I just completed the 1st "Oratan Payback" mission. I received the lance corporal's card. When I went to exchange the private's uniform(first I made sure it was full tt) for the lance corporal's, I chose the arctic camo. Instead of successfully exchanging the uniform, the npc uniform distributor, in a check box, tells me "you are not a lance corporal yet..." and a mission pops up in my mission tracker called "IFN Arctic Uniform". Then when I press the "OK" button in the uniform distributors check box, his check box closes and the "Arctic Uniform" mission disappears after informing me that the mission has been abandoned, I did this several times even after logging out and logging in again and had the same results- on one attempt I payed closer attention to the mission tracker entry opening the entire tracker to check for any details that may not be displayed in the abbreviated form on the interface and there were none. I then went to the "IFN Mission Terminal" and found that the next seven day "Oratan Payback" mission, the "Prospector Thugs", was available but no "Arctic(nor Jungle or desert) Uniform" mission was to be found. My questions are: how do I actually upgrade the uniform to the lance corporals? What is this hidden uniform mission? What do I do with the lance corporal's card? Could this hidden mission be a sneaky way of trying to get me to spend time/money to get carabok hides to trade for what was supposedly an even exchange- uniform for uniform? And if this is some kind of elaborate bug is it worth contacting support?(I was told by an entropia.com site chat assistant when I had an issue with my avatar's creation that one of my several options was to contact support but he added that they may take a very long time getting back to me if ever they do.) Please advise.
Did you have the card in your carried inventory and also not in a container, the system seems to fail to recognise it if it is in storage or inside a vehicle or container
the card was in my on hand inventory with the passport and ped card- the top tab of the inventory window.
Looks like this is either a bug or a new, not so hidden cost for players. I tried it again yesterday with the same results so I acquired the Carabok 2, kill 500 Carabok, mission hoping that along with all the shrapnel there would be at least 15 hides in the loot for the uniform exchange npc- there were only 4. I just had to know if my theory was correct,i.e., that the npc was set to reject the even trade option but would both acknowledge the lance corporal promotion and give the new rank's requested uniform in exchange for the 15 hides. I unwisely bought 30 hides at 500% markup on the auction and proceeded to successfully trade them to the npc for the lance corporal's arctic uniform and was acknowledged as obtaining that rank as well. Being new to this game I don't have a clue if this is an anomaly or business as usual by the company running the game; if it's the former then it's just bad luck for me, if it's the latter then I need to know it's their SOP so I can decide whether or not I can still participate. And Granny Rowan, thanks for your reply, I was concerned, being a noob, that no one would take the issue seriously.
I would report this as a bug, explain as you have here and perhaps ask MA for compensation for your additional expenses (from hunting and ultimately buying the hides) however unlikely it is not impossible they will set things right
