The rewards seem much the same. Why are they "recommended for completion as part of a wing"? Are they any harder? If so, how much?
the difference is mostly that the wing mission will grant the same reward to everyone in your wing or crew for increased difficulty.
for doing them solo, there is not much benefit at all, since FDEVs idea of of how to reward wing missions is totally backwards to common sense.
in their idea, its more logical to give ~18M to someone doing two jumps in a shieldless T7 filled with passengers, then to someone who uses a single ship to combat a full wing of elite engineered pirates.
So are the non wing missions easier? Just did a wing mission solo last night and it was exactly as described, engineered fdl and 3 engineered vultures. Honestly was a huge pain in my fdl.
Also the money was bad, like a million or two. Ridiculous for the difficulty. (Not to mention pirate Lord uss spawns are still finicky as heck)
Cant say I've noticed a consistent increase in difficulty.
I recently had an Elite single-player Assassination mission which involved a wing of four FdLs (target in an FdL and 3 wingmen) who, I'm pretty sure, had engineered weapons - if the lovely blue and red lasers were anything to go by.
I've also recently had an Elite wing Assassination mission which involved a Cobra and a pair of Vultures, who didn't get the chance to show me what sort of lasers they might be using.
Main differentiating factor, IMO, is the level of the mission rather than whether it's wing or SP.
Yes, the wing assassination missions are harder. The "normal" assassination missions are very easy in solo in an engineered ship, even easy in a A-spec non-engineered ship. The wing missions are a challenge to do solo. IMO taking out the smaller ships first before the "main" target makes it easier.
90% of the time solo "Kill the Pirate" missions the pirate will come to the Nav beacon. Don't even use a scanner, just go to the nav beacon, scan it, deploy weapons and wait. Ignore the planet it tells you to go to. If after 3-4 minutes the pirate hasn't shown up then go to the indicated planetary body. As mentioned above, most times the pirate will be in an Anaconda, Corvette, or Python. If you pick up multiple missions in the same system be ready for all those pirates to show up at the same time.
Don't try wing missions by yourself unless you're in the top 1% of uber players. You can eventually win with hit and run tactics given a strong enough ship but the time spent isn't worth it.
Isnt that how the real world works? lol, economicsthe difference is mostly that the wing mission will grant the same reward to everyone in your wing or crew for increased difficulty.
for doing them solo, there is not much benefit at all, since FDEVs idea of of how to reward wing missions is totally backwards to common sense.
in their idea, its more logical to give ~18M to someone doing two jumps in a shieldless T7 filled with passengers, then to someone who uses a single ship to combat a full wing of elite engineered pirates.
I actually ran one of these in my T-10 without issues. It was a med security system but it wasn't that bad. I had engineering on most of my systems but not maxed out by any means. Turreted PvE boat.The first time I (accidentally) took a wing assassination mission, I had to chicken out, and go back to fetch a Corvette. Even in that they lowered my shield before I got the last of them. Now I prefer wing missions to the normal assassination missions, but I still find them more of a challenge, and I can't recommend going in an Eagle.
Don't try wing missions by yourself unless you're in the top 1% of uber players. You can eventually win with hit and run tactics given a strong enough ship but the time spent isn't worth it.