I keep forgetting that the enemies you face PvE are based on your own ship size.
Took the Vulture out and had much better luck.
Question for anybody with a Clipper: what are you even using it for these days? I love mine, but I don’t know what to do with her, as I’m burned out on mining.
Where in the blue blazes do you find the things???
I’ve been driving all over chasing my wave scanner like a donkey chasing a carrot on a stick, and I’ve not found a single one anywhere. Seriously, is the payout so high because of associated impossibility/ frustration level of this mission type?
Ok, the best way we have found which is very profitable as some missions will stack (killing one skimmer may count towards more than one contract if you have more than one contract or “stack” them.) is as follows.
As per @komemiute 's video, you could attack the base assigned. But we found you will get the penalty or fine for trespassing and on higher paid missions even security vessels. We found it best not to attack assigned base.
So this is what we do.
Fly to the base/planet assigned to be in general area. Then move away from base and search for POI’s (points of interest). IIRC poi’s show up on the scanner as a blue circle when you are above 2klm from the surface.
So fly around until you spot the blue circle
Try to put yourself roughly in the middle of the circle then land straight down. Look about as you head down as you may pick up a site with skimmers visually.
Get in rover and use wave scanner to find various areas that may be protected by skimmers. Just be warned though, some sites may have a ship somewhere near. Don’t attack the skimmers, if there is a landed ship nearby. It will attack you. Just move on to another site.
Each point of interest (blue circle) holds multiple sites. Usually a minimum of 4 and i have had up to 7-8 depending on how easy they are to find with wave scanner.
I sorta ended up finding the base and killing skimmers there, but it was a Lawless area, so I guess that’s why I got no fines or bounty? And I learned that it’s actually possible to shoot the things down from your ship, if you’re low enough.
Skimmer missions are frustrating as hell just because of finding them. I gave up on them when I was still playing. That wave scanner mechanic needs some updating to make it more user friendly.
They should really create an add-on slot for like a docking hatch type thing, and add that to the outposts, so that ships can just be used. Say restrict it so you can’t load / unload cargo, but you can refuel. Can’t buy a new ship either as there’s nowhere to keep the existing one, but ya.
Kinda lot of work for minimal use though. This is why I don’t design games.
I’m doing missions out of Upsilon Aquarii, getting my allied status higher for those passenger missions to Smeagol, and I’m getting really close to getting the scratch to afford an Anaconda while I’m at it. Which I would then use to run more passenger missions until Beyond drops, anyway.
I’m not really sure what they’re adding here, hasn’t been much really since we first got planet (moons?) landings. I want to see walking around ships and atmospheric flight!!!
An overhaul to the crime and punishment system that will hopefully cut back on the power of trolls and griefers, a new way of doing engineering, and something with the economy I think?