Broker Missions

Droids with the Data Broker archetype have exclusive access to a highly lucrative mission system. These droids have been designed to be highly effective at encrypting and decrypting data, so are used to transport sensitive data between two physical locations.

To start a broker mission, head over to the 'Broker Missions' tab on your Data Broker droid's page. From here you pick the location you want to deliver data to, and then you set up the support contract.

Support Contract

The solar system is a dangerous place, especially for data broker droids. Marauders are often stationed around the egress points around planets to intercept data broker droids at the end of their transits and steal their data. If this happens, your droid's data will be lost, it will lose a lot of condition, and the broker mission will fail.

The way to mitigate being intercepted by marauders is by posting a support contract. Other bureaus can then offer their droids to act as security on the trip. The broker mission can NOT fail if you have a security escort with you. If your droid gets intercepted but has a security escort, both droids will lose some condition, but your data will be safe.

The lower the fee on the support contract, the more damage your droid will take (if intercepted). Make sure to offer a good support payout to ensure the security escort takes more damage than your droid if the droids are intercepted.

You don't HAVE to set up a support contract, you could attempt to solo the mission...but it's highly recommended to always use support contracts.

Marauder Interceptions

Every location has a crime rate, which is the percentage chance of being intercepted on broker missions. For example, if Earth has a 25% crime rate, there would be a 25% chance of being intercepted if you are travelling to Earth.

However, the chance of interception is reduced by the highest Smuggling skill among the travelling droids. For example: if your droid has 12 Smuggling and the security escort droid has 16 Smuggling, the chance of interception would be 9% (25% crime rate on Earth - 16 Smuggling = 9% chance of interception).

Encrypting

Once you have set up your destination and support contract, click 'Start Mission' and the droid will start encrypting the data. Without any buffs or training, this would take 12 hours to complete. However, your data broker droid has a trainable and buffable attribute called 'Broker Modifier'. This modifier drastically reduces the time it takes to encrypt/decrypt.

You can also reduce encryption/decryption time by increasing the 'Memory Cycle Range' slider over in your droid's hardware settings. The final calculation to figure out time to encrypt/decrypt is the following formula:

(base_time * memory_cycle_range_modifier) / broker_modifier

So if your droid has a 1.3 Broker Modifier attribute and its Memory Cycle Range set to 20%, the formula for encryption time would look like this:

(12 * 0.8) / 1.3 = 7.38 hours

For maximum encryption/decryption performance, make sure to buff your Broker Modifier attribute before starting a Broker Mission.

Loyalty Modifier

If your droid has 80% loyalty or above, the encryption/decryption time gets a 5% reduction. If the droid has 20% loyalty or below the encryption/decryption time will get a 10% increase.

Transportation

Once your droid has encrypted the data it will travel to the nearest shuttle port, head up to a burner ship and travel to the destination. This happens automatically if another bureau has accepted your support contract, but will have to be triggered manually if your droid is attempting a solo run or if no bureau has accepted the support contract.

Decryption

As soon as the droid arrives it will send you a message informing you it has arrived, and whether or not it was intercepted. If intercepted it will tell you what happened. The support droid will escort your droid down to the data center and that will conclude the support contract.

Your droid will start decryption as soon as it arrives, and will use the same formula as encryption above, with the only difference being decryption having a 10-hour baseline instead of 12 hours.

Mission Payout

Once the data has been decrypted, the mission payment is wired to your bureau's account and you can now start a new Broker Mission with the same droid. There is no cooldown. Broker Missions usually take around 20-24 hours to complete, depending on destination and droid attributes.