Newcomer / Intro Question regardings mission difficulty

[Avarion]

Hi,

I've just tried a mission to wipe out some pirates

This is a wing mission. It was marked as "Harmless". Well fitting for my own rank. I've got my friend and we headed into the system and found the missionarea.

When we left supercruise a single Fer-de-Lance with a rating of "Dangerous" attacked us. It took it about 15 seconds to trash my Asp Explorer while I wasn't even able to damage it's shield noticeably. After that he turned to my friend and which bailed.

What do I miss? The discrepancy between the labeled Harmless and the NPC in the area is quite significant.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

Where were you at the time? It sounds like you headed into a RES Node, correct? If so, the rank of ships in those areas is determined by the type of node (Low - High - Haz), and chance. The "difficulty" of the mission is largely irrelevant here, and tends to go up or down based on the number of kills required.

If you weren't in a RES Node, I'd ask what rank your friend was? When I accept wing missions with my low ranked friend, I tend to get Elite enemies as I'm Deadly.

 

[Conde]

Hi, although your mission was marked as "Harmless", that's just a guide to who should and could take it on. AFIK it has nothing to do with the quality of the opposition you may encounter! That's often determined by your and/or wing mates combat rank, RNG and the hazard level of your target area depending on the type of mission.
Your Asp Explorer is not the ideal ship for such missions. It's wide profile, average agility and durability offers a juicy target and it's weapons will always struggle against a FDL, even if it was uber engineered.

For those type of missions it's usually best to take a ship that's lot harder hitting and tougher to kill because it's possible you will meet the same or better, such as that FDL. Combat ships including FAS, Chieftan, FDL, T10, also Python or the big 3 as well as the new 3.2 Challenger (?) would be up to the job. Although a Vulture can take down an FDL or 'conda in the right hands , it needs some engineering love, especially powerplant and shields and power distributor. Most of the others wouldn't normally have enough firepower and as much as I love flying the Eagles and Vipers, it would be a risk taking one of them, the upside being low re-buys.

So basically when taking on kill missions either solo or in a wing, its "Buyer beware". Just because it may be marked "Harmless" doesn't mean you can get away with using a relatively weak ship, you could encounter almost anything.

I met someone in Multicrew the other day near Colonia who had made well over a billion from exploration. He was Elite in that but his combat rank was Mostly Harmless. Now just because he has that ranking doesn't necessarily make him bad at combat. He could return to the bubble and buy any ship in the game then maxx engineer the hell out of it to make it almost invulnerable, kicking your pirates right up the jolly roger, IF he felt like it! IMHO that's what makes this game so great, despite its flaws, you never know from one day to the next what you may be doing!

 

[metatheurgist]

Wing assassinations are harder than normal. They're the only missions with engineered NPCs. Also Asp Explorer is trash for combat. You didn't mention what your friend was flying.

 

[Avarion]

Thank you all.

My friend flies an Asp Explorer as well. He had the lowest combat rank. I think there is one below Harmless since he did not have killed anyone until then.

So, the quintessence of your comments is: Mission rank has nothing to do with how hard a mission is. Is there a way for me to evaluate which missions I can do as a beginner fighter? Until this fight I had only Sidewinder and such as enemies and they were easy picking for my Asp.

 

[Avarion]

Oh, and it was no RES node. Just a planet orbit.

 

[aRJay]

Was the FdL a mission target?

Mission related NPCs should be based around the mission rank whilst random are based around your combat rank or a rank above if your non combat ranks are higher.

What I don't know is what effect your wing mates rank has on this.

 

[El-bizor]

was it a "go and kill (name of pirate/terrorist) in system x" mission or "go and kill 30 pirates of faction y in system x"?

 

[Maymo]

If a ‘kill the pirate lord’ mission is marked as harmless in the mission brief then you shouldn’t encounter a dangerous FDL, that’s ridiculous. A Sidewinder should be capable of completing a mission like that...as harmless/mostly harmless npc’s don’t even fight back after a couple of shots...

We’re either of you carrying cargo? The FDL could have followed you into the instance from supercruise...

The only other variable here is that it was a wing mission. I don’t know much about them, other than the fact they clutter up the mission board and get on my nerves that is....

 

[Avarion]

If I remember correctly the FDL did not have a mission target text.

It was just in the mission target area which showed up when I cruised around the marked planet.

In regards to the specific text, I have to take a look on my screenshot when I am back at home. I've tried to attach it to my first post. Unfortunately the forum did not like the link to the Lightshot website.

 

[Gizoux]

This isn't a common occurrence. It happens once in a while, but it's rare. If it wasn't the mission target, then it was likely a spectacularly nasty score with the RNG. Future missions like that should have a pilot two-three ranks below the recommendation. Better luck next time, don't let this experience scare you for future pirate lord assassinations.

 

[Avarion]

Ok. Here is the mission text:

Massacre drug Empire of LTT 542 faction pirates
We need to eleimitate 8 Pirate of Drug Empire of LTT 542

Max credits 526,830 CR

 

[Nero Tacitus]

Wing Mission asking for only 8 pirates? That's definitely on the extreme end of low, hence the "Harmless" rank.

 

[Avarion]

Thank you all for your comments. I'll just skip Wing missions until I got a better skill myself and a better ship.

Doing solo missions works quite well so far.

 

[ilo]

If you see a ship you think you can't beat ignore it and go for another one maybe?

 

[Para Handy]

........ I'll just skip Wing missions until ........

Slightly off-topic but - I decided to take on a wing supply mission by myself as it was for a not terribly large amount of palladium and had a huge payout. It was my greed that got me because when you subtract the cost of buying all the palladium from the payout, the profit was only about the same as for similar-sized missions. Lesson learned.

 

[Avarion]

If you see a ship you think you can't beat ignore it and go for another one maybe?

I would. Unfortunately it was the only ship in the mission area, and quite good enough to prevent me from FTL out of the area. I've tried it twice. Lost two time. First time I tried to fight, second time I just wanted to confirm it is still there and then FTL away. Unfortunately it prevented my FTL and wrecked me in about 10 seconds.

 

[Avarion]

Slightly off-topic but - I decided to take on a wing supply mission by myself as it was for a not terribly large amount of palladium and had a huge payout. It was my greed that got me because when you subtract the cost of buying all the palladium from the payout, the profit was only about the same as for similar-sized missions. Lesson learned.

I completly understand that greed will kill me. Though I thought 500k for 8 ships is not overpaid. Got salvage missions which pay the same without any enemies in the area. Thus I thought it might be harmless, and not only as a mission statement.

 

[Rob_the_Sparky]

OK...As the FDL was not marked as a mission target the mission was not why he turned up. The type of mission listed is normally completed by entering a Nav Beacon or RES site to find targets (although the generation of targets I think is rather slow at the moment). I'll take a guess you dropped in on a USS (Unidentified Signal Source) and the FDL was associated with that, not the mission. High threat level USS can generate this rank of target.

 

[Avarion]

OK...As the FDL was not marked as a mission target the mission was not why he turned up. The type of mission listed is normally completed by entering a Nav Beacon or RES site to find targets (although the generation of targets I think is rather slow at the moment). I'll take a guess you dropped in on a USS (Unidentified Signal Source) and the FDL was associated with that, not the mission. High threat level USS can generate this rank of target.

No, I dropped into the system and used the Advanced Discovery Scanner to find the mission area. It pointed to a planet. Then I've circled the planet until something like "Mission area located" was anounced. A blue area in the orbit appeared. I've left supercruise there. The HUD showed the blue area as Mission target.