Deep breathe and relax.

Oh boy I'm pi$$ed.

Another black box mission,which I have to say have been going ok just lately so I felt good about this one plus it was half a mill payout. First time I get the drop-in point there's nothing there. This happens again later and I'm sure I was within parameters to drop out of S/C. Anyway,have they made scooping up stuff harder in a patch or something??? No matter how careful I am, at the last second the goods take on a life of their own and veer off. Now imagine doing this under fire,it's almost impossible. But no fear,I have my new 'shielded to f**k' Python build,it can withstand any onslaught whilst I carry on scooping.

Oh no you can't,shields down in double quick time,hull down to 16%,time to split to the next system,repair and come back.

Back to the mission point,this time I'm jumped by 3 ships,I have no chance and in my panic I forget to select to jump out of the system. The Python shields might as well have been made of butter. I'm mass locked and doomed. If my keyboard hadn't cost so much it would have gotten a Chucky-sized fist through it there and then.

So I lost my ship,my cargo that I had to go to 3 stations to collect for a mission,plus all the explo data I'd been sitting on.

Time for a break.

Sorry to hear this. $hit happens, and your right time for a break.

Remember setting that emergency getaway system

Have you thought about a few collector limpets. They can collect while you fight off the hordes.

WingNuts,you told me to do this the last time I moaned about black box retrieval missions and I didn't do anything about it. Maybe now I should listen to you

Limpets are now on my shopping list,as soon as I can bring myself to play it again.

I don't use limpets, just da scoop!

Chucky, what ship? What are the hardpoint locations? Is there one in front of the scoop and are your weapons still deployed when you are trying to scoop?

Ahh, it's the Python. Big 'ol C3 hardpoint smack in front of da scoop!

I have nothing installed other than 2 shield boosters.No weapons on a Chucky ship. I've noticed for some while that scooping seemed more tricky. When I first started mining (probably over 2 years ago now) it was simple to collect stuff,now it just seems 'different'.

Do I need to buy a 'scooping ship'?

The thing that annoys me the most about this is that I have no chance against aggression like that,and they were only NPC's. As someone who chooses to fly unarmed I can only run. It's not the money but the ever increasing number in the insurance claims column. No other game I've played have I taken a loss of a ship so personally.

Ahh, damn I thought I'd cracked it.

Sorry for the loss mate, I know it sucks.

I often have to apply a bit of rudder at the last moment, it happens sometimes. I think the stuff is moving around sometimes. Limpets should make the collection easier.

Me? I'd be blasting away at the damn farkers. Ya wanna pirate me eh? Say hello to my little friend.

None of this helps.

I wish I could engineer some shields and give 'em to you.

If you mean the FSD charge was slow because the enemy ships were nearby (mass inhibited)... Then you can always do an FSD jump to another system, which is *never* mass inhibited. Only FSD jumps to SuperCruise get mass inhibited by other ships.

When I'm dropping into a risky situation, before I punch the FSD button to drop, I open my left hand HUD to the Navigation panel, and pre-select another system for emergency escape. This saves precious fumbling when it's time to bail. When facing Thargoids especially, and an Cyclops Interceptor (or worse!) may appear and be trashing my ship to bits, every second counts.

Once the FSD is charging (15 seconds for a jump to another system), the key thing to do is keep turning hard, as though you are trying to chase/engage one of the enemies. Of course you arent engaging, since hardpoints are retracted for FSD charge.

But *turn hard* as though you are fighting those NPCs. When the FSD is 100% charged, make a snap turn to face the target vector and out you go. It forces the NPC enemies to fight to land hits.

Running away straight toward the FSD target, you ship is just a pretty picture for the enemy to shoot at, even while they are stopped cold. (I lost a $100 million credit Fer de Lance doing this, just running away in a straight line!)

Yes, the advice on choosing a high wake escape destination is a good one. And be sure you have a button mapped to next waypoint in route or whatever it's called. This is a good idea all of the time, but of course especially if you expect trouble. As mentioned, no mass lock on high wake. Of course you're leaving what you came for, but probably preferable on balance.

Chucky, what level are the missions you are taking? Higher levels not only spawn more and better ships, but those ships are better equipped. Elite level will probably see some fine weapons turned against you. If you're running 6A with a couple of boosters, you probably aren't over 600mj and with no special resistances. If the NPC is high level, he probably has the weapons to chew it up. Have you considered a SLF? Perhaps that would be good to have when you get jumped, in order to pull some attention away from you.

Well, not in the Python. Not gonna work.

Something I was thinking about.... The Python is a great ship. I love it and so do lots of players. It has so many advantages, looks fantastic. Just a really cool Elite ship.

To me though it's meant to be armed. I see it as too slow to fly missions like these when you have no weapons. If evasion is required, it's going to be caught by just about anything sent against it, especially without engineering. You just bought it and should keep it. But for missions like the black box ones, perhaps you could consider a small, fast, agile ship. Like the Courier. Maybe even a Viper. A Clipper? If you can fly, and especially boost, faster than the stuff that's chasing you it will be a lot more survivable.

As others have said, after getting jumped at these things (though I managed to High Wake Out) I started doing them in a Combat ship with just enough Cargo Space for the mission items and a bunch of limpets and a LImpet controller.

If I dropped in and there was company, I would start slugging it out (unless totally overmatched) and soon the cops would come to help. Usually I could start letting the Limpets do their thing while the cops were engaged and/or the bad guys supercruised away.

Usually, I could get in, drop a Limpet and collect at least one Black Box before high waking out if I couldn't stand and fight... then cruise around to find another Mission USS and repeat. Discretion was always the better part, and Brave Sir Robin saves the day.

Scooping is a pain in the butt...

I've gotten a tissue paper Python shot out from under me many times during interdictions when I was too dumb to High Wake at the first sign of danger...so I feel your pain. However, as the lads on Lave Radio are fond of saying:

"The game is called Elite DANGEROUS, not Elite CARE BEAR"

I do risky black box missions in my Cobra Mk3. It's got thin 4A shields, no boosters, but does carry Military Bulkhead Armor. Even so, it's special power is speed. When I see bad guys drop in, I can punch the boost button and at 510m/s I'm gone so fast they rarely touch me.

This does make the mission slower to finish, but at least I can do a low wake (to Supercruise) and come back to try again without more jumping.

If the cargo need is small, the Imperial Eagle is also an off the wall choice. The one I used to have could boost to like 750m/s... I doubt many player ships could catch it, much less NPCs! But this was a very specialist build, not useful for much else than running fast.

Thanks for the advice guys,I was kind of joking when I said do I need a 'scooping' ship but actually it's not too bad of an idea.

I take on missions that are above my pay grade all the time and usually they go without incident,except black box ones of course. If I can stay in S/C then I'm 99% safe as I haven't been successfully interdicted for ages. Surely now that I have also reached 'Elite' status I'm going to run into the higher end missions more? If so then that sucks for a pacifist.

I'm ranking up for the Alliance at the moment. What's up with their mission selection? If it isn't combat then it's always free things they want.

The shields were the only reason I didn't suggest the Cobra, but in every other way it's a great ship for this sort of stuff.

The 'scooping ship' is actually a great idea I think. That's exactly what my Courier is. I use it for entering instances and gathering what's there, and with plenty of speed to dictate what happens should an uninvited guest arrive at the party. It's not failed me yet. It's small and agile, a good ship for manual scooping, has enough cargo space for anything I might want to pick up (black boxes, escape pods, wreckage, etc), it has fantastic shields for a ship it's size and is one of the fastest ships in the game. Boost speed is insane.

Speed and shields are also why I suggested the Clipper, even if the way I wrote it makes it seem like I think it's small and agile.

Ships like the Viper, Cobra, Courier are also pretty cheap, and have low rebuys in case it doesn't work out well every now and again.

Ok,I'm going to buy a Courier. My 'one ship does all' approach isn't paying off so well. Maybe you could post up your Courier build for me DB,thanks

Yes indeed! Well, actually no. I will post my build if you want to see it, but it's highly engineered and isn't practical if you're not engineering. So I made one like I might use if I wanted a scoop ship with no engineering.

Scoopin' Courier

Some notes.... This build is using the Enhanced Performance Thrusters, which are a special that can only be purchased from one of the engineers like Felicity. They give a nice boost to performance, but they do decrease optimal mass significantly, here down to 90t. So I was sure to keep mass below that figure.

My Courier uses a class 3 powerplant, but I was not able to use that in this one because it requires overcharging. It only saves 2.5 tons anyway.

Speed in this build is 333/452. That boost should be enough to leave any pirate in your wake. My engineered Courier boosts to 631, so if you do eventually go this route you can build one heck of a fast ship. It could hit over 900 m/s boost speed, but to do that it needs to be so light that it isn't useful for anything other than going fast. If there were racing in Elite, this ship would be a contender for the title

As shown it's 24t of cargo. Should you opt for a limpet controller, this will drop to 16t. Personally I do not use them. So I'm no expert and don't know if there is a big disadvantage going with D-rated over A-rated. But the A-rated limpet would put the ship over optimal mass. a 3D will put it at 89t. Of course if you pick up just two items, you'll be over OM and lose much of the performance advantage.

Bottom line is, if you can't keep the mass under 90t most of the time, you might be better off with the standard thrusters, but with a performance drop along with it.

You could make up some of that mass by dropping some of the boosters (3.5t each). I put four on here, but that may be overkill, and you might prefer chaff or a wake scanner or some other utilities. But with four boosters, the shields are an amazing 558 mj, which likely rivals what you're getting in the Python, but on a much faster, more agile, harder to hit ship.

I should add that some people are crazy and seem to think the cockpit in the Courier sucks. I love it, but I'm not sure how you'll feel about it. Exhibit A (actually taken on the way to buy the Enhanced Thrusters)



Some folks hate that forward support ring. I think it makes it feel like a Korea-era fighter jet

Limpets
Shields
Chaff
Thrusters
Grab one container and thrust off, jump out, jump back in, grab another since they respawn, repeat as necessary.

You can usually run with just thrusters and get enough distance to not get hit while chaffing in the meantime. Either running straight away or cutting under them if they’re too close. Listen for them to jump in, don’t wait for the scope to alert you. You just need one container, you can come back for another.
If you aren’t using limpets, you’re just torturing yourself for no reason.

A couple of you have said jump out and then back in but as soon as I do,the contact disappears and I have to wait again. I zero the throttle so I don't stray too far but it's never there.

Thanks DBond,where do I send the royalties?

PO Box 007, Daedalus, Sol System 35483. Thanks, pleasure doing business with you.



I agree they are more convenient, but I have reasons

This is normal, when you jump out to Supercruise, that instance (and it's location) are gone. It may not spawn again in exactly that spot, but it's no impact on how it plays out.