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[Darloth]

(All of the below is with heavily modded gameplay, but I don't think in this case it matters).

Today was the first time when I was playing Starsector and the combination of missions and trading and sensor systems combined to really enhance my enjoyment of the game.

I took a fairly simple mission (aren't they always?) to collect 500 organics and bring them back within 60 days.  Easy, I thought.  Sure, there's none in-system, but they wouldn't offer the mission with such a payoff if they were trivial...

So I headed off to a water world about 9ly away, after checking that their market produced organics.  Well.... it did, but it also fed all those organics to their lobster farms.  This resulted in zero organics being available on the open market, in fact, they were a major importer of them!

What to do now?  I looked around, and after much grumbling and doublechecking of travel times discovered that Gilead has -loads- of organics.  Only problem is, my faction is pretty hated by the luddic church...

But, needs must.  Off to Gilead we flew!  Attempting a quick docking, nope, tracked by a patrol.  We wasted days losing them in a nearby ring system before finally breaking off and going dark.  The patrol returned to orbiting Gilead, and another spawned, and we lost another couple of days lurking in the dark with our engines at half power, before finally managing to dart in between the two of them!

Much organics (at a higher price than I expected) were purchased from the black market, and I sold them some guns and missiles and things to compensate, since we don't like Ludd either and a bit of stability loss is probably good for the faction in the long run (Nexerelin, so it literally will be good for our faction in the long term!).

A quick rush back to the mission site, dodging Ludd patrols that emergency burned to try and catch us but couldn't quite make it, and we managed the mission with a couple of days to spare.

Much exhilaration from a section with no actual combat whatsoever! In short, success! All of the above systems combined really well, this was entirely procedural, everything was pretty much perfect.  It doesn't happen often, but the fact it CAN happen is pretty amazing.  Well done to all involved!

[Wapno]

This is why I never take procurement contracts unless I am 100% sure where to get the required goods from, or I am certain that I have said goods stashed at my storage (great way to sell off loot from faraway expeditions, by the way).

But yeah, it's cool that such simple missions can turn out so unpredictable and convoluted. You also have to consider that with more expensive goods, there's also a chance that a pirate fleet will be waiting to ambush you in hyperspace and steal your cargo, though this quickly stops to matter, as your fleet sooner or later becomes large and powerful enough that you can stomp them with almost no effort.