Help, Freighter expedition times

[Aradner]

I wanted to finally beef up my freighter, after ignoring its upgrades for a long time. Decided to get myself a team of frigates to aupport the one I already had, but now all the expeditions are roughly 10 times longer. I found out it happened when you get more than 3 frigates (which is the dumbest mechanic I have ever seen) and I now have 5.

So the question is, can I dismiss 2 of them and be back to normal times, or am I just boned and have to start building fleet with totally unupgraded freighter?

[Shadow Strider]

No idea what happens if you dismiss them.
However, you can reduce the length quite a bit by getting some freighter tech upgrade modules

[Aradner]

Well, the expeditions now bring MUCH better rewards so I guess I am not boned, but it still could be communicated better somehow

[Shadow Strider]

Originally posted by Aradner:

Well, the expeditions now bring MUCH better rewards so I guess I am not boned, but it still could be communicated better somehow

Well, you only get 5 missions a day anyway, so even if you complete them all faster, you won't be be able to start the next round any sooner...

There are a few things that silently make things easier for new saves (afaik, enemies have reduced damage/hp until you equip any shield upgrades...).
Personally, I prefer learning things for myself rather than having everything spelled out for me... makes experimenting more engaging.

[Jaggid Edje]

Longer missions give more rewards, and as someone already said, you can only do 5 per day anyway. There's not really any logical reason to keep your fleet at 3 frigates or fewer. The 'advantage' of shorter expeditions is not really a positive thing.

Get up to a (at least close to) full fleet of frigates so you can have all 5 expeditions being completed at once and you'll have no issues completing all 5 each day.

You can also upgrade your freighter with the procedural tech modules that improve expedition speed and get some support frigates in your fleet that do the same if you still want them done faster beyond that.

[mystikmind2005]

You don't really need freighter upgrades to run fleets successfully. Early on when i don't have those upgrades and most of my frigates are low level, i run a higher proportion of combat frigates, 2 or 3 on every three star mission. As my frigates level up i start dismissing combat frigates right down to only 3 out of 30 frigates!

Combat frigates are not too bad to repair if they get damaged, but industrial frigates are your worst nightmare to repair, someone over at HG had a huge evil laugh when they completed this frigate, so, never put those in risky situations.

[Lindy Bomber]

I think the game will give you a few short frigate missions to start with, then you get normal missions which can be up to 26 hours.

If you were playing the current expedition they you definitely got short Frigate missions.

[Aradner]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

I think the game will give you a few short frigate missions to start with, then you get normal missions which can be up to 26 hours.

If you were playing the current expedition they you definitely got short Frigate missions.

I can disprove that, because I sent a mission that was supposed to last 1 hour, afterwards I bought more frigares, and then came back to the ship. The expedition did not last 1 hour, it changed its duration while it was already sent and came back with improved rewards. Hence why I am saying this system is dumb

[Foxglovez]

Hmmm, but what Lindy said is still true. Those first couple mission are just an hour or two and it's not until your freighter is fully tricked out with every possible upgrade and you have very good support vessels will they shorten down much ever again. Both things can be true, one does not negate the other, one does not cause the other.

The frigates/missions is one of the many NMS mini-games. There's actually lots to it if you feel like making that a part of your NMS game, way too much to get into here. If you are really interested in frigates, organic vs traditional, upgrading, effects of freighter upgrades and what's possible you get to do a deep dive. Most folks just want to mess about with them till they become bored then ignore the process or not think too hard on it.

The system just is what it is. It might change in the future or not, HG doesn't communicate with any version of a roadmap so if you don't like a system then figure out what you would like and let HG know through the Zendesk. They don't read these posts (that we know of) - or just call the system dumb - where it might just be a bug, an unintended consequence of some other bit of spaghetti code HG touched. They can't know what noone tells them and complaining here doesn't count...

[lordoftheapes79]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

I think the game will give you a few short frigate missions to start with, then you get normal missions which can be up to 26 hours.

If you were playing the current expedition they you definitely got short Frigate missions.

You get abbreviated missions until you get your 4th frigate. Then you're into normal gameplay.

[lordoftheapes79]

Originally posted by Aradner:

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

I think the game will give you a few short frigate missions to start with, then you get normal missions which can be up to 26 hours.

If you were playing the current expedition they you definitely got short Frigate missions.

I can disprove that, because I sent a mission that was supposed to last 1 hour, afterwards I bought more frigares, and then came back to the ship. The expedition did not last 1 hour, it changed its duration while it was already sent and came back with improved rewards. Hence why I am saying this system is dumb

Most of this game is learned "the hard way". You can bring those times back down by getting upgrades from running derelict freighters. In the meantime tho, you can get better results by improving your fleet. Buy more frigates and start putting them to work. They'll upgrade over time and you'll get better results. You can have up to 30 frigates, use them. It's a passive income system, you can only do 5 missions per day.

[frazzled]

Get 30 frigates.

Do 5 missions a day.

Usually, one of those missions will be around 24 hours. maybe a bit longer. That means tomorrow you can send fleets out for all 5 missions, but have to do so a little later in the day.

Eventually you may need to do only 4 missions on a day because you don't feel like staying up for that 5th fleet to return.

However, at the same time, you are upgrading your freighter. One of the upgrades you can find is one that decreases the time for your frigates to complete missions. Once you have 3 of those upgrades the longest mission only takes around 12 hours.

Do not expect to have all of that tomorrow. It takes weeks to get there.

[smurfy]

In the Expedition, if you recruit 3 or more additional frigates (tested by redeeming the 3 S-class reward frigates from the QS vendor) before talking to the navigator, you will not see "short" (<2 hours) missions at all.

Have not tested this in normal gameplay, but I assume it will behave similarly.

As stated by others, notwithstanding a bit of deadline overlap, you only get to do 5 in any 24 hour period, so short ones are not beneficial anyway.