The newest source of unlawful employment in Red Dead Online is a series of solo quests called Telegram Missions. They’re not very long, and they pay out a scant amount of gold and RDO$. Gold is quite a bit harder to come by than it used to be, so I appreciate that Rockstar has added another way to earn it. Still, these payouts certainly won’t make you rich.
How do you start Telegram Missions?
To access Telegram Missions, you’ll first need to receive a telegram from the person known only as J. To do this, go to any post office or the lockbox in your camp. The telegram should be waiting for you.
Next, you need to read it. Telegrams exist in a section of your documents menu. To access telegrams, navigate to your satchel and go to the Documents sub-menu (by holding right on the D-pad, then cycling through your options using L1 and R1 if you’re playing on PS4). Telegrams should be one option in this menu.
For some reason, you can’t read telegrams while on horseback.
When you select Telegrams, go to the “A New Source of Employment” option and you should be given options for work. Currently, there are three available missions: Outrider, A One Horse Deal, and Rich Pickings (more on those later).
Simply select one of these missions and you’re off to the races. You’ll be instantly teleported to the place where the mission begins, so you won’t have to worry about traveling there. These are also instanced, meaning you won’t encounter other players during the mission.
Once you complete a mission, there’s a 20-minute cooldown before you can start any Telegram Mission, so you’ll have to wait in between missions, unfortunately. The difficulty will increase every time you replay a mission, up to the third difficulty level.
The difficulty levels are:
- Standard
- Hard
- Ruthless
In Standard, you have 2 lives, in Hard you have 1, and in Ruthless you have to complete the mission without dying at all. Ruthless also disables auto-aim.
Does your performance matter?
As far as I can tell, performance doesn’t seem to impact your payouts. Neither does difficulty level. The only thing that seems to matter is how long each mission takes to complete, similar to Bounties and Stranger Missions (in increments of 0.08 gold).
Here’s a video that explains how timed payouts work for Stranger Missions:
I haven’t been able to confirm this with 100% certainty quite yet, but it does seem like it follows the timed payout system of RDO‘s other mission types.
Outrider
The Outrider telegram reads:
HENNEGANS STEAD. WAGON COMING OUT OF BRISTLEBRUSH TRAWL. MAKE SURE IT GETS WHERE ITS GOING IN ONE PIECE. EXPECT TROUBLE. JUST DONT ASK ABOUT THE CARGO. – YOUR FRIEND, J.
Outrider has you defending a wagon full of unspecified cargo from Bristlebrush Trawl to a buyer (I’ve seen both Blackwater and Armadillo as sell locations). You can choose to either ride on the wagon or alongside it, though you won’t be able to drive it. If you choose to ride on the wagon, the mission plays out like an on-rails shooter (until the driver dies). The wagon takes visible damage, which is kind of neat.
If you choose to ride alongside the wagon, it’s smart to stay a bit in front of it, though if you stray too far away, the wagon will stop moving.
Also, the driver can die, in which case you’ll be responsible for taking the wagon to its destination.
A One Horse Deal
The telegram reads:
HORSE DEAL. EMERALD RANCH. BRAITHWAITES BUYING WHITE ARABIAN WORTH $. DELIVER TO JOSIAH. – YOUR FRIEND, J.
In this one, you ride out to Emerald Ranch, shoot everyone there, and steal a gorgeous White Arabian horse. You will have to break the horse before you can ride it, and once you do, you’ll bring it to Josiah on Flat Iron Lake.
Rich Pickings
The telegram reads:
SAINT DENIS. LAW SEIZING SMUGGLED JEWELS. GUESS WHOS TAKEN A FEW STASHES OF THE EVIDENCE FOR SAFE KEEPING? MR BIG BUG THE MAYOR HIMSELF. GET INSIDE HIS MANSION, CONFISCATE THE GEMS, DELIVER TO JOSIAH. – YOUR FRIEND, J.
This mission is the most fun, in my opinion. You’ll have to go into Saint Denis, infiltrate a mansion, and steal a bunch of valuables while the law is bearing down on you. Once you’ve looted the entire mansion, you’ll meet up with Josiah outside of town and get your payout.
Conclusion
These missions really don’t add anything meaningful to the game, in the way that the Naturalist update did. They’re really just stranger missions that you don’t have to visit a stranger to trigger. None of them feels particularly interesting, and the payouts don’t seem to increase alongside the difficulty level.
I’m much more interested in seeing what’s in store for new/expanded Roles and the next Outlaw Pass. These missions really don’t fill that void, though Rockstar did claim that there will be more of these missions in the future.
