Missions: Types, Sliders, and Find Item Missions

[______________Meiyen]

EDIT 4/9/04: I have expanded nearly all sections with the helpful comments made here. I'd like to thank everyone for their helpful input and kind words.

The new version of the guide is located in the Knowledge Database forum under the title "Mission Settings 101 (version 2.0)"

[Jajangmyun]

*bookmarks*

I'll have to try some of these variations out. I've been doing your first example but instead of the 50% those are all 100% Rights, i.e. RLRRRL. This usually gives me 3 Find Items usually non-cave, human mobs.

Good post

[Cayre]

Very nice post.

[Shadehawk]

/me tries to glue Meiyen's awsome post to the top of this forum!

WTG and GJ!

[_________Varthlokkur]

This is the best post I have ever seen on mission slider settings

Thanks!

[Viredan]

LLLRML is a good team mish setting, low on the turrets and cameras, and generally all humanoid mobs.

oh, and bump. If i had seen this close to 2 years ago, I'd have gone through alot less grief.

[Seek]

Isn't this stickied yet?

[_________Varthlokkur]

Originally posted by Seek
Isn't this stickied yet?

It should be or at least in the book mark threads.

[Fionnghal]

Someone mentioned "blitzing" missions to me... Something about running straight to the end of the mission and collection the rewards for completing the mission...

What type of mission would be the best for this style?

[Remianen]

I've noticed a trend in regards to the Head-On/Stealth slider. It seems to have a correlation to the professions of the mobs you face (when coupled with max Physical like I always do). With 100% Stealth, I've gotten more Fixers and Agents with a moderate number of Adventurers and a smattering of MPs and Doctors and NTs. With 100% Head-On, I got very few of anything but Enforcers, Soldiers, and MAs with a higher probability of Traders.

Also, the Physical/Mystical slider seems to have an effect on rate of casting. For example, max Physical does not mean you won't get nano-using mobs. But it does seem to reduce the rate at which nano using profs use their nanos. I still get nano-using mobs in 100% Physical missions but they only use low level nanos (level 55ish NTs casting Feeble Blade Chaos, MPs casting Quell Anger and Mind Pain/Frost Slivers, Doctors casting Lesser Muscle Atrophy, Enforcers not Mongoing til they're almost dead, Adventurers/Doctors not healing themselves AT ALL, Soldiers never using TMS, etc).

Not done testing this yet. But after about 140 missions, this seems to be the common thread.

[Quarkmeister]

sticky this thread... there should be a class called MISH 1001 for all newbs so they understand how to choose team mishes with human mobs, as well as how to choose blitzable/ solo mishes.

best post i've seen on the subject.. i especially like the ascii mish sliders. nice touch

[Nazly]

Very nice!! I like the asc-graphical approach a lot.

Nazly

P.S. And now I go off to experiment with some of those other settings!

[endercn]

Quick question for the experts. I am only level 46 but every time I get a find item mission the item is always something like "piece of confidential information". The item does not sell for anything at the stores. Is there anyway to turn this into something valuable and is this just something you get at low levels? If so does anyone know what level you start to get actual items to find?

[Griddo]

If you're going to be blitzing missions (running quickly through the mission with your DEF/AGG slider to full DEF and grabbing the item and running out), then you want to get RETURN ITEM missions; the ones that Meiyen says is the most annoying . If you are doing it for the item, anyway.

The reason for this is that when you are looking for certain items, nanos for your profession, armor for your breed, or whatever, you get TWO items to choose from for each RETURN ITEM mission. If the item you want to keep is the mission reward, then return the item you find in the mission to the terminal; if the item you want to keep is the item you're supposed to be returning, then just keep it and delete the mission. Use Clicksaver to help find the items you need (see the link in my signature).

The FIND ITEM missions too often have a worthless item to find (like artwork) that you can't even use in your apartment. These missions are good if you are doing the mission for XP and/or tokens because, as Meiyen said, you can wait until you've killed everything in the mission and have your token chance at 100% before you target the item to "complete" the mission.

To blitz missions for just the cash reward, I find the best ones for that are FIND PERSON missions because it's easy to see the target; usually an atrox in a groovy blue shirt, or a creature. If you're lucky you'll get a mission full of people and the target is a creature or vice-versa, and then it's super easy to find him, and if you have the map upgrades you can see where your target is before you even go past the entryway. Also note that for cash rewards, the farther away the mission is from the terminal the more money you get, so get a bunch of them in the same area. You can earn money very quickly this way, especially now that you can hold 9 missions at once.

[________________bufo]

Great post! This needs to be stickied, as has been suggested.

I have experimented some with mission settings, and have some to add. If any of these settings are mentioned above, sorry but it is hard going back and forth scrolling between the original post and this

For this listing, to keep it brief, I'll just use L=(all the way to left), M=(in the middle), R=(all the way to right), and there is an occurence of 20%, which is that second setting, that the original poster said is actually 10-40.

The two main settings I have used are:
LRLLLL ---Gives 3 find items, but the item is a "fake" item (ie, Urgent Sensitive Information, etc). Populated mostly with monster types. The good thing about this setting, is if you are Omni, you can use it without fear of "old mission key" if you get a cave mission.

RLRL(20%)L -OR- RLRLML ----3 find items, gives a "real" item (armor, weapon, etc) as target, populated with humans. The bad thing, if you are Omni, is this one will give you "old mission key" if you get a cave mission, so don't take cave mish with this setting if pulled from at least an Omni city terminal.

Some other settings that I wrote down what they produced 3 of, but haven't taken enough to know whether they are populated with human vs monster, whether the item target is real or fake, etc:

RRRLLL - kill person
RRMLLL - kill person
LRMLLL - find item
LLMLRL - repair
LLLLRL - kill person
LLLLLL - kill person
LLRLLL - find person
LLRLRL - find person
LLRMLL - find person
LLRRRL - repair
RLRLRL - find item
RLRLLL - kill person
LRRLML - kill person
LLRLML - find person
RLLM(20)L - find person
RRLLLL - kill person

------------------------
Some additional things:
The original post stated that in Find Person missions, you had to target the person for 30 seconds, and if you accidently targetted them when you were not ready to finish the mission, that you had to quickly un-target them. Well, my experience on this differs. If I so much as target the person for even a fraction of a second, it will complete the mission. So if I accidently click the person, and realize it even as I'm clicking, hit escape, it is still too late, and I'll get the "mission complete" music.

Personally if I'm missioning to get a token also, I'll take find item as #1 choice. If I'm just wanting to grab the item and run out, find person can be good too since you just click the person and run.

With Kill Person missions, it seems like the target human can be one of two types visually. If the person is dressed in a brown plated armor, they tend to be passive, and you can easily take down everything in the room with the person, move on, do other things, and come back and take them later. However, if it is a person in a blue Hawaiian shirt, they will be aggressive, and attack on site, so if you run into the person before you were ready to complete the mission, you have to either go through the rest of the mission with them beating on your back (have done that before ) or just kill them and finish the mish early.

A small obvious tip: If you have the Show Person and Show Monster map upgrades, and take a solo mission to find or kill person, while choosing a mission that is likely to be populated with monsters, you can just aim for the white dot on your map.

[Seek]

Originally posted by bufo
The two main settings I have used are:
LRLLLL ---Gives 3 find items, but the item is a "fake" item (ie, Urgent Sensitive Information, etc). Populated mostly with monster types. The good thing about this setting, is if you are Omni, you can use it without fear of "old mission key" if you get a cave mission.

RLRL(20%)L -OR- RLRLML ----3 find items, gives a "real" item (armor, weapon, etc) as target, populated with humans. The bad thing, if you are Omni, is this one will give you "old mission key" if you get a cave mission, so don't take cave mish with this setting if pulled from at least an Omni city terminal.

Thanks much for this! I was going nuts yesterday getting "old mission key" missions for 80% of the cave missions drawn from Rome. My thing is I'd like to have lots of locks and traps so I'm going to try experimenting with these settings. I haven't been able to find an "optimal" setting -- one I use all the time (I don't usually blitz) -- that provides these though I've tried the original suggested Hidden/Stealth settings. Missions still seem to vary greatly in amount of locked/trapped items contained therein.

[Quarkmeister]

This isn't sticky yet? it should be

bumpage

[endercn]

However, if it is a person in a blue Hawaiian shirt, they will be aggressive, and attack on site, so if you run into the person before you were ready to complete the mission, you have to either go through the rest of the mission with them beating on your back (have done that before ) or just kill them and finish the mish early.

What I do when this happens is run them down an area I've already explored, hit them with a stun then run out of the mission and go back in. Then I can just avoid that area until I'm ready to finish it. It works without the stun but its harder.

[Jajangmyun]

Intermediate Mission Settings.... would be nice to add on info on settings for things like Bots/Droids for people who need to find stuff off of them and the slider settings for those all-Medusa missions. I know I've seen threads talk about them, but I'm feeling too lazy to go hunt them down. Anyone remember them off the top of their heads?

[Incarnadine]

Originally posted by Meiyen
The Order-Chaos slider determines the type of mobs. When the selector is set to order, you will be fighting humans of various classes. When the selector is set to chaos, you will be fighting animals, mutants, cyborgs, and robots.

The Chaos slider does more than Meiyen mentions here.

When the Chaos slider is set to 100% Chaos, it chooses the second mob of paired mobs (such as found in large rooms and corridors) randomly instead of making it of the same type as the first. This has very important consequences for pet owners, because most of the time randomly chosen mobs will not assist each other, so a pet can be sent in to attack one of them and the other mob will just stand there and not join the fight.

This is very helpful both for soloing with a pet (it can kill high level mobs one at a time when two would overwhelm it), and also for pulling singles out of the room for teams (/pet follow after it has attacked one mob). Obviously nobody should enter the room or corridor --- nail those impetuous damage dealers to the ground outside --- otherwise the second mob will agro directly despite not being interested in assisting the first mob.

The random choice of second mob seems to be made once only and then applied to all mob pairs in the mission. In other words, if clan human was chosen as 2nd mob type for pairs in an otherwise all-hellhound mission, then it will be clan human in all large rooms and corridors.

Note that 100% Chaos is not infallible in creating non-assisting second mobs because the choice of 2nd is made independently of the choice of 1st for pairs, so that there is always a chance that they will both be hellhounds, for example, by coincidence. Also, some mobs do assist each other despite being of not exactly the same type, for example Aquaan Marines and Aquaan Queens, and hellhounds and Bioarranged Beasts, which reduces their independence slightly.

The 100% Chaos setting has been invaluable to me as a TL6 engie. The top-trimmed and fully buffed ql 200 slayer can just about survive an encounter with a single 219 hellhound given chain-casting of A Maker's Touch pet heal, but two of them means a dead pet in under 30 seconds, so full Chaos extends the soloing life of an engie very usefully.

It took a bit of experimenting to figure out what was happening as this slider was varied, but the end result has been invaluable. I hope this helps others as much as it has helped me.