What if the community could write mission scripts?

[sidereal6]

Imagine FDev releases the specifications that are used internally by the engine to script out a mission.

If you're not following what I mean, it's this: there is some syntax that Elite uses to specify a mission. The FDev programmers create mission templates in that syntax. So for example, there's a "deliver cargo" template. If the engine decides a faction needs to offer two cargo missions, it runs that template twice, and you get two slightly different cargo missions.

Imagine FDev releases that to the community. Lots of people would propose missions. 99.9% of them would be stupid. One or two interesting ones would bubble to the top, and then we present only those interesting ones to FDev for possible inclusion in the game.

I am not suggesting that FDev do any work

Just want to make that clear, because I know someone will misunderstand this point. I'm not asking that FDev give us a debugger or even a syntax checker. I'm not saying that FDev would be under any obligation to include any missions the community comes up with. And I'm not suggesting any changes to the engine.

All I'm saying is, there would be a forum like this one, and people would post mission templates. Other people would use eyeballs to debug them. If the community happens to come up with a particularly compelling idea that FDev hasn't thought of, only then would FDev look at it.

 

[Hydrino]

Interesting proposal. FD curated some input like this back in the DDF glory days.

But having made the request, do you have an example or two that you want to share?

Given the current constraints of the mission system, and the complexity, what missions do you see that are workable and that FD are not already generating via the BGS input into their system.

I'm not saying there aren't any, but why not get the ball rolling with some thoughts?

One idea I have had is some oddball missions that don't fit with factions per-se. These might require the resurrection of the Bulletin Board instead of being posted with Faction missions. For example, to find a rescue pod of a relative of someone that is not a faction rep or pilot, just a passenger that vanished with an exploded transport.

Or a passenger mission to take some weird alien pet to a birthday party on another planet. Part of the fun of the older Elite games has been lost with weird word-salad creations of drinks, food, aliens, and the like. It could be cool to see a bit of that back in the game.

So no major calculations required to "balance" the mission to the player. Just a straight-up request with maybe some "twists" using existing mechanics, but don't worry about the player ship or rank or any of that. The player either wants the mission because it looks wonky fun or they don't. These would be easiest to sell probably to starting players, but I think if there was a clear difficulty rating some requiring better armament might work.

I would like to see a mission that mandated no offensive weapons. Any use of weapons would result in mission failure.

Of course with a post 2.4 focus on core gameplay, FD could make things sufficiently more complex or "deep" as the vague term goes, that more interesting mission types could easily emerge. Science expedition missions could easily emerge as an offshoot of Exploration or maybe just part of it, to retrieve samples from gas giants, nebula, any sort of dust or gas cloud, etc.

 

[NW3]

I know this doesn't quite fit this thread, but I'd like to see missions that require you to use a "loaner" ship.

For example, "We need you to get this <item> to Jaques Station in Colonia asap. We have a Diamondback Explorer for you to use. It has an experimental FSD that can jump up to 500 lyrs per jump, but it has some quirks." The farther you jump, the more likely you will miss your destination, by up to 100 lyrs (for a 500 lyr jump, smaller jumps would have less error).

Or, "We need you to test our new shield prototype. Head out to <this> conflict zone and test it out for us."

 

[sidereal6]

do you have an example or two that you want to share?

Well, no. The problem right now is that although I can imagine all sorts of things, without seeing the actual scripting language, I have no way of knowing what the system actually supports. Chances are, anything I come up with will simply be impossible to implement. This makes the constant stream of ideas worthless.

What always changes, in every game, when you allow modding (and this would be sort of like modding) is that the thousands of extra brains thinking about the problem inevitably come up with new and interesting ideas that the developers never even conceived of. That's what I'd like to see with E - at least the possibility of that, particularly if there's no extra work for FDev.

But in order to have a workable idea, you first have to know the capabilities of the system.

 

[sidereal6]

500 lyrs per jump

Don't you think that's a little excessive? You know, limits are what make games fun.