Horizons Why are there no Coop missions?

[Robert Maynard]

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So because it -might- be implemented similarily to what we have with ranks, it is a bad idea? Mind you, even if it is implemented the way you describe it, it would not break things. Just ponder how i described it:
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- Difficulty scaled on proposed wing size. So even if a mission is only advised to be for four players, it could perhaps be taken by one player. But he would have to be really good to finish this mission. Also note the positive: those who currently go around and proclaim that everything is way too easy, perhaps they could find the challenge there?
- Payment is done per pilot. So even if a very good pilot would take a mission designed for a wing of four and complete it, he would only get the payment for one of the four pilots. It would not be a new way to fast cash, but rather would be slower (due to higher difficulty) than comparative solo missions.
(- The part about "have to be present at mission completion" does not matter for the solo player scenario, but is important to prevent abuse by several people soloing different wing missions and then cashing in alltogether. )
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So even if the missions would only be "advised for a full wing" and a single player would complete it, i couldn't see a drawback. It would still be a "everybody wins" situation. (Oki, those who can't read the warning that the mission is difficult and designed for a full wing might loose. But they might learn to read the mission text, which again is a win. )

I would disagree with the premise that he single pilot would only get one share for completing the mission - as Wings share a finite pot of credits and why would a mission giver expect to pay less for the same outcome?

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That's a theoretical justification. But i think what we currently have just goes too far. Why have a multiplayer option at all, if -any- money making activity in game incentivises solo play? This really is a problem for me, i started this game together with friends, some more were waiting for our feedback. They were not so much interested in spaceship simulation, but the selling point for them would've been how enjoyable the game would be in coop. (Same feedback from them for Mechwarrior 5, along the lines "the video looks fine, now we have to see if it'll have a coop, if yes we will buy it." ) So the result was quite predictable, when we had to tell them that the game essentially at best "allows" playing in group, and in many cases punishes it.
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I fear that by now it's too late, those of my friends who bought the game by now abandoned it again (2.1 drove away the last of them) and it's unlikely that i could persuade any of the others to give it a try, but if there'd be a big "Wings, but now really and not pseudo any more" upgrade, so group play would be supported and encouraged, i might still manage to get them to fly with me.
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Hope dies slowly, i know...

If every player in the Wing were to receive the same reward as a single player completing the same task alone then being in a Wing really would be easy mode - less risk (due to numbers) and more credits (overall) to boot!

 

[Sylow]

I would disagree with the premise that he single pilot would only get one share for completing the mission - as Wings share a finite pot of credits and why would a mission giver expect to pay less for the same outcome?

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Because this thing is still a game. I mean i know where you are coming from, if realism is the highest goal then probably you are right. "I pay X money for job Y, it's not my problem how many people you need." That's a vey realistic setup, but based on that and with how the game currently runs, it won't ever allow us to get proper group play. At the very same time, i dare to say that i see this very same thing in use in many other games.
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Examples for that:
- Many pen and paper RPGs, where the mission payout is very much "the questiver is ready to pay XY to everybody on the party". Players accept this since ages, so why wouldn't they in this game?
- Many MMOs out there, where you can pick up quests or missions together and also complete them together. Completing them together is no issue at all.
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And wouldn't this games community be all in rage whenever somebody makes money fast, i would even see no problem in mimicing the second point and just allowing people to make a lot of money if they manage to solo a wing mission, my thoughts on how to limit that are actually based on how the community here would react to it would it be without artificial limitations.
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If every player in the Wing were to receive the same reward as a single player completing the same task alone then being in a Wing really would be easy mode - less risk (due to numbers) and more credits (overall) to boot!

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See my second point above.
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The very same thing, "bring friends to make the mission easy" is a very much accepted and well renowned mechanic in about any other MMO out there. (And i intentionally say "any other MMO", as this game very much was advertised to also be an MMO. So if the developers are allowed to call it a MMO, then so am i. ) And in any other MMO out there, doing so would be considered to be smart, while only here in this community, it is seen as a problem. And the very only point i ever "understood" why this would be a "problem" is for this game is not supposed to be a game. Whatever... i fail to really see the point, but i try to provide solutions to this imaginary problem. If we don't solve it, but just say "this is bad" to any solution presented, this game won't ever go somewhere.
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So yes, i see your doubts, but it's the best i can come up with. As long as nobody manages to present something better, i consider it to be a good idea, though.
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[Robert Maynard]

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Because this thing is still a game. I mean i know where you are coming from, if realism is the highest goal then probably you are right. "I pay X money for job Y, it's not my problem how many people you need." That's a vey realistic setup, but based on that and with how the game currently runs, it won't ever allow us to get proper group play. At the very same time, i dare to say that i see this very same thing in use in many other games.
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Examples for that:
- Many pen and paper RPGs, where the mission payout is very much "the questiver is ready to pay XY to everybody on the party". Players accept this since ages, so why wouldn't they in this game?
- Many MMOs out there, where you can pick up quests or missions together and also complete them together. Completing them together is no issue at all.
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And wouldn't this games community be all in rage whenever somebody makes money fast, i would even see no problem in mimicing the second point and just allowing people to make a lot of money if they manage to solo a wing mission, my thoughts on how to limit that are actually based on how the community here would react to it would it be without artificial limitations.
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See my second point above.
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The very same thing, "bring friends to make the mission easy" is a very much accepted and well renowned mechanic in about any other MMO out there. (And i intentionally say "any other MMO", as this game very much was advertised to also be an MMO. So if the developers are allowed to call it a MMO, then so am i. ) And in any other MMO out there, doing so would be considered to be smart, while only here in this community, it is seen as a problem. And the very only point i ever "understood" why this would be a "problem" is for this game is not supposed to be a game. Whatever... i fail to really see the point, but i try to provide solutions to this imaginary problem. If we don't solve it, but just say "this is bad" to any solution presented, this game won't ever go somewhere.
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So yes, i see your doubts, but it's the best i can come up with. As long as nobody manages to present something better, i consider it to be a good idea, though.
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Frontier have managed to resist the calls for "other games do it so this one must as well" on several significant topics - with Wing trade dividends, the game gives 5% "free" credits to other members of the Wing when one Wing member sells at a profit - that's it in terms of extra gross reward when playing in a Wing (unless the "all Wing members receive full merits in Powerplay" feature is still active that is).

I am not expressing doubts - simply opinions as to why Frontier have implemented reward in Wings as they have (that I happen to agree with).

 

[Sylow]

Frontier have managed to resist the calls for "other games do it so this one must as well" on several significant topics - with Wing trade dividends, the game gives 5% "free" credits to other members of the Wing when one Wing member sells at a profit - that's it in terms of extra gross reward when playing in a Wing (unless the "all Wing members receive full merits in Powerplay" feature is still active that is).

I am not expressing doubts - simply opinions as to why Frontier have implemented reward in Wings as they have (that I happen to agree with).

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I think you very much missunderstand me. Nowhere have i written something along the line "other games do it so this one must as well". If you really read my postings that way, i am a bit at a loss, but i try to say it as simple as i can:
- Yes, in terms of pure "logic", the suggestion here for group missions is not perfect.
- In Terms of being a game and thus should be fun, it makes absolute sense to have missions of "group required, pay per group member" flavour.
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My point was not that we should mimic other games. My point is that for a game setup, there are numerous examples were it was shown that it can work and that players accept this mechanic, without asking for more "realism". And on why Frontier has implemented Wings the way they have, i might be a bit sarcastic, but i think the reason for that is to save effort. Going the full distance would've been way more work and they probably would've not met the timeline. (Say hello to PP and Engineers. ) This should not stop us from making suggestions on how to improve things, though, in the hope that fixes still are being made. (After all, for Wings and missions we're not speaking of fundamental flaws, but of missing parts of the system which still can be added. )
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[Robert Maynard]

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I think you very much missunderstand me. Nowhere have i written something along the line "other games do it so this one must as well". If you really read my postings that way, i am a bit at a loss, but i try to say it as simple as i can:
- Yes, in terms of pure "logic", the suggestion here for group missions is not perfect.
- In Terms of being a game and thus should be fun, it makes absolute sense to have missions of "group required, pay per group member" flavour.
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My point was not that we should mimic other games. My point is that for a game setup, there are numerous examples were it was shown that it can work and that players accept this mechanic, without asking for more "realism". And on why Frontier has implemented Wings the way they have, i might be a bit sarcastic, but i think the reason for that is to save effort. Going the full distance would've been way more work and they probably would've not met the timeline. (Say hello to PP and Engineers. ) This should not stop us from making suggestions on how to improve things, though, in the hope that fixes still are being made. (After all, for Wings and missions we're not speaking of fundamental flaws, but of missing parts of the system which still can be added. )
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Possibly - although I'm not so sure.

The suggestion would pay a Wing of four players 4x the amount that a single player would receive for doing 100% of the same task - ignoring the fact that the Wing will encounter less individual risk.

Why would a mission giver pay 4x the fee for the same amount of work?

 

[Sylow]

Why would a mission giver pay 4x the fee for the same amount of work?

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*sigh* It might be just me, but i think i really said that a few times already: because -game-.
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You keep sticking to RL logic, where i also agree that your point is valid. Yes, if you stick to pure RL economics, your idea is right, just like many companies these days try to sack as many people as possible and squeeze more work out of fewer employees. Mind you, we are speaking of -present day- market logics and it would actually surprise you how few years (less than 50) soem other logic still dominated economics, which do not follow your line of thought. (Which also could be a a line to pursue here: how do econimists see things in the distant future? ) But maybe, just maybe, this game is a game? Because just in case that ED actually is a game, and a MMO at that, at least it was called as such by the developers, then it might make sense to incentivise cooperation, instead of punishing it.
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So please tell me if i am right that Elite Dangerous is a game, or if i am missguided here and lack some important information? Because yes, i fully admit that the whole point of this proposed change is make group play more interesting, while not following present day logic of economics. So if i am wrong and Elite Dangerous is not a game, feel free to let me know and disregard everything i wrote in this thread.
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[EUS]

This would be exploited from day one.
"Unfriendly" CMDR getting "Allied" mission payouts by winging up with Allied buddy.
To take it further, the CMDR wings up with his 2nd account for payout purposes.
*Edit: Replace Elite with Allied for mission payout levels, forgot about that change.
If everyone in the wing had to be at least at the same level as the CMDR receiving the mission, then the mission should be a go.
But 2 or 3 or 4 times the payout? No, the mission payout should be divvied up.

 

[Robert Maynard]

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*sigh* It might be just me, but i think i really said that a few times already: because -game-.
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You keep sticking to RL logic, where i also agree that your point is valid. Yes, if you stick to pure RL economics, your idea is right, just like many companies these days try to sack as many people as possible and squeeze more work out of fewer employees. Mind you, we are speaking of -present day- market logics and it would actually surprise you how few years (less than 50) soem other logic still dominated economics, which do not follow your line of thought. (Which also could be a a line to pursue here: how do econimists see things in the distant future? ) But maybe, just maybe, this game is a game? Because just in case that ED actually is a game, and a MMO at that, at least it was called as such by the developers, then it might make sense to incentivise cooperation, instead of punishing it.
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So please tell me if i am right that Elite Dangerous is a game, or if i am missguided here and lack some important information? Because yes, i fully admit that the whole point of this proposed change is make group play more interesting, while not following present day logic of economics. So if i am wrong and Elite Dangerous is not a game, feel free to let me know and disregard everything i wrote in this thread.
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Of course it's a game - however that does not mean that logic should be thrown out.

Co-operation is (marginally) incentivised by Wing trade dividends - presumably to encourage players to escort the larger trading ships. Risk mitigation through simple numerical advantage is not incentivised in that way though.

The proposed change to mission payouts seems designed to make group play more rewarding, not interesting.

It might make sense to further incentivise group play in some way (but not, in my opinion, by up to +300% on the reward for a mission just because four players joined up to take it)

 

[Sylow]

This would be exploited from day one.
"Unfriendly" CMDR getting "Allied" mission payouts by winging up with Allied buddy.
To take it further, the CMDR wings up with his 2nd account for payout purposes.
*Edit: Replace Elite with Allied for mission payout levels, forgot about that change.
If everyone in the wing had to be at least at the same level as the CMDR receiving the mission, then the mission should be a go.
But 2 or 3 or 4 times the payout? No, the mission payout should be divvied up.

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Please read again what i wrote. The missions would be significally harder and would only give the payout to those who participated in finishing them. What is the abuse potential? Please explain further, your reply here seems to have missed that part.
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Of course it's a game - however that does not mean that logic should be thrown out.

Co-operation is (marginally) incentivised by Wing trade dividends - presumably to encourage players to escort the larger trading ships. Risk mitigation through simple numerical advantage is not incentivised in that way though.

The proposed change to mission payouts seems designed to make group play more rewarding, not interesting.

It might make sense to further incentivise group play in some way (but not, in my opinion, by up to +300% on the reward for a mission just because four players joined up to take it)

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I slowly give up. It seems to be impossible to have people remember all parts at the same time. Higher reward, for missions which also are much harder. Of course, the difficulty would be adjusted to a full wing. Anyway, my whole point is not even about incentivising group play. It is about giving us at least something which is not punishing it.
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And i am sorry, but trade dividends are not cutting it. We tried that, but they did not even pay off for the added logistical effort. Sorry, but traveling in wing is cumbersome, we were lucky when we still saw each other after three jumps, always had to wait for each other, landed in random locations in star systems so far apart that the navlock sometimes did not work any more, the whole "only when the leader jumped, the rest starts the jump" system is weak and could use a rework, etc... and no, this is not about "maximum profit", it's about having fun when playing together. And while any group activity adds a lot of additional effort and chores, none of them adds additional fun, but rather leave you with the impression that you invest a lot of work to have a worse result than if everybody switched to solo mode. Which for a game which is advertised as multiplayer and requires always-online, i consider it a massive flaw which needs to be fixed.
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The game currently is a "MMO", or at least called so, where the very only "content" where winging up is advantageous is ganking other players. For any other activity, doing it solo is the preferable choice. If you have -any- other idea than creating multiplayer missions, which would finally give a "MMO" any multiplayer content, just say so. But all we have here is "it's not good, it's not logical, it will be exploited" (and nobody ever read the part on how exploits can be avoided and prevented).
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I guess i should accept that this game is a single player game and move on...
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[Robert Maynard]

I slowly give up. It seems to be impossible to have people remember all parts at the same time. Higher reward, for missions which also are much harder. Of course, the difficulty would be adjusted to a full wing. Anyway, my whole point is not even about incentivising group play. It is about giving us at least something which is not punishing it.

It seems to me that the only difference is, accepting that a more challenging mission receives a greater reward, that I would expect the reward to be equally divided between the participants - regardless of how many there were.

Being able to take on a more challenging mission (due to greater numbers) for a higher reward is a form of incentive by itself. However, it seems that the assumption is that one player could achieve it single player therefore to play in a Wing reduces personal reward.

 

[Sylow]

Being able to take on a more challenging mission (due to greater numbers) for a higher reward is a form of incentive by itself. However, it seems that the assumption is that one player could achieve it single player therefore to play in a Wing reduces personal reward.

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Experience has shown from many games that no matter how challenging you make content, somebody would find a way to beat it. This is especially true if the content should still be accessible for most players, which would be the point of these missions. So if a group of four "normal" players can beat it, you can be sure that there will be some players who can solo it, and will use it as the next "quick way to a lot of money exploit". Cries will be heard, tears will flow, and nerfing will be done. In the end, not much good came out of it, if it's done in the simple way. But if precaution is taken and the implementation right from the start is made in the "everybody needs to contribute to get a reward, and the reward always will be split" method, the exploitative use is prevented. (If somebody still knows an exploit on that, it should be said, so further limitations can be discussed. )
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So with these (yes, i know they are artificial) limitations in place, those missions might actually serve the purpose of adding some content which is worth doing in group, without once again creating a "quick money well".
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[EUS]

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Please read again what i wrote. The missions would be significally harder and would only give the payout to those who participated in finishing them. What is the abuse potential? Please explain further, your reply here seems to have missed that part.

I was actually responding to the OP, not to your ideas. It's hard to follow as for some reason, this forum doesn't list who you're responding to when you hit reply.
The abuse is simply this; I work my butt off getting to allied status with a particular group at a station. I get great high paying jobs because of this.
My wingmate, on the other hand, is on unfriendly terms with them.
I take the high paying mission on behalf of my wing. Everybody wins, even the wingmate who would've been blocked from this mission due to his poor standing with the faction in question.
It would further remove any consequences for CMDR's bad behavior, so long as one person in the wing was Allied with any faction, anywhere.

 

[Sylow]

The abuse is simply this; I work my butt off getting to allied status with a particular group at a station. I get great high paying jobs because of this.
My wingmate, on the other hand, is on unfriendly terms with them.
I take the high paying mission on behalf of my wing. Everybody wins, even the wingmate who would've been blocked from this mission due to his poor standing with the faction in question.
It would further remove any consequences for CMDR's bad behavior, so long as one person in the wing was Allied with any faction, anywhere.

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Hmm. Thanks. That's something i didn't consider and is worth some thought. I mean, compared to how much the game would gain from this, i think it's a comparatively small issue. And perhaps if could even be solved by a wing having a "group reputation" while formed, and missions being assigned based on the average of the wings standing, but that's just a first fast idea and probably not the perfect solution.
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It could make sense to pour more brainpower into this, thanks for pointing it out.
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[Robert Maynard]

Experience has shown from many games that no matter how challenging you make content, somebody would find a way to beat it. This is especially true if the content should still be accessible for most players, which would be the point of these missions. So if a group of four "normal" players can beat it, you can be sure that there will be some players who can solo it, and will use it as the next "quick way to a lot of money exploit"

That's sort of the point - the best players will probably be able to beat it - however they will probably be few enough for it not to be able to be heavily exploited (especially with no player-to-player credit transfers).

 

[Sylow]

That's sort of the point - the best players will probably be able to beat it - however they will probably be few enough for it not to be able to be heavily exploited (especially with no player-to-player credit transfers).

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Maybe. Until somebody finds a trick, flaw or exploit. Say Massacre Mission and Skimmers.
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You might very well be right. But in case somebody finds something, and a games community has enough people so somebody will find something, there'll be much regret and complaining and a quick nerf to fix things. Time will be short then and flash reactions often create a mess. So i think it's better to look for the flaws in advance and avoid the most obvious pitfalls, instead of the developers later having to hurry to patch up a problem without time to think any more.
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[KING5TON]

I would always prefer to have a thing that adds to the game which may be abused to earn credits than not have something that adds to the game because of the fear that someone might use it to earn credits.

People exploiting to earn credits IMO is a symptom of poor scaling of earnings past a certain point. FD should address that so people don't feel the need to exploit out of necessity (sure there's always going to be a few people that abuse it but in ED all their doing is reducing the amount of fun they get out of the game by cheating). If your staring at the 250Million credits required to move up one ship in the larger ships I don't begrudge anyone from wanted to earn better than 3 million per hour via exploits as who wants to grind 83 hours of bulk trading or bounty hunting.

 

[Sylow]

I would always prefer to have a thing that adds to the game which may be abused to earn credits than not have something that adds to the game because of the fear that someone might use it to earn credits.

People exploiting to earn credits IMO is a symptom of poor scaling of earnings past a certain point. FD should address that so people don't feel the need to exploit out of necessity (sure there's always going to be a few people that abuse it but in ED all their doing is reducing the amount of fun they get out of the game by cheating). If your staring at the 250Million credits required to move up one ship in the larger ships I don't begrudge anyone from wanted to earn better than 3 million per hour via exploits as who wants to grind 83 hours of bulk trading or bounty hunting.

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Would it be a single player game, i would fully agree. Just throw in anything that is fun, the game will sort itself out somehow. But this is a multiplayer game with a very vocal community which as a very "interesting" point of view on balance. And the game already has seen enough quickly done (and little brainpower invested) upgrades. (For some the developers even admitted that they wanted to do something much better, but in the middle of implementation they noticed that coding would take a few weeks longer than planed, so they dumped it and built something more simple. ) We don't need more of that, especially not when it's predictable how a certain and very vocal part of the playerbase would react to it.
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I think it's possible to design group missions in a way that all of the most obvious and a even a number of the not so obvious problems can be avoided, by just thinking it over in advance and making a good design. I consider that to be a much better option than not making a good design and then needing harsh emergency measures afterwards, which break as many things as they fix and possibly leave group missions as a worthless mess.
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[Chaz]

I was actually responding to the OP, not to your ideas. It's hard to follow as for some reason, this forum doesn't list who you're responding to when you hit reply.
The abuse is simply this; I work my butt off getting to allied status with a particular group at a station. I get great high paying jobs because of this.
My wingmate, on the other hand, is on unfriendly terms with them.
I take the high paying mission on behalf of my wing. Everybody wins, even the wingmate who would've been blocked from this mission due to his poor standing with the faction in question.
It would further remove any consequences for CMDR's bad behavior, so long as one person in the wing was Allied with any faction, anywhere.

Personally, I don't see a problem with that.

Lets say I'm the high rep wing member taking the job for an allied faction of mine. As far as I'm concerned my other wing members are part of my crew and I'm vouching for them. I'm the one taking the job, which the other wing members are free to accept or not. So in a sense the other members of my wing are getting paid through me.

I don't see why it should be a problem if one member of my wing has a bad standing with the faction. It's a good way for them to work off their bad rep. With my allied connections I put in a good word for them through my contacts.

 

[Yokoshima]

.... also Solo players (and players in the other modes who don't want to rely on the availability of other players) will need NPC Wingmen to make up the numbers.

So much this. Those empty seats...

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Why would solo players need NPC wingmen to make up the numbers?

Solo players take solo missions (aka missions as they are today)
Wing of players take Wing missions (which are scaled up in reward and difficulty, e.g. the USS sites with strong signal thing which are for wings)

Why would solo players need NPCs?

So solo players can take Wing based missions and lonewolf them? What would be the point of doing that when there are already Solo missions in the game?

Maybe I am just misunderstanding something.

Either way... currently the game is way too solo-focused with very little for players to do if you want to play as a Wing. The only activity has been bounty hunting (optionally combat bonds in conflict zones, but that's pretty much the same as bounties in a RES).

I assume NPCs would take a cut of the profit, won't be as skilled/geared, and to many won't be as fun as flying with friends. But co-op missions could lead to awesome/epic missions like defending stations or planetary bases against waves of enemies, or taking on capital ships, or any other impact combat scenario. It could also lead to escorting missions where you can escort traders or important people. Lots of cool stuff. No reason to exclude the solo community in something that could bring so much to the game.

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Here Here.
Just posted something similar in another thread.
Playing in a wing to have fun means you earn less money than if you played solo.
Why do I need to make a choice between more fun or more money, FD should scale things better so that I can play in a wing and earn similar to playing solo?

Been a while since I was in a wing, but I noticed spawn rates and types go way up/

 

[Misty_Dark]

they already have the setup for one kind of co-op missions, attacking high security +++ bases on planets. These are very rarely easily done solo....

So these mission could be made into co-op, and be thought of being a sort of raid mission of other MMO's, where you band together to take on hard target.

Now what these bases are missing is a sort of win situation, since the flying menances above the base is a never ending trail of ships, there should be a limit on how many ships that are sent. So that we get a sort of "win" situation where you can land and roam around the base and collect the goodies.

And to make it more interresting and more challening, up the reward and defense depending on how many are in the wing. And it woudl also be great if the strength/power of the ships in the wing was taken into consideration. But these should be HARD! give a challenge, perhaps give you an option to choose how hard, by a setting a mission preference, so that new players to this kind missions can have a learning cruve and learn the tricks, with reduced rewards on the easy settings.

Ideas on how these mission could work, one team member collect this mission, not from the regular mission board, but from a beacon/signal source, once taken, it is shared to every member on the wing, and you have option to set difficulty, then the wing proceeds to go the mission base and get their own instance. and all wing members present in the instance when they scan the target beacon get the the completion on their mission and can now "loot" the base on material/data/commodities/credits/etc





Another kind of mission could be hazardous ming.
Team up in a wing, collect the mining mission, and head towards the mission mining site, what is the win? to find some kind of artefact. and there will be an "endless" stream of "pirates" trying to stop you from finding the artefact, and once the artifact is found and collected, you need to proceed to a nearby base where you willl be interdicted and hunted and this will go on untill you get get close enough to the base where you can turn in the the mission and get rewarded.

So the perils here is to constantly keep defending yourself and wing from pirates also looking for the artifact. Artifact cannot be destroyed, if a ship picks it up and gets destroyed the artifact is dropped. Pirates could try to scoop up the artifact!
The mining ship is the one that needs to pickup the mission, and can only pick the mission if the ship has the minimum required modules. More tweaks needs to be considered about how the artifact is "found", collect enought materials and then the artifact is found? and the chance to find the artifact should increase with each T material mined and processed.


Dangerous Transport missions (Cargo or Passengers).
Wing up, take the mission, go to the location to pick up the cargo/passengers. Then proceed to the delivery. Here random interdictions could occur, the real challenge start when you reach the target system, where the entire system is a separate instance for the wing, and requires a permit to enter normally, permit = active mission. Now we have many different places to deliver the cargo/persons.
System security if available is hostile towards the player if they scan the transport ship.
Transport ship is the collector of the mission, and must have a certain amount of storage fitted (not all, but we are doing serious hauling) or in case of passenger mission, cabins. to be able to set the harder difficulty levels, the transport must be Beluga, Orca or Dolpohin (when/if it arrives).
Rewards are awarded upon succesfully delivery.

The idea is that the transport ship must be protected, and the wingmen most likely need to assists with shield regengeration, as the extra mission bonus relies on ZERO hulldamage!
Things to make this more difficulty, is that the oppisition would have unfairly powerfull interdictors, with very long range and wide beam, avioding being interdicted is not an option, you will have to fight and win over several named "wing leaders", the harder level choosen, the more you need to defeat.


Exploration, go and collect something from a planet.
This could be a combination of shiplaunched fighter (launched from landed ships, new option) and SRV's, the goal is to get to a place, and use the SRV scanner to find 2 rare "relics", so the goal is to land at a small base, and launch SRV with or without fighters (optional, all could be in SRV's), and then proceed out to a "seach sit", POI, and from there search for the "relics" signals, and pirate SRV's/skimmers will be sent after you. and once the "relics" are found, return to the base and upon succesfull delivery all player who are alive recieve full reward, and rewards goes down for every death suffered.




Just a few thoughts about how co-op misssion could work. ofcourse alot of more work and thoughts are needed for this, but most of the parts for doing this should already be there.

- - - Updated - - -

Here Here.
Just posted something similar in another thread.
Playing in a wing to have fun means you earn less money than if you played solo.
Why do I need to make a choice between more fun or more money, FD should scale things better so that I can play in a wing and earn similar to playing solo?

Have you checked if the earnings per hour goes down?
You should be killing more ships faster, so that would ideally compensate for the lower payout you get.