New C&P in 3.0.3 and Planetary Scan Missions - Be Prepared!

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

They'd scan the Elite file and think that it's so buggy, it must be a virus.

Lol. I'd rather deal with the Elite bugs than the crap I have to deal with DEPLOYING (not using) new Windows 10 builds. Microsoft has FDEV beat by a mile on:
1. Bugs
2. Bad documentation
3. Never fixing either

"Oh, there is a problem X with the 1607 build of Windows 10? Well, will just fix that in the 1703 release. Oh, now there is problem Y in the 1703 release, we'll just fix that in the 1709 release." And on and on.

And when their technical documentation is wrong, they NEVER correct it. You can still find incorrect technical directions for stuff going back to 2003! They never clean it up. If you don't have the right contacts, or know who to ask about "the inside scoop" on how to address certain issues, you're screwed.

Love using Windows 10. Hate deploying it. ED's issues have nothing on Microsoft's.[money]

 

[Sayne]

Well, that's your choice, and I can respect that. In my opinion, the 3.0 (and 3.0.3) change makes things easier. I just swing by an IF station to clear the bounties periodically. Before, it was too easy to trip up an 8 minute bounty to a 1 day or even 1 week bounty if you had more than one scan target in the same system - or if the mission bugged out an didn't complete and you had to relog and scan again.

Forcing players to avoid whole chunks of previously viable, fun, gameplay because of unintended consequences isn’t a gameplay improvement in my book. :-(

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I see 3.0 as being yet another patch that has brought in a lot of game breaking nonsense, and the new interstellar outlaw status for scanning a datapoint is one of those super smelly turds of a feature. The whole C&P system (and the G1-->G2-->G3--G4-->G5 for every module) is simply attrocious. Two years into horizons and SRV game play is still under developed. If it is meant to be illegal, surely there ought to be countermeasures preventing criminals getting detected and or identified. In a world where everyone knows they will automatically get prosecuted nobody does the crime, just look at average speed camera zones, so that whole chapter of mission play is wasted.

If they want to make it edgy lets have counter measures, where we can attempt to prevent our selves from being prosecuted. Lets say we could launch missiles to take out the sensor network surrounding the station at long range. Or we could run chaff and flares in the vicinity of a particular type of sensor, but in range of another type of sensor we need to be silent running, a third type of sensor detects our EM signature so we need to be operating below X.YZ MW of power to go undetected. And let it require two of the three sensors to detect us to give them a positive id on who we are rather than just giving the bases defense networks a fix of our location.

Or give us the ability to deploy recon limpets to create a jamming field blinding defence networks to our presence. Make those jamming limpets effective over say 250m radius of blackout, and visually detectable to and optically target-able by skimmers within 100m uninterrupted line of sight, and you've got a new mini game, deploy your limpets in an order / sequence / pattern that maximises your likelihood of sneaking in and taking out the skimmers before they take out the limpets and thus allow other sensors to detect your presence. Then if you've successfully achieved complete sensor jamming blackout of the base, you can scan / shoot with impunity as they simply do not know who was shooting / scanning their stuff.

So now we have added many layers of game play to the simple scan the datapoint missions, there is the initial approach, the reconnoitring, the preparation of the base for your operation, the infiltration of the base and then finally the actual operations objectives (scan/shoot/scoop things).

 

[khaos526]

What you were locked out of before was that due to it being a bounty, you couldn't pay it off at the local station. Thus you had to go "next door" to an IF system to pay it off. Now that IF station may have you flagged as Wanted, but if you can sneak in, you can access IF and clear it all out.

To the Devs credit, there are a LOT more IF bases than I thought. I used Inara's Systems and Stations > Nearest > Interstellar factors to find all the ones near me. I was surprised to find ones here and there at Anarchy bases in a system where my super power bounty made me wanted everywhere else in the system. That was kind of cool.

I just didn't want to try the sneak in with my Python (the hot ship this morning) because it has no heat sinks on it. Probably could've made it, but I didn't want to risk failing all those missions.

I've actually found every station in a low security system I've been in all have IF offices in the Contacts. So you can just easily do a filter now in the Galaxy map and look for low security that have a population and just use that as your guide. I've been using it quite a bit now all around the bubble and every single low security system with a station has an IF office that I've seen, not sure if there are ones that don't, but just haven't come across them at all.

Good to hear I can sneak in then, I just got used to the new planetary scan missions from back in 2.4 and had to re-learn all the new changes from that one and with the new 3.0 changes. So really didn't feel like having to do a whole extra thing with bounties, so good to know I can continue as normal...

 

[Faded Glory]

Also, I greatly prefer the new C&P system, as the old one was too unpredictable. Sometimes you would get the 600 credit/8 minute bounty, other times it was the 1000 credit/24 hour bounty. This way, regardless of what amount it is, you can pay it off right away OR switch to another ship.

It wasn't really unpredictable. If you committed a single offense such as scanning a private data point it was a 500 credit (or so) bounty. If you committed two offenses, for example spending too long in the trespass zone and scanning the private data point, it became a 1,000 credit bounty which crossed the line from 8 minute timer to 24 hour timer. It was always entirely avoidable to commit multiple offenses in these particular missions.

While I'm not really overly fussed by this change, it is a bit daft (as is the fact that bounties can be paid off at all, but then if you make them trivial to pick up, they have to be trivial to get rid of). Those bounties that I show in my previous post are all from planetary scan missions, and I've not been obliged to visit an IF to pay them off. I mean, they amount to around 10,000 credits, hardly public enemy number one! Now FD are saying that after I've hit five from federation aligned factions, if I don't pay them off I'm wanted superpower wide... Might make sense for destroying five clean ships, but for a total of 2,500 credits in bounties for scanning five data points?

They just added a time sink of having to visit an IF, and while I'm sure that wasn't their intention, it would surely have made much more sense for the superpower bounty to be triggered by say value of bounties, after all destroying five clean ships would rack you up between 25,000 and 30,000 bounties, and that's an awful lot of planetary scan bounties.

 

[Faded Glory]

One of the new changes in 3.0.3 is that once you get more than five bounties from super-power affiliated factions, you get a new super-power faction bounty in addition to the local faction bounties.

Hmmm...

Having now logged in to play, I'm not sure it's working, as of my 17 bounties from 12 factions, 10 of those factions are Federation aligned (according to EDDB, which I suppose could be wrong), and yet I had no Federation bounty.

I finally did have a bounty hunter spawned against me after 18 illegal scans, and since I don't want a murder rap, I went to IF to pay off my massive (well, 9,500 credits) bounties.

Edited to add - Perhaps the bounties have to be gained after 3.0.3 and earlier bounties were excluded, and no EDDB was not wrong, 10 of the factions that I had bounties with were Federation aligned.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Hmmm...

Having now logged in to play, I'm not sure it's working, as of my 17 bounties from 12 factions, 10 of those factions are Federation aligned (according to EDDB, which I suppose could be wrong), and yet I had no Federation bounty.

I finally did have a bounty hunter spawned against me after 18 illegal scans, and since I don't want a murder rap, I went to IF to pay off my massive (well, 9,500 credits) bounties.

Edited to add - Perhaps the bounties have to be gained after 3.0.3 and earlier bounties were excluded, and no EDDB was not wrong, 10 of the factions that I had bounties with were Federation aligned.

All I know is that mine triggered on the sixth bounty I gained with an aligned faction. Three were from before the patch today. According to the patch notes, "Superpower bounties are issued once a ship has bounties in 5 or more factions affiliated with a superpower." All my bounties were only 500-600 credits each.

I don't doubt your experience or EDDB. I'm not sure why you didn't get superpower bounty. Probably some X factor they forgot to tell us about, or *gasp* another bug.

 

[Witcher 7]

I'd rather they fix the planetary scan mission from being a majority of "illegal" even though they show up as legal on the mission boards before they do something stupid like this, or better yet make the planetary scan missions actually track the mission target rather than broadly apply bounties. To be fair, C&P is just a horribly fleshed out nuisance. The old fine+bounty system was actually more interesting to me.

Rep'ed and agree with you.

 

[DukeIronHand]

I'd really like to see "Planetary Survey Missions" - essentially the same as the scans, but legal, and picking up data from a scientific planetary beacon or data-point. The current missions all being illegal is a huge waste..

What a dream this would be!

 

[Faded Glory]

All I know is that mine triggered on the sixth bounty I gained with an aligned faction. Three were from before the patch today. According to the patch notes, "Superpower bounties are issued once a ship has bounties in 5 or more factions affiliated with a superpower." All my bounties were only 500-600 credits each.

I don't doubt your experience or EDDB. I'm not sure why you didn't get superpower bounty. Probably some X factor they forgot to tell us about, or *gasp* another bug.

Well, for whatever reason, it hadn't triggered one for me, and neither was I locked out of outfitting, but after completing one more planetary scan I was locked out of outfitting, although still no superpower bounty... Could be a bug.

We'll see what happens going forward, but I will stick to my point that it shouldn't be number of bounties that triggers the superpower bounty, but more a threshold of bounty value. I'm happy to get the scan bounties, and even risk going into a jurisdiction wanted to complete another one, but I'd rather not be obliged to visit IF after every four or five scan missions.

I was going to play this ship wanted until the bounty was collected, but ultimately there's no point in that, at least no additional gameplay. I can't fight the bounty hunter legally, so I'd end up with a murder bounty if I did fight, and there's no point just sitting there letting them destroy me, might just as well go to IF.

 

[Tacyon]

Well now isn't this special. WISH I'D READ THIS BEFORE TAKING ALL THOSE DAM SURFACE SCAN MISSIONS!!! . The payouts caused me to question, but they're "surface scans" not "war time scans" so the worse that "should" happen is I trespass in someone's backyard. Fine me ... but holy crap - Anonymous Access Protocol yer butt is in lock down son!! So now I guess I have rip outta here and find a IF station ?!?!? [mad]

2nd question I have, lets say I DO want to pickup 5 surface scan missions (should be legal, but whatever FD) After I find the first "search area" how the hell do I find the remaining ones that are on the same planet? They refuse to show up as new/different search areas. Just the one I just miff'd off.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

LOL

Guess I might have to do something about these then... (I imagine at least 5 of those are federation aligned.)

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/lxam6lw.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/2v0mpSW.jpg

Seriously though... FD want us to embrace the life of crime (for me very petty, but still), yet seem to want us to pay off our bounties in order to do anything? I was quite enjoying flying around in a hot ship to see what would happen (not much TBH), but now I'll be wanted in my previously clean home system, which I had taken care not to commit any crimes in... Oh well, no big deal.

Oh, and thanks for the heads up.

Why do you need to pay them off? Just stay out of Federal Jurisdictions & you should be fine. That, or stick to ships that are clean.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Gods it would be so much easier if Planetary Scan missions and SRV Trespass in general only resulted in fines.

Theyre 200-400cr, why the hell are they bounties?
Sigh

You're right, they should be closer to 2,000-3,000 Credit Bounties, Assault should be 6,000 Credits & Murder should be closer to 12,000 Credit Bounty......all for a first offence only, then getting bigger with each repeat offence. Time to make Bounties seriously hit the hip-pocket.

 

[Faded Glory]

Why do you need to pay them off? Just stay out of Federal Jurisdictions & you should be fine. That, or stick to ships that are clean.

Yeah. I understand it Marc, but no I cannot stay out of Federal Jurisdictions, my home base is a Fed system.

It's no big deal, I choose not to pay off the bounties until such time as I'm pestered by a bounty hunter, which in this case was after accruing 18 bounties. And yes, I use other (clean ships) for all my other gameplay. But in the end, if you don't want to be destroyed for your bounties, which is no big deal, but exceedingly dull gameplay to be interdicted by a bounty hunter and then simply sit there while they destroy you, then at some point you have to pay off the bounty.

I'm not complaining at all. The new system hasn't made it harder than it was, in fact I suspect I've visited IF less now than in the previous system. I still think that basing the superpower bounty on number of bounties as opposed to value of bounties is probably the wrong way to go about things. I'll see how it pans out, I've done another four illegal scans, no superpower bounty yet.

For me at least it is no more challenging than it was before.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

There is something just vaguely quaint, prissy and wrong about this vision of seeing a bunch of hardened criminals queuing with some dear old grannies down their local post office, clearing off their interstellar bounties - because "the government do a great deal for us these days", and it's not worth the hassle of collecting even bigger bounties...

Is this really FDev's vision of C&P in the future? Commit a crime, just settle the balance, rinse & repeat...?

I was hoping for smarter things like hiring different sorts of NPC crew, like hiring a hacker, who (at risk) could be taken to a listening post, hack into an interstellar database and clear your record. Oops, pressed the wrong button, called the ATR instead. RUN!!!

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Well now isn't this special. WISH I'D READ THIS BEFORE TAKING ALL THOSE DAM SURFACE SCAN MISSIONS!!! . The payouts caused me to question, but they're "surface scans" not "war time scans" so the worse that "should" happen is I trespass in someone's backyard. Fine me ... but holy crap - Anonymous Access Protocol yer butt is in lock down son!! So now I guess I have rip outta here and find a IF station ?!?!? [mad]

As long as you only have local bounties, and not crossed the threshold into the superpower bounties, that shouldn't be hard to do. They're in all low security systems. They also are often at specific stations in systems you (medium or high security) wouldn't expect them in. As long as it's local, just go to another system with IF and clear the bounties. It's not that bothersome. I used to wait until I finished my circuit of 5/10/15 scan missions, then go clean the ship, and then do all the turn-ins.

With the new superpower bounties, you may be wanted at some of those IF stations (if they have superpower aligned factions). That's why I used Inara's Galaxy > Systems and Stations > Nearest > Interstellar Factors to find all the ones closest to me. I found one at an Anarchy station in a medium security system. I was wanted everywhere else in that system, but I was "cool" at the target station and was able to easily clear my fees. You can clear them at the the hot stations - provided you sneak by any patrols and don't get scanned - as IF is in the Contacts section, as is accessible with Anonymous protocols.

2nd question I have, lets say I DO want to pickup 5 surface scan missions (should be legal, but whatever FD) After I find the first "search area" how the hell do I find the remaining ones that are on the same planet? They refuse to show up as new/different search areas. Just the one I just miff'd off.

This problem goes back to 2.4 and when the Devs fixed the issue of people being able to complete more than one Scan mission at time with only one scan. Instead of fixing it so there was multiple target spawns, they just fixed it so only one mission would complete when you do the scan. So what do you do? After returning to your ship, do NOT take off! Just log to the menu and log back in (you don't even have to switch modes). The search zone should be present again and within 10-30 km. Take off, quickly chase the moving "Search Zone" destination around until it settles on a base again, land, scan, return to ship and repeat if there are more in the same spot.

At least they fixed (or so it seems) the problem of having multiple destinations in the system (scans on different planets) when it really wanted them to be all on one planet. So you'd do the scan on the first and never get a completion. Then you would log out, log back in, and find all the missions had moved to one planet. God, that was annoying.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

There is something just vaguely quaint, prissy and wrong about this vision of seeing a bunch of hardened criminals queuing with some dear old grannies down their local post office, clearing off their interstellar bounties - because "the government do a great deal for us these days", and it's not worth the hassle of collecting even bigger bounties...

Is this really FDev's vision of C&P in the future? Commit a crime, just settle the balance, rinse & repeat...?

I was hoping for smarter things like hiring different sorts of NPC crew, like hiring a hacker, who (at risk) could be taken to a listening post, hack into an interstellar database and clear your record. Oops, pressed the wrong button, called the ATR instead. RUN!!!

Well, that would be cool. But considering how sloppily they handled the "complete multiple scan missions with one scan" problem and the more recent "Mission gives reward item that can be used to complete another mission" - which has lead to mission rewards being borked - I'm not sure I'd want them to try an implement something like that. Besides, it just sounds like that hack would be an RNGesus solution. I think I'll stick with the current "pay the fines at the local IF station OR let a ship stay hot and switch ships" solution.

 

[khaos526]

I think I'll stick with the current "pay the fines at the local IF station OR let a ship stay hot and switch ships" solution.

I just did a number of skimmer missions post 3.0.3 and I had no issues at all just sneaking in and paying off the fines like you mentioned you could. Still a good way to get those rarer mats and that's why I do them. Credit hunting wise, it's still not that bad of an option, just takes more flying around now and you still get your other data from the terminals when scanning it. You just can't re-scan them anymore as you used to be able to do. They fixed it so you couldn't get other missions completed by multi-scanning, but you still could get data drops scanning the terminals multiple times after the original fix...

 

[Susanna]

Gods it would be so much easier if Planetary Scan missions and SRV Trespass in general only resulted in fines.

Theyre 200-400cr, why the hell are they bounties?
Sigh

agreed. They should be a fine...

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

I just did a number of skimmer missions post 3.0.3 and I had no issues at all just sneaking in and paying off the fines like you mentioned you could. Still a good way to get those rarer mats and that's why I do them. Credit hunting wise, it's still not that bad of an option, just takes more flying around now and you still get your other data from the terminals when scanning it. You just can't re-scan them anymore as you used to be able to do. They fixed it so you couldn't get other missions completed by multi-scanning, but you still could get data drops scanning the terminals multiple times after the original fix...

Agreed. I still do them as well. Decent cash, good material/data rewards, and good data drops from the actual scan. It's just a little trickier now to get your ship cleaned if you cross over into the superpower bounty, as you may now be wanted at the station with the IF contact. Still manageable and not something I think they should change... just something people need to be aware of as it's new as 3.0.3 (which is why I started the thread [big grin]).

I'm still a fan of the new C&P system.

Now the mission rewards in 3.0.3, with all the junk commodity options (Limpets?!), and the missing Neofabric Insulation/Articulation Motors needed for the Tech broker - well, not so happy with that. Hopefully, that will be fixed in 3.0.4.

But scan missions... yes, great fun!

Sadly (based on another thread), it looks like you can scan the points from your ship now using the new Data Link Scanner - so people are doing these in their ships now to do it faster. I hope the possible (and probable) incoming nerf bat doesn't hurt those of us who have been doing them the way they were intended.