What did I do wrong? (Shadow smuggle fail)

[blowdog]

Been away for about a year, lots have changed in this game I noticed. Figured I wanted to get back into it so after reading a few things, noticed shadow smuggling is quite vougue right now.

I've never done smuggling before, always relied on trading and bounty hunting. So I parked up my Anaconda and fitted out an Asp.

My first attempt went very well. Picked up two jobs, about 400ly away, netted a few million, job done. Got interdicted a few times. Most of the times I failed and just hightailed it out of there again.

My second attempt went pete tong. This time, I picked up about 6 jobs and about 5 jumps out, I got interdicted by both security and a pirate at the same time. When I came out of supercruise, I was attacked by the rogue agent and scanned at the same time by security, instantly failing all my jobs.

What did I do wrong and how can I prevent it again?

 

[StuF]

Shoot or kill the system authority vessel before they complete their scan!

 

[Rubellen]

Shoot the cop. And DO NOT FORGET to target the cop and not the pirate (like I did yesterday, stupid me). Or face the cop and boost straight past him so he can't finish his scan.

 

[cmdr_Havalok]

Certain types of smuggling missions now contain a little blurb, "...FAIL IF SHIP IS SCANNED". One scan and the back-alley buyers want nothing to do with you anymore! On the upside, you still have the cargo and can recoup some of the cost at a Black Market. Maybe around 10% of what the payout would've been. The posters above have already provided good tips on how to avoid the Feds so I'll let their fine advice stand without further comment.


EDIT: There are also Dangerous Cargo missions that read "Mission FAILS if Ship Destroyed" so be sure to read all mission descriptions all the way thru going forward. I think we can expect more of these kind of CONDITIONAL missions.

 

[M. Grey]

Ain't that kind of obvious? The cargo will be destroyed with your ship and you lose the mission(s) and bounty vouchers. Or was this changed in 1.5/2.0?

 

[Rocky-451]

You're far less likely to be scanned if you take missions for delivering to outposts.

 

[Sams]

You're far less likely to be scanned if you take missions for delivering to outposts.

The shadow missions are scripted so you are 100% guaranteed to be meeting up with the scripted pirates and police as part of that script. If you pick up several missions you will have several scripts running so it isn't uncommon to have the op's scenario play out.

 

[EDbubba]

Did one Robigo run last night, 15 missions, CR 44.6 million

- in all interdiction cases: submit, full-throttle, boost (you can fight a pirate if you really want, but never the police, the extra time while you "spin" can add to scan-time. The time spent fighting an interdiction can be about the same as the submit/cool-down/jump, so it's kinda pointless really)

You will never be scanned if you submit and boost (assuming you have an ASP with class-A thrusters, and a class-A power distributor) Other ships like a Python are too slow to escape a scan, and need to resort to attacking. A Class-A Cobra makes it trivial, but the extra jumps increase the interdiction frequency.

All-in-all it's a complete non-issue, keeping in mind that both police and pirates are really only an issue in a delivery system (where you don't need/want to high-wake out). Police and pirates can be persistent, and having the police drop in with you at an outpost means that you must leave right away, or try to boost away and go cold. (long & tedious)

Watch the message pane very carefully when you arrive at a star, orange text is bad, all the others trying to get you to drop can be utterly ignored. If you don't have orange text from the police, take your time and refuel.

Watch your "mini-radar" very closely on drop-in and know exactly which way to go to the next jump, and have your finger on the FSD button ready for the instant the count-down hits zero. You can escape probably 50% of police interdiction attempts if you jump in the absolutely fastest possible time.

P.S. What is a "rogue agent"? You were probably attacked by pirate and you didn't notice the police enter the same instance a little later. Boost away and ignore them, never try to engage in any way...

 

[Bomba Luigi]

The more Missions you stack the more people will come after you, since you get stalker for every single mission.

If a mission will fail upon scanning depends on the Mission, there are smuggling mission where you can get scanned and its no problem (apart from the fine you get) but if you have any mission on board where you fail when scanned do everything to prevent it. As someone else already said shoot a ship that scans you. For shooting a System security you get a very small bounty that disapears very quick again (I think jumping to another system will already do it), not a big deal. Just be careful around stations, if they notice you are wanted they are not nice to you.

While its in general true that smuggling to outpost is much easier then station be careful! System Security that scans you can spawn when exiting SC at an Outpost when you run missions and they very much like to scan you when you are about to dock or even while you are docked where you can't do anything. If you exit at an Outpost and see about the same time another ship spawn check if it is a System security - if it is do not try to dock he will try to scan you and shooting him is at an outpost not a good Idea. Go back to SC and drop out again at the station and see if you can get rid off him.

 

[kenworth]

My second attempt went pete tong. This time, I picked up about 6 jobs and about 5 jumps out, I got interdicted by both security and a pirate at the same time. When I came out of supercruise, I was attacked by the rogue agent and scanned at the same time by security, instantly failing all my jobs.

What did I do wrong and how can I prevent it again?

I have had the pirate/system authority combo happen many times. In all cases just put 4 pips to engines and kept boosting until FSD cool-down completed. Security would always start a scan, but could never complete it. Never failed a mission with this approach (A-rated Asp)

 

[Rocky-451]

The shadow missions are scripted so you are 100% guaranteed to be meeting up with the scripted pirates and police as part of that script. If you pick up several missions you will have several scripts running so it isn't uncommon to have the op's scenario play out.

I've taken plenty of these shadow missions. The hardest part is getting past the police at the station where you need to dock. I've found that when delivering to outposts, there are no police waiting there 90% of the time.

 

[Trogster]

I had an outpost scan start as I was on the ramp moving up to the pad from the hanger, by the time I was released the scan had completed and a load of mission fails and a fine! Not exactly a fair mechanic if there are no actions you can perform to prevent it! Fly safe cmdrs

 

[paulca]

I had a "Fail if scanned" mission the other night and got interdicted. I submitted. A single green security vessel. The moment I came out of SC the message "Scan detected" came up and two seconds later the Mission Failed. There as nothing I could do about it. There was no time to run, no time to shoot, it was literally about 1 second after I dropped to normal space that the scan started.

 

[kenworth]

I've taken plenty of these shadow missions. The hardest part is getting past the police at the station where you need to dock. I've found that when delivering to outposts, there are no police waiting there 90% of the time.

I have done over 150 of these missions with zero failures using the following approach for entry/exit of stations:

1. While in SC position your ship between the planet/star that the station is orbiting and the station. This lines you up with the mail slot upon SC exit.
2. Objective is to get thru the mail slot as quickly as possible, so I have 4 pips to engines and boost toward it
3. At 7.5KM from station request docking
4. Once docking permission granted, immediately activate silent running
5. Pop a heat sink
6. Don't freak if you get a "Scan detected", just get through the mail slot and the scan will stop

As far as exiting the station, I just align with the mail slot and exit at top speed, boosting until all security contacts drop off the scanner before aligning with jump point. I have never been scanned at outposts or surface stations, but having read some of the posts here I may have just jinxed myself

 

[M. Grey]

I had an outpost scan start as I was on the ramp moving up to the pad from the hanger, by the time I was released the scan had completed and a load of mission fails and a fine! Not exactly a fair mechanic if there are no actions you can perform to prevent it! Fly safe cmdrs

It's not the station or outpost that scans, it's the authority vessels that scan you. The scan is stopped once you pass the mail slot of the station or enter the hangar of the outpost.

I had a "Fail if scanned" mission the other night and got interdicted. I submitted. A single green security vessel. The moment I came out of SC the message "Scan detected" came up and two seconds later the Mission Failed. There as nothing I could do about it. There was no time to run, no time to shoot, it was literally about 1 second after I dropped to normal space that the scan started.

Hard to believe that. Any scan takes 10 seconds to finish no matter the scanner class.

Attention: Silent running will only "hide" you from the scan if you're > 500m away from the vessel, < 500m the scan can still be finished!

 

[EDbubba]

The more Missions you stack the more people will come after you, since you get stalker for every single mission.

Categorically, there is no such thing as a "stalker", they are utterly harmless noise, they don't "come after you" (in a threatening sense).

You will get spammed by a number of NPCs asking you to "drop-out and talk" equal to the number of missions, but that is just noise you can completely ignore.

Police/pirates (the only relevant events) are completely random. I made it all the way back from Robigo with one (failed) police interdiction attempt. There is zero correlation with the number of missions taken and police/pirates.

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As far as exiting the station, I just align with the mail slot and exit at top speed, boosting until all security contacts drop off the scanner before aligning with jump point. I have never been scanned at outposts or surface stations, but having read some of the posts here I may have just jinxed myself

All good stuff, but there is one weird outpost exception that I have seen and has been noted. There's a military outpost somewhere near Hel (has a weird spinning "rotisserie" on the side), and it's swarming with police. Deliveries here are very tricky, but can be done. As someone noted, at this particular station, you can be scanned as you leave, so that is very hard to fight.

Outpost don't have the "cover" a station provides. The minute you're on the pad, going up, you can be scanned, as well as all the way down. But, that being said, I've only ever seen one military outpost in all my 4+ weeks of gameplay.

 

[kenworth]

Categorically, no...

You will get spammed by a number of NPCs asking you to "drop" equal to the number of missions, but that is just noise you can completely ignore.

Police/pirates (the only relevant events) are completely random. I made it all the way back from Robigo with one (failed) police interdiction attempt. There is zero correlation with the number of missions taken and police/pirates.

Agreed...that has been my experience as well. The other tip to note here is that if you are interdicted, there are limited ways to stop the same ship from interdicting you continuously all the way to the delivery station:

- If it is security, you need to high wake to another system and come back. That typically gets rid of them.
- If pirate, either kill the pirate, or high wake to another system and come back.

 

[blowdog]

Thanks to all for the advice - very helpful.

The orange text did indeed come up. If I recall the writing was something along the lines of 'Requesting permission to scan suspicious ship' or something to that effect.

Also sorry, should have mentioned, well aware that a scan instigated a fail. I was just annoyed I had both a security and a pirate vessel on me at the same time.

 

[blowdog]

Did one Robigo run last night, 15 missions, CR 44.6 million

- in all interdiction cases: submit, full-throttle, boost (you can fight a pirate if you really want, but never the police, the extra time while you "spin" can add to scan-time. The time spent fighting an interdiction can be about the same as the submit/cool-down/jump, so it's kinda pointless really)

You will never be scanned if you submit and boost (assuming you have an ASP with class-A thrusters, and a class-A power distributor) Other ships like a Python are too slow to escape a scan, and need to resort to attacking. A Class-A Cobra makes it trivial, but the extra jumps increase the interdiction frequency.

All-in-all it's a complete non-issue, keeping in mind that both police and pirates are really only an issue in a delivery system (where you don't need/want to high-wake out). Police and pirates can be persistent, and having the police drop in with you at an outpost means that you must leave right away, or try to boost away and go cold. (long & tedious)

Watch the message pane very carefully when you arrive at a star, orange text is bad, all the others trying to get you to drop can be utterly ignored. If you don't have orange text from the police, take your time and refuel.

Watch your "mini-radar" very closely on drop-in and know exactly which way to go to the next jump, and have your finger on the FSD button ready for the instant the count-down hits zero. You can escape probably 50% of police interdiction attempts if you jump in the absolutely fastest possible time.

P.S. What is a "rogue agent"? You were probably attacked by pirate and you didn't notice the police enter the same instance a little later. Boost away and ignore them, never try to engage in any way...

This is now my bible post thanks so much so many useful bits of information here. I'm actually right there as well that's where I'm making my fortune. When I said rogue agent I was just using a little bit of artistic license for pirates.

I think the key is class A bits to ensure a quick getaway. Will do that.

 

[Garagiste]

The very best tip (IMO) is to scoop at an appallingly slow rate with your back to the sun.
Any security / pirate ship that tries to interdict you will just plop into the sun.

Beyond that, it's just RNG unfortunately. I've had instant interdictions the second you drop out of SC, and impossibily fast scan completion.
Can't win 'em all.