Newcomer / Intro 'Scan Hub Link' Missions

[geesloper]

Hello all,

Hopefully the last one from me.

I took a "Threat Level 0" combat mission that was not marked as 'criminal', but required me to scan a hub link on a planet...

Attempt #1, I got within ~ 5 km, and immediately acquired a bounty that I had to fly 12 systems away to pay off. I assume the faction in question had a wide influence.

I tried to get closer, and got ripped to shreds within 2 seconds flat. Did some googling, and some people suggested doing it in the SRV.

Attempt #2, I used the SRV. This involved crawling over the surface of the (very low gravity) planet for ten minutes at a walking pace to avoid flying off and crashing. Got there, couldn't scan the data link, even though it was showing as within range. Eventually found a suitable angle (that was actually further away?), and scanned it. Got a message saying the scan was successful. Immediately started taking damage.

Drove some distance away, recalled my ship. Noticed that the quest had reset. At least, despite the message saying my scan was successful / data downloaded, it was telling me to go back and scan the link again. Tried to take off, got blown up in 2 seconds (again).

At this point, I'd wasted 90 minutes of my day and lost two ships, so I just abandoned the quest and took the reputation hit.

My question:

Clearly, the "Threat Level" of the mission is misleading (I now assume it refers to the actual target ship?) - how can I avoid accepting these mission in the first place, short of just not taking anything that requires approaching a planetary surface? That's essentially what I'm doing now (space-based only), but that seems a waste.

 

[Codger]

At this point, I'd wasted 90 minutes of my day and lost two ships, so I just abandoned the quest and took the reputation hit

Sounds more like you had an interesting and exciting 90 minutes, to me. You didn’t manage to figure out a good method for doing those missions, but it sounds like a cool experience.

 

[geesloper]

Sounds more like you had an interesting and exciting 90 minutes, to me. You didn’t manage to figure out a good method for doing those missions, but it sounds like a cool experience.

It was an expensive experience haha, but not the end of the world.

 

[Ashnak]

Could you post a screenshot of your mission (left side HUD)?

Usually, you will get

• a trespass warning when you approach a private ground installation (where you wanted to scan that beacon)
• after that warning, you get a timer until you finally get a trespass bounty unless you leave the trespass area again
• and even if you can complete the scan before the trespass timer expires, you'll get the bounty once you complete the scan

Once you got the bounty, everyone with a gun in the vincinity will of course try to claim it - and especially those ground defense cannon are nothing you should thoughtlessly mess with.

The advice on how to handle this unfortunately boils down to "Git Gud". From the ship:

• use a small ship
• approach the base, but stay out of the trespass zone (or at least get in and out again to avoid he trespass bounty) until you've located the beacon you should scan (or whatever)
• once you know where you need to go, go there fast
• scan the beacon from your ship, then get out even faster
• chaff can help somewhat to distract the cannon, and keeping close to the ground gets you out of their firing angle quicker
• regerding the occasional patrol ship that wants to join the fun, see above. There's no NPC that can even hope to keep up with an engineered Viper Mk.III (e.g.)

In the SRV:

• start as above - locate the target before even setting down your ship to disembark
• the SRV trespass zone is much smaller than the ship trespass zone
• in some locations, you can also (temporarily - yes, again you'll need to be fast) disable the ground defense cannon and skimmers from dedicated terminals
• and, most of all, learn how to drive/flyve your SRV. I'll refer you to the videos of @Alec Turner , a master in this craft

For me, the SRV is pretty much out - I play in VR, and the SRV regularly gives me VR sickness. So I use a dedicated ship for these missions - with some added discretion in the case my patron wants that base to experience a temporary power failure. A single missile usually won't make it past the defenses - a volley from dual packhound launchers will always do the trick

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

Yes, no shields. But enough hull armour to rival most other ships. If the base scan is part of a combined mission, keep in mind that you can switch ships during the mission - e.g. scan the beacon in the Viper, then switch to the Krait Mk.II to handle any hostile opposition.

 

[geesloper]

I'm actually super glad to hear it can be done in a ship - I'm comically bad at driving the SRV in low-gravity environments

So you need to get just close enough to identify the uplink, scan it, and get out?

 

[Ashnak]

So you need to get just close enough to identify the uplink, scan it, and get out?

In principle, yes. The devil is in the details - "close enough" is basically a nose bump for smaller ships and may be impossible for larger ships.

And remember to deploy weapons or you can't use the datalink scanner.

 

[geesloper]

So.. I gave that a go, and got to the point where I was nose-bumping the towers in the base, and there was no "link" on the contacts list (I did try scanning the whole facility first)... Am I still missing something?

 

[Screemonster]

For step one, I would recommend fitting out a small, fast ship with strong shie-

Okay, so. Once you're done basking, head to the target settlement. Usually, for missions that tell you to scan a specific link like the hub access terminal datalink, the mission target antenna shows up as a target from a couple of km out. If that's the case, you can do the job as follows:

For some settlements, when you take "disable the emplacement power grid" missions in particular where the target isn't a generator for you to blow up, the link won't always show up as a target from long range. The same applies to "planetary scan" missions that send you to a randomly generated PoI on a planet. These are still doable from the ship, but you have to get within 50m for the antenna to be targetable (this can be outright impossible on larger ships, as you'll bump into it before the centre of your ship is within 50m of the target!)

The technique is roughly the same though. Just fly right up to it, hit Target Ahead when you see the box, and Robert's your mother's brother.

 

[geesloper]

Hmmm. I did try to do what the video suggests (I indentified the Operations link, and scanned it successfully), but it didn't update the quest (standard mission text, just "scan hub link" at such-and-such). This particular quest wasn't to disable anything - just scan the link to find the pirate.