Sol Evacuation Frustrations

[RavenSeldon]

I got the game a month ago and have been enjoying it... a little upset with getting illegal passengers about 20% of the time... Seems odd I can't tell until after I take the mission.

Then comes Sol Evacuation, cool, I buy a Beluga and fit it out with economy cabins and off I to to help save good old earth....

1. Hmmm, need higher reputation to take non bulk missions... odd, I don't think I would worry too much about rep vs being captured by aliens....(Immersion -1 level)

2. OK, I take a bunch of bulk missions... get illegal passengers.... what? In an evacuation ??? (Immersion - 2 levels)... Checks forums... happening to other people but don't worry about it, cops don't care... Hmm OK.

3. 3 trips of bulk missions to rescue ship... take rep for rewards when available... Look at regular missions... rep ok... now they want Biz or First Class cabins ????
"I'll evacuate but only if get cocktails while running!"
(Immersion -3 levels)... OK Trade out some cabins... (they won't fill up per normal operation... "I want cocktails in my own cabin, no sharing for me!!") (Immersion -4 levels).

4. OK, cabins setup as best I can and take missions to max out space as much as possible... still some illegals....
AND then I get scanned leaving the station, tagged with a Bounty, attacked by police... shields almost gone when I jump.... and get killed by Thargs...
and wake up in jail till having fines for failed missions.
Really? Immersion level -20.

If you go the trouble of setting up narrative events why not put in the time to suspend rules that break immersion so completely?

 

[Factabulous]

The rules are the rules of the game world. Same as they ever were. Suspending them would mean you weren't playing in the game world. Immersion -100 as you would say

This phase will be over soon - then you can complain about the next phase

 

[RavenSeldon]

They suspended the permit requirement... so clearly it's possible to alter game world rules for 'Special Events'.

I'm not asking for perfection... but I'd rather not have my emersion knocked out of me like someone hit me with a gold brick wrapped in a lemon slice.

 

[Moirai]

If you pick up illegals, just floor it away from the station pronto, before some clueless jobs-worth decides to scan you. Boost, if necessary. As long as you don't collide with anyone, it's all good. You won't get fined for speeding, just collisions. Keep an eye on your radar and go.

 

[aRJay]

When you select the mission at the lower right of the screen next to the Galaxy Map icon there is a button with a book that has an “I” on the cover click that.
This brings up additional information, usually with a bulk passenger evacuation mission there is one line of text in blue. If there are illegals involved there will be three lines of text two of which are in red and contain the word illegal IIRC.
If you see that a few clicks on back buttons will get you the list of groups so you can try again.

As I found out there is a warning above the fuel gauge if you have illegals onboard which means you need to boost out of the station very fast to get out of scan range and use speed and or silent running at your destination. Don’t get scanned and you don’t get fined.

To be fair I use a smuggling build for passenger runs and can cruise above 500 and boost to 640.

 

[metatheurgist]

They suspended the permit requirement... so clearly it's possible to alter game world rules for 'Special Events'.

Permits are a lot easier to suspend than entire branches of NPC behaviour.

I'm not asking for perfection...

Perfection! Ha! I'd settle for mediocrity at this stage.

 

[Tifu]

... or you can leave all those complications for the Feds & Thargoids to sort out and just stick to rescue pods

 

[serakfalcon]

Ok so you're hitting on both what is a strength of Elite and a big weakness. Elite has a huge amount of stuff going on in the background, and only poorly explains itself. What you need to understand to a certain extent is that CMDRs in Elite are not really treated like protagonists, instead they are more like an unruly bunch of superhumans that humanity keeps finding itself relying on, despite nearly all of them being amoral serial killers. Think, we aren't the Justice League but more like supes employed by Vought International, and suddenly the lack of trust combined with slap on wrist penalties start to make more sense.

For your case, there is a screen to background check your passengers so if you only want legals, you have to check proactively in the dedicated subscreen. If you don't, then you may let illegals on. Regardless of the Thargoid invasion it's reasonable for local governments to want you to prioritize legal evacuees over criminals, and the mechanism for that is fines and bounties. However if you quickly leave the station and boost away, nobody will have time to scan you and you can ignore the entire mechanic.

For the reputation bit, it's entirely possible that you will be completely incompetent at evacuation and will instead get everyone killed. Reputation is a measure of your perceived reliability and so it's fair that some people may prefer to wait for a reliable ride over an unknown commander who might just dump them out the airlock into the waiting thargoid appendages. (And, not to criticize but were the passengers who refused to board really wrong in hindsight?)

Business class and first class I sort of get it, they don't pay nearly as well as they should but again, if some people want a comfortable and luxury escape from the thargoid invasion and are willing to wait for a commander to provide that, it's a free market baby. This is a space dystopia where reloading your missile rack costs more than the fine for murder.

Lastly, there may have been extenuating circumstances but you did get killed by the Thargoids and all your passengers died. IRL you'd be likely to face bigger consequences than fines and having to rebuy from a prison, but again the Pilots Federation is basically Vought International and manages to bail us out continually.

 

[Tifu]

What you need to understand to a certain extent is that CMDRs in Elite are not really treated like protagonists, instead they are more like an unruly bunch of superhumans that humanity keeps finding itself relying on, despite nearly all of them being amoral serial killers. Think, we aren't the Justice League but more like supes employed by Vought International, and suddenly the lack of trust combined with slap on wrist penalties start to make more sense.