It's a well known fact that we live in an increasingly dangerous universe, and danger is never far away. Among the most respected and feared pilots are the assassins - those who kill for profit rather than self-defence. Should you wish to join them, this tutorial will tell you all you need to know.
Before you embark on your career of death and destruction, you should take the time to make sure you've got the following things:-
Good combat rating - your prospective employer won't want to give a job to any rookies.
Decent weapons - professionals don't take all day with a 1MW pulse laser!
Radar mapper - useful for finding out about your prey, and may be needed to confirm the kill.
Hyperspace cloud analyser - so you don't lose track of the target when it jumps.
Fairly fast ship - so you can arrive at the target's destination before he does.
Some employers are more flexible on combat rating than others. In some cases, you might be able to get hired with a rating of Above Average. There doesn't seem to be any obvious link between your combat rating and the value of the contract - I tried to find one but quickly found that at any given fee I was being rejected because a higher rating was needed, but at other times i got the job.
However, it almost goes without saying that the higher your combat rating is the more likely you'll get a contract. If you're serious about being an assassin, the time you spend improving your combat rating will soon pay for itself in the extra money your hits will bring you.
Before accepting a contract, make sure that you save the game. This will give you something to fall back on should you be unable to carry out the hit. Equally, it is a good idea to save under a different filename (for example, jadesco) after accepting the contract and turn filename extensions on in case you make a mistake.
To find an assassination contract, you need to look at the Bulletin Board (BBS) for adverts offering work. The exact wording will vary, but will be similar to this one:-
REMOVAL REQUIRED: Terry Köhl the merchant is no longer wanted in the Ross 128 system. Will pay 7000
When you click on the advert's button, you'll be presented several buttons offering more information about the contract and options to accept or refuse it. The options are as follows:-
"OK, I'll take the contract" - It's not generally a good idea to accept a contract until you have more info!
"How do I find Terry Köhl the merchant?" - Clicking this option tells you the starport, system and time of departure.
"What ship will they be travelling on?" - Gives you the type and registration of the target ship.
"When must I carry out the contract?" - Gives you the target's time of departure again.
"Sorry, I'm not going that way" then hang up." - Hangs up politely.
Hang up. - Self explanatory.
Although the relevant information will be shown on your ship's contracts screen after you take a job, it is essential that you examine the information available from the BBS screen carefully before taking the contract. If you don't, you could be in the situation where the contact is impossible for you to complete. Failure, of course, isn't going to impress prospective employers. We'll now look at the importance of each of the options.
You can roughly estimate how long it will take to get to the location - a maximum range jump will take about a week and the journey from where you emerge from hyperspace to the starport can take about three days (in most systems you arrive within 10AU from the starport). That said, in certain systems you may find that there is a very long trip from hyperspace arrival to landing at the starport. While the best way to know the in-system travel is to have visited the system before, it is a reasonable assumption that the more complex the system, the longer it will take to dock.
Some examples of systems that are likely to have high travel times:-
In general, you can get a good idea of the in-system travel distance by looking at the layout of the system in the System Data Screen (F3, F7). Click on the various planets to find the one the target starport is on. If the starport is a space station, it will be one of the green dots or circles near to a planet. As you leave hyperspace relatively near to the system's main star, the distance that the target planet is from that star (orbital radius) will
While the lead times for assassinations aren't as short as military delivery missions, for example, in-system travel time is still an important factor. If you arrive at the starport after the time the target launches, he will be almost impossible to catch up with.