I was feeling very discouraged after yesterday, discovering how difficult the new AI is, and how unreachable the Engineers are. I logged off early and played something else for the evening.
Today, I decided to give it another shot, see if I could find something I'd enjoy. So I headed down to a planet that I've enjoyed doing missions on in the past.
I've always loved the pilot rescue missions. It was a lot of fun to search the surface of the planet, flying low to find the crash site, and then landing and going over in the SRV to get the downed pilot. The downed pilot was always somewhere on the planet you were docked at. You could have fun touring around on the planet and make a few creds, while helping out. I found it very enjoyable.
But with the new changes, those missions are now gone. I hung around one of my usual planetary bases for several Mission Board refreshes, and they don't appear any more. The closest I could find was a "Rescue the Hostage" mission. It was one of the very few missions that didn't say "Hostile ships may be sent against you" so I decided to give it a try.
* A scanner is now required for these, so I had to install one. That's one less internal for other usage, but ok...I guess.
* The hostage was NOT on the same planet I was on, nor even in the same system. So I had to leave the planet, jump to another system, and then scan the Nav Beacon to find out where the hostage was. Annoying.
* Once I did that a new target appeared on the relevant planet, and I headed over there and flew down to where it was.
* But, once I got there, it suddenly moved. So I went to the new location, and it moved again! It did this several times. I felt like the game was laughing at me, like Lucy when she pulls the football away from Charlie Brown. Ha ha! Fooled you! It's not there, it's over there! Ha ha! Fooled you again! As Charlie would say, Bleah!
* The location target finally settled in one place and sure enough, there was the little installation I was after. So I did NO searching, the game just led me on a stupid keep-away game for a while. No fun at all, just dumb.
* I picked up the canister without incident, I just had to zip in a scoop it up before the skimmers got mad.
* Took it back to the original station (2 jumps away, and another planet landing).
My reward? 160,000 cr and some sort of material I've never heard of. Perhaps someday some Engineer will want it, I don't know. I can't sell it or do anything with it.
The mission took me about an hour to do.
Pro: It was doable, and it was one of the few missions that didn't force me into combat.
Con: It was pretty stupid, much less fun than actually having to search in the POIs. And the reward was barely worth the time. I wouldn't care if the mission was fun but...meh
I'm really trying to find something in the update I like. So far all I found is stuff I enjoyed taken away.
Today, I decided to give it another shot, see if I could find something I'd enjoy. So I headed down to a planet that I've enjoyed doing missions on in the past.
I've always loved the pilot rescue missions. It was a lot of fun to search the surface of the planet, flying low to find the crash site, and then landing and going over in the SRV to get the downed pilot. The downed pilot was always somewhere on the planet you were docked at. You could have fun touring around on the planet and make a few creds, while helping out. I found it very enjoyable.
But with the new changes, those missions are now gone. I hung around one of my usual planetary bases for several Mission Board refreshes, and they don't appear any more. The closest I could find was a "Rescue the Hostage" mission. It was one of the very few missions that didn't say "Hostile ships may be sent against you" so I decided to give it a try.
* A scanner is now required for these, so I had to install one. That's one less internal for other usage, but ok...I guess.
* The hostage was NOT on the same planet I was on, nor even in the same system. So I had to leave the planet, jump to another system, and then scan the Nav Beacon to find out where the hostage was. Annoying.
* Once I did that a new target appeared on the relevant planet, and I headed over there and flew down to where it was.
* But, once I got there, it suddenly moved. So I went to the new location, and it moved again! It did this several times. I felt like the game was laughing at me, like Lucy when she pulls the football away from Charlie Brown. Ha ha! Fooled you! It's not there, it's over there! Ha ha! Fooled you again! As Charlie would say, Bleah!
* The location target finally settled in one place and sure enough, there was the little installation I was after. So I did NO searching, the game just led me on a stupid keep-away game for a while. No fun at all, just dumb.
* I picked up the canister without incident, I just had to zip in a scoop it up before the skimmers got mad.
* Took it back to the original station (2 jumps away, and another planet landing).
My reward? 160,000 cr and some sort of material I've never heard of. Perhaps someday some Engineer will want it, I don't know. I can't sell it or do anything with it.
The mission took me about an hour to do.
Pro: It was doable, and it was one of the few missions that didn't force me into combat.
Con: It was pretty stupid, much less fun than actually having to search in the POIs. And the reward was barely worth the time. I wouldn't care if the mission was fun but...meh
I'm really trying to find something in the update I like. So far all I found is stuff I enjoyed taken away.
