Contracts...

[Tholan]

Are you only able to have one contract at a time? It is becoming very annoying to travel back to the station each and every time I finish a mission.

And if not, is there anyway to communicate with a station remotely? It seems silly that I can travel among the stars but can't communicate with a station remotely. Perhaps you can do this later in the game as you get better equipment for you ship?

[Blackship]

One at a time. In fact, while under contract, you can't save.

Do what I do, perform the contract then mine.

[DarK Rogue]

Yeah, one contract at a time. But that's a good thing if you choose combat missions; refuel and reload.

[Marvin]

Contracts don't come from the station. They come from personnel docked at the station.

[DarK Rogue]

What Marvin said is mostly true, but I don't think the personel are docked there, I think they were hired to go sit in a station to give out contracts. But I vote for having an equipment that will allow us to get contracts without docking.

[Maarschalk]

That is an interesting Idea but again because of like Vice says many dependencies it can not be easily done.......

[DarK Rogue]

But it would be cool and make the game both easier and more fun. Especially in hostile sectors, where the station charges you money to dock and it takes a while to press that button then press enter station, in that time, a missile launched at you when you entered could destroy you, so having this equipment means you could take a mission in a safe location, away from traffic.

[Maarschalk]

Geeeeeeez, don't you like a chalange....? LOL......you want everything easy......:P:P:P:P

[RobDog]

Originally posted by Tholan
Are you only able to have one contract at a time? It is becoming very annoying to travel back to the station each and every time I finish a mission.

And if not, is there anyway to communicate with a station remotely? It seems silly that I can travel among the stars but can't communicate with a station remotely. Perhaps you can do this later in the game as you get better equipment for you ship?

Have you made your docking procedure as fast as possible?
I used to get slightly annoyed with having to dock every time as well, but I was docking all wrong.

Before returning to a station, be sure to:
1. Set your ship's pitch to 0 (so that you jump straight in)
2. Make sure there is no horizontal or vertical velocity (turning on IDS is a quick way of doing this. This way your ship doesn't need adjustment when you come out of the jump and you'll be going straight forward).
3. Right-click on the station on your NAV map (to center your dest. in the docking area of the station)
4. Turn on inertial mode before you exit the jump (So that IDS doesn't slow you down as you travel to the docking bay).

If all of the above steps are followed, docking at a station and getting a new contract becomes a matter of 12 seconds or so.

If you're already doing this then sorry for the old info, hopefully these steps help out some new players.

[Maarschalk]

To Add to that: Once you jumped to your missions way point if it only includes one waypoint, open your nav map as soon after you have jumped, right click on the Station and when contract is complete set pitch to zero and make sure your not drifting on inertia and all you have to do next is jump. And you will dock at the Station. You can also do this after your last jump in multiple way point missions. Your bassically just prestting your Docking at the Station after your last jump to way point.....:P

[Edited on 9-28-2010 by Maarschalk]

[DarK Rogue]

But what if you want to jump in the middle of combat to someplace else?

[Maarschalk]

Then you do not have to do this......Only if you repeating mission after mission to complete them faster....:P

[RobDog]

Just practice doing what Marrschalk and I talked about. You will soon be able to make perfect station jumps without much effort even if you've got enemies trailing you.

[Tholan]

All great information all thank you. I have started doing this.

But I still think it is needlessly annoying. Particularly if your moving from system to system finding different missions to do. Setting up that nav point just gets to be an annoyance instead of a pleasure.

It also feels unrealistic in what is otherwise a universe that goes to great lengths to feel realistic. Not being able to open some kind of comm channel to get a new contract pulls me out of the game world and makes me feel like I am just playing a game again.

So I would recommend 1 of 2 things. Or both:

1. The ability to get more than one contract at a time.
2. Being able to communicate with a base to get further contracts.

[Wasp89]

Perhaps it may seem unrealistic that one cannot talk with the station to see what is available, but it makes sense to me that the station require that you should show up in person before they allow you to secure a contract with them. And some contracts, such as delivery contracts, require that you actually receive an item at the station before you can complete the contract itself. If I'm going to hire somebody to do a job for me, I'd like to see exactly who I'm dealing with, at least so I know that the person coming back to my door claiming that the contract is complete is actually the person I hired to do it in the first place. The docking fees are important part of the reputation system, and acts as a penalty for working in systems that don't like you. As a businessman, I'd much rather do business with the person who comes to my place of employment and pays money for fuel, supplies, etc. than the lone ranger I've never met who has a bad reputation and refuses to contribute to the economic stability of my system.

[Marvin]

Great answer, there, Wasp. Just about says it all.

[Tholan]

Originally posted by Wasp89
Perhaps it may seem unrealistic that one cannot talk with the station to see what is available, but it makes sense to me that the station require that you should show up in person before they allow you to secure a contract with them. And some contracts, such as delivery contracts, require that you actually receive an item at the station before you can complete the contract itself. If I'm going to hire somebody to do a job for me, I'd like to see exactly who I'm dealing with, at least so I know that the person coming back to my door claiming that the contract is complete is actually the person I hired to do it in the first place. The docking fees are important part of the reputation system, and acts as a penalty for working in systems that don't like you. As a businessman, I'd much rather do business with the person who comes to my place of employment and pays money for fuel, supplies, etc. than the lone ranger I've never met who has a bad reputation and refuses to contribute to the economic stability of my system.

I think you are way over complicating things ;-).

All of what you say can still be achieved via remote communication. Why waste your employee's time, who has proven his rep, by coming to see you when you can just give instructions remotely? You are just forcing your employee to waste valuable time in getting the job you want done, done. If I hired someone to take a parcel from point A to point B, and there also happened to be something near point B that I wanted done, it would be folly of me to force my employee to come back to me just so I can tell him to go back to B ;-).


Further, your reputation can very easily be communicated remotely. Simply transmit some kind of personal identification to the station so that they know who you are. If you don't have good enough rep, you would have to transfer funds before you are offered a new contract. This to me seems like a much better way to do business.

And your connection between "offering a contract at a station" and "buying supplies from that station" is faulty. Just because I have to dock at a station in no way means that I will be buying supplies there. Even with my short experience with the game I have bought new weapons and equipment at Sapphire (because I have a license there) and doing missions at Olympus. If I had to buy supplies at a station it would be because it makes sense for me to do so, not because I have to dock there to get a contract.

So not only are all your examples unrealistic and/or faulty, it also negatively impacts gameplay. Which of course comes back to the original point that this is an area that could be improved.

[DarK Rogue]

Originally posted by Tholan

Originally posted by Wasp89
Perhaps it may seem unrealistic that one cannot talk with the station to see what is available, but it makes sense to me that the station require that you should show up in person before they allow you to secure a contract with them. And some contracts, such as delivery contracts, require that you actually receive an item at the station before you can complete the contract itself. If I'm going to hire somebody to do a job for me, I'd like to see exactly who I'm dealing with, at least so I know that the person coming back to my door claiming that the contract is complete is actually the person I hired to do it in the first place. The docking fees are important part of the reputation system, and acts as a penalty for working in systems that don't like you. As a businessman, I'd much rather do business with the person who comes to my place of employment and pays money for fuel, supplies, etc. than the lone ranger I've never met who has a bad reputation and refuses to contribute to the economic stability of my system.

I think you are way over complicating things ;-).

All of what you say can still be achieved via remote communication. Why waste your employee's time, who has proven his rep, by coming to see you when you can just give instructions remotely? You are just forcing your employee to waste valuable time in getting the job you want done, done. If I hired someone to take a parcel from point A to point B, and there also happened to be something near point B that I wanted done, it would be folly of me to force my employee to come back to me just so I can tell him to go back to B ;-).


Further, your reputation can very easily be communicated remotely. Simply transmit some kind of personal identification to the station so that they know who you are. If you don't have good enough rep, you would have to transfer funds before you are offered a new contract. This to me seems like a much better way to do business.

And your connection between "offering a contract at a station" and "buying supplies from that station" is faulty. Just because I have to dock at a station in no way means that I will be buying supplies there. Even with my short experience with the game I have bought new weapons and equipment at Sapphire (because I have a license there) and doing missions at Olympus. If I had to buy supplies at a station it would be because it makes sense for me to do so, not because I have to dock there to get a contract.

So not only are all your examples unrealistic and/or faulty, it also negatively impacts gameplay. Which of course comes back to the original point that this is an area that could be improved.

I absolutely agree.

[Maarschalk]

For many contracts you do not have to return to a Station. There are contracts to transport passengers from A to B....and when you finish most missions you can travel to another planet or station for your bussiness. You are free to go where ever you wan't you do not have to go back and forth to Stations ...This is only if you wan't to improve your rep and rank you do contracts in a particular System. You can just trade and explore and mine with other ships and combat without setting a foot in a Station....Stations are like the local news store and bulletin boards for contract seekers. The game is already a high recources gobler and increasing transmissions form hundreds or thousands of Stations and Cities can bog down memmory on many players computer. Even as it is now many people with 2 Gb of RAM can barely play the game and have to do alot to free up systems resources and can not fully benefit from th beauty of high planet details....:P

[Edited on 9-30-2010 by Maarschalk]