No, Shadow Delivery smuggling missions are not to difficult!
- Thread starter noldunar
- Start date
Very true, an A-Rated ASP can go about 390, which is more than fast enough to outrun any cop, and the vast majority of pirates.
If interdicted, always submit, and simply boost away (you won't "spin" if you submit). It's pretty trivial, really.
Once in a blue moon you'll get a weird "auto-interdiction" where you don't have a chance to submit and maybe you get put really near the sun, in that case I carry three heat sinks to charge the FSD without baking, not to "hide".
The "butt towards the sun" works very well, and I almost do it as a default move now since you usually have to scoop in any case. When you enter a system, do a full-throttle shallow dive towards the star and then back off to zero and pitch-up 90 degrees. Anyone in the area that's after you will "fall" into the sun and you can just quietly leave. Keep in mind that you do need to be fairly close to the surface of the star, or they still might be able to get behind you. It's quite easy to get too close, so that just takes practice.
While sitting there, watch the message list, and if you don't see messages from cops or pirates after about 10-15 seconds, just fly away to your next nav-point. Don't engage your FSD too early, or you'll bake!
With brown and white dwarf stars I just pull-up to the destination-point and charge the FSD the instant it becomes ready. In a lot of cases you will jump out before anyone starts an interdiction. If not, submit, boost and jump. Easy as pie...
The "butt towards the sun" is critically important when you arrive in a delivery system since cops and pirates will follow, and re-interdict you in supercruise even with a submit and boost, so having them "crash" into the sun usually completely shakes them off.
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The OP only stacked 5 missions, and I suppose some things may have changed since a month ago.
I ran two rounds of 10 or more missions worth $45 million each last night. The first round was pretty uneventful - as expected, the number of interdictions spawned related to the linear, increased threat due to mission stacking. The first round I was able to complete in around an hour AFTER obtaining the missions (which took about an hour).
The second round was a completely different story and kept me up to 3am in order to finish (about 3 hours to complete). Multiple authority vessels spawning, chain spawning, spawning at every star en-route, at every station even though the radar is clear (apparently they now have a cloaking device).
Having made over half a billion with shadow smuggling and I know what to expect. Where I sweat the most is having multiple authority vessels spawn ON me as I make a break for and try to land on the outpost, which just denied my request. For those situations there is too much heat and I just have to jump out of the system and come back later when hopefully aggro has dropped with the lesser, remaining missions that I have.
I ran two rounds of 10 or more missions worth $45 million each last night. The first round was pretty uneventful - as expected, the number of interdictions spawned related to the linear, increased threat due to mission stacking. The first round I was able to complete in around an hour AFTER obtaining the missions (which took about an hour).
The second round was a completely different story and kept me up to 3am in order to finish (about 3 hours to complete). Multiple authority vessels spawning, chain spawning, spawning at every star en-route, at every station even though the radar is clear (apparently they now have a cloaking device).
Having made over half a billion with shadow smuggling and I know what to expect. Where I sweat the most is having multiple authority vessels spawn ON me as I make a break for and try to land on the outpost, which just denied my request. For those situations there is too much heat and I just have to jump out of the system and come back later when hopefully aggro has dropped with the lesser, remaining missions that I have.
The number of missions you stack has zero impact on the number of interdiction attempts, it's pure RNG. You just ran into a string of bad luck with interdictions. The only issue with lots of missions on board it the "pleaders" spamming your message window and sometimes it's easy to miss a pirate message (cops are always orange, so that's easy).
I call bull - compare 1 mission against 10. I've tried, and the elevated threat makes perfect sense from a lazy programming perspective.
Nope, I've had 15 on-board and maybe two interdiction attempts on the entire way back to the bubble. No scaling whatsoever, just RNG.
We'll have to agree to disagree, as my experience doesn't jive with yours.
Mine does, though I think both influence it.
The number of missions plays a roll in the scaling, but a favorable roll of the RNG can get you an easy time delivering several missions, or an unfavorable one can make a small number of missions more trouble.
The number of missions you stack, determines where the bar starts, the roll moves the bar in one direction or the other.
This would make sense, but for the most part, every system spawns 5 or more NPCs, and spawn immediately after exiting SC at the station, even after a log? This would mean that the instance was saved before you logged and loads when you log back in.
Hmm, thinking about it a little more the RNG scenario above is not out of the realm of crazy - I've seen all charity missions before on BB, so it does make sense.
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Right, on average, more missions will be harder a more often than not. Though, there's always a chance you will catch an easy roll for several missions, and vice versa.
On average, the number of charity missions, for a given system, with given attributes, will hover around a set point. In any individual instance, you can see many, or none of those missions depending on the RNG roll.
On average, the number of charity missions, for a given system, with given attributes, will hover around a set point. In any individual instance, you can see many, or none of those missions depending on the RNG roll.
I kind of doubt this since any kind of mission number bias would, in the end, mean that consistently taking 15 missions versus 5 would almost always be far more difficult, and that simply does not happen.
If they had a mission number "difficulty" seed of say up to five, and applied and RNG factor of three to that it would mean that there's really no point doing it since the average result would almost always be the same, but in some cases you'd have outrageous interdictions, which usually never happen.
If you look at it from a statistics point-of-view there's no experience that shows anything but simple RNG with perhaps a slight bias to "no" based on the the most recent interdiction.
Like this: after each interdiction attempt, set some tags in sequence like a=1 b=2 c=3, then pick an random number between 1 and 5 and ignore results that match the tags, meaning that each successive interdiction reduces the chance of a subsequent one, but not eliminating it. After each instance with no interdiction, remove one of the tags 'till you're left with 1. You can scale this system wider or narrower to vary potential "hit" frequency, or change how often tags are added/removed.
I'd guess that the above only applies to police interdictions, whereas the pirates just rely on whatever generic code already exists. (if you carried legit supplies from Robigo, you'd probably still get hit with a similar number of pirates)
There are a few obvious biases, like if you drop out and exit, the game will make the subsequent entry back into supercruise essentially the same as dropping into a star, with the same chances of an interdiction, perhaps even higher based on the security level of the system.
Anyhoo, that's the statistical look at it, based on experience from two players who have made 1 billion+ easily, and consistently take 12+ missions.
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Well, from a thrid player who's also made 1+ Billion, consistently taking 5-7, and then 10-12 missions at a time, I can say anecdotaly, that I got scanned significantly less when I was carrying up to 7 missions. Now that I carry more, I fail more. Could be because my boost speed drops to 380something when fully laden, but, IMO, from my experience running scores and scores of shadow deliveries from several different stations, more missions is more difficult.
It could be in the game code.
It could be because fully laden you're a hair slower.
It could be because there are more stops to make, I'm more likely to lose focus at some point along the way.
But absolutely, with out a doubt, stacking more missions has reduced my rate of success with these missions.
Meh.
Not likely #1 since my 86T ASP does about 389 maxed-out and I haven't been successfully scanned in a dog's age, and my friend that runs a smaller scoop and 108T has had the same experience (a loss due to scanning is pretty much zero now, unless you do really stupid things like push your luck at an outpost with police in the same instance...)
#2 is a -real- possibility, delivering 12-15 missions gets pretty tedious, and you have to keep in mind that you're not just hi-waking from system to system, you're dropping and entering supercruise to deliver, which is essentially much riskier. In-system, you pretty much have to dump the police into the star, or win the interdiction, or you're going to get hassled endlessly (same for pirates, to a degree, but they are irrelevant once you reach your destination)
One last thing to keep in mind is that instancing = exposure to potential interdictions (maybe with other weighted factors, like security level) and in-system supercrusing increases risks, therefore it's obvious that a 12-mission run will have more interdictions than 5, but that does not mean the average rate per instance-change is any different.
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On #1, agree mostly, though there are perfect storms of ships materializing in front of you, 4km away from a station, that can still cause a loss. But yeah, it's generally a non-issue.
I'd be more inclined to buy number two, if my fails were towards the tail end of my deliveries.
They're almost always in the first 1-3 stops if it's going to happen.
Granted, that's usually on my 3rd run of the day, and I will usually have completed two hulls full of deliveries by then.
Exactly. I know you can make more than 10mil per run, but unless you are in hurry and you are desperate to buy some ship/upgrade, why should we all aim to get 50m per run. Play at your own pace and do whatever pleases you, that is all that matters.
Because stacking 3 missions does not spawn enough NPC's to make it a challenge. I would happily do 10 1mil missions if they were available straight away
I'm not in a hurry usually, but I don't want to wait long either until new missions spawn. We all have different rhythms. =)
Maybe today I'll wait half an hour for new missions, I don't know if it's enough.
o7
Agreed. The only thing to do for scans now is to shoot at the authority ship that's scanning you. You'll get a 400cr fine but that's a lot better than losing 30M credits in missions after flying for 45 minutes.
OK I'll ad my experiences to the list because it seems to differ between CMDRs. I recently started doing smuggling missions and found it thrilling and lucrative. Great. But there is a few things that have been bugging me endlessly that I'm sure I am not alone in. Firstly is the interdictions which, while sometimes painful and annoying, can be evaded and submitted and avoided that way. The problems with it is that I've been down next to a star in scooping range and pointing my thrusters to the star only to be interdicted from an oblique angle from below, when the NPC should be safety dropped from supercruise, or I've even been interdicted from across the side of the star, which shouldn't be possible with the angle and the massive star right there between us.
The other problem I have experienced with this is the fact that about half of the interdictions happen as I arrive into a system from high wake. I haven't even had time to start heading toward the star for scooping or aligning to the next system because I've started being interdicted within 1-2 seconds of dropping. I can understand that this might happen once or twice, but having it happen frequently makes me question the mechanics of this or the intention of this. For the record, it blows and has probably taken some years off my life.
Ok so interdictions are sometimes a bit stressful when they sneak up on me, but I can understand the in-game reasons for having surprises like that. My biggest issue with these shadow delivery missions is the spawning of the Feds. I've quite literally been watching my contacts screen constantly while in a system and on approach to a station and has no contacts in range or just the occasional NPC doing their own thing. I drop into the station and within 3-5 seconds there are Feds dropping in right next to me who then proceed to scan me. Where did these <Ahem> come from? There was no one outside the station and they certainly were not here when I arrived, but they are here as soon as I make my approach to the station/outpost. This has happened multiple times now, including an anaconda which landed on top of me, quite literally dropping my shields down to half a ring and turning my grey underwear brown in under 1 second. How can this be in the game? I've kept my head on a swivel and been extra careful but apparently that doesn't mean jack when feds drop in ontop of me. Once I arrive into the station instance I generally boost toward the station or towards an approach angle, which also gets me the hell away from the arrival point in case something magically arrives behind me. My salt is due to these feds not landing behind me, but right next to me or in front of me usually within 50-100m, which is insane.
Am I the only one having these issues. 2 hours ago I would have agreed that, while challenging, these missions are completely doable. Now though, I have major doubts to that statement. And for reference, I did also try deploying my hardpoints at the fed when I targeted him, which has worked well for me in the past, but failed this time. Apologies for this being such a rant but after losing millions worth in missions for a rigged game mechanic.Needless to say I am salty at this minute, you can taste the salt in my tears.
The other problem I have experienced with this is the fact that about half of the interdictions happen as I arrive into a system from high wake. I haven't even had time to start heading toward the star for scooping or aligning to the next system because I've started being interdicted within 1-2 seconds of dropping. I can understand that this might happen once or twice, but having it happen frequently makes me question the mechanics of this or the intention of this. For the record, it blows and has probably taken some years off my life.
Ok so interdictions are sometimes a bit stressful when they sneak up on me, but I can understand the in-game reasons for having surprises like that. My biggest issue with these shadow delivery missions is the spawning of the Feds. I've quite literally been watching my contacts screen constantly while in a system and on approach to a station and has no contacts in range or just the occasional NPC doing their own thing. I drop into the station and within 3-5 seconds there are Feds dropping in right next to me who then proceed to scan me. Where did these <Ahem> come from? There was no one outside the station and they certainly were not here when I arrived, but they are here as soon as I make my approach to the station/outpost. This has happened multiple times now, including an anaconda which landed on top of me, quite literally dropping my shields down to half a ring and turning my grey underwear brown in under 1 second. How can this be in the game? I've kept my head on a swivel and been extra careful but apparently that doesn't mean jack when feds drop in ontop of me. Once I arrive into the station instance I generally boost toward the station or towards an approach angle, which also gets me the hell away from the arrival point in case something magically arrives behind me. My salt is due to these feds not landing behind me, but right next to me or in front of me usually within 50-100m, which is insane.
Am I the only one having these issues. 2 hours ago I would have agreed that, while challenging, these missions are completely doable. Now though, I have major doubts to that statement. And for reference, I did also try deploying my hardpoints at the fed when I targeted him, which has worked well for me in the past, but failed this time. Apologies for this being such a rant but after losing millions worth in missions for a rigged game mechanic.Needless to say I am salty at this minute, you can taste the salt in my tears.
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I love the npc police in fed ships that actually gain on my a rated cobra unless I boost.
I did not now feds can run faster than 350
I did not now feds can run faster than 350
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