DeadZone,
Yes, I know. It shows in the mission log, that's not the problem. The problem is waching the time count down while I'm fruitlessly hunting for pirate X in system Y. It's like hunting for a needle in a haystack. They either need to extend the mission time limits or make the ships easier to see at a distance, I think.
Overall, I'm not sure what purpose having only 90 days to kill ship X serves. You'd think they'd be happy to have them eliminated even if it took a year or more to do so. Look at how long it's taking us to find Bin Laden and Saddam. Maybe we should tell our military, "find 'em and take 'em out in 90 days or we'll dock your pay $4,000".
-ColdSteel