Please redo planetary scan missions

xxSHEPERDxx

xxSHEPERDxx
Here's the scenario:

Working out of Rhea. East Galaxy Company is head honcho at Balandin Station.
There's a planet scan job posting from them. I accept the mission.

Vice Pres sends me a notification that their facility is experiencing some issues and needs to be checked out.


I head out to the location and spot a landed Federal Navy FAS. (I'm allied with the Feds and it shows up as a green target).

Odd that it's there. The facility is supposed to be experiencing issues, but apparently they called in security ahead of me taking the mission.


I approach the data post in the SRV only to trip base defenses. Drones pop out and the guns go active. I drop the drones and scan the data post.

I race back to my ship as scanning the data post has done nothing to reset security. I get into my ship and, of course, the FAS is now hostile and already in the air, already attacking the mothership while I transition from the SRV cockpit to the ship cockpit.

Despite a prior patch stating that enemy ships would only begin to fire missiles once shields have dropped, the FAS is bombing me with its missile payload (likely infinite) as well as the ground launcher.

Shields go out. Engines are destroyed and I crash upon the surface of the planet and go bouncing out of control.



Did nobody at East Galaxy Company call ahead?


East Galaxy Company has also issues a bounty against me. Woooo.


Screw that. I'm not eating the rebuy fine for this one.
After relogging i'm back to 100%, with the wanted status sticking.

I head back to Balandin and silent run in, and turn in the mission...
at East Galaxy Company. Vice President sends the 'mission successful' notification.

=|

The bounty expires on an H-Jump, but that's not the point i'm trying to make here.
I'm 100% fine with all the events transpiring as they did, but as far as the scripting goes for the narrative in this scenario, it's god awful and needs to be reworked.

It's obvious that other factions always mess with ground installations and 'retake' them from others. What should have happened here is that the FAS should have belonged to the enemy faction in question that took over this installation and definitely not the Federal Navy. The introductory message from EGC should have explained that they have lost control of this facility, and not that they have 'glitchy hardware'. The bounty should have been placed on me not by EGC, but by whichever faction raided the facility.


More attention to detail is needed with these paper thin story elements driving missions. It's obvious that the scenario was mashed together due to a random event generator script in much the same way you'll have incorrect dialogue listed from Federal Security forces proclaiming things that only a raider or pirate would say when they scan you.
 

CainEyebright

C
I agree, getting attacked by the group that sent me here in the first place is either just bad scripting...or they are trying to backstab me and I'd like to know why. I hate having to fight federal ships that should be cheering me on.
 

Ethaidan

Ethaidan
It's been this way for a long time...

Maybe it's meant to be pseudo realistic? You've got your metropolitan police, County sheriff, state troopers, national guard, FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA... all flying the Fed flag with about as much inter-agency communication as you'd expect.
 

CMDR Yates

C
Agreed 100%. Surface missions are still rougher than sixty grit sandpaper, and I very rarely ever accept them as a result.

Scan glitchy hardware > attacked by mission-giving faction.
Kill skimmers > not enough skimmers at target surface site, so you have to relog multiple times to force them to spawn (forcing you to use an out-of-universe exploit to complete the mission).
Track down a hidden surface site > watch it melt into existence before your eyes

On top of that, you'll never encounter an NPC in an SRV or the like, so surface bases are basically giant empty, abandoned-feeling spaces and IIRC there's still no way to get your crew to cover your in the ship while doing missions in the buggy.
 

space voyager

space voyager
Definitely so, OP. 'Nobody called ahead?', priceless.

Not the only mission with this problem. You can get assasination missions where you need to access a terminal - just to get a bouty while at it....
 

xxSHEPERDxx

xxSHEPERDxx
picommander said:
Almost lost my ironman ship recently, got barely away with 3% hull. Not quite sure if it's actually a bug or I misunderstood something. It was a public beacon, no surpass zone. All installation defenses were flagged as "wanted" which usually means you can safely shoot them without getting wanted yourself. This time there was also a friendly ship (green frame) parked nearby which lifted off when I started to shoot the station defenses. This ship was not wanted but of the same minor faction the (wanted) defenses belonged to. Not quite sure if they actually belonged to this faction or if it was wanted by them. How can I be sure?

I stopped shooting and despite a somewhat uneasy feeling I continued to scan the beacon when this ship started to attack me, including the remaining defenses that I didn't not eliminate this time. After I successfully escaped I was still NOT wanted and could repair my ship in the same system (even was scanned without any problems).

Was it a bug or my own fault? In case it was the latter, can someone explain the logic to me?
Click to expand...

It seems to be just lazy design for artificial difficulty. If you see a ship parked outside, it's not there for no reason - it's there to attack you.

Even if the skimmers and turrets are listed as wanted, and the ship parked outside isn't wanted, once you flip the base's defenses via data post scan, it becomes regular base again - but one in which you have still tripped the proximity alarm. This triggers that ship to attack you, and as they are not wanted, fighting back is only going to increase the bounty on you.

I'd much rather have that ship listed as wanted so I can fight it before finishing the mission. Snag a bounty reward in the process (if it's ever correctly listed as wanted), break up the monotony of surface scan missions with both ship based combat and SRV combat against the ground defenses, but also enrich the narrative by actually being able to consider the ship outside as the one that took over the installation in the first place. It empowers the player by enhancing the sense of duty for the mission.
 

xxSHEPERDxx

xxSHEPERDxx
Yeah, planet scan missions need to be reworked completely. They're still very broken in other ways. Recall the 'fix' that was supposed to prevent people from stacking these missions and then get credit for several of them by scanning any single location.

The game still fails to accurately register which location is being scanned.

I just grabbed 3 more of these missions from Rhea, each one wanted a different location scanned : Rhea 1 A, 1 B and 1 C.

C was the furthest out, so I plotted a route there and would hit the others on the way back.

Same thing happened. East Galaxy Company drones were present and attacked. Took them out (at least they were listed as 'wanted' this time), and automatically tripped base defenses upon completing the data post scan. EGC issues a bounty against me for taking back their station. Great.

Leaving orbit, I open up navigation to plot a course for ! B, only I notice 1 B doesn't have the mission marker next to it. 1 C, where I just was, is lit up again. I check the spammed notifications (another system that needs to be reworked) and I see that the game has once again glitched the order of operations here, and it counted the initial 1 C scan as one complete scan, and part of the discovery process for the second scan. ( 1 A was unaffected and had its own mission marker and notification )

So I backtrack to the exact same station I left off. The skimmers have respawned - again with wanted status. (Possible exploit here)
I rescan the exact same data post. I imagine I could have saved time by simply having scanned that post 2-3 times the first time I was here, had I caught on to the game's glitchyness earlier. So that 'fix' wasn't even implemented correctly and was half-.

No issues with the 1 A scan.

Again, I was given these missions by East Galaxy Company and again they placed a bounty on me and paid me for missions completed.
:\

Now consider that you need both the base game AND the Horizons DLC to even do these missions, I would hope some priority is given to sorting these issues out.

The whole teleporting 'search zone' thing is dumb as well. ECG obviously knows where their damned stations are and would upload the coordinates to your ship navigation systems. Just a generic way to prolong the mission as it is now,

IMO, here's how they should work:

1: Rival/Raider faction takes over a base
2: You accept the mission to either investigate (going in blind, no warnings of specific threats), or the station collected enough data before being taken out/hijacked, and made a partial transmission to the owner faction indicating enemy threat with various levels of detail. Blind scenarios would mean the station was taken out very fast, very efficiently, and that the occupying force would be much more lethal. (Hint: Higher payout)
3: No more 'search zone' shenanigans. Instead, your ship has to be cautious and fly in under the radar. Any player ships blatantly heading directly for the station would be spotted by the occupying forces, which may prematurely trigger an enemy ship to intercept you from the position parked at the station. This may be a good/bad thing.

A) Flying under the radar means approaching the station from an altitude no greater than 50m from the ground, at a distance of 8km. Successfully approach the station from this shallow angle and you will avoid triggering base defenses until within typical targeting range of ground weapons. Parked enemy ships are currently inactive and their ship scanners won't be online.

B) Flying straight for the station and being noticed by ground scanners triggers base defenses to switch to hostile (which can trigger crimes against you if you are attacked, alerting the original station owner to send you air-to-air support - you're the expert and support will not risk attacking their own station itself and leave the SRV business to you).

In scenario A, you have approached the facility and can get a reading on the situation before taking further action. This includes being able to identify the amount of hostiles, if any, on site, and transmit to the owner faction what the situation is, resulting in them sending a ship out to support you. (IE: An eagle - air to air only).

In scenario B, you lure, if any, enemy ship(s) away from the station and can deal with them while avoiding additional attacks from ground based weapons.

Any scenario in which the an enemy ship is destroyed results in the player obtaining the hostile faction's encryption keys. These are used in the next step.

4: Your ship obviously has better equipment than an SRV. It's nonsensical in the current state that your ship can't simply scan the data post(s) itself. With a switch up in the scenario narrative, your ship has an additional purpose in these missions. The owner faction has provided your ship with administrative access to override the station's security network. Once you land your ship and honk your ship scanner, it broadcasts the override that halts the stations defenses (but wont shut them down outright). You then have x amount of time to get on the ground in the SRV and reconfigure the network through your SRV at the local panel.

Obtaining any enemy ship's encryption keys results in broadcast time increasing. In scenario A, broadcasting the override does not arouse any landed enemy faction ships outside the station. This makes the stealth approach worth it, as you may have a large enemy vessel out there that won't be easy to take down, though you will have less time to deal with retooling station security.

5: Insert security interface minigame here. Even Rockstar managed to do this with several missions in GTA Online and its heist missions. The more engaging it is the better, especially when it comes to allowing player skill to shine here, as opposed to just inserting some random sequence.

Once the station has been reconfigured, ground security must be rebooted. At this time, any landed enemy ships will switch on and begin attacking. You'll still be in the SRV at this point, so it becomes a race to get back to your mothership and fight back. After 40 seconds the station defenses come back online and will begin targeting the hostile faction ship (read: NOT YOURS!).

Destruction of the enemy ship(s) are optional at this point. They will appear as actively wanted targets as the jig is up. Take them out for an additional reward, or hightail it out of there and let security forces go deal with their mess.

In any co-op scenario, the host's ship must be the one to broadcast.

The destruction of any base property can still be deducted from your total mission pay, but you won't be fined outright, or issued some dopey bounty for having done so. It's more of a measure of how professional you were in handling the situation. If you go in guns blazing and knock out all the station's defenses via blowing them to bits, then you have all the time in the world to reconfigure security. Simply have more options to work with, and a much better mission structure than current.

Much of the scenario could be reversed when playing as a raiding faction overtaking a base. Plus you still have the option to destroy the power generator to knock out power, but that would also result in reduced pay. Somebody still has to bring in a new generator. :p
 

IPFreely

IPFreely
I do planetary Scans almost exclusively since the payout is usually the most profitable of any mission,
Given all the explanations and grievances posted so far, most of which I can seem to agree with, on either side of the issue.
Let me just say, as it now stands, you're DEAD MEAT anytime you scan from the SRV then attacked by patrol ships.
There are no sufficient weapons or support from the Mothership in response to those types of attacks.
After several hundred of these types of missions, I have yet to survive an altercation with patrol ships.
Whether I drive full throttle trying to escape or shut down the shields to keep heat signatures from displaying, or stand my ground and shoot when in the range of my poor weapons, targeting the ship's power plant for the brief instant it is in range of my very short range spud pumper, etc.
Only saving feature is that you don't lose the scan or completed mission, but still have to replace the SRV (1000), accept all fines(arbitrary), receive all wanted status by any concerned faction(arbitrary), and wait 6 days before those go away without any recourse.
You cant pay in advance of the time limit by utilizing the Interstellar Factions tab at a station.
With the new proposed C&P, I wonder how many fines, wanted and/or other aspects will affect these mission types?
Still I :
Endeavour to Persevere. [cool]
 
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Bunkerkind Anni

Bunkerkind Anni
IPFreely said:
I do planetary Scans almost exclusively since the payout is usually the most profitable of any mission,
Given all the explanations and grievances posted so far, most of which I can seem to agree with, on either side of the issue.
Let me just say, as it now stands, you're DEAD MEAT anytime you scan from the SRV then attacked by patrol ships.
There are no sufficient weapons or support from the Mothership in response to those types of attacks.
After several hundred of these types of missions, I have yet to survive an altercation with patrol ships.
Whether I drive full throttle trying to escape or shut down the shields to keep heat signatures from displaying, or stand my ground and shoot when in the range of my poor weapons, targeting the ship's power plant for the brief instant it is in range of my very short range spud pumper, etc.
Only saving feature is that you don't lose the scan or completed mission, but still have to replace the SRV (1000), accept all fines(arbitrary), receive all wanted status by any concerned faction(arbitrary), and wait 6 days before those go away without any recourse.
You cant pay in advance of the time limit by utilizing the Interstellar Factions tab at a station.
With the new proposed C&P, I wonder how many fines, wanted and/or other aspects will affect these mission types?
Still I :
Endeavour to Persevere. [cool]
Click to expand...

havent planetary scan missions been those you do with a sidewinder, so you can suicide faster back to the station to collect the rewards?
 

ick

ick
East Galaxy Company did call before you left. Unfortunately the distance to the base is 10LY away. The call won't be received for 10 years. You completed the mission too quickly.
 

Renown

Renown
In case anyone didn't know, if there is a security ship there, just exit the main menu and load again, you will be a little further away than you left but the ship will probably not be there. They outposts are randomly generated so one time a ship, next time no ship.
 

m0rl0ck

M
Gee i thought it was just me. I have been seeing as many as 1-3 fed navy ships on scan and skimmer missions. It just seemed to start recently. I thought it was just that i have bounties with a lot of local fed factions.
 

IPFreely

IPFreely
The point is, is that it is broken, I shouldn't have to relog - change to solo or PG, it should just work as intended, as with the whole game should, I really like this game, I play it exclusively, daily, several hours at a session.
From what I have read, observed in-game, and been told by the dev's after 3.0's year-long launch, they will concentrate on getting things corrected, hopefully, common sense and logic will reign supreme, but I doubt it very much.
 

xxSHEPERDxx

xxSHEPERDxx
Yeah, I read that bit and went to test it out. I'm not liking what i'm seeing though.

At least in my experience, now it seems every single planet surface scan mission has been marked as illegal. You're no longer going out to 'take back' or 'investigate' a station that a faction had that has gone on the fritz or was outright raided and overtaken. When sifting through board missions with the 'legal' filter enabled, zero planet scan missions show up.

Is anybody seeing otherwise?
With the updates to the over-reaching notoriety system ('hot modules'? Really?), i'm not about to go mess with missions wanting to put a wanted status on my ship, let alone when they've added code that in certain multi-crew situations, notoriety is attached to your most valuable ship.
 
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