Difference between Contact Missions and Radio Missions? Which is better to do while leveling?

[Massinissa]

I'm a little confused as to the differences between doing missions from Contacts or missions from the Radio. Have Radio missions superseded Contact Missions or something? I do missions from contacts myself but mainly because of badges and so forth. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure which I should be doing. 

[Go0gleplex]

Contact missions are more story arc oriented or faction type thwarting and are both longer and give better XP than the radio missions with many being a sequence of events before dealing with the end goal.

 

Radio missions are shorter missions being a one-and-done objective that give less XP (about a third of what a contact mission gives on average in my observations). They serve as a good filler to nudge over that last bit needed to level or a way to find new contacts when you run out of introductions unless of course you've outleveled all them in the zone already. After a certain number of radio missions you also get a chance to stop a bank robbery if blue side or conduct a robbery (and other mayhem) if red side which can give a decent amount of XP. 

 

Contact missions are always better to do for leveling. If not a solo hobo like myself, getting in on Task Force runs and such are a really good way to level a toon quickly.

[Doc_Scorpion]

Personally, I mix them up (and after lvl 20 add in Tip missions) based on what I feel like doing at the time.  There's not really a right way or a wrong way or something you're "supposed" to  be doing, it's all up to you.  (Though I have to partially take that back, there is one "wrong" way - to not be having fun.)

The key trick isn't what you're doing...  it's being aware of what you're doing and what your goals are.  And making sure to make strategic use of the XP lock to make sure you don't outlevel something you might want to do in the near future.

 

[DoctorDitko]

A couple of points I haven't seen mentioned:

 

Paper/Radio missions give you a certain amount of choice of opponents.

Story arcs often award a handful of Merits upon completion.

 

Bonus: Mayhem missions, available redside after completing enough papers, are some of the most fun things to do in the game!

[tidge]

I also mix them up:

 

The advantages of contact missions are (IMO, in no particular order):

• Badges, Merit rewards (for certain arcs)
• "Newer" contact missions are often all in the same zone (think blueside Hollows, Faultline, Striga, Croatoa, etc.)
• Most of the game's lore is exposed through these

The advantages of newspaper/radio mission (again, MMV)

• With only a few exceptions, they will be in the zone you pick them up
• They can (mostly) be completed quickly
• There is a little bit of player agency for choosing enemies
• The eventually unlock Mayhem/Safeguard missions

The advantages of Safeguard/Mayhem missions

• Badges, and progress towards badges
• Temp powers

The advantages of Tip missions

• Progress on alignment, badges
• unlocking 40-merit Morality missions
• some minor (sometimes funny!) lore
• potential exposure to more varied enemy types

Of these, the biggest drawbacks are IMO:

• Tip missions can be 'buggy'; they often have multiple triggering things that can get real screwy
• Contact missions can have some pretty lame objectives (e.g. find 12 special mobs, plus defeat alls)
• Newspaper/Radio can have escort missions, one of the villain Mayhem objectives can be a kidnap

 

The ONLY thing that players can miss out on by "leveling too quickly" are:

• Tip Missions can be out-leveled and cannot be done for lower level ranges (20-29, 30-39)
• Certain non-badge, non-merit contact missions can be out-leveled

Neither of these affects 'badge hunters' AFAIK.

[SeraphimKensai]

The difference boils down to: contact missions (story arcs9)are infinitely better in quality than radio missions. Most radio/newspaper missions are hot trash. I only do radio/newspaper missions to get to a heist mish for badges or a temp power if I feel inclined.

[Hedgefund]

One  mayhem "advantage" is that there are contacts you may not be able to access redside outside of an introduction from  your broker after completing a mayhem  OP specified "radio" so they may not be concerned with redside but there it is.   

 

Another advantage for radio/papers is that if everything you're offered is missions you find undesirable, whether because of opposing factions (maybe you don't like Malta) or objectives (escorts) they're easy to avoid .  In that case you can choose one, immediately abandon it and you'll get a fresh set of 3 choices which may be more to your liking.  If not then do it all over again.

 

Agent Hassell and Lord Schweinzer take the urgency away from doing papers/radios to get to mayhems/safeguards for badge purposes because they will give you access to all of the bank missions you've outleveled and they're both extraordinarily easy to unlock.

 

Personally I start incorporating tips ASAP these days because I really like the mark and recall power from the new Between Realities accolade.

 

I may have missed it but I don't think I saw it mentioned that arcs typically give an XP bonus upon completion and sometimes they are quite substantial (Croatoa comes to mind).

Edited Sunday at 07:30 PM by Hedgefund

[Andreah]

There are unlockable contacts in Steel Canyon and Port Oakes that will give you any bank safeguard/mayhem mission on demand.

 

In general, I don't find much story content to be compelling, and so I don't consider them to be really that much better than random radio missions, if at all.

 

One advantage for leveling from radio missions is you can rapid chain them together; reducing the down/travel time between missions can significantly increase your leveling per session. 

[tidge]

6 minutes ago, Andreah said:

There are unlockable contacts in Steel Canyon and Port Oakes that will give you any bank safeguard/mayhem mission on demand.

 

Lord Schweinzer is IMO somewhat trivial to unlock, but it involves swapping to blue side and doing the Dakota Berg (Brickstown) entry in "Who Will Die?" arc at a something like x3 (I'm not sure if x2 will be enough) to get "Bloody Hands".

 

Some recent-ish updates have made it easier to get Agent Hassell unlocked via Villain Disruptor, but I haven't found a single mission (either side) that can get it for me. The least painful, but still grindy, way for me is to run the first SSA 1 arc repeatedly, now that the final mission's enemy counts. There is quite a bit of red side content (including patron arcs) that provides both heroes and villains (for both badges), but these aren't quick. See also some villains in higher level TFs (Kahn, etc.)

 

Finally: I believe the 20-29 Frostfire Vigilante morality (alignment changing/confirming) mission offers more than one potential villain to count towards the badge. I used to run the PI radio missions to get the safeguard and fight the bank robber and the jail breaker, but that is also somewhat grindy.

[Hedgefund]

You can unlock Schweinzer without ever going blue, either by runniing Berg at x2 as a rogue or Tyrka in St. Martial also at x2.  

 

Marchand's second arc unlocks Hassell in arguably less time than it takes for Schweinzer.

[lemming]

36 minutes ago, Hedgefund said:

Marchand's second arc unlocks Hassell in arguably less time than it takes for Schweinzer.

I often will do this.   Four for the first mission, then six each time you run the second.  The second is nice in that as long as you don't click the blinky, just exit, reset, and do it again 3-4 times depending if you managed to get some before.

[UltraAlt]

On 1/18/2025 at 1:39 PM, Massinissa said:

I'm a little confused as to the differences between doing missions from Contacts or missions from the Radio. Have Radio missions superseded Contact Missions or something? I do missions from contacts myself but mainly because of badges and so forth. Otherwise, I'm not entirely sure which I should be doing. 

 

So the main differences between contact missions and radio missions come down to:

1) Radio missions will keep you in the same zone. Contact missions will not.

2) Radio allows you to pick from 3 missions. You can figure out the enemy type on most of them.

3) You won't get any Kill Alls or Hunts from the radio

4) The Radio has no story unless you make up your own. (you can build your own mission arc in the AE and there are plenty of already made story arcs there as well ... it is what it was designed for)

5) Contacts give you merits if you complete their story arcs (the little book icon).

6) Contacts send you all over the City so you can race around and check out the City. (It used to be a real adventure traveling to different places in the city. Not so much any  more for most of us)

7) You can easily outlevel contacts. With police missions, you can outlevel zones.

 

There are those that only level through radio missions. Without the Kill Alls, Hunts, and Zoning the leveling usually goes faster (often times leveling teams even avoid the bank missions because some players think that slows down the leveling). 

 

Have  you done any of the Origin story arcs that start from the contacts in the basement at City Hall in Atlas?

The Origin arcs go from level 1 to 50 with a line of contacts for each origin. In the end, the Origin arc explains the origin of the origins and where your powers truly come from.

 

It is also easy to bypass the contacts in the Hollows, Striga, and Croatoa.

 

As an alternative to the Police scanner, there is always Tip missions. They can be a lot of fun.

 

Honestly, I mix it up. I do contacts, police missions, AE mission, tips, street sweeping, giant monster hunts, task forces, SSBs, etc.

Sometimes based on my mood. Sometimes based on character conception. Sometimes based on those I team with regularly. Sometimes just because I see something that catches my eye in the /LFG.