Planetary scan missions - dealing with authority ships.

These types of missions are ones I normally avoid, but then I will admit I didn't understand the concept that well.

Just a question, what would be a good ship for this type of activity? Would my DBX be useful - I assume that having a small ship would be an advantage?

Cheers one and all :D
 
With a little practise, yes small ships are easier, what ship exactly is more or less irrelevant. If it's your first planetary scan missions and you have a good FDL with engineered shields I'd take that for a start. Would be safer and also my first choice for planetary assault missions. Other than that I usually prefer my Cobra Mk III. Your DBX should work as well. Just get quickly out when the scan is finished. I wouldn't dare that with E rated shields though. ;)
Thanks, I actually do have a FdL handy as well, my Mamba has made the old war horse surplus to requirements.

Oh for the record, I don't have anything E rated, kind of OCD about these types of things, once I buy a ship it is fully kitted out and the necessary bits engineered :D
 
I put this together a couple of days ago, not finished engineering her yet and most of the non-core modules was junk I had lying around in storage.


It's an absolute beast. Go in with 4 pips to shields and two to engines, swoop down on the settlement, data link scanner on primary and missiles on secondary. Scan the data point or destroy the generator (whatever you're up to) at point blank range, pop chaff, nose up, and boost. You'll be at cruise altitude before the defenders are in the air, and the mamba is big enough not to be masslocked by anything that can catch it so you won't even have to set a highwake target until you're already in supercruise.
 
I put this together a couple of days ago, not finished engineering her yet and most of the non-core modules was junk I had lying around in storage.


It's an absolute beast. Go in with 4 pips to shields and two to engines, swoop down on the settlement, data link scanner on primary and missiles on secondary. Scan the data point or destroy the generator (whatever you're up to) at point blank range, pop chaff, nose up, and boost. You'll be at cruise altitude before the defenders are in the air, and the mamba is big enough not to be masslocked by anything that can catch it so you won't even have to set a highwake target until you're already in supercruise.
Hmm, gave up on the Mamba for PSJ, real issues getting in range for scanning... ok for base attacks, if somewhat OP
 
Hmm, gave up on the Mamba for PSJ, real issues getting in range for scanning... ok for base attacks, if somewhat OP
Depends whether the scan is happening at a settlement or one of those random outposts that you have to search for. At a settlement, the target shows up at around 2.5km out and you can scan it when you're within 100m, outpost data beacons can be a little tricky to get on your scanner, but outpost defences tend to be weaksauce enough not to worry about. Even an exploration-fit DBX can handle them, just bomb the turrets before you go in.
 
+++ [medium security] disable the power grid missions are the 'bugged' ones where no white marker is provided from the ship.
Just a note... I find 99% of those bugged ones ask for "Destroy Emplacement Generator", but require you to SCAN an emplacement beacon. It's not always, but the +++ med security ones in particular have that.

There's also a (no +s) target where it wants that, but you sometimes have to destroy a turret or scan the multipoint beacon.
 
Not that it's impossible, but I would consider the Clipper as one of the least appropriate mid size ships for this job. You'd risk being stuck between the structures there, that's the main reason why I'd recommend smaller ships.
(I still remember my very first launch from a Coriolis station with the Clipper when I touched the mail slot with my right "wing")
Clipper is large though? (Not that it helps it's case...)
 
Not that it's impossible, but I would consider the Clipper as one of the least appropriate mid size ships for this job. You'd risk being stuck between the structures there, that's the main reason why I'd recommend smaller ships.
If I would use it as the scanner then i guess You are right, there sure are better ships, however i was doing the jobs good old srv style and never previously tried doing it using ship's scanners. It wasn't until recently that i tried.

(I still remember my very first launch from a Coriolis station with the Clipper when I touched the mail slot with my right "wing")
Hehe, i know where You are coming from. I nearly sniped oncoming ship with it.
 
These types of missions are ones I normally avoid, but then I will admit I didn't understand the concept that well.

Just a question, what would be a good ship for this type of activity? Would my DBX be useful - I assume that having a small ship would be an advantage?

Cheers one and all :D

Some data-points are definitely wedged into tight spaces so a small ship will provide and advantage but it's worth bearing in mind that you might end up upsetting things like Goliath skimmers so you might regret using something like an eagle or viper.
The DBX is a tough little ship so it's probably a decent choice.

As a rule, I don't like exploding stuff unless it's asking for it so I just do the missions and get out again.
If I do get attacked by skimmers, though, I take it personally and feel compelled to teach them a lesson.
Because of that, I like to use my Vulture.

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ETA if you don't want to log out (and you shouldn't ;)) bear in mind that once you have received the mission complete message generally it doesn't matter to the mission if the SRV is destroyed.

A wonderful feature of those missions is they do state that the mission is fail on ship destruction.. which only works before the mission is complete. It happened to me once with a stack of those and i frontier laughed when only the incomplete missions failed.. youd imagine it would be the other way around.
 
Just a question, what would be a good ship for this type of activity? Would my DBX be useful - I assume that having a small ship would be an advantage?

I am usually using a Viper - shieldless, unarmed, stuffed with size 1 HRPs/MRPs, carrying a chaff launcher and tuned to >850 m/s boost.

But I have also used my Mamba if I couldn't be bothered to switch ships during a terrorist assassination mission.
 
I feel like it might have been nice to have provided over the top cover for various turrets and surface defences to make ships unable to take them out, along with similar stuff for power generators and such.

As the idea was to give SRV content.

This would also have had to have been coupled with better overall design of the bases.

It also confused me why things like "skimmer control interface" and "op net access point" are ONLY used for mission trigger points.

If data mining with skimmer control gave you the ability to - nueral interface into a skimmer and directly contr it, flipping between skimmers, or select their friend or foe targetting, the same with turrets, how cool would that be?

Does taking out the power plant shut down turrets? Because that would be cool.

Some stuff does things with laser fences, but this often seems slightly pointless as you can jump past, this isn't a bad thing in itself as it allows different methods to complete the same mission. Feels like with the addition of enemy SRV's these doors could if had more uses too though.

Combined with multicrew allowing a crew member to drop out in the SRV, you could have had a guy going in with air support, taking out anti air turrets (or taking control of then to fire on enemy ships) while the ship takes out some ground defences which could threaten the SRV, or knocking out power to laser fences to get them through.

In general, it seems like there were more ideas and opportunities FD had when they initially designed this, but they never got around to finishing them.

Hm... This.. sounds familiar...
 
There are places where an SRV can hide temporarily to let the shields rebuild or to repair the hull if the player is unable to do this on the move.

The way the NPC ships politely wait is a little cheesy but it's there for a fairly clear reason (ie it would be too hard for most if the NPCs acted as a player would and just take out your ship).

Generally I don't dismiss my ship for these missions if I use the SRV, although I do for kill skimmer missions (and then drive in circles while I wait for my ship to land on recall).


I think a lot of players either just don't like to use the SRV or struggle to control both the vehicle and turret at the same time, it's not easy. But these missions are quite often worth a lot of inf or rep, so it's expected that they be challenging.

I've just done a disable the power on a +++high base with one of the new circular power thingys to disable, so I didn't even have to line up with the correct side of the thing to shoot.

I enjoy these missions, even done from the ship there is some degree of planning your entry & exit involved that is engaging for me.
 
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