Wartime Planetary Scan Mission Logic

[Uiros Ueramos]

I am posting this here, in the hope that someone might know why Wartime Planetary Scan Missions work as they do.

In my home system, two factions are at war with each other (one Democratic and one Anarchist). I decided to accept a couple of Wartime Planetary Scan Missions from the Democratic faction thinking about helping them out in the current war. The missions always follow the same pattern:

• Travel to System X;
• Scan Nav Beacon (or use Advanced Discovery Scanner) to find out the planet where the transmission is being originated;
• Travel to Planet Y;
• Wait for Search Area to appear in your Navigation Tab. When it does, descend upon the planet;
• Search for the location of the base;
• Land near the base;
• Deploy your SRV;
• Scan the Private Data Beacon;
• Enter your ship;
• Leave the planet;
• Return to original system.

All seems fine and dandy, except that the base one finds, does NOT belong to the Anarchist faction, but to a third faction not involved in any of the other two faction's shenanigans.

What this means is that, when we scan the Private Data Beacon we get a Bounty from a third faction not involved in the war between the other two !!

Shouldn't the the base belong to the Anarchist faction? And, since that faction is at war with the mission giver, it should not pin us with a bounty (just like in Conflict Zones). Right?

Why is the sensitive transmission data from the Anarchist faction emanating from a third faction's base? Were they hacked, are they secret allies of the Anarchists? What is the logic in a mission like this? From my experience, it is never a base owned by the faction you are working against !! So, we always get a bounty from an uninvolved faction. This seems to me as utterly stupid.

I might be totally wrong here or just too dumb to understand the inherent logic, but what the hell? :S

 

[CMDR KRITIKOSK8]

Cheers to you mate i think the same way and thats why i abandoned Scan missions long time ago

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

Cheers to you mate i think the same way and thats why i abandoned Scan missions long time ago

Then you're missing out on fun missions and easy/good money.

 

[GG7]

These are currently BUGGED.

I would suggest avoiding them until such time that FDev chooses to fix them.

(Brought to you by a player who has been doing these missions since the day they were first introduced. I know how they are supposed to work, and the current versions are far from exhibiting normal behavior)

 

[Lightspeed]

But at 1 to 3 million a mission, avoiding them is kind of like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

So long as you don't carry out the mission at your 'home' base system, there's no problem with being wanted elsewhere. The bounty soon clears, depending on how many you've stacked and completed at a time. Even then, you can get home pretty easily, wanted or not.

 

[AndreZero]

I had a similar experience but it seemed even more broken.

The missions was for a certain faction and was described along the lines of "we've lost contact with one of our bases. Scan it and return the data to us so we can determined what happened." I get to the base, it is owned by the faction that sponsored the mission, and proceed to scan the datapoint. BANG - I've got a bounty for trespassing! The bounty is by the same faction that sponsored the mission.

Not a big deal to pay off though since the mission was 1 million credits and the bounty was only 3k.

It would be interesting if there was some narrative to this. I've been framed. Maybe some follow up missions to clear my name, maybe figure out who did it an why... but no, it is just a bug.

 

[Jmanis]

Bounty you get is peanuts and clears in 10 minutes anyway, so like Lightspeed said, considering these missions are usually 1-3m credit rewards it's not a huge deal. On the "Shouldn't it be against the other factionin the war?" note... it's not really unreasonable to think a third party would have useful intelligence about two factions in a conflict.

Just noting though:

"I decided to accept a couple of Wartime Planetary Scan Missions from the Democratic faction thinking about helping them out in the current war. "

Contrary to the flavour text and the fact they say (++INF) or similar, missions of any type don't increase a faction's influence in a war state. The only things that do are
- Combat Bonds
- Bounties (maybe; a lot of people say this but I've never personally verified)
- Indirect changes (i.e if you destroy a third-party faction's ship, they will lose influence, causing all other factions in the system (including ones at war) to gain a portion of that lost influence.

It's worth noting that missions not contributing to influence in a war state is by design and not a bug, though it's been the center of debate in the past.

 

[Schlack]

Missions do not affect inflence during wartime.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Bounty you get is peanuts and clears in 10 minutes anyway

No, they don't. The reason I know this is because I did several of these very recently for my Sirius permit and made the mistake of scanning a Red Squadron outpost and ended up having to drop missions because the fine was would have out lasted the mission turn in time which was in 12 hours, I believe the bounty was for 24 hours. I made the error of getting scanned on approach to a planetary base... Made it out with a half a shield...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Spying on another country while involved in hot war with another one? What's not there to get?

Also democratic factions engaging in wet works and espionage feels quite alive and actually gives a bit insight into ED lore.

 

[Renown]

Just assume one of the warring factions has hacked the 3rd factions data transmitter to use for it's own subterfuge and the other warring faction has found out about it and asked you to investigate. If it had been the 1st warring faction's own transmitter the other warring faction would send a ship over and blow it up. But because it isn't they can't do that as it would then add the 3rd faction to the war, so they ask a 3rd party (you) to hack the transmitter without fear of another war.

Confused, you will be on the next episode of Soap.

 

[Aashenfox]

As others have stated, the trespass fine is 200cr and lasts 8 minutes. At least that aspect isn't bugged. If you then log and perform another scan at the same outpost, then yes, the bounty goes up and so does the duration. The third scan you perform gives you a 24hr bounty.

I did a vid of this for someone yesterday, this base should have been public, but it was subject to the bug of private, thta GG7 referred to...it still wasn't any trouble in a very light ship, and I had a 400cr fine that lasted 8 minutes, just like always.

[video=youtube_share;KxjWDdODjC0]https://youtu.be/KxjWDdODjC0[/video]

 

[Zieman]

No, they don't.

But usually they do.
I just advanced from Earl to Duke in the Empire, doing lots of wartime surface scan missions too, and only two factions slapped me with 24h bounty, all others were 10 minutes ones.

 

[GG7]

As others have stated, the trespass fine is 200cr and lasts 8 minutes. At least that aspect isn't bugged. If you then log and perform another scan at the same outpost, then yes, the bounty goes up and so does the duration. The third scan you perform gives you a 24hr bounty.

I did a vid of this for someone yesterday, this base should have been public, but it was subject to the bug of private, thta GG7 referred to...it still wasn't any trouble in a very light ship, and I had a 400cr fine that lasted 8 minutes, just like always.

https://youtu.be/KxjWDdODjC0

The point is, many of these missions should NOT involve a Trespass Zone or Private Beacon in the first place, so ANY fine or Bounty is the result of the bug. Not something the player should be forced to deal with, regardless of severity. (I had several 6 day duration bounties from these missions by the way)

But the bug/glitch goes far beyond the bounty part...

9 times out of 10, after scanning the beacon, receiving all the data, and even seeing the MISSION UPDATE flash across the screen on the INFO panel on the top right of the cockpit, the mission itself fails to update!

If you check your Navigation panel you will see that the GLOBE Icon next to the base you are currently landed at has not been removed like it normally is removed when a mission is completed and the mission is updated by the game. Checking the Transaction panel will also show the mission still in its previous uncompleted state.

So much so that you can leave the planet, come back and have it spawn a new base location and rinse and repeat the entire mission for a second time.

THAT was the primary reason for my warning and advice to avoid these like the plague until they are fixed.

I wasted so much time trying to complete these recently it wasn't funny. And all the Bounties I ended up getting wasn't appreciated either! Some of mine were 6 day duration by the way. Not just 24 hours.

And all these were the versions that should have never involved a PRIVATE Beacon in the first place! Civilian/Non-War versions have ALWAYS involved PUBLIC Beacons with NO Trespass zone from day one. I was there.

As such I ignore any erroneous claims to the contrary by new comers who were not around back then and have no idea how these missions are supposed to work when they are not severely bugged.

 

[UmbraRex]

The bug goes far beyong the bounty part though. 9 times out of 10, after scanning the beacon, receiving all the data, and even seeing the MISSION UPDATE flash across the screen on the INFO panel on the top right of the cockpit, the mission itself fails to update!

If you check your Navigation panel you will see that the GLOBE Icon next to the base you are currently landed at has not been removed like it normally is removed when a mission is completed and the mission is updated by the game. Checking the Transaction panel will also show the mission still in its previous uncompleted state.

So much so that you can leave the planet, come back and have it spawn a new base location and rinse and repeat the entire mission for a second time.

THAT was the primary reason for my warning and advice to avoid these like the plague until they are fixed.

I wasted so much time trying to complete these recently it wasn't funny. And all the Bounties I ended up getting wasn't appreciated either! Some of mine were 6 day duration by the way. Not just 24 hours.

And all these were the versions that should have never involved a PRIVATE Beacon in the first place! Civilian/Non-War versions have ALWAYS involved PUBLIC Beacons from day one these were released into the game. I was there, so I ignore any claims to the contrary by new comers who were not around back then.

Bounty durations are linked to the accumulated value.

If the bounty goes dormant and you get a new one from the same faction it becomes active again, the new bounty is added on top of the dormant total and the timer starts over.

The higher the total bounty the longer the duration, up to a max of seven days.

 

[Lightspeed]

6 day duration bounties? Methinks GG7 has been doing it wrong

Bounty durations are linked to the accumulated value.

If the bounty goes dormant and you get a new one from the same faction it becomes active again, the new bounty is added on top of the dormant total and the timer starts over.

The higher the total bounty the longer the duration, up to a max of seven days.

If you have a stack of them, and they appear to be going pear-shaped, with too many bounties, it's best to pull out and let the bounties subside. Do some missions elsewhere. Then return and complete those missions you left. They are long-term missions, anyway, so they give plenty of time for their completion. Maybe that's why.

 

[Schlack]

6 day duration bounties? Methinks GG7 has been doing it wrong



If you have a stack of them, and they appear to be going pear-shaped, with too many bounties, it's best to pull out and let the bounties subside. Do some missions elsewhere. Then return and complete those missions you left. They are long-term missions, anyway, so they give plenty of time for their completion. Maybe that's why.

Not really an option for missions when doing BGS work. That's if they changed influence during wartime... they don't.

 

[Faded Glory]

The point is, many of these missions should NOT involve a Trespass Zone or Private Beacon in the first place, so ANY fine or Bounty is the result of the bug. Not something the player should be forced to deal with, regardless of severity. (I had several 6 day duration bounties from these missions by the way)

I wasted so much time trying to complete these recently it wasn't funny. And all the Bounties I ended up getting wasn't appreciated either! Some of mine were 6 day duration by the way. Not just 24 hours.

And all these were the versions that should have never involved a PRIVATE Beacon in the first place! Civilian/Non-War versions have ALWAYS involved PUBLIC Beacons with NO Trespass zone from day one. I was there.

As such I ignore any erroneous claims to the contrary by new comers who were not around back then and have no idea how these missions are supposed to work when they are not severely bugged.

Not a new comer... I've been doing these missions since the beta in which they were introduced.

I'm not sure the private data point / trespass zone thing is a bug. Originally, none of the planetary scans had a private data point. Then they started to appear, but were very rare. In one of the recent updates (2.3 or 2.4) there was a patch note where it was stated that FD changed the numbers regarding the spawn of private data points, and they went up a bit. However, it wasn't enough for some, who complained on the forums that something paying so much should be harder, and my guess is that FD changed the numbers again, and now we have the situation where most are indeed private. It was always RNG in any case, the correlation between what kind of scan it was, standard / war / civil war never actually made any difference, although it undoubtedly should, if only for believability's sake.

That said, making them private really doesn't make them more difficult (and I do lots of them). Assuming the data point is private and in a trespass zone it is always possible to scan it from one point while remaining outside the zone, it's just a matter of finding that point. Once you've figured it out once, it's always the same point (for the specific outpost, and there are maybe three types of outpost). This will get a 5 or 6 hundred credit bounty (trespass for scanning a private data point) that expires in 8 minutes. If you get longer bounties it is because you are committing additional offenses and that is entirely avoidable.

Regarding the actual bug of the mission not completing, that does indeed exist, although as I said in another post it is (for me at least) a very rare occurrence. I haven't been able to figure out what triggers it, but I'd say it happens to me one time in perhaps 30+ scan missions, perhaps I'm just lucky. Since I still get the bounty, I just leave the system, wait 8 minutes (or do something else), then go back when the bounty has expired and complete the mission, that way it's just another 8 minute bounty.

 

[GG7]

Not really an option for missions when doing BGS work. That's if they changed influence during wartime... they don't.

If you persist in attempting to get one of these bugged mission to complete, you will incur more and more fines with every subsequent scan of the PRIVATE Beacon. (Respawned a half dozen times using the same bugged mission each time) which equals higher and higher bounty durations. I went through the trouble of accumulating these in order to submit them to Frontier Support to help prove my point at how screwed up these are.

Doing it wrong? Yeah right Mr. Clueless. [rolleyes]

I can see that one of my Ignore List choices continues to be more than viable.

 

[ries]

If you persist in attempting to get one of these bugged mission to complete, you will incur more and more fines with every subsequent scan of the PRIVATE Beacon. (Respawned a half dozen times using the same bugged mission each time) which equals higher and higher bounty durations. I went through the trouble of accumulating these in order to submit them to Frontier Support to help prove my point at how screwed up these are.

Doing it wrong? Yeah right Mr. Clueless. [rolleyes]

If you accept the missions make sure they are spread over multiple systems and from at least 2 factions in the neighbourhood, that way you can do one mission in one system for one faction, switch to another system and faction while your bounty timer runs out its 8 minutes. By the time you complete the 2nd mission your first bounty has run out and you can On H-jump back to first system and begin the 3rd mission.

The reason bounties stack is because you invade an private beacon while you still have a current bounty (from the same faction) on you, wich makes sense.