Newcomer / Intro Salvage mission: help!

Hi I'm a noob to elite dangerous and i'm playing horizons (4.0) but dont have odyssey. I got a random txt message in my comms inbox whilst out exploring offering me a salvage mission. I thought I'd give it a go so accepted it. Long story short, flew all the way to the salvage on the surface and collected it then flew all the way back to the station where it was needed. The station was on the surface of a planet and I was having a really hard time getting close to the planet as my supercruise just kept dropping out saying I was too close. Then eventually I gave up and thought I'd have to just fly it in for 30 mins but then 5 mins later a message pops up saying I cannot lands on this planet without Odyssey!! what!! Why offer me a mission I cannot complete? I've gone back and checked the mission details and it doesn't say anywhere about needing odyssey to complete it. Is this my fault? Should I have done something different? Or is there any way to deliver the salvage without going to the planet myself? Thanks!
 
Hi I'm a noob to elite dangerous and i'm playing horizons (4.0) but dont have odyssey. I got a random txt message in my comms inbox whilst out exploring offering me a salvage mission. I thought I'd give it a go so accepted it. Long story short, flew all the way to the salvage on the surface and collected it then flew all the way back to the station where it was needed. The station was on the surface of a planet and I was having a really hard time getting close to the planet as my supercruise just kept dropping out saying I was too close. Then eventually I gave up and thought I'd have to just fly it in for 30 mins but then 5 mins later a message pops up saying I cannot lands on this planet without Odyssey!! what!! Why offer me a mission I cannot complete? I've gone back and checked the mission details and it doesn't say anywhere about needing odyssey to complete it. Is this my fault? Should I have done something different? Or is there any way to deliver the salvage without going to the planet myself? Thanks!
Sadly this is an issue that plagued Elite from its first split into Base game and Horizons and only got carried over when Odyssey came out.
It's not your fault and if it's of any consolation to you, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to. But it does happen.
The mission system in Elite is highly precedural (just like the rest of the game) and apparently it's really hard to prevent this from happening completely.

You can create a support ticket or a bug report (like the hundreds of people before you) but that's about all you can do.
...apart from buying Odyssey, of course. ducks

Just abandon the mission and try to pretend it never happened. Sorry.
 
update: spent so long trying to land I ran out of fuel and oxygen and died and lost the ship and cargo! absolute disaster! safe to say it has not left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling being so new to the game!! thanks for the explanation and advice
 
I tend to treat all those messages that appear in my comms box as being either a trap or if I am bounty hunting a ploy to get me to go away and stop shooting stuff and ignore them.
 
update: spent so long trying to land I ran out of fuel and oxygen and died and lost the ship and cargo! absolute disaster! safe to say it has not left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling being so new to the game!! thanks for the explanation and advice
That is awesome, no really it is. A true Elite experience, one that you'll always remember. Cherish it. It won't be long until you know too much! :)
 
update: spent so long trying to land I ran out of fuel and oxygen and died and lost the ship and cargo! absolute disaster! safe to say it has not left me with a warm and fuzzy feeling being so new to the game!! thanks for the explanation and advice
Like Codger said, don't let this discourage you. As somebody with 10k+ hours in Elite, I would give ANYTHING to experience the game from the start once more. Just like you wish you could "forget" your favourite movie to experience it for the first time again. :)
Being unfair and confusing is one of Elite's strengths, believe it or not. :LOL:
 
...oh, and btw. The fuel gauge is represented by those two inconspicuous lines in the bottom right of your HUD.
The thicker one (the one that is segmented in smaller ships) is your overall fuel in the main tank. Your jump drive draws from it. If it gets too low you can no longer jump to another system.
The thinner one above it is your auxiliary fuel. It's 1 ton capacity and your engines, powerplant, life support, etc. systems draw fuel from there. If it gets to zero, it refills from the main tank. If it can't refill, well, you just experienced that. :)

Just in case you didn't know. So you can't say we aren't helpful. :D
 
...oh, and btw. The fuel gauge is represented by those two inconspicuous lines in the bottom right of your HUD.
The thicker one (the one that is segmented in smaller ships) is your overall fuel in the main tank. Your jump drive draws from it. If it gets too low you can no longer jump to another system.
The thinner one above it is your auxiliary fuel. It's 1 ton capacity and your engines, powerplant, life support, etc. systems draw fuel from there. If it gets to zero, it refills from the main tank. If it can't refill, well, you just experienced that. :)

Just in case you didn't know. So you can't say we aren't helpful. :D
Yep that was all a complete mystery to me as well! I knew those bars in the bottom right had something to do with fuel and that was about it! So once again thanks!
 
Hi All,
Need help with black box salvage missions.
With Horizons - it was easy to complete mission.
With Oddysey - im stuck, now NAV BEACON not showing quest point to fly to.
I was trying to scan with FSS, but there are too many signals, no one showing my quest item.
What should i do?
 
Hi All,
Need help with black box salvage missions.
With Horizons - it was easy to complete mission.
With Oddysey - im stuck, now NAV BEACON not showing quest point to fly to.
I was trying to scan with FSS, but there are too many signals, no one showing my quest item.
What should i do?
Necro thread, you should have started a new one.

If you fly around in super cruise (towards a station or base) it will pop up in bright blue as a POI. That's how I always found them, I'm sure there's a better way. Be carful though, as soon as you grab the box, several pirates will pop out of hi-wake to jump you.
 
Hi All,
Need help with black box salvage missions.
With Horizons - it was easy to complete mission.
With Oddysey - im stuck, now NAV BEACON not showing quest point to fly to.
I was trying to scan with FSS, but there are too many signals, no one showing my quest item.
What should i do?
I think you only need to check for signals in the first quarter of the bar in the FSS display, the ones nearest the left hand end are things like USS and NHSS everything else is just planets and stations and the like.
 
I have scanned it, total over 8 signals, none marked as quest item.
Do i need to fly them one by one?

Mission FSS signals show in a different colour. Any signal in a system will show in the FSS - no matter where you are, so no, you do not have to fly to them to get them to show (that was only in the pre-FSS days).
 
How do i know that i have scanned qest item place? Pop up message?
I have scanned a lot of them, several of them marked as salvage but none marked as quest.
 
How do i know that i have scanned qest item place? Pop up message?
I have scanned a lot of them, several of them marked as salvage but none marked as quest.

1. The FSS signal's circle will be a different colour (yellow rather than white in my case).

2. The HUD nav marker graphic (and your target box) will say (in blue I think) "Mission Target" (suchlike).

If you have not found either of those things then maybe you re in the wrong system or could be a bug. Sorry
 
Unfo there is no different signal color, all of them are blue in the circle, scanned whole system several times.
Screenshot 2023-04-26 170853.jpg
 
Alpha Centauri, eh?

🤣

Scan the nav beacon again. Then scroll down. Further down.

Mission signals in binary systems tend to pop up (at least for me) often around the secondary star. Which, in Alpha Centauri, would mean something like 6.5 million ls out (or 0.22 ly). Which is, in other terms, something like 1.5 hours in supercruise.
If I were you, I'd a) abandon the mission and b) never again accept a mission to Alpha Centauri unless it states where it's going to.
 
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