Newcomer / Intro need help with kill mission

avidhunter · Mar 30, 2015

So I figure I'm doing pretty good in my new Vulture. I'm putting a hurt on a lot of NPCs I wanted more of a challenge fighting at nav points was just to easy. So I accepted a mission to go kill a guy from the bulletin board. The bounty was around 120k so I figure it should be a good fight.

I go to the first system on the list where he was known to hang out. I pop into a USS and a guy tells me I should go kill someone else instead for a lot less money. I want to kill the original guy for 120k. I've been going to evey USS now for hours and cannot find the guy or guys I'm looking for.

Is this bugged? am I wasting my time? I'm getting seriously frustrated going into USS and finding some dude having nothing to do with anything. Not even wanted.

Universal Evil · Mar 30, 2015

The original Guy you need to kill WILL be in one of those systems listed and will be at a USS, but as you know it can take a while before he shows up it depends on your lock sometimes he's in the first 2-3 USS other times you can spend hour's searching USS in all the listed system that he has been known to be in...
THe guy who offers you an altenate mission just ignore him you should still finish the original mission in order to get the rep. you originally signed up for the alternative mission you don't know if it's going to help you with your rep at a given faction...
So just keep trying to search those USS and he'll show up sooner or later, but be warned the guys from the BB are a lot better/harder to kill than those at nav-point or RES or conflict zones... as in even an Elite 'conda at a nav-point is much easier to kill than the Elite 'conda you'll proberly find in this assasination mission which you have taken on here....

avidhunter · Mar 30, 2015

Thanks.. guess I'm just not lucky. I think I might abandon it it's the second day I've tried looking to him and I'm board to death with it.

Universal Evil · Mar 31, 2015

you do have a time limit on those missions usurely a day or two max so if the mission was picked up on sunday it might already been espired by now you can always check the remaining time on your left UI panel under mission it will say failed or something like that if missiontime espired and you no longer are able to finish the mission...

If you want those mission try to pick up one with only one system max two system where your target is known to be and also sometime it helps to search USS at a greater distance from the main star most people usurly try the nearest USS near the nav-point(me 2) but if I don't find the guy within the firste 5-6 USS I tend to head out towards a distant planet in the system and check USS as I go.... 4 times for me the guy shows up 5-6000 LY away from the main star... after trying 10 UUS near the nav-point...

Anyway good lock Cmdr and fly safe

avidhunter · Mar 31, 2015

Thanks for the tip!! I feel better now that I know it's possible and not pointless...

Red Kite · Mar 31, 2015

There is a bug in some assassination missions at the moment. If you see the offer of an alternative target first you will never see the ship which tells you where your target was last seen, so you won't find him. This has been flagged in the bug reports so hopefully will be fixed soon.

Ancipital · Mar 31, 2015

avidhunter said:
Is this bugged? am I wasting my time? I'm getting seriously frustrated going into USS and finding some dude having nothing to do with anything. Not even wanted.

There's a good chance that it's broken. There has been a bug around since beta (at least) that often causes assassination missions to break completely, when the alternative is offered:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=124209

Universal Evil said:
The original Guy you need to kill WILL be in one of those systems listed and will be at a USS, but as you know it can take a while before he shows up it depends on your lock sometimes he's in the first 2-3 USS other times you can spend hour's searching USS in all the listed system that he has been known to be in...

This is incorrect, in many cases. See above thread.

Unless it's a rank-up mission that you can't avoid, it's better to do anything but assassinations - if you just need to rep grind. The pirate hunting, and fetching and carrying missions work well. An alternative is to sell loads of exploration data to allied minor factions to rep up.

It's a shame, as it has been embarassingly broken for ages. It's not just you

Haleks · Mar 31, 2015

I really hope this mechanic will change; jumping blind from USS to USS is definitely not my vision of bounty hunting...
The game should make us travel and actually track our target (buying infos on stations, or scanning wrecks or whatever).

Newt Loranas · Mar 31, 2015

I think I also have this bug and came to the forums for just this reason.

I took an assassination mission for and Imperial faction against some purple pirates, got the message saying "give up your quest and kill this easy guy instead" and now I've spent 12 hours visiting countless USS in the 3 designated systems. I guess I am bugged

which means an Imperial rep hit - hopefully it won't be too big.

Universal Evil · Mar 31, 2015

Ancipital said:
This is incorrect, in many cases. See above thread.

Unless it's a rank-up mission that you can't avoid, it's better to do anything but assassinations - if you just need to rep grind. The pirate hunting, and fetching and carrying missions work well. An alternative is to sell loads of exploration data to allied minor factions to rep up.

It's a shame, as it has been embarassingly broken for ages. It's not just you

Well I didn't know there were any bugs with the assasination missions, and I have been doing about 12-13 of them and I have never not found the target yet and the first one I did was back in the late beta days and that one I found at my second USS search... So I guess it just blind luck for me that I haven't come across the bug of not findind my target..? I once spend 16 hours searching for him until someone told me to try searching USS further away from main star of the system then I found him at my 3'rd or 4'th USS...

Ancipital · Mar 31, 2015

Universal Evil said:
Well I didn't know there were any bugs with the assasination missions, and I have been doing about 12-13 of them and I have never not found the target yet and the first one I did was back in the late beta days and that one I found at my second USS search... So I guess it just blind luck for me that I haven't come across the bug of not findind my target..? I once spend 16 hours searching for him until someone told me to try searching USS further away from main star of the system then I found him at my 3'rd or 4'th USS...

Hah, I want your luck. Fingers crossed that it always stays like that for you!

Loranas said:
I think I also have this bug and came to the forums for just this reason.

I took an assassination mission for and Imperial faction against some purple pirates, got the message saying "give up your quest and kill this easy guy instead" and now I've spent 12 hours visiting countless USS in the 3 designated systems. I guess I am bugged which means an Imperial rep hit - hopefully it won't be too big.

I think there's also a bug that prevents rep loss when you drop the broken assassination, too- but don't quote me on that

huwthomas · Apr 1, 2015

Halèks said:
I really hope this mechanic will change; jumping blind from USS to USS is definitely not my vision of bounty hunting...
The game should make us travel and actually track our target (buying infos on stations, or scanning wrecks or whatever).

... and be actively hunted/interdicted/ambushed by his associates, and maybe recovering information from their wrecks or as they bargain for their lives ...