Why the delay on "take down xyz pirate" missions?

Arvel Yael · Mar 25, 2017

I'm seeing this an awful lot. Example in front of me is:

"We need you to assassinate one of the Pirate lord, George M. Rodriguez from LTT 7548 Universal Solutions.

We expect the target to be in the LTT 7453 system between 13:30 and 14:00"

*checks time* 12:52.
It's not going to take me 38 minutes to fly two LY, so what exactly am I supposed to do for the next 2 thirds of an hour?

Am I missing a trick here? I don't go looking for missions because I want to play at some point in the future.

Hellakitty · Mar 25, 2017

Go there straight away, you might just drop on the guy floating around reading the paper and having a coffee.

Codger · Mar 25, 2017

You don't have to wait, just go to the system and honk your discovery scanner, or scan the nav beacon. The mission will update immediately. Just do it before the end time, that's the only one that matters.

Ian Skippy · Mar 25, 2017

The time window is for when the target is in SC. If you want to do it earlier, you can find out where he hides. As Artigan said, use the ADD or the nav beacon, which will give a mission update. Go to the location and you'll find a Mission USS after a while. Your target will be in it.

Lord Tareq · Mar 25, 2017

sleutelbos said:
The time window is for when the target is in SC. If you want to do it earlier, you can find out where he hides. As Artigan said, use the ADD or the nav beacon, which will give a mission update. Go to the location and you'll find a Mission USS after a while. Your target will be in it.

Are there any consequences for missing the 30 minutes or so 'window'? The mission itself often says you have like several days to complete it, but then gives an ETA timeframe of 30 minutes which is confusing.

GeneralIdea1964 · Mar 25, 2017

Lord Tareq said:
Are there any consequences for missing the 30 minutes or so 'window'? The mission itself often says you have like several days to complete it, but then gives an ETA timeframe of 30 minutes which is confusing.

This is a bit of an issue, especially if he gets away.
With a few days to complete, you would expect to have another chance later on having missed first window.

Anyway, now you know about it, you can allow for it.

Easy

Ian Skippy · Mar 25, 2017

Lord Tareq said:
Are there any consequences for missing the 30 minutes or so 'window'? The mission itself often says you have like several days to complete it, but then gives an ETA timeframe of 30 minutes which is confusing.

Yes. The 'completion time' is for handing the mission back in. After the ETA the target is gone. So you MUST kill the target before ETA expires (if you see him at that time you can still finish him, but you wont find him otherwise), and then you have until the mission timer to hand it in.

GeneralIdea1964 · Mar 25, 2017

sleutelbos said:
Yes. The 'completion time' is for handing the mission back in. After the ETA the target is gone. So you MUST kill the target before ETA expires (if you see him at that time you can still finish him, but you wont find him otherwise), and then you have until the mission timer to hand it in.

Thank you for explanation, I'd not realised there was a limit on handing in mission as other general pirate contracts have no time limit on return to issuer.