Random Encounters during missions a bit much?

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:20 pm

Just got Mercenary the other day. So far I'm liking it, but the random encounters during missions are getting more than a little annoying.

Took a navy mission to kill an ace, 2 fighter mission. I get there and sure enough, there are 2 fighters. Shortly after I jump in two more enemy fighters pop in. I use a missile and quickly kill the ace quest target, then the two more have closed on me and im facing 3 and unsure of which is the other quest target because all 3 are the same model. Another enemy jumps in. I manage to kill another before that one has approached, but im still facing 3... I transfer power to shields and fly away a bit, and two more jump in. I still haven't completed the mission, because the second target is still among the ones here and there are still 2 of the same model. I flew by and killed one I thought was the quest target with my other missile (it wasn't). Another one jumps in of the same model, but I still have the original one targeted so I go back and hope to do a quick kill and get away, but wind up dieing trying to kill the quest target with 4 other random fighters firing missile after missile after missile on me (one of them got through my constant firing of countermeasures and things went downhill from there). An "easy" two fighter mission paying $20,000 turned into a ridiculously difficult 8 fighter mission against a bunch of high end missile slinging random encounters.

Now granted this only happens this badly outside of conflict areas on 1 in 10 missions, but I don't think I've done a single mission yet without having to fight at least 1 or 2 extra ships.

It's even worse in conflict areas. As a combat pilot character I took a mission to escort a capital ship, supposedly 2 enemy fighters. I get there and before I can even approach one of the two, three ships pop in all around me and start firing on me. I go inertial and afterburn away. I fly back to the capital ship and engage the one over there, but before I can kill it three more pop in right beside me. I manage to kill my target but my shields are all very low so I fly away and transfer all power to shields. Three more pop in all around me. During all this I think even more were popping in at random, because the capital ship had been nuking them as it went and they still kept coming. After my shields came back I flew back and tried to fight the ones attacking the capital ship, but was quickly overwhelmed and killed by a swarm of ships. The radar was packed with red dots in all directions. Out of 20 missions I went on, all showing 2 fighters and only paying about 20k, I was only able to complete 3 of them - and all three of those I had to kill around 5 ships and then run away from the rest. One of the three I was so damaged when I was done I owed 80k for repair bills, 4x the mission pay (and more than I had) - so I just killed myself and loaded. The escort missions are beyond hopeless, because even if you kill the original 2 they pop in with such frequency and quantity that you don't have a hope in hell of killing them all.

It's even sillier on areas where you have a low reputation, because you might be working a Navy mission and have hostile Navy ships blasting you to hell with missiles while you're trying to kill rebels. Even with a fair reputation, over half the random encounters on missions are hostile and the friendly ones either die right away or never come close enough to help.

Is there a way to mod the game to reduce the random ship spawning? At least on missions? As-is a quarter of the missions I go on are impossible due to random mobs of enemy ships popping in. If I'm lucky only one or two extra ships come along and I can complete the mission no problem (albeit at double the listed difficulty), if I'm unlucky they swarm in like flys on a carcass and I have to flee.

[Edited on 6-7-2011 by Paul]

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:23 pm

A) Hang in there, combat gets much easier with practice.
B) Hop on to Remula 1 MP server. Easiest way to get game tips and help.
C) good hunting

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:33 pm

From post: 108262, Topic: tid=7635, author=Dingo79 wrote:A) Hang in there, combat gets much easier with practice.
B) Hop on to Remula 1 MP server. Easiest way to get game tips and help.
C) good hunting

I'm getting good at the combat.

I just did a mission solo against 4 fighters, an extra popped in so I wound up killing all 5 without using any missiles. Just flying inertial, rolling, and strafing up/down/left/right. My skill at the game isn't the problem.

It's just ridiculously stupid when you take a mission to kill 2 fighters and 6 pop in randomly to kill you for no apparent reason.

The game is luck based solely because of this. I might go on one mission against 4 ships and they're the only ones that show up, I kill them in short order and the mission is done and im back at the station in 2 minutes. I take another mission with 3 enemy fighters and even less pay, and a bunch of random encounters keep showing up and spamming missiles at me, and I wind up killing 12 ships and barely surviving with a repair bill higher than the mission pay.

-edit- Just to clarify, im not having problems completing all missions - just having to kill way more ships than I'm supposed to. Right now im up to 65 missions and already have 298 kills, and at least 20 of those missions were non combat from when I couldnt find a good combat one (mostly recovering item or finding item for navy, couple clearing asteroids, one cleaning solar array). So in about 45 missions, most of which were supposedly me having to kill 2 enemy fighters. Thats an average of 6.6 kills per mission. Even with the 3 and 4 target missions, the average of mission targets would probably be under 3 - even assuming the average was 3 that means I had to kill more than double the number of mission targets to complete them.

[Edited on 6-7-2011 by Paul]

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 9:51 pm

You only need to kill the amount that is required in the contract. All others are just
their friends jumping in to help them. Wouldn't you answer a call for help?

Just kill any 4 enemies if that's whats required and jump out.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:16 pm

It doesn't seem to be any 4, though. It seems you have to kill the specific quest targets. And when a bunch of friends jump in with the same type of ships as the quest targets, it can be hard to differentiate.

I always target a spot to jump away to as I'm approaching the quest targets, so as soon as I get a mission accomplished message I jump out. It's just I keep having to kill a bunch of extra ships before I manage to off the quest targets.

In other news, I think I found a bit of an exploit while looking for better guns to spend my 3 mil savings on. I noticed I can buy stuff in a low tech area and sell in a high tech area for much more than I paid in the low tech area. Was able to buy build and deploy constructors and go and sell them one jump over, doubling the money that took me all those missions to make in a minute and a half or so

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Tue Jun 07, 2011 10:28 pm

its called trading. it is beautiful.

Post by **Marvin** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:33 am

From post: 108265, Topic: tid=7635, author=Paul wrote:It's just ridiculously stupid when you take a mission to kill 2 fighters and 6 pop in randomly to kill you for no apparent reason.

Check around an you'll find other players who complain that there isn't enough randomness to contracts. Can't win.

Rush · Post by **Rush** » Wed Jun 08, 2011 8:29 am

Paul, think that I did a 7 waypoints contract in Pearl with 70 fighters

Yes, enemies popping in are annoying, but realistic

Maarschalk · Post by **Maarschalk** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 2:41 am

From post: 108281, Topic: tid=7635, author=Paul wrote:It doesn't seem to be any 4, though. It seems you have to kill the specific quest targets. And when a bunch of friends jump in with the same type of ships as the quest targets, it can be hard to differentiate.

I always target a spot to jump away to as I'm approaching the quest targets, so as soon as I get a mission accomplished message I jump out. It's just I keep having to kill a bunch of extra ships before I manage to off the quest targets.

In other news, I think I found a bit of an exploit while looking for better guns to spend my 3 mil savings on. I noticed I can buy stuff in a low tech area and sell in a high tech area for much more than I paid in the low tech area. Was able to buy build and deploy constructors and go and sell them one jump over, doubling the money that took me all those missions to make in a minute and a half or so

Any combat mission you should only have to destroy the required amount. Now an IMG Quest Combat mission you suppose to kill the required Ace and his friends....which can sometimes jump away and you have to hunt them down....

Mecingo · Post by **Mecingo** » Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:03 am

I love the extra fighters that join the fight, especially hostiles. Bigger The Fight, Bigger The Party. The most I ever had to fight was at least over 50, and that is in Vonari Territory. It is possible to take down multiple hostiles if you keep your distance, and set up deploy-able objects like the Shield Array. It takes awhile to take down a huge amount of hostiles, unless you have fulcrum torpedoes, it's a good idea to have at least one of those on you in a hostile zone. I think you should go to Iota, most contracts have 4 hostiles, the pay is good, and personally it is where I started practicing combat as a habit

. Build your way up and think of ways to lure your enemies in, be dynamic. Once you get to the point where combat is a breeze you'll never have to do peaceful contracts again. Believe me it took me a while to take on more than 10 targets, without a fleet on my side.

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:15 pm

Sadly this isn't a new concept. It occured quite heavily in Freelancer. In fact in Freelancer it was probably worse because you would be doing an easy low pay mission to kill one named and any of his cronies and literally everytime you'd be on the last guy he'd start weaving and dodging and as soon as you got him down to nearly death several more would enter the fray and become mission targets (IE you have to kill them as well) and that could happen practically endlessly as far as I could tell. I remember one time I must have gone through 10 waves before I finally gave up and left. I had exhausted all my expendables. At least in Evochron you can make note of the area you are in... jump to a nearby station restock then jump back without failing the mission.

Post by **Marvin** » Tue Jun 21, 2011 9:35 pm

About the only time you need concern yourself with an influx of Reds is if you're attempting to escort a cap ship.

LeadCommando65 · Post by **LeadCommando65** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:09 am

From post: 108281, Topic: tid=7635, author=Paul wrote:It doesn't seem to be any 4, though. It seems you have to kill the specific quest targets. And when a bunch of friends jump in with the same type of ships as the quest targets, it can be hard to differentiate.

I always target a spot to jump away to as I'm approaching the quest targets, so as soon as I get a mission accomplished message I jump out. It's just I keep having to kill a bunch of extra ships before I manage to off the quest targets.

I agreee on having a special mark/identifier for quest targets.

In combat, I like to concentrate on the main targets to get done what needs to be done. But if there is no hint what target has priority, it's very difficult.

SeeJay · Post by **SeeJay** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:28 am

Real combat is confusing and reinforcements are called in.

Same goes in Evochron.

The only "confusing" contract that you need to kill a special target is when you
take an Ace contract, 4 targets. (Or any other number stated)
The ACE is identified with some "Name". Kill him/her and any 3 other to finish contract.

Dingo · Post by **Dingo** » Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:53 am

after a little practice it isnt very difficult to keep track of necessary targets. I like the random aspects of the combat, it simulates having limited military intel. And as SJ sad many of the contracts dont require special attention to primary targets beyond and ace or maybe a cap ship. It's more difficult sometimes when there arent enough targets to fullfill the quota, and you need to deploy a sensor to find them in that case.