I actually can't get a single black market.

[AdrianWir]

Hack and transport missions are not working. I don't know about boarding missions, I haven't tested. But in my case, the kill mission helped.

[sd_jasper]

Did 2 kills, 1 hack, and 1 taxi mission, and still am not getting any black markets after. I give up.

[AdrianWir]

If you bought the game on steam and you have to try to do file verification.

[sd_jasper]

Other issues with black market offers have been reported, but they seem to be different than what I am experiencing, so I'm creating a new thread to discuss the issue I've had.

Game start is Stranded, base game with all DLC and no mods. Been playing for over 100 hours. In that time the ONLY black market I've unlocked was the one that is part of the stranded game start quest line. Since then I have spend dozens of hours searching for signal leak missions and have found ZERO that are black market offers. The past week my play time consists of loading in, searching for about an hour or two, then moving on to other things.

Last night I logged each signal mission I came across and this is what I got:
1. Argon Prime - Argon Wharf - Cannot See, Cannot Scan
2. Argon Prime - Argon Wharf - Defenseless
3. Argon Prime - Hull Part Factory I - Fast Flight
4. Argon Prime - Hull Part Factory I - Far From Here
5. Argon Prime - High Tech Factory I - Advanced Preparations
6. Argon Prime - High Tech Factory I - Troublesome Agent
7. Argon Prime - High Tech Factory IV - Cannot See, Cannot Scan
8. Argon Prime - Ship Technology Factory II - Fast Flight
9. Argon Prime - High Tech Factory II - Art of the Illusion
10. Hatikvah's Choice I - ARG Ship Tech Fac I - And... Action
11. Hatikvah's Choice I - ARG Ship Tech Fac I - Far From Here
12. Hatikvah's Choice I - ARG Refined Goods Complex I - Storage Evacuation
13. Hatikvah's Choice I - Spacefule Fac II - Cannot See, Cannot Scan
14. Hatikvah's Choice I - Spacefule Fac II - Fast Flight
15. Hatikvah's Choice I - HAT Argon Trading Station - Troublesome Agent
16. Hatikvah's Choice I - HAT Argon Trading Station - Calculated Payback
17. Hatikvah's Choice I - HAT Argon Trading Station - Keep It In One Piece
18. Hatikvah's Choice I - Ship Tech Fac II - Art of Illusion
19. Hatikvah's Choice I - Ship Tech Fac II - Away From Here

This is just one night, but it has been about a week of the same thing. I've searched stations by every major faction, been all over the map, and still haven't found a even one black market.

Is this just me? Can anyone confirm that they found black market missions after completing the stranded start quest line? Is there something that could be "blocking" these missions? Are there any commonalities with others that have had difficulty finding these missions? Someone please help.

[alexdefelice]

Did you ever find your answer? I'm in the same boat with a 5.1 game. Been searching for hours over hundreds of signal leak and dozens of stations, not a single black market mission.

[Alan Phipps]

Fresh vanilla start with ToA on 8 May and I have unlocked 3 bars so far via signal leak missions although accepting them was never a priority for me. So they do appear, even if perhaps rather infrequently.

[alexdefelice]

Thanks! I've been at it for an hour, going to spend another hour or two. Probably too early to say if bug or just very bad luck, but this is getting old fast!

[Katorone]

Now that it's mentioned... I don't remember seeing any signal leak quests by anyone other than "Civilian". The BUC station offers some normal quests, but I'm not sure that's what is being noticed.

[alexdefelice]

I've been looking for 2 hours straight, mostly in TEL and ARG space, bringing my total search time to 6-7 hours. I'm finding tons and tons of signal leaks, but they're all rides, discounts, hacking, kill missions, sabotage, boarding, everything but black market missions. This is a new game in ToA 5.1. No mods, totally "unmodified" save. Is it possible that a plot mission status or something is preventing these from spawning? I'm slowly losing my mind.

[Alan Phipps]

I'm pretty sure I got my three station bars accessed for missions delivering illegal inventory items such as unstable crystals, hacking device components, etc. I think they came with a mission timer too. Once you have the PHQ and transportation to/from the inventory safe these become rather tame which is why they are not a priority for me.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I'm not sure those mission were in fact from signal leaks but may just have just been from the mission icons that may pop up on stations and in the map (if not obscured by the station icon) when you get close enough. They also then appear listed in 'Mission Offers', so perhaps no signal leaks were involved.

EDIT 2: Just had a shady mission in 5.10 vanilla to deliver 5 x AGI Cores with a 30 min timer to unlock the Bar and other rewards from a signal leak on a PIO station, so they are around.

[rboerdijk]

I've been looking for 2 hours straight, mostly in TEL and ARG space, bringing my total search time to 6-7 hours. I'm finding tons and tons of signal leaks, but they're all rides, discounts, hacking, kill missions, sabotage, boarding, everything but black market missions. This is a new game in ToA 5.1. No mods, totally "unmodified" save. Is it possible that a plot mission status or something is preventing these from spawning? I'm slowly losing my mind.

Shady guys ( black marketeers) will only spawn on stations not producing majadust, spacefuel or spaceweed. When starting "stranded", for me there were 348 shady guys total.
Glancing over the script which spawns the shady missions, it looks like if there is a shady guy in the station, then one leak is guaranteed to be for the shady guy mission. Note there are usually multiple leaks, so it's not guaranteed to be the first on a station which you scan.

Any chance you could send me your savegame (e.g. via dropbox, or similar), then I'll take a quick look (at least I can tell you which stations to try).

Tried the stranded gamestart, cheated a bit to know which stations have shady guys (Bright Promise, of the 9 stations I looked at 6 had shady guys - which is more than I expected, and there are around 20 stations there), started scanning leaks (first one is Boso), 2nd one was the shady mission. Next station. also found a shady guy. For my feeling, it might take a while to fine one, but not a single one in dozens of hours seems weirdly off. Note: There is one part during the hatikvah storyline where you won't get such signal-leaks specifically on "scale plate" stations, but it should still work as expected for other stations during that time.

[oddible]

Have you tried some kill mission? I had the same problem. It only took one kill mission and the black market missions unlocked.

Correlation does not imply causation. This was chance.