Duty Officer chain assignments and borderline location frustration

tilarta

For about a month now, my Jem'Hadar and Cardassian Captains have been working on the Ghosts of the Jem'Hadar and Project Chrysalis chains.

It's been rather a frustrating experience, because DOFFing hasn't adapted well to the sector space revamp.
Basically, in order to find/activate these assignments, you have to be in a very precise spot on either side of the line separating the smaller sector blocks, as in right next to it.
Move even a little into the sector block and the assignment vanishes.

Yesterday, I encountered the most annoying example of how this can make assignments disappear with only the slightest of ship movements.
I found PC assignment 5, but because my trade freighter was on cooldown, I had to go to my ship bridge to get the commodities required and when I returned to ship exterior view, despite the fact the ship had not moved at all, the assignment wasn't there anymore!
I had to move around a fair bit until the assignment reappeared, apparently it was slightly to starboard of where the ship was!

Given how annoying this is, requiring precise navigation when searching sector blocks for chain missions, I think it's time to fix this error so the chain assignments are actually inside the sector block, not in an microscopically small area next to the line seperation division.

captainhunter1

So that is what is going on?

I was just about to bug report that part 4 of the Ghosts of the Jem'Hadar (on my Jem'Hadar character) was broken. I've been trying for WEEKS to get this to pop, going to every Alpha Quad sector and nebula at all times of the day. Nada, nothing, zilch.

So those time I cross a border and the assignments seem to cycle several times super fast, is actually where they are??

Ugh.

tilarta

@captainhunter1
It gets worse.

Yesterday I found the first mission of a chain I hadn't seen before on my Cardassian.
I memorised the location, then sent my Jem'Hadar to the exact same place to activate it as well.
Only it was not there, it was on the border instead of where it was meant to be.

And today, my Cardassian found the second mission in that chain, next to a planet.
Again, I memorised where it was, then tried to obtain it with my Jem'Hadar.
It was not there.
And this time, searching the border intensively failed to locate it.

Both my Cardassian and Jem'Hadar are Starfleet, so they should be accessing the same DOFFing mission table.
Given that they both located the first mission in more or less the same place would make this conclusion plausible.

So yes, Cryptic needs to step up and fix this problem, get the assignments away from tiny spots in the borders and into the sector properly.

wildcard

Completely agree! The doff system is a mess because of this. I'll soon start to work on Diplomacy and you have to find the right spot between Cardassian and Bajoran sectors.

I spent an hour trying to find a prisoner exchange for one of my Fed captains. Had to play with borders in the Beta Quadrant. I won't do this again but that time I was determined to at least see one of these missions.

Also want to add a suggestion, if perhaps they will look at the doff system; add Diplomacy missions to places like Starbase 39, make it a destination for such things. Don't even need to invent new missions, just add the ones that exist but are found scattered around elsewhere.

where2r1

It changes with INSTANCE, too. So make sure when you go look for it on a different character, you get into the same instance.

This has been pretty much going on since they merged sector space.

dojihajime

That sounds super annoying.

cyther77

Yes, if there were spots/points on the map to show you where you can get them, that would be helpful.

wilbor2

ive given up looking for this doff chain on my newest chars as it takes for ever to find the spot

iamynaught

And this is partly why I gave up on DOffing long ago. Having to cover every cubic inch of sector space in the hopes of finding some of the missions is simply not worth it to me anymore. I have better things to do with my time then spend it on broken mechanics.

If they would fix it so that enter Sector X and all available DOff missions would show, maybe I'd start trying them again. But DOffing isn't a high priority for them so I won't count on any type of fix to be done anytime soon, if ever.

anodynes

They're not as tied to an exact spot as claims in this thread would have you believe. If you're moving through a sector, especially in the Alpha Quadrant, you can lose the assignments for that sector if you move too far into it, but none of them are located right by a specific planet in sector space. It just doesn't work like that.

When the OP mentions losing an assignment by going onto the bridge and back, what really happened was not that she nudged a tiny bit by going onto the bridge and back, but that going onto the bridge and back is re-entering the sector, same as if you had transwarped there, and that always gives you a generic set of assignments for the quadrant until you cross over a sector boundary and back again. The same thing happens when you enter sector space from system space or a planet'[s surface. It can be frustrating, especially if you don't know what's causing it, but it also has some hidden benefits when you learn how it works, and can actually make it a bit easier to find those assignments that were always a bit camera shy by giving you double, or even triple the chances of finding them, even in the same instance of the same sector block.

Long story short, if an assignment isn't where it just was, try to go back across a sector block border, then return back to the block that you just came from. You don't need to stop on a dime right at the border, but should try to stop pretty soon after crossing. Also always make note of your instance when you have to go to a bridge/planet/station before starting it, or when you switch characters to try to get the assignment on another character. For most chain assignments, there is also a department head that can have it, so know the category of the assignment, and which department head, if any, has assignments from that category. Finally, some of the chains have hidden prerequisites, so try to learn those and be sure that any characters that you want to do that chain with have finished those prerequisites.

I did all of the chains on both my Temporal Agent and my Jem'Hadar this way. It works, and the assignments are still there and working, they're just reluctant to appear, as they have been since they were introduced, and further obscured by the vagaries of the misaligned sector block borders, making it a little more difficult (and a lot more frustrating) to find them if you don't know how to juice that lemon to make some nice lemonade.

For anyone wanting more detail on how to use this strange behavior to your benefit, I went into a more-detailed description of how it works here a little over a year ago. It's involved, and might seem a bit opaque, since I probably leave out some details that seem utterly obvious to me, but may not be so obvious to someone reading them.

borg0vermind

There are about 3 assignments that I have not completed on many toon. They just never appeared anywhere and all toons have bee walked-around in space a lot for the nebula doff assignments. Probably they are just bugged, as they are the same chains on all toons.