Missions confusing.

[DiamondDuty]

This is my first X4 game. I expect a learning curve.
But my problem is I get a mission that says to deliver 30 unstable crystals to a station. I have no idea what to do though.
It doesn't tell me how to do these things, and the tutorials are very...well...sub-par and don't explain the more intricate things like what to gather from where etc, at least not well enough for a noob like me.
Anyone able to help me understand how to deal with missions and where to find stuff?

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Cheers! :D

[PrincessXFiFi]

As far as I can tell, those missions are bugged anyways. I'm not sure they actually reward you with anything.(maybe money, I don't remember) But even if you spend the time to get the required goods, the person recieving them will often not be there.
The only real benefit of the missions is selling illegal goods, so I'll just buy the goods off of them and turn it in if I don't have enough on me.(you have to access the crafting table after buying the goods in order to then deliver them in my experience)

As for the crystals, they are found while mining.

[TazzieDevil]

There seems to be 2 seperate storage areas for items. The first main one is on the ship. The second small one is your personal storage. You can access personal storage by going to the player tab (I hit map (M) then mouse across the top of the screen with the largish symbols and click player) on the left of the screen is another set of tabs. The second from the top, is your "inventory" if you look at the stuff with a ! next to it is new.

Some Items are Ship items (Wares) - and others are Inventory items. It's hard to know which is which - except - that you get Wares via the TRADE menu when you dock your ship. You get inventory Items from the Trader on the some stations.

The Trader seems to be in a glass building near the landing pads. If there is a Trader on the Station. (most have one) From what I can tell - Equipment docks - Wharves and ShipYards - don't seem to have a normal Trader, thier Trader helps buy and upgrade ships.

When you look at a mission for a "bring 30 Herbicide to this station" the first things to figure out is - is that a "Ware" or a inventory item. Herbicide (I have learnt) is a Inventory/ Trader item for instance...

If you right click the item - and look at the Encyclopedia, it will tell you where the item is usually found. Herbicide is a "Crates and Traders" Item. While Energy cells are a "Ware" Wares come in "Containers" of various sizes - while Trader and crate items are either found after you kill a ship or you can buy them from the Trader.

So. when I dock I look for the trader - I then see what they sell, as not all traders sell all items. If I have enough items - either in inventory or I can buy them, I move to the crafting table and craft as many items as I can, then I sell them to the Trader, Needles, Bandages and a Sedative - combine to make a first aid kit for instance. It seems sedatives now only drop in crates after you kill a ship for instance. The value of a crafted item seems to be about 10 times the value of the parts.

If the Trader has Herbicide, I buy enough so I have 30 -40 as I see missions that need 30 or less Herbicide - that way I'm set if I see one. If I start seeing "bring unstable crystals" missions and traders selling them sometimes - I'll pick up a few of them. Or I'll keep them if they drop in crates after I kill stuff.

I've played all the X games - I'm not very good at them to be honest - I like the Trading system in X2 much better than X4. I used to love getting a mission for 80,000 power cells with a timer for a huge bonus - and things like that. But so far I haven't come across missions for lots of a single Ware.

I hopes this helps you better understand the missions :)

[DiamondDuty]

Originally posted by TazzieDevil:

There seems to be 2 seperate storage areas for items. The first main one is on the ship. The second small one is your personal storage. You can access personal storage by going to the player tab (I hit map (M) then mouse across the top of the screen with the largish symbols and click player) on the left of the screen is another set of tabs. The second from the top, is your "inventory" if you look at the stuff with a ! next to it is new.

Some Items are Ship items (Wares) - and others are Inventory items. It's hard to know which is which - except - that you get Wares via the TRADE menu when you dock your ship. You get inventory Items from the Trader on the some stations.

The Trader seems to be in a glass building near the landing pads. If there is a Trader on the Station. (most have one) From what I can tell - Equipment docks - Wharves and ShipYards - don't seem to have a normal Trader, thier Trader helps buy and upgrade ships.

When you look at a mission for a "bring 30 Herbicide to this station" the first things to figure out is - is that a "Ware" or a inventory item. Herbicide (I have learnt) is a Inventory/ Trader item for instance...

If you right click the item - and look at the Encyclopedia, it will tell you where the item is usually found. Herbicide is a "Crates and Traders" Item. While Energy cells are a "Ware" Wares come in "Containers" of various sizes - while Trader and crate items are either found after you kill a ship or you can buy them from the Trader.

So. when I dock I look for the trader - I then see what they sell, as not all traders sell all items. If I have enough items - either in inventory or I can buy them, I move to the crafting table and craft as many items as I can, then I sell them to the Trader, Needles, Bandages and a Sedative - combine to make a first aid kit for instance. It seems sedatives now only drop in crates after you kill a ship for instance. The value of a crafted item seems to be about 10 times the value of the parts.

If the Trader has Herbicide, I buy enough so I have 30 -40 as I see missions that need 30 or less Herbicide - that way I'm set if I see one. If I start seeing "bring unstable crystals" missions and traders selling them sometimes - I'll pick up a few of them. Or I'll keep them if they drop in crates after I kill stuff.

I've played all the X games - I'm not very good at them to be honest - I like the Trading system in X2 much better than X4. I used to love getting a mission for 80,000 power cells with a timer for a huge bonus - and things like that. But so far I haven't come across missions for lots of a single Ware.

I hopes this helps you better understand the missions :)

This has helped me more than you know. It definitely made a lot of things I overlooked very clear.
I really appreciate the long and detailed response. Thank you very much! :D

Cheers! :)

[ByTheNumbers]

Originally posted by TazzieDevil:

I've played all the X games - I'm not very good at them to be honest - I like the Trading system in X2 much better than X4. I used to love getting a mission for 80,000 power cells with a timer for a huge bonus - and things like that. But so far I haven't come across missions for lots of a single Ware.

I hopes this helps you better understand the missions :)

The only trading mission I see are the ones that request keeping inventory levels to a certain degree, but it's never just one ware though. Amusingly, I often don't need to do anything because NPC traders coming to drop off goods will affect their supply levels and complete the mission for me.

[TazzieDevil]

I'm glad that this helped. i'm still figuring lots of stuff out. fun game, but, for me, it seems less of a trade game - i love playing merchant-traders, and more of a mission and combat game. it's much better done than any X game before it...

[TazzieDevil]

I just worked out that if you look at you Inventory - the items in -Yellow - are illegal in that area. I really messed up my rating with the argons -I can't figure how to sell slicers etc as Traders will not buy them.... if you come up with a way please post...

[ontheroad]

Yes, i also got cought with illegal items, i would like to know if theres somewhere to store personal inventory items, things we want to keep but not carry around ?

[The Nameless]

My experience with missions:

Worse than Elite Dangerous has been since the alpha.

1) Overcomplicated. Huge time commitment, ridiculous numbers of things to do, expensive, and too strict a time limit.

2) Virtually no detail in the briefings; no way to access maps, or look at what I actually have to do.

3) Stupidly buggy. I've seen games with bugs deliberately left in them for comedy (Goat Simulator) that were less buggy than these missions.

Three strikes, missions are out for now. Did the plot, got my station, now I'm just sandboxing.

And of course beyond the three strikes, there's:

The wording of the mission briefings is disjointed and idiotic. It looks like programming code. Unpolished, unfinished, raw programming code. Destroy: Ship. That sort of thing.

No way to tell what I NEED to get missions done. No warnings of "Hey, you don't have some stuff the mission requires, better go buy it before you start the clock ticking."

I would get sore fingers long before I finished listing it all.

[Ryan]

This Guide really helped me:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1579647964

Scroll down to this section "Easiest and safest way to make money early game consistently." Just accept the Easy Missions you know how to do. This will get you started in the game, so you can buy some trading and mining ships for the perpetual income.

[The Nameless]

Originally posted by Ryan:

This Guide really helped me:

[-snip- no need to rehash the link]

Scroll down to this section "Easiest and safest way to make money early game consistently." Just accept the Easy Missions you know how to do. This will get you started in the game, so you can buy some trading and mining ships for the perpetual income.

I got started by killing stuff. I probably could have fought Khaak in the starter ship, but I didn't know that at the time; I started by killing poor helpless little smugglers in civilian ships for 500-1500 credits apiece. Then I fought some pirate and Xenon ships; they were dead easy. I just stayed close and kept shooting, and they weren't smart enough to get some distance and nail me. I got bigger bounties for those. Then I did a couple of the plot missions, including the one where he gives me 200k to buy a ship to put antimatter cells in. So I bought a heavy fighter, and set my starting ship aside for the big sacrifice. With the heavy fighter I took out a few Khaak, more pirates, etc, upgraded to a better fighter, killed more stuff, bought a mining ship, mined for awhile, bought a corvette and started using the miner through the map...

Now I know how to use automine and the credits are just pouring in. If I start over, my very first ship purchase will be an entry-level mining ship. lol

[TazzieDevil]

A Few More things I've worked out...

I found doing missions that are not too hard - fix stuff - seal leaks - is a pretty good way to make a few million.

I have a nice ship with 4 guns and 3 mil in the bank - also an auto trader and an auto miner.

I have didscovered killing mines is pretty easy, so I added that to the mission list.

Lock boxes aren't too hard to find once you realise that shift 3 (LOng Range Scanners) has a ping on it, hold the R key for 1.5 seconds or so (you can tell by the sound it makes) then a pulse goes and and pings things. Fly around the area (including 5km out side it) and ping over and over. When you see a Lock Box, you have to shoot the lock with the ship. The red glowing Padlock is the Lock you have to target. When the lock box opens - hit the O key to draw the items to you.

I also keep a stock of all the things Traders sell - as that way if I see a mission for unstable crystals etc. there is no running around.

I still wish the Trading was more Privateer or X2. But it's a great sim so far.
Saw one that looks a lot more like Privateer and a bit Firefly inspired which will be released soon. it's on the Epic (Fortnight) system....

[TazzieDevil]

You can also explore wrecks. They ping as a purple ring - the ones that are not purple have no trade goods in them. You have to find the entrance (shift 2 helps) When you will see the red glow of a damaged air lock. repair the red panel. The door will open. Float around, explore and loot.

Not as worthwhile as missions in some ways - because I can't sell the best Trade Goods I have found. But a lot of fun at a game level.. Might be a way of getting a Seta early I have no idea...

[TRiniTa]

Agricultural goods factory trader..