Newcomer / Intro What are "Traders" and Why No Credits for Ship Kills?

[RobH]

I have been playing the game for about 2 weeks and am still in my Sidewinder.

I take a mission at Barnard's Star, Miller Depot Station to kill 2 Traders in the Barnard's Star/Luhman 16 area. I go to the Nav Beacon and start looking at ships dropping in. None I see are marked as "Traders" after scanning. Then I see a Hauler, he's Wanted and I assume he is a Trader, so I attack and kill him and am awarded credits. Same thing happens with an Anaconda though I admit I was assisted by the Feds. I go back to Miller Depot and my mission to kill 2 Traders is still active and I get the credits for the 2 ship kills through the Contacts section.

I go back to the Nav Beacon and start looking again for Traders. No ships marked as "Traders" but a number of "Wanted" ships appear so I join in the fights and receive 176K credits for an Anaconda kill and 54K credits for a Cobra kill plus some other lesser credits. I go back to Miller Depot to claim my credits and nothing, NADA - no credits to redeem in Contacts, nothing on the Bulletin Board to redeem or abort the "Kill 2 Traders" mission although it is still there in the Transactions - Contracts section so I have not run out of time. What is happening? I do not have a kill warrant scanner so the kills had to be Fed ships. Those 2 big credits alone were both more than the total of all my previous credits so far!

So what does the mission to kill "Traders" mean? How do I identify "Traders"? And any idea why no credits were available even though they were clearly awarded to me for my ship kills?

Rob

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

My knowledge of this particular type of mission is limited, but as far as I know the mission demands that you kill "clean" targets. It is an illegal mission that will get you a bounty on your head. The traders you seek can be found inside "Unidentified Signal Sources" (or USS).

USS randomly pop up in supercruise every 30 seconds to roughly 2 minutes. The fastest method to catch them is to enter supercruise, throttle to zero so you keep cruising at minimum speed (= 30 km/s) and watch the nav contact panel to your left. If a USS pops up, you enter it by locking on to the contact - because you are cruising at minimum speed, the USS popped up in optimal entry distance, and you are already at optimal supercruise drop-out speed. So you should see a "safe disengage" message on top of your dashboard. Exit supercruise immediately if those circumstances apply, and you are inside the instance of the USS.

The content of USS is spawned randomly upon entry, so you might not find your traders right away. What I THINK qualifies as traders are two types of USS that I have come across so far:

- a convoy of Lakon Freighters in sublight speed, escorted by Sidewinders
- a single Type 9 spamming comms messages "seeking tech for good prices"
- a Hauler and a Type 6 being scanned by system security ships or bounty hunters.

All those targets are clean, so you will get a bounty on your head for killing them. This is because the mission you took is illegal. Some evil politician or mobster boss or whoever is behind your contract has hired you to do his dirty work.

If you kill the trading ships, watch your contract in the "Transactions" panel to the left. Has the kill count been updated? If not, then you need to seek out other kinds of traders. Maybe the guys you killed were smugglers, not traders (yes, the game makes a difference there). Also: Beware of system security vessels joining the fight to take you down!

You might also end up in a USS with a random ship messaging you about your contract. This is a mission branch. Somebody has found out who you are working for and is offering you an alternative. If you'd rather not slay innocents and stay on the bright side of the law, you might wanna consider it, even if the pay for abandoning your contract is less.

The other party, however, might be just as corrupt as your contractor and send you to kill authority ships in the system you just came from, as retaliation for the attempt to disrupt commerce in their own system. So you are getting right between the frontlines of a trade war.

It's for you to decide. Personally, I would always recommend to only take "kill Pirates" or "destroy Warzone" missions, as those are legal, and you also get bounties / combat bonds for every ship you kill, but no bounty on your own head (as long as you finish scanning potential pirate vessels to check whether they are indeed wanted before opening fire).

Now to the credits:

You were awarded bounty vouchers when you killed your targets, but you cannot get the payout from Miller's Depot. This means that the faction who issued said kill warrants is not represented on Miller's Depot. Look into the transactions tab to your left, and you should see a list of bounties and where you can get them. It will always tell you which faction issued the bounty: Empire, Alliance, Federation... or an independent sub faction like "Yembo Interstellar". If the latter is the case, look in the galaxy map for the system where you killed the ships. Enter the system's map and browse the stations or look which sub factions are represented in the system. You might find the faction you are looking for among them. Then you just need to fly back to the system and get your bounty from the locals.

Have fun and best of luck in your future endeavours! Try to stay clean, it pays!!!

 

[RobH]

Thanks for the information regarding "Traders". As the mission did not state it was illegal, I assumed it did not mean "clean" traders. Will have to investigate further into those USSs if another similar type of mission comes up.

Look into the transactions tab to your left, and you should see a list of bounties and where you can get them. It will always tell you which faction issued the bounty: Empire, Alliance, Federation... or an independent sub faction like "Yembo Interstellar". If the latter is the case, look in the galaxy map for the system where you killed the ships. Enter the system's map and browse the stations or look which sub factions are represented in the system. You might find the faction you are looking for among them. Then you just need to fly back to the system and get your bounty from the locals.

The point is there is NOTHING in the Transactions tab regarding any bounties due! Yet I very clearly killed several ships and saw the credits awarded to me message come up. I can only assume it is some sort of a bug. Will have to go and find some more wanted ships and see if this recurs.

Rob

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

The point is there is NOTHING in the Transactions tab regarding any bounties due! Yet I very clearly killed several ships and saw the credits awarded to me message come up. I can only assume it is some sort of a bug. Will have to go and find some more wanted ships and see if this recurs.

Rob

Please ticket this issue and report it in the bug forum, if you don't find something similar there already. Also: Document it as best you can (videos, screenshots, anything helps), so the devs can pursue this issue.

 

[RobH]

Thanks, I'll do that.

Rob

 

[InMemoriamSirocco]

There is one possibility I have not yet considered:

If you get a bounty on your own head, the message that pops up to the top right of your cockpit looks very similar to the one you get when aquiring a bounty voucher.

Please check whether you got a bounty on your head instead of aquiring a bounty voucher... you can do so by going to your local station's contacts and clicking on either "Security" or "Pilot's Federation". If you have a bounty to pay off, it will be listed.

You could theoretically have mistaken the two messages. But then you would have become wanted in the system you fought in.

 

[RobH]

No, no bounties on me and I certainly did not make a mistake with the message. When you get 176K credits for an Anaconda kill, there is no mistaking it

Btw, I have now been back to the Barnard's Star nav beacon, killed a couple more ships and correctly received and cashed the credits for them at Miller's Depot station. I am sure the problem I had must have been something to do with a conflict with the "Kill 2 Traders" mission I was on at the time and I will post it as a possible bug.

Rob