if you killed yourself on landing?). It would be a good idea to go through some of the Training missions to start learning the necessary skills to survive.

Now, Golden Rule 1, which is; Never Fly if you cannot cover the REBUY. REBUY is the insurance excess on your ship, and is 5% of the value of your ship (including all upgrades, but not the cargo). Any changes you make to a ship will affect the REBUY. You can see what your REBUY is on the Status screen (normally accessed by pressing key 4 when in cockpit view), bottom left, below Balance. If you get killed, and you can cover the REBUY, you will get a replacement ship identical to the one you lost (although the cargo bay will be empty). However, if you cannot cover the REBUY you may well end up back in a basic Sidewinder. Please do not let this happen to you, as the forum is littered with tales of woe when other Players have ignored Rule 1, and then got killed. This links to the latest I have seen;

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/324391-1-5-years-to-get-Anaconda-1-day-to-lose-it

You will, at various stages, upgrade your ship (buying is covered in the next paragraph). Be aware that all internal equipment has numbers and letters associated with them. The number is the Class, while the letter is the Rating. Until you have a good understanding of the Class make sure (when upgrading) to fit the same Class as the unit coming out. There are stories of Players who fitted a 1A FSD to their Sidewinder, thinking it would help increase the jump range, only to find that (as the FSD that came out was a 2 Class) they had REDUCED the jump range. The letter is for Rating, with E being the weakest and A being the strongest.

However, there are two that confuse this somewhat. All D Rated equipment are very light (and are preferred by Explorers for this reason), while B Rated has heavy armour (which is great for combat specialists). I do not (at this time) intend to explain weaponry, as this is definitely a matter of personal preference.

When you decide to buy a new ship, try to have 200% of the purchase price first. That way you have enough for the ship, some basic outfitting, a couple of loads of cargo, and a couple of REBUYs (just in case). If you are trading in a ship, take it back to factory spec first. When you sell any ship you will always take a 10% hit on the value of the ship at the time of selling. However, if you take it back to factory spec first you get back the full amount that you paid for the upgrades (at this time, at least). Then, when you sell the ship, your losses will be reduced. For example, I have an A Rated Cobra MkIII worth 10Mcr. If I were to sell her now I would take a loss of 1Mcr. However, if I take her back to factory spec and then sell her my loss will be about 35Kcr.

Have fun, fly safely, and see you out amongst the stars. Feel free to ask any questions, we all had to learn somewhere, and those that care will answer all they can.

Oh, I have spent quite a bit on the game (hardware and game related), but NONE of it can be used to unfairly improve my position within the game (which I really approve of).

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Some assassination targets you need to scan first, just like pirates in RES. But sometimes you have to get in quick to get the kill before the cops.

Pirate lord assassinations are more fun, as you don't usually get any cops.

 

[Taowulf]

Always scan first.

Kill Warrant Scanner may increase the bounty as well.

 

[AirBear]

Thanks, finally found out about that. Unless they fire first you'd better get your shots in and run. I've stuck with "Kill the Pirate" missions, they're very easy at my level. Just park on their 6 and shoot until they blow up

 

[Faded Glory]

Kill pirates and kill deserter missions are always wanted targets in my experience, but as the others have said it's important to let your ship's computer finish a scan. Always, and not just for assassination missions, but any ship you want to shoot at, no matter who is already shooting at it.

Also, be aware that a ship can be shooting at you and red / hostile on the scanner, but until it has hit you you will still need to scan. Once it does hit you it will immediately show as wanted when you target it (so long as you have "Report Crimes Against Me" on in the right HUD panel).

 

[colprice2002]

Assassination missions usually​ result in the victim calling the security services, and you getting a wanted status + bounty.

The good news is that be losing the Cobra, you're no longer wanted, and the bounty is dormant.
If you return to the mission giver, you should be able to claim the reward - though you have lost all bonuses and exploration data.

Best advice for these missions is to equip your ship for a quick kill, then escape fast (have a course plotted to another system before opening fire - you can't be mass locked if you high wake out​).
You might want to consider a torpedo loadout - good at eliminating shields, but you'll need something else for the hull...

 

[Faded Glory]

Assassination missions usually​ result in the victim calling the security services, and you getting a wanted status + bounty.

That is absolutely not correct for kill deserter and pirate lord assassination missions. It may be so for the wetwork missions which have you sent after a clean target.

With deserter missions, unless they are very low ranked, the deserter will already be being attacked by local security services and they are very much wanted. With pirate lord missions, you will drop into a compromised USS where comms are disabled so you will be on your own fighting the (again wanted) target. There will usually be a small convoy of the pirate's victims hanging around, but they generally don't do much.

As long as you let your ship's computer complete the scan on the target you will see that they are wanted and you will receive a bounty for destroying them, you will not become wanted yourself.

 

[Dibiase]

Only been playing the game for a week so I think I still qualify as a "newbie". I now have a maxed out Cobra MkIII:

http://edshipyard.com/#/L=A020,Hf50...AcI0Aqq0B3_0BK40Bb60,,7RA0072007204xo0mpT0nE0


Been doing all cargo and data runs making good money but getting a bit boring. Only been interdicted once and I made short work of him. Picked up a "Kill Deserter" mission. Went to the system scanned the nav beacon. Soon the target showed up. I closed to about 1.5km and opened fire. After a brief dogfight I killed him, then about 10 seconds later I joined him floating in space courtesy of the Internal Security Forces. What's the procedure for a mission like this? Am I missing some kind of scanner I need? There's a few experienced players in my fleet but they haven't been on this weekend.

On a separate note I'm really enjoying the game, it has a VERY steep learning curve and I think it's essential to get into a group with voice chat where some experienced players can help you. The training missions and videos barely scratch the surface. I've had a Thrustmaster 16000M since I first bought the game in Dec. 2014, I gave up on it then because there wasn't room to pack my joystick in the luggage and I was on the road 18 days a month. Now I'm on extended medical leave and have lots of time to play. I broke down and ordered the TM Throttle which should arrive tomorrow, I've installed Voice Attack and am learning to use that. I may get the Oculus Rift VR headset but want to make sure I'm comfy with Voice Attack first.

And the best thing about the game? YOU CAN'T SPEND LOTS OF $$$$$ ON IT!!!!! (which is good because I'm spending it on hardware!) I got hooked and spent 100's of $$$ per month on "freemium" games, I love Elite because about the only $$$ you can spend are for "eye candy" stuff. There's no "premium time", no "premium ships", etc.

Thanks,

AirBear

You are defiantly correct about the being able to spend some money on this game but so far it has been worth it. Like you I'm pretty new to the game, about 5 weeks in so far. I started with an old fly 5 joystick but after about 3 days I knew I wanted something better. Ordered the Thustmaster 16000M with the throttle, it was a huge step up and I'm loving it so far. About two weeks later I thought about a VR headset but I'm just not ready for that yet, not being able to see my hands seems strange. I already have 3 monitors so I added the TrackIR head tracker. It is really cool, lets you look around much easier. Finally last week I added voice attack, but instead of trying to create my own settings and Macro's I just ordered a voice pack from HCS and it was well worth the $20. It has a bunch of pre configured settings as well as a plugin that reads the ED journal so it can automatically take certain actions. For example if you jump to a new system, it knows you made a jump and asked you if you want to perform a system scan, etc.. It also has a bunch of professionally recorded responses for all the commands. I think it added a ton to the game. I think I'm set for a while, new HOTAS, Head tracker, voice attack, and voice pack. Now to just kick back and enjoy the game. Started working on the engineer upgrades now, unlocked grade 5 FSD last week, now my ASP can jump 48 light years, and i'm getting 30 ly out of my Python. I haven't tried any of the kill missions yet but I know from some REZ farming I have done, that you do have to wait for the scan to finish and the status to show at wanted before you fire the first shot.

 

[ArchEmperor]

There is a procedure where you have to first scan the mission objective to find out if he is wanted in the system you are currently in. If not, you can not shoot him without getting a bounty on your own head.

If the mission objective, after scan, proves wanted, you may kill him without getting a bounty on your own head. But if he is clean, you need to think about if committing murder in this system is worth it. It usually is. But you also need to kill him fast and get out of there before the security have time to scan you.

If you are in a high security system, odds are that, if the target is not wanted in that system, you may get in trouble really fast for committing murder.

There are some tricks to avoid getting a bounty on your own head.

You can ram him so he gets damaged and/or then shoot him just a little to get a small bounty on your head, that will get removed after 8 minutes or so when doing next hyper jump. Let him then escape with low hull %, hopefully he uses a high wake. Then you scan his wake and hopefully he jumped to an anarchy system or a system where is wanted. That way you get him killed with not that much trouble.

I am not sure if shooting specific modules may force him to try to escape, like shooting his Life Support module to 0%. But you can try that.

With space legs ( future update ), I would lure him to dock with me and then when I board his vessel I shoot him or disable him with poison/sleeping pills or whatever, before he can report any crime and then drag his body into my ship and tow his vessel as a trophy back to base.

I would also like the option to make him pay me to let him go. Preferably with more money than I would have gotten from the reward.

 

[AirBear]

I've still given up on "kill the deserter" missions although I do an occasional "kill the pirate" one. Those seem to bug out a lot. I keep having to warp out and back in again to reset. Sometimes it's taken 4 resets before I can find the damn pirate. I may try the deserter mission again and make sure the scan completes.

Since I last posted I've add a TM throttle to my T16000M Joystick, installed Voice Attack, and finally bought the Oculus Rift VR. Wow. Big difference in the game. Pretty cool being able to see your "virtual" body with hands that move the joystick and throttle in sync with your real hands. A big help in combat since you can look up (Cobra MKIII) and see thru the canopy. You can also roll and look out the side windows when trying to get a clear path to jump.