Even cheaters have (some) honor!
I don't mind "cheating" to update my game to a new version of the mod, instead of doing all the new research that I would have had to do to get to the stage my game is at.
You can cheat/bypass the mission RNG to get the opportunity to capture an elusive VIP or tech, thinking that the RNG is the wrong mechanic to base the type of campaign that Piratez has become. Indeed, even Dioxine isn't using the original mission table anymore. It was good enough for vanilla where different races didn't really mean anything progression wise and tech was the same for all, but it doesn't work all that well for XPIratez. Doing this still presents you with the challenge of dealing with the mission, so you are getting out of the waiting (and all the other missions it would involve), but not of the actual challenge of capture: The tech is cheaper but not free. Of course, 2.5 years into the game, fighting bandits in a pogrom really isn't much of a challenge... And potentially the other race would have been more of a pain: you are potentially getting out of a harder (stargod?) pogrom.
You could also just paste the mission in, as Ivan suggested, so you are not "getting out" of anything but instead adding yet another thing to deal with.
Or cheat in the very item you are looking for, which at that point means you don't get it for cheaper, but for totally free. Some (most?) people would frown on that.
Although in this very case, I agree with you: it's very similar and just putting the item in changes little (I believe you can research the toxigun if you have one in store too?). It's a single player game so "cheating" only affects yourself. It all depends on what you like and dislike experiencing and we can all tweak it towards what we prefer. Presenting people with options to do it how they like is better.
Hopefully, Dioxine can use the mission scripts to create fail-safes for this kind of stuff. As an endgame mission, I think it would be cool to have a raid on a guild
STC facility, where you pick up the datacore and gather knowledge of everything the guild produces, filling gaps you had in the early/mid game tree rapidly. Something like: a quick
needitem research topic that gives you a preliminary analysis, which then tells you that a proper analysis (made available by the preliminary one) will take ~450 brainer-days (ie a month of a full lab) but give you knowledge of a lot of items.
Similarly, we could see other missions scripted which deploy more of the high level VIPs once the piratez progress further, as the important people/stargods step in to take matters in their own hands. Harder missions with VIPs and their bodyguards, but most people would rather take the challenge than the grind of easy shipping while hoping to see the target you need.
