Black Box Missions

[Adrian]

Sorry to ask for help, but I have searched discussions etc and can't find an answer to my query.
I accepted a black box retrieval mission and was told I had to search unidentified signal sources around a star. I found a USS but it did not have the black box. I found another, then another etc but after two and a half hours I had not stumbled upon the black box. I still keep finding signals but when I stop at them I just find other things.
Am I doing something wrong, or am I really supposed to just keep searching and hope for some luck?

[Adrian]

Typical. Just as I clicked "Post" the following reply came onto another discussion where I had made this comment:
When you first enter a system looking for a black box or doing a scan mission of some sort, go to the nav beacon of the system the mission is in and scan it. Then you will get a message from the people who gave you the mission who will give you a clue about where to go. Depending on the mission and what you're looking for either you will hear mission critical (Whatever) and see a place in your navagation computer that is blue to go to and drop out of space or you will just see eventually update in your nav computer a location with the little (Mission globe icon) to go to. It takes a bit to figure out, but you'll get it.
Thanks, Static, for posting this.
However, if anyone else has any tips I would love to hear them.

[FINAL_Bₒₛₛ]

It has to be the Signal of the mission, which is a blue signal, you will find many different signals in the way, but those aren't part of the mission, those are random ones.

Search around the star in every angle, if it doesn't work near the star, get more distant from the star, you will find it eventually.
Make sure you are in the correct star or location in the navigation panel.

[Static]

I'm a hero!

[Adrian]

Thanks, Final_B. Because I was told to search the signals, I had not realised that the required one would be a different colour.
And thanks, Static. You are, indeed, a hero.
All those people who mention "steep learning curve" in reviews are spot on. It is, however, very satisfying when I get some small crumb of success (or it would be if it wasn't through asking for help all the time).

[CapKom7]

Your ship voice will say "Mission Objective Detected" and the USS will be in Blue.

[Elder Drake]

I also just learned and thought I would share that the missions to retrieve a commodity that is on a planet is a little similar. Vets will probably roll their eyes at this but for new players there is a lot to learn. Anyways you fly to the planet and head to the crash site marker, for me it shifted 4-5 times then I got a solid marker that did not go away, landed, picked up the goods in my SRV, and off I went.

Seriously as a starting player these missions seems to be the way to go (averaging right now around 150-200k/mission) but be careful of being jumped after you grab anything. Loving this game so far, I really hope that they add more this year and that it is not shallow in content.

[Adrian]

Thanks again for lots of useful info. I am about to try again and feel quite confident.

[Kenzie_SFT]

I did this, scanned the nav beacon, but my mission just disappeared off of my list and there are no black boxes around.

[Adrian]

I haven't played this game for over a year (I think) but am intending to get back to it sometime (when I can get a large chunk of uninterrupted playing time that this game requires) in order to see whether the new updates are as good as they look - particularly the very encouraging looking April update. Unfortunately, instances like the one above were all too common last year and I got fed up playing a game that kept letting me down, so I am disappointed to see a problem that I had a few times is still existing for at least one other person. I should point out that this particular post was me, as a newbie, failing to understand a point, but missions disappearing etc were common themes in other posts.

[<< BATFINK >>]

You should also be able to go into analysis mode and do a discovery scan of the system. This will not only show up all planetary bodies, etc, but also all signals in the system. You do a standard search and scan of the unknown signals and you should also find what you are looking for this way as well. You mission 'unknown' signal will also be a different colour in this mode, dark yellow, or orange. Then after you have scanned it in, when you go back out, your nav screen will show it on your list, in blue (as usual).

If you're anything like me, you already spent many hours manually flying around systems looking at this and that I was discovering systems manually for a while, since apparently, my default set up didn't have the modes all allocated. But it's much faster now I know a little bit more!

[Kenzie_SFT]

With mine, I checked and re-checked. My mission disappeared on me as if it never existed. My theory is that the black boxes appeared and were instantly hit by something, or caught in crossfire.
I've opened the game several times and meet bugs and lack of feedback issues every time. Also during this mission - the beacon doesn't show up on my HUD or radar at all. Is that correct? I could target it easily enough, but since it's not on radar I have to spin my ship around and around just hoping to see it. There's no indicator or anything. There's no arrow on the side of my vision or in the cockpit. I Just have to spin the ship around looking out the windows. I have to do the same thing when I want to travel. Spin around looking for it. Is there any kind of feedback to help me with this? It's super annoying.