How to find settlement missions?

[Turkish Hair Graft]

I'm interested in settlement missions. I'd prefer the repair-a-settlement missions, but "clear the criminal faction out of the place using glorious violence" is fine too.

Most systems I go to have no settlement missions at all. What systems tend to have them? I've been looking for places that are in some kind of conflict (terrorist attack, pirate attack, etc etc) but noone seems to have any.

[=FU= Hondarama]

If you're talking about the odyssey settlement missions, you actually have to disembark at the station and pick missions from the panels in the station while on foot.

Edit: If you're already doing this, I have absolutely no idea why you aren't finding any missions.

[Agony_Aunt]

Just about every single populated system has settlements and settlement missions from what i've seen.

I don't think i've seen a single system with a population and landable planets that didn't.

(Step 0 - make sure you're playing Odyssey, not Horizons)

Step 1, ensure the system has landable planets.

Step 2, go to a station

Step 3, go to the concourse and either speak to the mission givers (the people with symbols over their heads who speak to you when you approach asking for your help) and see what they want you to do or head to the terminals.

Every mission board usually has around 60 ground based missions, plenty to choose from.

Repair/Restore power missions are usually only found in systems where a faction controlling a settlement(s) is in a negative state. Civil Unrest is particularly good for these missions.

Clear out the criminal faction i'm not certain about, but i've seen plenty. Might be connected with a low security state.

[Turkish Hair Graft]

THAT solves it. I was not going out on foot. Many thanks.

The hell do they not show up on regular mission boards for? Also, side note, went out, restoring power to a settlement. There was no baddies, I looked around first. Turned on the power and apparently baddies were hiding in a crate or something, because 6 of them spawned and DESTROYED MY SHIP while I waited inside with zero notification other than its destruction.

......Is this normal? I'm a bit salty (mildly) that 6 dudes with assault rifles carry the same destructive potential against a fully shielded A-grade combat ship as a... well, a fully shielded A-grade combat ship.

[Agony_Aunt]

They don't show up on regular mission boards probably for a number of reasons. So they don't have to mess with the regular mission board generation, total separation. Also means they don't have to generate loads of missions of both types at once. FD had some real problems over the years with mission generation and having to limit how many were generated at once. And of course, it also forces people to actually enter the concourses.

By the way, little tip, well worth checking out the missions from the people rather than the board. If you have a good rep with the factions in a location you can nearly always bargain for a better payout, or more importantly, more materials and even their base payouts are generally better than what the boards offer.

Regarding restore power missions quite often there will be scavengers either already there when you approach or they will come in soon after. They can arrive at any time via dropship until you get that power on.

So yes, its totally normal.

However, there is a simple method for dealing with it. First of course check to see if they are there already. If night, its easy to see them as they have lights on. Night vision can also be useful for spotting them moving around if they turn lights off.

You can get in close, like 100m distance, and it should trigger them to attack you if you are not sure if they are there.

Also, by dropping in low, it triggers any further waves to arrive. If you just immediately land, they may then come in after you have landed.

Now, you can deal with them in different ways.

1) On foot. If you fancy your chances with foot based pew-pew, go for it. You might want to equip the dominator suit to do this, then go get your Maverick suit once the base is clear.

2) SRV. If you are a dab hand at using a SRV, you might choose this approach. Might be tricky depending on the base though and you're a big target, even if you are better protected. Best variant, lure them out into the plains around the base.

3) Nuke them from orbit. Don't take Apex. Don't take your exploration ship. Take a ship loaded to the gills with dumbfire missiles. Let rip against any already landed. If dropships come in (usually Vultures or DBXs) don't attack the ships, let them drop off the scavengers, and while they are still nicely packed together let them have it.

I use option 3, because i'm lazy and i'm not that great at FPS combat. Works a charm.

Once you've cleared out the scavengers its simple. Just get into the PWR building, restore power. Put out fires as required. And job done.

They are one of the easiest mission types (besides deliveries) if you use the nuclear approach.

Also, the base won't get upset with you for firing on it as long as its still powered down. No alarms, no defenses online, so no problems. At least its fine at anarchy bases, and i think its the same at non-anarchy ones as well. Just as a general rule, anarchies are better for missions because if you mess things up, you're not getting a bounty.

[Turkish Hair Graft]

That is some super good information, thanks for taking the time to type all that out. Super thanks.

[Sighman]

The reason they don't show foot missions on the ship mission boards is that sooner or later all Horizons users will be getting the Odyssey game client - but without the option to disembark, and without the equipment to approach atmospheric planets. (This cuts out all the new Odyssey content, but would still have everyone on the same game client which makes updating and maintaining it a lot easier.)

Right now, FDev would only have to disable the disembark button and not make the 'advanced planetary approach suite' available to people who haven't paid for Odyssey, and that would achieve the necessary gatekeeping.

The above merge was supposed to happen when Odyssey launched, but there wasn't enough optimisation. It's still coming, though.

[Dolphin Bottlenose]

Originally posted by Dunamis:

Turned on the power and apparently baddies were hiding in a crate or something, because 6 of them spawned and DESTROYED MY SHIP while I waited inside with zero notification other than its destruction.

......Is this normal?

They have arrived in a dropship while you were inside.

And yes, there is a notification that your ship is under attack. But it's a very small one, in a top right corner of your HUD. And it's absolutely easy to miss if you were busy with something (like you always are in a settlement) and didn't look there.

I lost my ship like that once. And I almost lost another one, even that I know to constantly check that top right corner. I still managed to miss the notification, so insignificant it is.

But hey, it's just your ship is being destroyed. It's not as important as if you have a scanner in a combat mode fire group. Now, that notification is really important to spam you with in a very hard to miss manner. (Big sarcasm goes here).

I blame user interface developers for this one. Unfortunately, user interface in this game often has very eyebrows rising moments. This is one of them.

[AJ24]

Yep, the ship under attack is annoying. I tend to dismiss it while I'm there now, or just get a taxi.

Also, if you want to use the srv option (very handy at showing who might be there and how many, as well as wiping them out 😁) remember that you can't actually dock at the settlement as you won't be able to deploy it

[Sighman]

There used to be a voice warning when your ship or srv was under attack - all the way up to update 7. They'll fix it for upd 9, I'm sure.