Time spent doing BH missions

Alcaeus · Jan 4, 2015

I was wondering how long it takes the average player to finish the 'kill 7 pirates/trader' missions on average.
It takes me over an hour as it takes me a while to find USS, and only 1 in 4 is relevant to my mission. I do go near planets etc. to generate the USS but sometimes they come up quickly, other times not. The most frustrating part is that there are only 1 or 2 kill target per USS forcing me to stop at multiple USS and making missions unnecessarily long. I am starting to find this a bit frustrating having to fly in space for ages until I find the right type of USS.
How long does it take you to finishing such missions?

CMDR Vincent Cable · Jan 4, 2015

Well, it used to take me 45 mins ish - in my freagle, going to USSs.

Now, I've BHed my way to a Viper and some quite gnarly guns. I hunt in Anarchic NAV beacons. Probably hit my target in 10-20 mins. Better bounties too

Keep going man, get to the NAV beacons or Res sites in an anarchy system. Targets galore

ZappaBappa · Jan 4, 2015

Today was the first time i ever even touched a BH Mission, and that was a 170k Single target one. the Small ones simply aren't worth the time, when you can fly to a system that has a station near a planet with an Asteroid belt. Just fly there, since they're usually overflowing with cobras with bounties worth around 10 to 20k. if you run out of Ammo, or got too damaged, just fly to the station, repair, pay your fine/bounty, replenish ammo, turn in vouchers and return to the asteroid belt.

Just get a viper with Gimballed class 1 Pulse lasers for the shields, and Gimballed class 2 Multicannons for the armor. Rip through everything i run into with that

Just make sure to not fire at them until it actually says wanted, even if they're already being attacked.

FireFueled · Jan 4, 2015

I'm having problems with this too. The latest mission I got wanted me to kill 3 pirates. I spent close to 2 hours trying to do it. Managed to find and kill only 5 wanted dudes on USS. None of them was considered a "pirate", since my mission counter didn't update.

I'll try the anarchy nav beacons.

anday · Jan 4, 2015

Theres so much variance in this, that an "average" won't help at all. I got those missions done in like ten minutes. But there also were occasions it took about 90 minutes. It's just all random luck. Although I tend to have the feeling, that certrain sectors spawn considerably less USSs than others. But this could be random variance as well.

Alcaeus · Jan 4, 2015

I actually just moved my way up to an Eagle. I had 300kcr and deck-it out well enough. I initially got my Cr by going to Asteroid belts but wanted to change my routine and do the Bulletin board missions. It just takes too damn long having to stop to multiple USS to finish the missions. I think I'll go back to asteroid belt hunting. I was just curious to see how long it takes people to finish such missions. IMO the whole mission structure needs to be looked at. Chasing random USS takes too long. I am not against the idea of it, I just think that 1 in 4 USS relevant to your mission is not frequent enough. It should be 1 in 2.

Agony_Aunt · Jan 4, 2015

Don't hunt pirates at USS. Any pirates will do as long as they are in the designated system. Go to a nav point with a few tons of something nice in your cargo hold, the pirates will come to you. They will scan you, demand you hand it over, and when you don't, they will fire at you, making it nice and legal for you to fire back at them.

And they do count towards mission count.

Its a lot quicker than hunting USS and a lot more reliable.

PS: This is only good for pirates. Killing traders and bounty hunters at the nav beacon is a good way to get the cops on your ass.

Alcaeus · Jan 4, 2015

oh wow Loki_666, thank you. I had no idea. This will makes things easier.

AV2012 · Jan 4, 2015

There are a couple of ways to speed this up.

1. Don't fly around hunting USS's. Slow to 30 km/s in SC and they spawn around you circa every 2.5 mins.
2. Buy Some Gold and you are more likely to be randomly interdicted by pirates. As you are at minimum SC speed, you will immediately loose the interdiction and get to kill a pirate or two.