Spec Ops Contract - how to identify target?

[Mon Dieu]

I took my first Spec Ops Contract mission today, and I'm stumped.

The mission wants me to murder 12 traders belonging to a particular faction, and suggests that I search RES, Nav Beacons, and signal sources to find my victims.

I went to the target system and hung out near the Nav Beacon for a while. A few Wanted villains wandered past but no ships with Mission Target painted on them.

I then schlepped over to the nearest RES and hung out there for a bit. Lots of Wanted scoundrels provided plenty of target practice while I was waiting but, again, no ships with Mission Target on them.

Then I noticed a Clean ship, belonging to the faction listed in the mission. It wasn't shown as a Mission Target, but it was a Type 6, and traders do like their cargo capacity. I figured a murder mission would involve whaling on innocent civilians so I blew him to space dust. I got a murder bounty on my head - no surprise there - but the mission kill count didn't increase. Evidently my murder victim wasn't the correct murder victim.

So what am I doing wrong? How should I identify the correct target for a Spec Ops Contract mission?

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

Keep looking for ships that are designed for hauling that are not of the faction that issued the mission.

When you scan the ship, it will show "mission target" in the view on the bottom left where it shows the CMDR name/rank and ship type.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

One side note, after doing these for the first time on Friday, I highly encourage you to pick up some missions with the controlling faction for the system where you'll be slaying traders. This will help prevent being declared an enemy and having the system authority ships swarm like ants, and being barred from docking in that system.

 

[Mon Dieu]

When you scan the ship, it will show "mission target"

You don't say.

I suicided in a Sidewinder to clear my murder bounty cheaply without having to wait a week, strapped on my FGS, and went back to the target system to try again.

As before, no ships appeared with Mission Target on them, not even the cargo ships belonging to the target faction designated in the mission description. Neither in Supercruise, nor in normal space.

I hung around several RES locations, blowing Wanted ships to smithereens, waiting for some Mission Target ships to arrive, but no dice. Not only that, but one of those Wanted ships re-activated my dormant murder bounty, the wretch.

I guess this mission is destined to expire before I complete it. Not a problem; I'll just make sure never to pick a civilian-murder mission again.

 

[CMDR ANCALAGON]

Well, dunno maybe it was bugged? I had two of them, one for passenger ships and the other for "military" ships (apparently that means adders and vipers).

I did find that there were some areas where I couldn't find any that were qualifying because they were of the same faction that issued the mission or system authority. This means that the area of the system around the station occupied by the faction that issued the mission was a dead zone, since nearly all of the ships where from that faction or system authority.

I ended up sticking to the shipping lanes between the main system star and the planets where the target factions were most represented and interdicting ships from SC and found that to be a much quicker method.

 

[Happy Shrapnel]

same here..... for some reason FDEV think waiting 20-30 mins for a Mission Target to spawn is an OK thing.

 

[El Guido]

This is a hell of a necro and I guess things have changed a lot but as it stands today.
If you scan nav beacon and then go into supercruise you will then see a blue mission target line of text in your targets and nav panel. This will be a body.
Get close to it an then another blue line of text with the threat level should come up. That is your actual target.
If it doesn't come up, log out to main menu, log back in and supercruise and you will see it.
Supercruise and wakeout there and you will see about 10 ships.
Any one of these when scanned will report as a mission target.
As soon as you open fire the others will one by one start to charge their FSDs.
I'm lucky if I get three.
Log out to main menu and then back in again and supercruise and there will be another mission target area close by.
You can now rinse and repeat for up to 27m notes.
Lurvely.
And BTW, the bigger ones are great for g5 manufactured materials.