New Gameplay Ideas (making contracts)

Hello,
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I've been playing Elite: Dangerous for a few weeks now and absolutely love it and see loads of potential. I've been browsing the forums a bit and have seen a few ideas for wanted additions to the game. Well, I have a few of my own. Please feel free to add any of your ideas but put a little thought into them before blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. Also, please let me know what you think of mine! I am reposting this because my first post didn't get much traction because I didn't have the minimum required posts.
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I'm sure it’s coming but the game SERIOUSLY needs player to player money exchange. And please god, not an auction house. I don’t know how you would even implement one, but that would ruin the game. I know you can vent items out into space and your friend can pick them up, but that is rather unrealistic and tedious. Ship to ship docking would be cool or even using the limpets. Anything really. I understand they don't want every new person getting loads of cash from players who have already started, but maybe you guys can think of a way to prevent it. That is, of course, if it should even be prevented. I do think it would take away from the game if a day-one player could be given the cash to buy a fully outfitted Fer De Lance.
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Anyway, I was talking to my friend about the potential for player created contracts, much like the bulletin board that already exists, but ones created by a player. To include, transportation of goods, security/guards, exploration requests and even bounties. I think this would make a great way for player to player money transfer that would actually require you to do something.
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First, let me start with creating a contract. I think it should cost to even post to a station's board. Maybe X amount for every minute or hour requested. This would not be refunded upon completion or given to the person performing the contract, simply a posting fee. You could post in one station for the smallest fee, system wide for a higher and within maybe 20LY's for an even higher fee. I think Galaxy wide posts would clutter up the system and be quite annoying.
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For security, you would specify the start system and end location. If you needed security for say, mining, you would specify an amount of time. This would all be displayed on a contracts tab under the left side menu. When the time expired, the money would automatically be transferred to the person performing security. However, if the person left a certain radius for too long, or the ship being defended was destroyed, the contract would fail and no payments would happen. This person could also be hired as a wingman in a battle or to take out a conflict zone.
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Next is my idea for transportation. A contract could be made to carry, for example, 32 tons of cargo from System X, Location 1, to System Y, Location 2. One would simply accept the job via the player bulletin board, arrive where the contractor person is located, transfer cargo, and then deliver to the specified station. They would complete the contract the exact same way as completing the in-game contracts. The items would then automatically be sold on the Commodities Market and transferred to the contractor. The contract would then be paid to the transporter. If the hired person failed to transport the goods within a set time limit, they would be fined and have a bounty on their head equal to the price of the stolen goods, just like any other crime bounty, it could be collected by a bounty hunter and turned in to the respective systems local authority. At that point, a small amount (say 15%) would be transferred to the contactor and the rest would be given to the bounty hunter. (I see a potential for exploitation of this system, but maybe this could be monitored somehow through the NPC police. I’m not sure. You tell me how you’d fix it.) Also, if the contractor did not have the credits to pay the contract upon completion, a bounty would be placed on the contractors head. Also, when the credits entered the contractors account for the amount of the contract that was failed to pay, it would immediately be transferred out and into the hired person’s account. (If you owed 10k, then when the contractor’s account hit 10k, that money would be taken, without choice, and paid to the hired person.)
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Now, posting bounties on other players. We all saw how the bounty system in GTA 5 damaged game play and got super annoying. I do NOT want that to happen here. To place a bounty on someone, you would simply create the job like any other job. However, the cost to post a bounty on someone’s head would be significantly higher than posting any other job. Maybe, even 50% of the bounty. (Example: Bounty for 100k, would cost 50k to post) Also, these bounties could only be posted system wide and expire slightly quicker than other jobs. I think this would add another good side of bounty hunting, in my opinion. Hopefully, the high cost to post a bounty would prevent spamming and trolling of bounties. Also, if someone stole your cargo, you could place a bounty and for them to kill the target and retrieve said cargo. I understand it would be highly unlikely that someone would hold onto the stolen cargo that long, but if they did, why not get it back?
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If you have any questions or additions, please let me know. I have never played Eve Online, so if I’m stealing an idea from there, I apologize. Also, I haven’t really followed Star Citizen, so if I’m stealing from them… well sucks to be them, that game isn’t out yet! haha :D
 
My internet died so I lost most of my long reply post.

Tl:dr of it was as follows:

Lets not make it too easy for people to sell in game money for real life cash using cheats etc. Yes those people exist, options to transfer money would make it easier for them to do it whereas at current they take control of player accounts which is easier for Frontier to find out about (I think, not looked in too much detail myself having never felt the desire to pay people for playing a game).
I personally think having a Day 1 player in an FDL is a big insult to those that worked their way up.
I could make enough money in 10 minutes to buy a Cobra now that I have an Anaconda but put me into a sidewinder or a Hauler and that'd take a decent time like a few hours.

Missions can also be exploited, give terrible rewards for missions, spam missions, put unrealistic objectives or time limits etc. By the time you fix all the ways you could ruin the system you may as well just add more variety to the generated ones instead.

I do think you should be able to hire NPC security as a sort of side note here.
 
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Player to Player contracts are mentioned every time Player to Player Trading is discussed. Not a bad idea, but certainly not a new one.
 
My internet died so I lost most of my long reply post.

Tl:dr of it was as follows:

Lets not make it too easy for people to sell in game money for real life cash using cheats etc. Yes those people exist, options to transfer money would make it easier for them to do it whereas at current they take control of player accounts which is easier for Frontier to find out about (I think, not looked in too much detail myself having never felt the desire to pay people for playing a game).
I personally think having a Day 1 player in an FDL is a big insult to those that worked their way up.
I could make enough money in 10 minutes to buy a Cobra now that I have an Anaconda but put me into a sidewinder or a Hauler and that'd take a decent time like a few hours.

Missions can also be exploited, give terrible rewards for missions, spam missions, put unrealistic objectives or time limits etc. By the time you fix all the ways you could ruin the system you may as well just add more variety to the generated ones instead.

I do think you should be able to hire NPC security as a sort of side note here.


I agree that there are problems with these ideas, but that's why I posted it. to get feedback and potentially stumble across something the players and Frontier would like.
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I got my cobra within about 6 hours of playing the game and could have gotten it faster than that. Its easy to make money, but not the kinda money to buy an Anaconda or FDL. so I absolutely agree with you there.
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That's why I think the only possible money transfer should be done using the contracts. I understand that there is a possibility for exploitation of the player to player contract system, however, if someone offers a crap reward for a contract, I don't see why anyone would accept it. the amount of payment would be determined beforehand. same with the amount of time one would be obligated to carry out. if they don't read the contract and accept a 10 hour security duty because it pays good and fails to complete it, that's the persons fault who accepted it, not the contractors.
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once again, all the details will be outline in the contracts. I did not imagine it be a 'type it up' kind of contract. You would choose the type of contract you would like to create, then fill in the contract specifics. i.e. start, mid and end locations, duration, amount of cargo, type of cargo etc.

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Player to Player contracts are mentioned every time Player to Player Trading is discussed. Not a bad idea, but certainly not a new one.

I've been trying to read up on others idea's. I didn't want to blatantly steal anyone's ideas for this post so I'm doing that after posting. I just think open money exchange is a bad idea.

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Dont forget to study the DDA:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/forumdisplay.php?f=36

I think the contracts are new, but not sure.

Rex Kraemer

Thank you! i was looking for this but for some reason couldn't find it. buuut cant add this there... oh well.
 
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They have this game, it's called "EVE Online"...

J/K

But in seriousness, I'd like to see this stay very regulated and connected to existing in game mechanics or systems if it gets implemented. I think EVEs system is too open, and although that leads to really neat gameplay, I don't think it encourages the kinds of mechanics that the ED player community wants.

The idea of players "sponsoring" missions out of their own pockets is ultimately a good one, I think, but in order for it to make sense, I think we would need to have a set of systems that support goals outside of just accumulating credits.

For example, "supply me with copper for x credits" doesn't make sense - there is no real encouragement to accumulate any good unless you're planning on selling it, at which point, it makes more sense to just buy it yourself - or, as the other guy, to go sell it wherever rhe first guy was going to sell it.

You need a more advanced system than that - something to make it more attractive to both sides.

Perhaps if the player sponsoring the contract had something to do with the goods aside from simply selling them - or if he was able to offer an inflated price to the seller (this happens in the real world, guaranteeing a fixed quantity of goods delivered to a particular person by a specific time is called a "future", and the idea is that the guarantee is worth something by itself, in addition to the price of the underlying good).

I think though that ultimately we need stronger goals outside of making credits for this to work well. For example, if a player owned a station that made widgets that needed copper to manufacture, then it would make sense to have open delivery contracts - it becomes worthwhile to enlist outside help to get copper, because the value of the copper could represent something outside of it's sale value.

Maybe, as an "ally" of an NPC faction, I have a mission to ensure that x tons of platinum make it to the station, so that they can upgrade their hanger to support repairs. I am now willing to throw money down a hole to get a more convenient repair station in my home system, so I pay other players a premium for platinum while I continue fighting for my faction in the nearby combat zone.
 
They have this game, it's called "EVE Online"...

J/K

But in seriousness, I'd like to see this stay very regulated and connected to existing in game mechanics or systems if it gets implemented. I think EVEs system is too open, and although that leads to really neat gameplay, I don't think it encourages the kinds of mechanics that the ED player community wants.

The idea of players "sponsoring" missions out of their own pockets is ultimately a good one, I think, but in order for it to make sense, I think we would need to have a set of systems that support goals outside of just accumulating credits.

For example, "supply me with copper for x credits" doesn't make sense - there is no real encouragement to accumulate any good unless you're planning on selling it, at which point, it makes more sense to just buy it yourself - or, as the other guy, to go sell it wherever rhe first guy was going to sell it.

You need a more advanced system than that - something to make it more attractive to both sides.

Perhaps if the player sponsoring the contract had something to do with the goods aside from simply selling them - or if he was able to offer an inflated price to the seller (this happens in the real world, guaranteeing a fixed quantity of goods delivered to a particular person by a specific time is called a "future", and the idea is that the guarantee is worth something by itself, in addition to the price of the underlying good).

I think though that ultimately we need stronger goals outside of making credits for this to work well. For example, if a player owned a station that made widgets that needed copper to manufacture, then it would make sense to have open delivery contracts - it becomes worthwhile to enlist outside help to get copper, because the value of the copper could represent something outside of it's sale value.

Maybe, as an "ally" of an NPC faction, I have a mission to ensure that x tons of platinum make it to the station, so that they can upgrade their hanger to support repairs. I am now willing to throw money down a hole to get a more convenient repair station in my home system, so I pay other players a premium for platinum while I continue fighting for my faction in the nearby combat zone.

I agree with all that. and like i said, I've never played eve online or even read about it. i only know what a few people have told me. so I'm sorry if I'm just describing eve lol.
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Anyway, i really hope there is a goal other than accumulating credits in the near future, because this game would be a huge let down if all we can ever do is bounty hunt, mine, make trade runs and explore. As far as the transportation, i was saying if I'm mining and i have someone transport my metals/minerals to a station for me, i could store a crap load more limpets and refineries to maximize my cr/hr. of course a chunk would be taken out to pay the player, but if I'm pumping out 100 tons of rare metals per hour, it would be well worth it.
 
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