Assassination

• Always save the game before accepting a contract.
• Don't arrive in your target system too early. If the police has enough time to investigate, the victim will be warned. This makes it very difficult to finish a contract in systems like 61 Cygni [-1, 1] or Omicron Eridani [2, 0] where you have to travel 40  AU or more to the next station. Don't even think about a mission for Alpha Centauri [0, 0] or Cegreth [-1, -3]. Such missions can only be accomplished if you cheat. For details see the <#74#>Autopilot Break<#74#> below. It seems to be ok. to arrive at the target system about one week before contract time.
• Don't wait too long in front of the target station or port, the victim may get frightened and refuse to start. 15 minutes before contract time seems ok.

  There seems to be a way to force victims out of a station if they refuse to start. If you attack the station, the launch bay must be cleared for the police vipers. If your victim is in the station, he/she will be in the launch bay and get forced to start as soon as you attack the station.

• Don't wait directly in front of the station, the victim may run into you.
• Don't wait directly above a star port. If the launch bay doesn't close after your start, your victim cannot start.
• You should never try to watch the take off of your victim in accelerated time. In most cases your victim will sneak past you while you are dreaming your time away and be gone before you even know it.
• Don't attack too close to a star port or station, the victim may try to land again.
• If you have to attack near a star port, don't use missiles too early. If you do, your victim might try to evade the missile and crash in the process. If your victim kills himself, you failed.
• You can use missiles to prevent the victim from hyperjumping while you attack. If you fire a missile before you use your lasers, the local authorities will charge you only 600 credits for illegal weapon usage. Otherwise you will get fined 10,000 credits for piracy and murder.

  One very nice attack method based on this trick is to wait at some planet far from your destination until you can spot your victim on the system map. As soon as it appears, target it and fire a missile. This is already sufficient to prevent your victim from hyperjumping and you can approach now and do what you came for.

• If the victim hyperjumps, use a cloud analyzer and simply follow. Select the arrival cloud and wait until the victim arrives or you can be sure it made a misjump. If you are not fast enough to overtake your victim on the direct route, you can always use a wormhole route that is nearly always faster. A drawback of the wormhole route is, that your entry point of the target system may be far away from the entry point of your victim.
• If you are too far from your victim when he or she starts, use the system map and watch for a ship mark on the map that belongs to your victim. Select it and proceed as usual. You can verify your selection via communication. Don't call, just verify the registration number.
• If you have more than one assassination on your list, collect the money for the first one before you try the next. Your employer seems to actively look for you to pay you and spreads rumors of your profession in the process. This obviously warns other victims.

With these points in mind I have succeded with every contract (civil or military) that I have accepted so far. In every case a victim didn't show up I could find a reason from the list above and succeeded in the next trial.
On the other hand there have been reported lots of problems with victims not showing up or refusing to land at the port of destination. Some of these problems seem to stay even if you use every trick in the book. In such a case your only chance is to reload a saved game from the time before you accepted the contract.