Mission question (UPS Courier Company)

[Erai]

Erm, I think I may have another question. Mission-related, so the warning for everybody who is just reading and has yet to start in the UPS Courier Company missions: Condition yellow for spoilers

I am trying to complete the first UPS kill-mission. Sounds simple: Kill a fugitive Boa that has a red star on the rear (colour is important, shooting green-starred boa's is not good )

Now, I was at this all evening yesterday, but no success so far. I did find the ship, after waiting for 20 or so minutes near a station.
Immediately I docked, saved, undocked, and found this not to have been the smartest thing to do: escort was still there, but Boa was gone... woops.

So I tried again, waited for another 20 min, and there he turned up again. This time I simply attacked. Which did not work well either: fugitive or not, apparently it is illegal to attack any other ship in the Save Zone. Good thing too, but rather inconvenient in this case, not to mention "lethal".

Three times is supposed to be a charm though. Waited again, allowed the boa to dock, then I docked as well, saved... and received a message that the boa had already left and jumped out. Bummer.

Fourth time then. I flew back and forth a couple of times between the nav beacon and the witchpoint beacon, killed a couple of ships, but found no Boa. So, nothing for it then to wait again. Fugitive Boa arrived, docked, and sure enough, a Boa undocked soon after- however, this ship (and escort) had a "clean" status. I was not able to check the colour of the star, unfortunately, but, assuming this to be a different group, I let them jump out, and kept waiting. And waiting. And... yep.

But no fugitive Boa. Which leads me to assume that either the mission assumes the ship to have jumped to the next system the moment he docked, or that the standing of the boa changes from docking to undocking. Either way, íf there is a way to kill the target, I cannot see how this

There were a couple more tries: follow the first Boa that jumped out (yep, that was a green star), trace the paths between W, N, and the star (fortunately, nothing else in Zasoer), and wait at the jump-in- point instead of the station (unfortunately the game CTD'd, but if he would be at jump-in I would have expected to find the Boa while tracing the corridor anyway)

So I am basically kind of stuck here... anybody here have an idea what I might have overlooked?

[Hoopy]

sounds like you'll just have to kill him in the safe zone. As you've found out you'll need to be quick before too many vipers attack you. You may find using a load of missiles against him and then firing lasers will let you take him out faster. Although a full burst of military laser normally kills a (non-renegade) boa no problem.

You'll be an offender after that but a couple of jumps will clear it.

[Erai]

And that was indeed the trick- well almost: this time I attacked him as far from the station as I could- he enters the grid on the side of the witchpoint, so it is possible to put yourself between him and the station. ECM-hardened missile and a full salvo was enough to make the ship go poof- the escorting ships did not even bother to retaliate

I still did one thing wrong, I stopped scooping after getting one of the UPS containers, but apparently there are more and you get paid per container, not just for completing the mission.

(but the waiting time before the action starts is still really, really long )

[Commander McLane]

You'll be an offender after that but a couple of jumps will clear it.

...or one of the alternative ways featured in Anarchies.oxp

[Eric Walch]

Three times is supposed to be a charm though. Waited again, allowed the boa to dock, then I docked as well, saved... and received a message that the boa had already left and jumped out. Bummer.
.....
But no fugitive Boa. Which leads me to assume that either the mission assumes the ship to have jumped to the next system the moment he docked, or that the standing of the boa changes from docking to undocking. Either way, íf there is a way to kill the target, I cannot see how this

Glad to read you solved it. But as it is a fugitive ship you should be able to shoot it everywhere, even near the station! Only clean ships are dangerous for your own legal status.

And after the message that he jumped to the next system, he really was in the next system. The mission briefing changed to the new location and also the red cross on the long/short range chart has moved!

But yes, in some systems it is hard to find him as he sometimes runs into police it could take some time until he kills them. sometime he gets killed himself by the police. In that case the mission also ends and you just get some small amount of money for the trouble.

[Erai]

Ah, ok, so searching along the corridor diligently enough might have worked after all. Gotta try that next time

I was rather surprised when I saw the "Help, they're shooting at us" broadcast the first time. Now I assumed it was the Boa that did that- but maybe I simply missed one time and hit the station instead or something...

[Eric Walch]

Ah, ok, so searching along the corridor diligently enough might have worked after all. Gotta try that next time

I was rather surprised when I saw the "Help, they're shooting at us" broadcast the first time. Now I assumed it was the Boa that did that- but maybe I simply missed one time and hit the station instead or something...

Very likely as he is a plain trader and for the most of it will also react as one. When Oolite 1.71 comes out I can really make full functional ship-scripts that works without reference errors. Than I can make the boa clean at the start and only give him a fugitive status when the player comes near. The player will see no difference but in the period he is clean, no police will attack him. But that is future, currently the player will not be the only one that is hunting after the boa.

(The constrictor mission has a comparable problem but that one is never placed in a system with to much police)