How do "Out of Sector" quests work?

[CryonicSuspension]

If I'm outside a specific solar system that's giving a quest, I have 15 turns to get to that solar system ( just to see what the quest is about ). There's no specific planet that's listed as giving out the quest ( which is dumb ).

If the quest is being given out by a "civilian" faction, I write down the faction name on a piece of paper, I go to every ground base and every ship in the solar system with that faction name, only to be told that there are no quests...

This quest system is so awful. The only way I've been able to do out-of-sector quests is if I happened to be inside the solar system when they were given out?

I must be missing something. How are you supposed to apply for quests when you outside the sector that they are given out? If I'm outside the system, and I receive a message saying that there's a quest, I can't read it, and I can't apply for it, I just consider it a dead quest ( unobtainable ).

[Nordil(Hun)]

These quests usually are either transportation quests, or construct base quests.
You do not need to be at the system to accept them. Once you accept you will be given the target coordinates where you can pick up the cargo to transport or the ship to escort to construct a base.
For the base construction the main issue is the distance, sometimes it is manageable other times it is hard. (Like if i recall well in worst case scenario, you need to travel to the fourth cluster to build there a base. And if you explored badly, you might need to construct two at the same time which is not feasable.)
Usually in order to construct a base you need to explore the cluster. Then the military will ask you to build a base.
If you visit the other one or two system exit POI's (the POI's that connect to the hyperlane) you usually get another base construction from the Merchant Federation.
And occasionally the civs might also ask you to build one but their trigger condition i did not determine yet.

[CryonicSuspension]

This doesn't answer my question. I know most of that already. There's no way to find the quest giver. If I can't find the quest giver, then I can't accept the quest.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by CryonicSuspension:

This doesn't answer my question. I know most of that already. There's no way to find the quest giver. If I can't find the quest giver, then I can't accept the quest.

Ah my bad. Well in most cases if you have an accept within X turn quest, the faciton that offers it their current/nearest faction HQ should be the quest giver.
(Exception is when you are offered to hunt down pirate/slave captain or certain ships.)

At the start it is most likely the Supply Station or the Merchant Federation base. (Example, Supply station for civs and military and Merchant Fed for merchants, but not always. elaborating below)
I am not 100% sure but i think it depends on the seed you get and how big their bases are at the starting cluster.
The supply station is always a very big base, the merchant federation base also seems to be a decent size most of the time but rarely it is a small merchant base outpost.
Same with military base, sometimes it is a full base other times it is an outpost.
Generally outposts are not the target you need to get to with such missions.
Also i vaguely seem to recall that when you click on the mission they bring up that XY system ZH POI is offering this from XY faction.

[CryonicSuspension]

I constantly receive messages about long-distance cargo transportation, and when I speak to the Civilian land base, they never have any missions available. It's happened a couple of times. I think the quest giver is glitched out for that specific quest.

It's kind of a waste of time flying half way across the galaxy, especially since I'm food sufficient, and have around 5,000 credits, and just started making body armour, plasma weapons, learning computers, turrets ( no space on the ship for them though ).

If traders would buy my 22 carrots, I'd be set.

I have a new quest in an unknown sector, to apprehend a pirate.

I was going to say that it's already tricky with my mass being between 4400-4800 but A.I. is saying that cargo transports don't count towards your total ship mass ( even weirder - stuff inside a recycler, or grow bed is massless ).

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by CryonicSuspension:

I constantly receive messages about long-distance cargo transportation, and when I speak to the Civilian land base, they never have any missions available. It's happened a couple of times. I think the quest giver is glitched out for that specific quest.

It's kind of a waste of time flying half way across the galaxy, especially since I'm food sufficient, and have around 5,000 credits, and just started making body armour, plasma weapons, learning computers, turrets ( no space on the ship for them though ).

If traders would buy my 22 carrots, I'd be set.

I have a new quest in an unknown sector, to apprehend a pirate.

I was going to say that it's already tricky with my mass being between 4400-4800 but A.I. is saying that cargo transports don't count towards your total ship mass ( even weirder - stuff inside a recycler, or grow bed is massless ).

Ah, wait the long distance cargo haul for civilians?
That is a different thing on its own. (It has been a few times mentioned in the past as well.)

It is basicly a reoccuring mission to make it even more annoying.
Every ~15 turns or so they will contact you in regards to available transport mission.
You usually need to take a cargo shuttle from the supply station to a station that (you likely built, or was built if you did not accept) is in another cluster.
To make this worse as you progress and more and more station pop up, it can be that you need to haul the cargo from starting cluster to the 3rd or fourth cluster.

Basicly it is best to just completely ignore it. This is one very annoying thing and would be nice if something was done about it. And it will be reocurring every ~15 turns or so.
(Maybe they toned it down a bit)
This mission is different compared to the farming station, you can never "get it" via contacting the base station that offers it.

[CryonicSuspension]

I think there's a supply station. If I'm ever near the starting galaxy, I'll see if I can pick up the quest.

I'm really just mostly exploring for the sake of exploring at this point. I'm probably on the last third of the tech tree, closer to the end game ( 149 hours ).

Medium difficulty.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by CryonicSuspension:

I think there's a supply station. If I'm ever near the starting galaxy, I'll see if I can pick up the quest.

I'm really just mostly exploring for the sake of exploring at this point. I'm probably on the last third of the tech tree, closer to the end game ( 149 hours ).

Medium difficulty.

There are every now and then i think 5-6 clusters apart supply stations. (you basicly are asked to build up stations between these two, sometimes you yourself have to build up the supply station and once done and handed over, suddenly every single station you encounter in the starting cluster will spawn in this cluster as well. So the mil base/outpost, civilian science station, repair station, merch fed station even a prison and a farming station and a leisure station pop up.)

Well seems like you did not use the little trick to increase science;)
On brutal usually at around 120-150 days i am done with most research except for those that require special creatures/bots. But even sometimes with those, depending on the Exodus research offers;)

The trick is have 1 more research station than the number of researchers you employ.
Research is a strange complex task. Each researcher generates 3 research points and then:
- if there is a free empty research station they move there to research (cannot do the research at the same station they finished at)
- if there is no free empty research they had for the leisure space. Sit down a bit walk back and research.

This means that they lose generally a lot of time between walking back and forth to the leisure space. So if you build another research station for them to switch to you can increase your research speed to about 300%.

[CryonicSuspension]

Research just isn't important, and there wasn't the space. I don't even give my crew anti-sickness pills for jumps, and just save them for combat situations ( people die on harder difficulties but not on medium ).

I have something like 6 point defense turrets to the left of the airlock and seven to the right. Ships trying to board get shredded. If anything comes through the airlock, it gets shredded. If I go on a derelict, with plasma/ laser, everything gets shredded. The entire crew has the highest bullet proof vests ( even the gardeners ).

I have 14 K credits after finishing a long-distance cargo haul. 70 rods, X3 generator, 30 nuts and seeds that nobody wants to buy. The entire ship runs itself at this point, all I do is watch out for metor storms ( not that it matters with a 350 shield ).

Things like augmentations read nice, but came way too late. It's just hyper efficiency.

There's a joint-military quest to target the slaver's base, that was basically where the ship was building up to. I just unlocked rocket and laser turrets. It just feels like I pretty much finished the game after 150 hours.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by CryonicSuspension:

Research just isn't important, and there wasn't the space. I don't even give my crew anti-sickness pills for jumps, and just save them for combat situations ( people die on harder difficulties but not on medium ).

I have something like 6 point defense turrets to the left of the airlock and seven to the right. Ships trying to board get shredded. If anything comes through the airlock, it gets shredded. If I go on a derelict, with plasma/ laser, everything gets shredded. The entire crew has the highest bullet proof vests ( even the gardeners ).

I have 14 K credits after finishing a long-distance cargo haul. 70 rods, X3 generator, 30 nuts and seeds that nobody wants to buy. The entire ship runs itself at this point, all I do is watch out for metor storms ( not that it matters with a 350 shield ).

Things like augmentations read nice, but came way too late. It's just hyper efficiency.

There's a joint-military quest to target the slaver's base, that was basically where the ship was building up to. I just unlocked rocket and laser turrets. It just feels like I pretty much finished the game after 150 hours.

150 hours is still a lot though;) ->I would say you got a lot for your money.

I have 600-700 hours in the game.
What you mention on medium i would say very slow progress, but since it is likely your first game completely understandable:)
And if you enjoyed it all the better!

[CryonicSuspension]

I think not building bunk beds ended up being a problem, because you need so much horizontal space by comparison.