 Update 11 to Elite Dangerous Odyssey brought with it a new on-foot mission type. In this video I'm going to talk about the settlement based protect missions. What's good about them? What isn't so good? What I like and what I don't like? To make sure you don't miss any of our videos hit like and subscribe and remember to click the little bell icon and select all Notifications, and if you'd like to help directly support this channel You can also join our patreon via the link in the video description If you've not seen the protect missions from Elite Dangerous Odyssey, then here's a quick rundown of what to expect They're a wave-based survival mission that tasks you any teammates and a bunch of friendly AI at a settlement With protecting a thing in the middle of the settlement not the settlement itself But a somewhat random cargo item this mission enabling MacGuffin is about to be assaulted by waves of AI troops That have taken great exception to the MacGuffin's existence. They're not interested in stealing the cargo. Oh, no That's not enough. They want it dead So egregious is the existence of this MacGuffin in fact that they're willing to deploy multiple drop ships carrying wave after wave of heavily armed troopers all willing to give up their own existence just to see this small collection of cargo canisters Erased from the universe whatever these cargo canisters did it must have been quite bad a Few seconds after arriving at the settlement the drop ships will start spawning in each dropping six bad guys at a time They're dropped in similar fashion to the troops arriving at a conflict zone at a seemingly random spot in the middle of the settlement Somewhere at which point they start making their way toward the MacGuffin canisters of doom If they're not stopped they'll open fire on the weird trolley thing that houses the devil's own cargo canisters Which will be destroyed in fairly short order thereafter This is not a mission where you can afford to let the VIC that's very important canisters come under fire After a few waves of cargo killers have deployed and been mowed down The bad guys seem to consider that their beef with the canisters of darkness is just not worth the price And they give up their quest to send them to their maker It's a fairly simple premise and not without some quirks which will come to in a moment But overall it's fairly well executed and serves a purpose You can earn some good coin or materials etc from the missions and as an exercise in mowing down AI and defending the Existence of a cargo canister. It's overall quite good fun The settlements as always are nicely atmospheric with alarms blaring in anticipation of the impending attack on the cargo canisters And there's a nice tension before the dropships arrived that is paid off well by the pop as they arrive from supercruise above you In making their way through the settlement the AI banditos will often funnel through some nice choke points And if you can time it right there's quite often a fairly ferocious exchange of fire at those choke points More often than not as well there will be a frantic search to find the last guy from the dropships still alive Before the next ship arrives with its hold full of cargo hating desperados do this a few times and the mission ends I have enjoyed the missions on the occasions that I've done them But honestly I don't personally find myself compelled to run towards them Even if they have a material reward that I'm after if I can get that reward another way Then I tend towards the other way generally and that got me thinking as to why that is What is it about the defend the box missions that feels like trying to push the identical poles of a pair of magnets together? After giving it some thought I came to the conclusion that it's not one particular issue that I have but rather a few small issues That combined tend to make the missions just feel a bit off Without a doubt one of the bigger problems I have with them is simply the premise The McGuffin itself is incredibly contrived the McGuffin is so obviously a McGuffin a Constructed reason for the bad guys to turn up and get shot that it feels at odds with the rest of elite dangerous Everything in elite is for the most part in existence in spite of you It all carries on about its business whether anyone is there or not in fact that for me is one of the great Appeals of the game wars of thought and lost an Empire's influence can ebb and flow regardless of whether I participate or not regardless of whether anyone Participates in fact the box of hatred at a settlement However has its content spawned just for me if I accept the mission don't get me wrong I know a bunch of stuff gets spawned in elite just for you if you accept a mission planetary PoIs distress signals or notorious pirates, but that stuff all feels part of the universe Yes, it was spawned for you But you can believe that if it wasn't it might have existed anyway the canisters in a protect mission However, don't feel like that their existence in the place that they're in makes no sense They're not moving anywhere. They haven't been anywhere They just pop in when needed specifically with the sole purpose of being shot at if these canisters are so hated Desired or dangerous that someone is prepared to expire the lives of a few mercenaries or henchmen to see them burn Then why are they just sitting in the open? Why are they not in a secure lockup under armed guard? They're just sitting in the road outside a building because they are in a similar vein Visit any of these settlements when the mission isn't in your log and there's life Scientists administrators workers guards etc. But not when the devil's canisters are in town Oh, no, it's got its armed guards around it and everyone else has left for a few hours been sent away Or perhaps been vaporized by the canisters presence. Is that perhaps why someone wants them dead? The defend the thing against waves of bad guys idea itself isn't bad But it's a shame that the settlement itself couldn't have been the McGuffin after all settlements have a control room Or a security center normally why wasn't that the target? It would certainly make more sense than someone traveling interstellar distances to kill a box If you are going to have a cargo canister trolley to defend either put it in the warehouse buildings or even better Have it moving from a landed cargo ship to the warehouse under armed guard rather than just arbitrarily Plunked into the middle of a settlement update 12 is due sometime between now and the end of the month That too is bringing with it a new mission type as of this recording nothing is known about that mission type But I'm hopeful that frontier are able to integrate the mission into the background a bit more this time And make it feel a bit more like part of elite's greater galaxy and not just that you'd entered a first-person shooter online Server when some fool voted in to defend the box map Have you tried the protect missions? What do you think what missions would you like to see added? Let us know in the comments below That's it for now. 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