Surface Salvage Missions: CMDR Mengy's new addiction

[Mengy]

So I've been in the bubble for the past few weeks while waiting for 2.2 to release, doing random bubble things like earning credits, unlocking engineers, modding a few of my odd ships, and doing missions now and then just for kicks. One type of mission continued to appeal to me: the surface salvage missions.

Spoiler

You can pick them out easily by the surface horizon icon to the right of the mission and the planet shaped icon to the left. They don't show up very often, but I found that if I loitered around industrial systems I could find them pretty often. After doing a couple in my Asp I decided to get my old T6 out of storage and outfit it just for surface salvaging.

Spoiler

I'm not sure why, but I've been having an absolute blast gallivanting around worlds in the bubble hunting garbage and wreckage for the wealthy. It's a great excuse to land on planets you normally wouldn't look twice at to find all manner of interesting and crazy things. Once you earn up some status with the mission givers you can even get some very decent paying work doing this too. The salvage isn't normally more than 1-2T per run, but there is always more to find laying around the areas than the mission requires, so after a couple of missions worth my hold is usually full and I have to return to sell it all. Sometimes you find crap, sometimes you find very nice stuff like gold and paladium.

Spoiler

Sometimes you even get company flying around too, usually they are just other salvage ships peacefully going about their way, but occasionally you get a hotshot who doesn't like what you are doing and decides to take a few shots at you from above.

Spoiler

And now and then the salvage zone you track down ends up being guarded by illegal wanted skimmers, so from time to time you need to fight your way to the mission cargo.

Spoiler

To be honest though, I really love these missions for two reasons: the great scenery from the surfaces, and a very good excuse to drive around in the SRV. Here are a few pics I've taken while salvaging over the past week or two:

Spoiler

So if any explorers ever find that they need a change of pace for a bit, and would like to do some bubble exploring with a purpose while earning some good credits along the way, I highly recommend surface salvage missions as a nice diversion from deep space! I'm hoping to find these out around Colonia some day, that would be incredible!

 

[Howe]

I'm in the bubble at the moment, might give this a try!

 

[Viscera]

This is the sort of missions I am looking to equip a Keelback for. Then I can zoom about in a fighter ship too if interesting canyons and things turn up, which they often do with these trips.

T6 looks nice in the pics though.

 

[BaldEagle]

I have been trying some of these whilst also trying to find (with no success so far!) Datamined Wake Exceptions.
Killing the skimmers is a bit like a fairground stall though ...

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

Nice!!!! I intend to spend some time in the bubble too, since of the 1000 hours i have played, less than 100 have been spent in civilized space. Another nice activity! Let's hope the Colonia highway outpost give these missions too, would be a good change of pace between honkjumps.

 

[Mengy]

I have been trying some of these whilst also trying to find (with no success so far!) Datamined Wake Exceptions.
Killing the skimmers is a bit like a fairground stall though ...

You know you say that, and generally the skimmers you find on surface salvage missions guarding abandoned cargo are pretty easy to deal with. HOWEVER, one day I mistakenly accepted a “destroy skimmers and scan data points” mission. I saw the surface horizon icon to the right and got so excited that I just clicked “accept” without really reading the mission, lol! Turns out it was a mission to raid a small low security surface installation, it sounded easy enough and it payed very well, so I figured eh, why not go blow some things up! I actually had two small pulse lasers and some chaff on the T6 anyway and I figured this would be a good excuse to use them.

I jumped over to the target system, scanned the nav beacon to locate the installation, and glided down out of orbital cruise about 10 clicks away from the base. My plan was to fly in low and fast (the T6 is surprisingly fast for a cargo ship) and blast the skimmers with the ship’s pulse lasers to clear the way for the SRV to simply waltz up to the data points and easily scan them. I flew a quick pass directly over the base to evaluate the situation, breaching the security zone but exiting it quick enough to not get attacked just yet. There were a lot of skimmers down there flying around but no surface cannons, just skimmers, so it seemed mundane enough. My pulse lasers should make quick work of them and my A rated shields should keep me safe. I came around again, slower this time but still low, and gingerly breached the edge of the security zone just long enough to warrant some retaliation.

A few skimmers opened up fire on me and within seconds I hear that eerie incoming missile alert siren. And then, it was like something out of Macross Saga, I sat in awe as I watched like a dozen missile trails fly up into the air and straight towards me! After a split second of disbelief I hit my chaff and juked to the side, most of them flew by me but a few walloped my shields. I quickly cycled my targets to find out where the flurry of missiles had come from, what the heck is a Goliath Skimmer? Another warning siren, and AGAIN the window is full of missiles spiraling up and towards me, this time my shields almost collapse under the onslaught. My hunch is that this “goliath” skimmer is shooting missiles at me, but a dozen at a time??? I try my best to shoot it down but my gimballed pulse lasers seem to be having a very hard time destroying it, as I’m constantly juking and flaring and trying to evade the plethora of missiles, surely these can’t ALL be from ONE little skimmer??? The next salvo takes my shields down and now my hull is damaged, in a panic I decide to retreat and collect my thoughts as this plan of action is not working. I boost away as the siren blares once again. After I’m a few clicks away I swing the ship around towards the base just to look at it, and as the base comes into view my jaw drops once again, as I’m greeted with a sky FILLED with swirling missile trails coming straight for me. How can a low security base guarded by only a few skimmers launch dozens of missiles like this!!!!!????? Just as I regain my senses another wave slams into my shieldless ship, and my T6 explodes like a firecracker.

In both shock and disbelief, but wanting to regain my honor, I actually went back to this base and tried several times to crack this nut, but to no avail. I tried assaulting the base in various ways, by sky in the T6, by land in the SRV, and every time the overwhelming monsoon of missiles was just too much to deal with. I could never get close enough to the skimmers to take them down before the missiles took me down. Low security base my ***, this place was guarded like Fort Knox.

I eventually dismissed the mission in shame and dishonor, I simply could not complete it. It was kind of fun though.

 

[CMDR AKIRA MASAKARI]

You know you say that, and generally the skimmers you find on surface salvage missions guarding abandoned cargo are pretty easy to deal with. HOWEVER, one day I mistakenly accepted a “destroy skimmers and scan data points” mission. I saw the surface horizon icon to the right and got so excited that I just clicked “accept” without really reading the mission, lol! Turns out it was a mission to raid a small low security surface installation, it sounded easy enough and it payed very well, so I figured eh, why not go blow some things up! I actually had two small pulse lasers and some chaff on the T6 anyway and I figured this would be a good excuse to use them.

I jumped over to the target system, scanned the nav beacon to locate the installation, and glided down out of orbital cruise about 10 clicks away from the base. My plan was to fly in low and fast (the T6 is surprisingly fast for a cargo ship) and blast the skimmers with the ship’s pulse lasers to clear the way for the SRV to simply waltz up to the data points and easily scan them. I flew a quick pass directly over the base to evaluate the situation, breaching the security zone but exiting it quick enough to not get attacked just yet. There were a lot of skimmers down there flying around but no surface cannons, just skimmers, so it seemed mundane enough. My pulse lasers should make quick work of them and my A rated shields should keep me safe. I came around again, slower this time but still low, and gingerly breached the edge of the security zone just long enough to warrant some retaliation.

A few skimmers opened up fire on me and within seconds I hear that eerie incoming missile alert siren. And then, it was like something out of Macross Saga, I sat in awe as I watched like a dozen missile trails fly up into the air and straight towards me! After a split second of disbelief I hit my chaff and juked to the side, most of them flew by me but a few walloped my shields. I quickly cycled my targets to find out where the flurry of missiles had come from, what the heck is a Goliath Skimmer? Another warning siren, and AGAIN the window is full of missiles spiraling up and towards me, this time my shields almost collapse under the onslaught. My hunch is that this “goliath” skimmer is shooting missiles at me, but a dozen at a time??? I try my best to shoot it down but my gimballed pules lasers seem to be having a very hard time destroying it, as I’m constantly juking and flaring and trying to evade the plethora of missiles, surely these can’t ALL be from ONE little skimmer??? The next salvo takes my shields down and now my hull is damaged, in a panic I decide to retreat and collect my thoughts as this plan of action is not working. I boost away as the siren blares once again. After I’m a few clicks away I swing the ship around towards the base just to look at it, and as the basy jaw drops once again, as I’m greeted with a sky FILLED with swirling missile trails coming straight for me. How can a low security base guarded by only a few skimmers launch dozens of missiles like this!!!!!????? Just as I regain my senses another wave slams into my shieldless ship, and my T6 explodes like a firecracker.

In both shock and disbelief, but wanting to regain my honor, I actually went back to this base and tried several times to crack this nut, but to no avail. I tried assaulting the base in various ways, by sky in the T6, by land in the SRV, and every time the overwhelming monsoon of missiles was just too much to deal with. I could never get close enough to the skimmers to take them down before the missiles took me down. Low security base my ***, this place was guarded like Fort Knox.

I eventually dismissed the mission in shame and dishonor, I simply could not complete it. It was kind of fun though.

I remeber during DWE a pilot in a well shielded and armed Clipper had to escape a fortification becouse the skimmers brought down his shields and started hammering the hull. It was the 1st waypoint still in civilized space, the randevouz was near this base, and he engaged for fun... to be forced to make a quick leap back to a station!!! But I didn't see any missile! We should be able to use one of those skimmers instead of an SRV... just a tought.

 

[marx]

These missions are the ones with the site survey mechanic, yes? Meaning that at first, you only get a vague location, and have to fly closer to get a better fix on where to land. If so, I am a fan of these as well, and it would be nice to see the mechanic more often. In fact, it would be great if we could find some interesting stuff down on unexplored planets this way - do a detailed scan, and have a new mission pop up that does this. The tech for this should already be in place in the game.
So, Frontier please? (And of course this idea comes to me after 2.2 releases.)

Oh yeah, and some base defences can be deceptively dangerous. My favourite such death was when I was speeding away in my SRV from a failed attempt on a base, only to be killed by a ship, with one shot from a railgun - while my SRV was in the air! I wasn't even mad.

 

[=71st=RuSh]

I like this missions, the one on planets are relative easy, the worst are to salvage something in orbit of a planet, there is always an NPC chasing you since you enter the system, when you find the destination planet and try to get the mission object, the NPC respawn again and you have to hurry to colect the cargo and boost, if want to exit alive! I was in a Cobra MK3 and the NPC was in a Python!

 

[Mengy]

These missions are the ones with the site survey mechanic, yes? Meaning that at first, you only get a vague location, and have to fly closer to get a better fix on where to land.

Yep, these all have that “searching” mechanic to the landing zone, and I love it too. I’d also love to see deep space exploration incorporate that searching scanner mechanic somehow, that would be brilliant.

 

[Cdr Voorheez]

These look like the perfect excuse to buy and equip a KB, repped Cdr

 

[BaldEagle]

You know you say that, and generally the skimmers you find on surface salvage missions guarding abandoned cargo are pretty easy to deal with. HOWEVER, one day I mistakenly accepted a “destroy skimmers and scan data points” mission. I saw the surface horizon icon to the right and got so excited that I just clicked “accept” without really reading the mission, lol! Turns out it was a mission to raid a small low security surface installation, it sounded easy enough and it payed very well, so I figured eh, why not go blow some things up! I actually had two small pulse lasers and some chaff on the T6 anyway and I figured this would be a good excuse to use them.

I jumped over to the target system, scanned the nav beacon to locate the installation, and glided down out of orbital cruise about 10 clicks away from the base. My plan was to fly in low and fast (the T6 is surprisingly fast for a cargo ship) and blast the skimmers with the ship’s pulse lasers to clear the way for the SRV to simply waltz up to the data points and easily scan them. I flew a quick pass directly over the base to evaluate the situation, breaching the security zone but exiting it quick enough to not get attacked just yet. There were a lot of skimmers down there flying around but no surface cannons, just skimmers, so it seemed mundane enough. My pulse lasers should make quick work of them and my A rated shields should keep me safe. I came around again, slower this time but still low, and gingerly breached the edge of the security zone just long enough to warrant some retaliation.

A few skimmers opened up fire on me and within seconds I hear that eerie incoming missile alert siren. And then, it was like something out of Macross Saga, I sat in awe as I watched like a dozen missile trails fly up into the air and straight towards me! After a split second of disbelief I hit my chaff and juked to the side, most of them flew by me but a few walloped my shields. I quickly cycled my targets to find out where the flurry of missiles had come from, what the heck is a Goliath Skimmer? Another warning siren, and AGAIN the window is full of missiles spiraling up and towards me, this time my shields almost collapse under the onslaught. My hunch is that this “goliath” skimmer is shooting missiles at me, but a dozen at a time??? I try my best to shoot it down but my gimballed pulse lasers seem to be having a very hard time destroying it, as I’m constantly juking and flaring and trying to evade the plethora of missiles, surely these can’t ALL be from ONE little skimmer??? The next salvo takes my shields down and now my hull is damaged, in a panic I decide to retreat and collect my thoughts as this plan of action is not working. I boost away as the siren blares once again. After I’m a few clicks away I swing the ship around towards the base just to look at it, and as the base comes into view my jaw drops once again, as I’m greeted with a sky FILLED with swirling missile trails coming straight for me. How can a low security base guarded by only a few skimmers launch dozens of missiles like this!!!!!????? Just as I regain my senses another wave slams into my shieldless ship, and my T6 explodes like a firecracker.

In both shock and disbelief, but wanting to regain my honor, I actually went back to this base and tried several times to crack this nut, but to no avail. I tried assaulting the base in various ways, by sky in the T6, by land in the SRV, and every time the overwhelming monsoon of missiles was just too much to deal with. I could never get close enough to the skimmers to take them down before the missiles took me down. Low security base my ***, this place was guarded like Fort Knox.

I eventually dismissed the mission in shame and dishonor, I simply could not complete it. It was kind of fun though.

..
Wow ...
repped for using a T6 in a combat role