#### Fight (red crosshair) ####

#### Fight (red crosshair) ####


Before any of the ‘Fight’ range of missions I recommend getting a police licence for the relevant race the action’s likely to take place in. This will maximise your profitsss! Any bailed fighters will hang around for quite a while (provided they're not rammed/missiled) even after the mission’s ended & even in Xenon sectors, so jot down their coordinates & claim them when you’re ready if you wish.

Assassination missions: I’m sure lots of people will be interested in these

Low-level (ie up to M3 class) assassination missions are easy, & pay piddling amounts. Once you have a decent fight rep & race rep the prices go up dramatically! However, it’s not usually a good idea to increase your combat rank as quickly as possible: you’ll soon find yourself overmatched by escorts if not the target, & have little to no cash to upgrade to a ship more suitable of dealing with the ‘problem’.

Obviously the target (highlighted by those yellow arrows) is the priority. Once you’ve destroyed it (it’s pointless to try to board them – you won’t get the mission accreditation & they vanish as soon as you’ve successfully boarded.. along with your trained troops!) you can do what you like – run/jump away if overmatched or heavily damaged, or if you’re not bothered about your reputation with the target’s race (Pirate, Yaki, Boron etc) go ahead & kill however many ships you want to in the target’s escort group. However, for those of you who wish to retain some race rep here’s how to go about it:

Set turrets (if any) to ‘Missiles only’. Destroy the principal target as quickly as possible, preferably with no damage to its escorts. If you can do this fast enough you may not even turn the principal (& hence its escorts) red, if they weren’t originally. Ramming works well if you’ve the shields to take it - it’s less of a rep hit than an overtly aggressive act such as guns or missiles. Long range high yield missiles such as Firestorm Torpedo may work well if launched from outside the ‘threat zone’ (this seems to be an area that other ships don’t recognise you as a threat, despite what you do, & won’t take evasive/defensive action. It seems to range from about 13Km to about 20Km for missile use) but beware of collateral damage if the missile (such as the Firestorm) has an area effect blast.

Don’t be tempted to use the ‘bomber trick’; the principal will be destroyed but by its nature the ‘bomber trick’ will not credit the destruction to you: you’ll be awarded with a ‘failed mission’ as the principal will have been destroyed by ‘someone else’.

If you’re high level & want to amuse yourself by boarding M6 or above escorts, be aware that they may vanish suddenly, taking their boarding crews with them. The game engine generates these ships for one purpose only: to fight you. About the only reliable method of gaining any profit from them is to repair them (if they allow you to) & sell them to shipyards as scrap. You may be lucky & manage to retain some, but I wouldn’t trust them not to vanish or revert to original escort autopilot orders at some inconvenient moment if you’re not using them as <playership>.

Xenon Invasion: Not a lot to say about this. They mostly appear in sectors with Xenon jumpgates, although occasionally a sector nearby will call for help.

Basically, kill all Xenon that appear IS until the time’s up. Once you have a durable ship & a reasonable fight rank it can be a good moneyspinner.. especially if you can combine it with that Xenon patrol you spotted earlier just entering the sector (clear these first once you've accepted the Invasion mission) Get yourself a ship with good shields & a decent turn of speed, or be much better than I at dogfighting, & go & have fun for profit! Naturally the nature of the mission depends upon your fight rank (so you won’t get much more than a couple of Ns or an M for low ranks), & the monetary payout depends upon the race rank with the character you accepted the mission from. However, the reward you get is pretty much in the top bracket, so it’s well worth considering.. plus any loot you get from ..umm.. ‘leftovers’, shall we say

Patrol missions: Pretty much what it says on the tin.

Patrol around a sector or sectors until you come across a group of hostiles & kill them. Follow the yellow arrows & kill the ship(s). Don’t worry too much if the patrol sends you into a Xenon sector; they’re not that nasty: you won’t be required to kill every Xenon in that sector in your little ship However, they can be a little tricky occasionally: if a fast M5 or M4 that the game has marked for ‘Death by Player’ leaves the sector, the arrows won’t necessarily follow it & so you’ll have to hunt it down yourself (or hope it runs into something that kills it), otherwise you’ll never leave the assigned sector. This mission is a little forgiving in that once all the ‘marked’ ships are dead, IS or OOS, the mission’s over whether or not you’ve reached your destination sector in <playership>. [you may need to complete the patrol by flying through the designated sector(s) – check this] Obviously the bounty is greater if you actually kill the ship(s) yourself, so to maximise payout kill/bail all marked (yellow-arrowed) ships ASAP & move on to the next sector as soon as it’s indicated. Don’t bother killing any unmarked ships unless they irritate you: they won’t give you mission bounty whether they’re hostile or not.

Protect Station missions: Again, what it says on the tin.

If you’re low fight rank these are easy money – go for the Hard or Very Hard versions & you should be able to hold off quite a few M5s & M4s all by yourself, making a pretty penny in the process & hardly bothering the station you’re guarding with their ‘plink plink’ tactics against its massive shields; you may even have the patience to fly off somewhere far away IS & use the game’s poor autopilot against itself without firing a shot: sooner or later those gnats are going to crash into the station & destroy themselves. You get the credit(s) & mission accomplishment without doing a thing!

When M3s start appearing on these missions you want to take them out first. They’ll normally appear from the nearest gate, so hang around there & attack them from the side (to avoid the M3 turrets, which are usually rear-mounted). Cap (preferably, for extra ships for your fleet or money for scrappage) or destroy them, & go back to the tactics above. Again, due to the station’s shields you don’t need to worry too much about them, but pay a bit more attention this time: M3s can carry some nasty missiles & over time they're capable of destroying a station.

Next up the fight ladder are M8s. These are easy money if you can cap them, & their Tomahawk missiles sell for a reasonable amount if you’ve no other use for them. If you let them get away from you however, they can do serious damage to a station, so deal with them as early as possible. Fortunately they tend to be slow & have little defence other than a rear turret, but their Tomahawk missiles can seriously hurt you or the station if they hit!

Now we come to M6s. These can be a pain if not dealt with, so do so ASAP. By now you should have enough cash to be flying a ship capable of dealing with the few that should appear. These & above are a serious danger to your mission-giver, so deal with them in whatever way seems fit.

After you’ve got rid of the M3s & bigger you may if you wish fly off to some other sector & do something else there. There’s no timeout, & the gnats will continue attacking the station pretty much ineffectually until you return (keep an eye on it though!). As there’s no collision detection OOS however, they won’t keep flying into the station so you’ll have to come back & finish them off at some time in the future unless some IS force deals with them for you.

If you want to board the M6s or above, be aware that a) they’re not likely to vanish or do unexpected things after you’ve got them, unlike the assassination escorts above, & b) they’re pathologically focussed upon the station they’re trying to destroy, so trying to lure them into a quiet spot for boarding isn’t likely to work.

Escort missions: The bane of everyone’s life!

If you’ve accepted an escort mission from a station the easiest way to complete it is simply jump/fly away from anywhere near to the most direct route between the escort group & the accepting station. Attackers will only appear in sectors that you are in, so the escort group won’t have any problems with them providing you stay OO (their) S. Just stay well away & wait for the ‘mission completed’ notification to pop up.

If you’ve accepted one from a ship you’re going to be in for some frustration, especially if it’s a lumbering beast like a supertanker or similar. In this case you should be able to protect the group until it reaches its first gate, then (preferably) jump elsewhere & proceed as above. If you’ve no jumpdrive, are short of fuel or for some other reason are forced to stick with the group, go through the gate as soon as the group’s within a few Km of it & there are no hostiles around: one of the most frustrating parts of this mission is the way the autopillock & the collision detection systems fight each other for control & lose by crashing into a gate. Once you’re OOS, of course, the collision detection system becomes irrelevant: escorting fighters (if escorting a TM or other ship that can carry them) can dock quickly & the whole group can pass through the gate with ease.. & a lot quicker than if you hung around!


#### Think (white lightbulb) ####


Follow missions: They're a boring PITA but they pay well.
Get in the fastest ship you own, as you don't know until you've accepted the mission what type of ship you'll be following. Obviously Kestrel excels at this, as it's the fastest & has a rear turret for protection (more later)

Try to stay between 12 & 17Km of the target. 14.5Km is ideal: it gives you a bit of leeway depending upon circumstances. If you get to within around 10Km you'll get a warning to back off; if you've made it to under around 7Km you'll get a mission fail (I've had this while sitting in the station I accepted the mission from, so don't worry; you're not alone!) Once contact is made at around 16Km, you can’t get further away than around 23Km [check this: may be 25Km] as then the target is deemed to have outrun you & the mission is a failure (usually the target jumps away, but even if it doesn’t you won’t be able to retain the mission no matter how fast you go or near you get).

Try to enter the sector from the least likely direction the target will go (it'll often head towards the nearest pirate base, which can be useful, but don't count on it as a guide to finding pirate base locations). This can be difficult, but persevere. The point is, once moving the target will go straight to their destination.. so all you have to do is stay out of the way & shadow it within 17Km or so. Once the target's passed you, you can use 'match target speed' to follow them & the rest becomes a long & boring stern chase.. in most cases

Often the 2nd gate you pass through will pop out a hostile M5 or M4 (or higher, depending upon rank). If you’re in a light ship you’ll need to destroy it (wait until the target’s OOS so you can use your speed to full advantage, but don’t wait too long or the target will fly out of range & you’ll fail the mission); but if you’re in a heavier ship and/or one with rear turrets you can pretty much let the AI take care of it by itself – either the turret(s) will destroy the gnat or it’ll fly into you, smashing itself into bits or at least do enough damage that it can no longer keep up.

Passenger missions: There are two types in this ‘Think’ mission & you need to read the mission briefing CAREFULLY before accepting them, as one type demands a TP-class ship to perform the pickup; the other will accept any ship with Cargo Life Support System (CLS). If the briefing or audio asks for a ‘Passenger Transport’ or ‘Luxury Transport’ [check for more descriptions] you need to be on the TP to pick up the VIP; once you’ve picked them up you can transfer them to any other CLS-equipped ship for the flight & drop (the drop can be made by any ship; thanks to Kirlack for correcting me on this). [I currently believe TP missions need a personal dropoff while bus missions can be dropped remotely; anyone care to comment?]

[edit] Some of these missions can be made easier by judicial use of minimal in-space saving. You can accept the mission in space, but until you dock it won't give you a timer. So far I've seen these always for 'lightbulb' missions & always for missions requiring a TP; never for the more basic $ missions. If you SAVE FIRST & accept the mission in space & then dock (sometimes it can be managed even if you've already docked in an inappropriate ship), there's no timer start, so you can wait until one of your TPs lands at the appropriate station, swap ships to accept the mission, then transfer the passenger & yourself back to the appropriate ship (hopefully one that's faster than the one you read the mission briefing in), thus gaining more time This is an especially useful trick when trying to gain Terran rep due to their ludicrously-sized stations. Of course you can be OOS while the TP docks, but you've still got to be docked to the correct station to accept the mission & transfer the passenger if necessary /edit]

Return Ship/Capture Ship missions: These can be a great moneyspinner or a PITA, depending upon which mission you go for. They are usually time-tight, at least until you get a jumpdrive. Top rank of ship to be returned (that I know of) is M7(M), so don’t expect M2s or M1s on the list. I’ve not heard of TLs being returned either firsthand or through the forums, but I may be wrong..

Capture Ship: Pretty much the same as below, but you have to relieve the pilot of his ship first. I avoid these, as capping a fighter/freighter is chancy however much you weight the odds; however boarding enthusiasts may like to try their hand once they rank up to accept M6/M7(M). Remember to deal with escorts first, despite the time it takes: a good heavy AoE missile or two should sort them out from range, then you can close on the target. Don’t go too OTT with the missile(s) – remember the objective is to capture not destroy the target!

Return Ship: This is fairly easy. Preparation: bring at least one ship with a jumpdrive & enough spare fuel to enable <target> to jump to the destination sector. A Transporter Device would be helpful too, as would satellite coverage of the target sector (so you can jump to the nearest gate to <target>). The ship will always be unshielded & unoccupied (ie no race prefix before the ship class, such as Boron Manta or Split Cobra: it’ll always be plain ‘Manta’ or ‘Cobra’). HINT: if you’ve enabled autojump in your Command Console & the target is within the autojump range & satellite coverage (ie you can see it remotely while OOS), you can right-click on it in the OOS display & select ‘Follow..’ & you will autojump to the nearest gate & start flying towards the ship automagically. Don’t hit SETA during the countdown time however: it’ll make no difference to realtime (ie 10s) & will increase elapsed gametime by the amount you have SETA set to.

Obviously you’re not (as a low-ranking pilot) going to start off with retrieving Corvettes, so your best bet for a starting <playership> is something with a jumpdrive that can carry a fighter (often the first target for a low-ranking retrieve mission). This usually means a TM, although those of you who completed the relevant start may like to use the Hyperion (why are you reading this again?). Equip <playership> & any other fighter(s) you have docked with JD, Docking Computer, enough fuel to get to & from target sector, & (preferably) a Transporter Device. Nav1 software is optional, depending upon time constraints, but it’s so cheap it’s worth putting on every ship you’re not immediately scrapping IMO. REMEMBER TO LEAVE A BAY CLEAR for your ‘target’.

NOTE: if you’re in a large and/or unwieldy ship remember to decelerate to a complete stop some distance from the target; 500m is fairly safe depending upon ship type. Once you’ve ejected to EVA your former <playership> may swing in an odd direction, colliding with <target> in the process & destroying it – mission fail! Equally you may misjudge the stopping distance required when heading toward a stationary target at speed; I’ve often done it myself! Give yourself some room (& time) to manoeuvre: you can edge up to the hulk with not that much time lost, surely?

NOTE: players who haven’t yet worked up the money for a 56KCr Transporter Device should forget this mission type until they do, just in case a non-fighter turns up on the list (they do that often). You can get by with almost nothing else, but the time lost in flying the target (once claimed & repaired) to a station, then moving/upgrading software/tunings & fuel as necessary, then flying (not jumping, note – the JD can’t be transferred without the TD unless docked & neither can the fuel, except awkwardly & time-consumingly by ejecting/pickup) to its destination will often put you over the time limit for completion even if the target’s hull is 100% & its speed tunings are at max.

Once you get to <target> sector use the mission guidance to find it (it’ll often be out of range of satellite coverage – behind a gate, above/below the ecliptic etc) & get to it ASAP (jump to another gate if necessary). The quicker you get there the more repairs you can do; the more hull repair you can do the faster the ship flies (cutting down on return time) & the more money you get for the returned hull! Once claimed transfer the JD & appropriate fuel (switch on autojump & select the appropriate station –  remember to turn on ‘Send message when order complete’ in CC!) to <target> once claimed, & auto-send it to its destination (you don’t need to be in <target> to transfer ownership: a message will pop up). Alternatively, if it’s an M3, 4, 5 & you have a spare docking bay beam a docking computer over, then yourself; autodock & transfer the DC back to your ‘mothership’ & jump/fly back however you want (within time limits, natch). You can do this without a DC of course, but it takes more precious seconds from your deadline.

If you’ve none of the toys mentioned above & are lucky enough to find yourself with a newly capped ship & time to spare then a) repair it as much as possible (90% hull will give you max speed; more than that will increase your $ bonus), send it on its way & get OOZ ASAP to reduce its travel time. A short detour to a local Trading or Equipment Dock would be beneficial as you can upgrade ship’s speed + software, further cutting down on travel time.

Be wary of installing material equipment though: software & ‘tunings’ (including speed improvements, JD, transporter devices, etc) will sell back to the ‘owner’ (your employer) at list price, so you won’t lose any money from installing these things. Anything that takes up cargo space will be redeemed at lowest price [needs checking – see your X-pedia entries for lowest price of shields, guns, missiles etc] (This can be used to advantage WRT a few items, but I’m not going to list them here). So the more materiel you load down your prize with, the less it’ll gain you in profit.. unless you’re trying to offload a warehouse full of <stuff> that you can’t get rid of any other way.

Later on in your career, once you've increased your race rep somewhat [thanks Catra] you’ll eventually be tasked with retrieving high-level ships such as M6, M7 or M7M. Normally these would require a boarding party (& do, in ‘Capture Ship’ missions above), but as it’s empty with no pilot you can simply fly up to the ship, cap it just like a bailed fighter, & be on your way. Of course, you can use this to your advantage if you've the time & want to train marines. Now, what to do with your prize?

You could return it (being a nice person). This would earn you maybe 2.5MCr, for a 5MCr hull (M6) to a 35MCr hull (for a decent M7(M) ). Hmm.. which way to go?

For those of a non-larcenous disposition, look away now!

First you need preparation. A JD + fuel is obligatory, unless you’re planning on selling the hulk for scrap in a shipyard next to the sector the hulk’s in (it won’t survive a longer journey: see below). If you want to keep the prize, pick up some heavy shields of the type the prize is likely to use (usually 200MJ (M6) & 1GJ (M7)).

Accept the mission. Take a careful note of how much time it gives you. Jump/fly to target & cap it. Now comes the tricky part:

Transfer the JD & suitable fuel to jump & fly the prize (automated: you do not want to fly this ship yet!) to a suitable shipyard (if scrapping for cash) or EQD (if keeping to add to your fleet). If you’re keeping the prize transfer the appropriate shields as well. I usually use Ianamus Zura for the latter as its EQD is pretty close to a gate & it sells most of the stuff I’ll need to bring the ship up to fighting standard. Stay OOS until it docks (no collision avoidance = quicker travel & docking for automated ships).

Now you can jump in & dock at the shipyard/EQD, transfer the shields back if you wish (+ any software you may like to retain), & you’ve not lost anything

Look at the time remaining in mission. You can use that time to repair-laser the hull before docking & selling (AKA scrapping) the ship (gaining more $$$), or you can sell the ship immediately. Either way, you ‘gain’ a minimal rep loss (ship was destroyed before being returned) & loadsa cash! Alternatively, if you want to keep the prize you can do a few things:

When the mission times out, a bunch of cops will point-jump to roughly the position of their target about 5-10 minutes after timeout. Their mission is to destroy your prize (the ship you’ve appropriated) & they will try to do this as single-mindedly as those ‘Pirates are attacking my station!’ ships above. The cops will be of the same race as your ex-employer (& no, it doesn’t matter if they were Pirate or Yaki or other baddies) & will consequently give you a bad race rep if you (or any other asset of yours) destroy them; however, they won’t try to attack a docked ship! They’ll mill around, flying into asteroids or stations or WHY, but they won’t attack <prize> if it’s docked, neither will they attack <playership> (unless it’s the same ship). So if you’ve nothing better to do, leave them in the jumble of debris that is IZ & wait for them to thin themselves out

Meanwhile, you can stock your new prize with software (Nav1 is a must; Cargo Life Support for M7M (you don’t get it automatically unless it’s been boarded) plus anything else you feel it may need), tunings (max speed & turning as a priority; cargo can wait if necessary) & max shields. Leave it sitting once equipped.

So. Getting rid of those pesky kids.. oops, cops! Unfortunately the Commonwealth seems to apply the rule of ‘Hot Pursuit’, so you can’t rely on (say) Boron military forces killing off Split cops for you. The first method is to jump the prize out to a destination past a Xenon sector or two (from Ianamus I’d pick Family Njy EQD or the military outpost in Ghinn’s Escape as they’re nearest; the MO will give you a Triplex scanner, more Ecells if needed + marines for M7M use, plus it’s across 2 Xenon sectors). The cops have burnt out their jumpdrives point-jumping in to get your prize, so will have to follow flat-footed through any hostile sector they need to pass to get there; that should winnow them down a bit!

Sometimes a few lucky &/or speedy cops make the destination relatively unscathed. Never mind, just jump back again! Once this particular group of flatfeet have been disposed of, no others will appear to follow up on their ‘missing ship’ report, so you won’t have to worry about some cop M5 or M4 appearing in the middle of a delicate operation & trying to blow you apart some time in the future (long after you’d forgotten about the whole incident & have been jumping around the galaxy willy-nilly).

However, the best solution is to make friends with the Yaki. Once you have docking rights to their shipyard, provided your prize can make it there in time (it’s quite a distance from the gate, hence all the shields, upgrading & repairs), the Yaki will become your own protection force: they hate cops at least as much as they hate Paranid, & they’ll soon deal with your problem with no rep loss to you

Scan for illegal goods smugglers: Freight scan s/w required. HINT: Police licence for target sector strongly advised: you’ll lose a tiny bit of rep (with the sector owner’s race) for every use of the scanner without a licence. Reward: a low %age of the value of any illegal goods detected.
This can be one of the most infuriating missions you’re given. Time after time you’ll run around scanning ships & coming back with nothing when the time limit expires. So, what makes this mission worthwhile? Simple answer: scan any ship leaving an illegal goods factory (eg SQUASH mines, weed, booze) within the designated area (note you’re not usually limited to one sector for this operation; the briefing will usually say ‘scan.. within Teladi border space’ or similar). Once you’ve found a smuggler its ship designation will change from <race> to Pirate, the ship will turn red & you’re free to destroy or capture it. Shoot it a few times at least to make it drop its cargo; sometimes it’ll drop legit cargo as well as the illegal stuff, which you can pick up & sell anywhere there’s a buyer.

Scan for goods value: As above, but this is given by Pirates or Yaki & usually occurs in Pirate/Yaki sectors. This is a lot easier than the ‘illegal goods’ mission & the rewards are a lot higher as the total value of the ship’s cargo (including ship’s equipment, guns, shields etc) is taken into account, so prioritise high-end military ships, weapons dealers & high tech traders. You will gain race rep from <mission giver> with a successful conclusion, & you won’t turn any of the target ships hostile simply by scanning them, so it’s a nice safe little earner for you!

Scan asteroids: Probably one of the easiest missions you’re going to get. A Triplex or at least a Duplex scanner is recommended for the scanning ship. All you have to do is get yourself a Mineral Scanner (s/w) for about 30KCr, then fly around scanning the asteroid(s) indicated by the mission markers. Fly to within 10Km of the targeted ‘roid, right-click on it & hit ‘scan’, then move on to the next one. Once you’re done, jump/fly back to your employer & comm. him the results; if you’ve done this within the time limit you’ll get up to 200,000Cr per asteroid, plus a bonus! Easy money! Even if you miss the deadline you’ll still be paid for the ‘roids you've scanned within time.
You don’t even have to do this yourself; Explorer s/w (from Teladi EQDs, among other places) will allow you to tell any other of your ships fitted with the Mineral Scanner to fly to any sector & scan any or all asteroids there. The only problem is once they’re OOS you can’t tell which specific ‘roids your employer wants scanned, so you’ll have to scan them all. Be aware that fast ships are subject to the autopillock’s suicidal tendencies while <playership> is IS, so if you’re going to send fast scouts out to do remote scanning, get <playership> OOS ASAP.
Once scanned a ‘roid stays scanned, & won’t appear on anyone else’s list. If an entire sector has been scanned no one will send you to scan ‘roids in that sector ever again.. so you can’t pre-empt the orders by scanning everything & then waiting for a mission to pop up If you’re lucky, though, you can combine 2 or even 3 ‘roid scanning missions over the same sector(s).