Nexus missions: a horrible experience

[Killjoy]

Bear with me as this will be somewhat long. I tried Nexus missions for the first time today. As someone who plays this game solo 100% of the time, I was actually excited to try out this functionality. This would allow me the option to potentially meet new people and expand my playing groups. Ironically, both the missions I played today resulted in no one joining, but that's not the reason for this post.

The first mission I took was to kill a bunch of dangerous floras, something I love doing anyways. I was able to complete the mission objective, but when I went back to the Nexus, I didn't see any reference of that mission existing, even when it was still on my secondary mission list. Was it completed? Is it stuck? Who knows. I'm chalking this up to the grouping of Nexus bugs to see if this gets fixed (hopefully it doesn't stay around as long as the infamous big bucket bug).

The second mission I started to collect 15 larval core. This was something I considered a challenge, but I figured the quest reward plus the cash from the eggs would make it worthwhile. I come down to the planet to see... nothing. Hmm. "Use the Analysis visor to search for eggs" still nothing. Oho, wait! A building in the distance! I'm guessing this where it's at.. Nope, its an empty beacon. At this point, I'm guessing that I'm just being dumped into a procedurally generated planet where I need to be lucky enough to track down the right kind of building that (hopefully) has enough larval cores that I can collect. Did I mention that larval cores seem to be bugged themselves? About a third of the time, they seem to just drop down to the center of the planet, unable to be collected.

At any rate, I'm really disappointed that HG didn't seem to put a bit more thought into this process, and for me, what was considered to be a big part of this release, seems like a really lazy effort. Hopefully this gets some love (soon, not in the next 6-12 months) to improve these missions.

BONUS UPDATE: I no longer have a freighter, either! Way to go, HG!

[Troy Zodiac]

You can find abandoned buildings with your exocraft scanner

[Jez Hammond]

All of the missions do feel like old stuff yes, and also they feel like tutorials aimed at new players only.

I've often seen the marker vanish once in the atmosphere. Then there's the twist for example, find bones on this water world. Or the poster above needed an abandoned building so I guess spawning an upgraded exo craft would find one easily, or the sub.

I was able to turn the missions in once complete, like the bone collection just needed 1 'special' bone then notified to return to Nexus. I do play offline, and I don't select the sub-mission in the pause menu as the notifications are too persistant.

[necaradan666]

I've been doing Nexus missions for a couple of weeks on experimental, including the kill hazardous flora mission multiple times, haven't experienced any bugs at all so far.

I haven't even seen one to collect larval cores that I can remember, done plenty of kill monstrosities though, each mission I attempted gave pretty clear directions on where I needed to go.

Tried a couple in a group too they seemed to work fine. Even had a guy join my group as I launched a mission and when I got back he said thanks for the nip nips, so I assume he got the reward even though he did none of the work.

Make sure you have the correct mission selected before you complete it. I've seen people mention it can bug out if you don't.

[DeadMeat]

I had the kill 30 monstrosities which turns out to be 60, (10 + 20 + 30) for 3 different sites. This was awesome actually since I got a ton of larval cores, but when I turned it in at Nexus and got another kill monstrosities mission it sent me back to same locations. First location respawned eggs but second location did not. I did not feel like looking for a different abandoned base in order to complete mission so I just saved and reloaded. Doing this cancelled the mission and put me back in to the anomaly. I have a feeling and can never chose that mission again from that system or really duplicated it in any system. That'll be a pain to keep track of.

[Rexxer]

Publicado originalmente por sandpiper_sj:

... "Use the Analysis visor to search for eggs" still nothing. Oho, wait! A building in the distance! I'm guessing this where it's at.. Nope, its an empty beacon. At this point, I'm guessing that I'm just being dumped into a procedurally generated planet where I need to be lucky enough to track down the right kind of building that (hopefully) has enough larval cores that I can collect. Did I mention that larval cores seem to be bugged themselves? About a third of the time, they seem to just drop down to the center of the planet, unable to be collected.....

You seem to be describing a combination of the normal behavior of larval cores combined, possibly, with a known marker bug.

Collection of larval cores has ALWAYS had about a 10% failure rate....not all collection attempts are successful BY DESIGN. If you noticed more carefully, the failed larval core collection attempts have a little "poof, up in smoke" animation associated with it. Also it has ALWAYS been the case that if you don't collect larval cores within 10 seconds, they disintegrate. It is a time-base skill quest. A twitch challenge.

Actually, collecting larval cores now after the update is easier than it was previously. You will come to love larval cores because if you refine them, you get 50 nanites each. Basically you can buy about two S-class upgrades with one larval hunting trip. Units are easy to come by, nanites harder, so I normally just refine rather than sell larval cores. By harder, I mean it usually is more tedious to get massive quantities of nanites. Massive unit income is easy, and you cannot buy nanites directly, you have to make them or find them. Raiding secure sites is another way to get crappy upgrades which you can sell for nanites, but if you look at the time involved, larval cores are by far the fastest way. That's why you will find you will be raiding a lot more abandoned buildings for larval cores, eventually.

Although I thought quest markers were high priority and were not affected by the marker bug, it may be that the markers you were looking for fell victim to that. When you use your survey visor ("F + Q" together), it clears all temporary markers....permanently. Until you reload that is. But just touch the survey visor once and all temp markers, usually just beacon markers, will disappear. You can get around the marker bug by immediately highlighting the marker you are following....the visor-marker bug won't affect it then.

[tkwoods]

I've been doing Nexus missions for the last three days and have no issues. You do have to follow the directions. I have done the monstrocites, hazardous flora and digging up bones. All worked fine. I still have a freighter and base...

[japp_02]

Even in Single Player, some of the Nexus missions are the most interesting ones in terms of rewards.

[tkwoods]

Publicado originalmente por japp_02:

Even in Single Player, some of the Nexus missions are the most interesting ones in terms of rewards.

Yes... salvage frigate modules, fusion reactor worth 4.1 million...plus a bunch of units...

[necaradan666]

I found my first Collect 15 Larval Cores mission last night, I selected it specifically because of this thread, so I thought I'd update with what happened. I actually left the Anomaly via the teleporter because I needed some resources from my base so I never got the free warp to the mission location.
Soon discovered the mission was located in a blue system so I had to build an indium drive to even get there, then the marker led me to a portal and I thought "oh boy, here we go.. " but it didn't require me to go through. Probably just a lucky random location on the planet I was supposed to be on, rather than showing me a portal for any particular reason.
It was one of those dead worlds with the occasional single egg scattered all over it's surface. Pretty easy to collect em, fun times when I got headbutted by a horror while jetpacking in that low gravity, sent me zooming off into the distance.
Everything worked without a hitch, even though I had to jump through a couple hoops due to my own actions. When I got to the trading post to turn in my collected items the mission only asked for 5, so I got to keep 10 Larval Cores along with the 440k units and 5 Acid reward.

[japp_02]

Laval core mission (48 monsters to kill):

With the Larval Core mission, you must not collect too many eggs immediately otherwise you will have to search other locations on your own afterwards. Every time you shoot an egg the monsters will spawn, shoot them all or wait until they disappear until you shoot the next eggs. 48 monsters are a LOT to deal with but you can do it on 1 location if you time your actions well. Then you must operate the device inside the building and you get pointed to a 2nd location. If all goes well you don't need to search for a 3rd abandonded building on your own and you can finish the mission on that 2nd location.

[Rexxer]

Publicado originalmente por japp_02:

Laval core mission (48 monsters to kill):

With the Larval Core mission, you must not collect too many eggs immediately otherwise you will have to search other locations on your own afterwards. Every time you shoot an egg the monsters will spawn, shoot them all or wait until they disappear until you shoot the next eggs. 48 monsters are a LOT to deal with but you can do it on 1 location if you time your actions well. Then you must operate the device inside the building and you get pointed to a 2nd location. If all goes well you don't need to search for a 3rd abandonded building on your own and you can finish the mission on that 2nd location.

In other words, Larval cores automatically disappear about 5-10 sec after you mine them. You gotta be fast. The way to mine them fast....I rarely even save game as I go along any more they have made this so easy....is to stand on top of the abandoned building, then pick a side of the building where there are few horrors and shoot an egg, quickly fly down and pick it up and fly back up to the top of the building. The spitting damages you far less than the head butting.

You can even herd the horrors a bit so you can make collecting uber fast: on long buildings, the ones with about 30 or more eggs, pick a side. If you fire and collect one egg on one side, then fly over to the other side immediately, there will be no horrors and you can often collect 4 to 8 eggs completely undisturbed. Most horrors erupt around the egg you FIRST shoot, so don't let the swarm subside EVER. That is the trick to collecting them really fast, like in less than 3 min for 30 or more.

[antoca]

NMS went so downhill no one would expect.

[japp_02]

Publicado originalmente por antoca:

NMS went so downhill no one would expect.

Why? Because of some missions you can't do? Skip them and do something else.

[Rexxer]

Publicado originalmente por japp_02:

Publicado originalmente por antoca:

NMS went so downhill no one would expect.

Why? Because of some missions you can't do? Skip them and do something else.

Probably because of all the building bugs. On one hand, HG massively expanded base building capabilities, but the building system is now so thoroughly bugged it's almost unsuable. I've been cataloging all of the bugs, and it is extensive. It was much more usable and enjoyable before. It would be more so now, if there weren't so many bugs. It's why when the Beyond upgrade first came out, I posted "Is NMS now ANTI Base Building?" A bugged system is worse than no system at all.

[japp_02]

For single players, these Nexus missions are highly recommended because well paid and short:
- Hunt Aggressive Flora
- Hunt buried treasures, bones
- Attack or penetrate a Depot or Command Center

Other missions are much tougher in single player like
- Building a base
- Larval Cores hunting
- ... Other ones with high quantity to collect or extensive when doing alone.

For getting the reward, always return to the Nexus device and interact.