Instead of specifying how many ships to kill, for example, specify how much the mission will give for each ship killed from that faction.
So if you get 20,000 credits per ship killed, you can kill 5 and get 100K, or you can be a nutcase and kill 50, and get a million credits.
No stacking needed.
Transporting goods? Same deal. 'We'll pay you a thousand credits for each ton of cargo you take to XYZ station'. And if you're in a sidewinder or whatever, you're only going to be making a few thousand a trip. In an type 9? You're making hundreds of thousands a trip.
Same for passengers. XYZ number of passengers need to get to this station. How many can you take?
This way, specialized ships can fill their niche and perform well at their role without stacking missions, or having to refresh the board eighteen times because they have a passenger capacity of 60 people and every mission is five idiots who are paying 5000 credits a head to go to a station that is 300Kls away from the central star.
It dynamically fits any ship you want for any role. And the rewards scale based on how specialized your ship is. Instead of 'we need 10 tons of painite', 'we'll give you X credits for every ton of painite you bring back'. Currently, if that mission popped up, you'd ignore it, because painite is rare af. You might know of a place 150ly away that often gives painite, and you could sit there for hours and stack up eighteen missions all wanting painite. But if the mission scales, you can just grab the mission, and go mine painite until you get bored.
Furthermore, you can eliminate mission stacking entirely. You've got one mission that scales indefinitely, you don't need to stack missions any more.
And the economy is easier to control. Instead of screwing around with wildly variable mission templates, you can instead look at two values: The maximum amount you can get for a specific mission per ton of cargo/passenger/enemy ship destroyed; and the minimum amount you can get for the same.
Missions aren't paying out enough? Increase the minimum. Combat missions giving too many rewards? Then dial back the maximum.
Hell, it even opens up new mission types, like 'emergency destruction contracts'. Destroy as many x faction ships as possible. You've got an hour. You'll automatically be paid for each ship destroyed once the hour is up. Or however many units of cargo were delivered, whatever.
The reason people stack missions right now are twofold: One, it's the best way of getting credits.
Two: If you've got a ship with 500 cargo capacity what in the hell do you think people are going to do? Deliver 20 cargo at a time? No. They're going to sit there and stack as many missions as possible because doing anything else is ridiculous.
So if you get 20,000 credits per ship killed, you can kill 5 and get 100K, or you can be a nutcase and kill 50, and get a million credits.
No stacking needed.
Transporting goods? Same deal. 'We'll pay you a thousand credits for each ton of cargo you take to XYZ station'. And if you're in a sidewinder or whatever, you're only going to be making a few thousand a trip. In an type 9? You're making hundreds of thousands a trip.
Same for passengers. XYZ number of passengers need to get to this station. How many can you take?
This way, specialized ships can fill their niche and perform well at their role without stacking missions, or having to refresh the board eighteen times because they have a passenger capacity of 60 people and every mission is five idiots who are paying 5000 credits a head to go to a station that is 300Kls away from the central star.
It dynamically fits any ship you want for any role. And the rewards scale based on how specialized your ship is. Instead of 'we need 10 tons of painite', 'we'll give you X credits for every ton of painite you bring back'. Currently, if that mission popped up, you'd ignore it, because painite is rare af. You might know of a place 150ly away that often gives painite, and you could sit there for hours and stack up eighteen missions all wanting painite. But if the mission scales, you can just grab the mission, and go mine painite until you get bored.
Furthermore, you can eliminate mission stacking entirely. You've got one mission that scales indefinitely, you don't need to stack missions any more.
And the economy is easier to control. Instead of screwing around with wildly variable mission templates, you can instead look at two values: The maximum amount you can get for a specific mission per ton of cargo/passenger/enemy ship destroyed; and the minimum amount you can get for the same.
Missions aren't paying out enough? Increase the minimum. Combat missions giving too many rewards? Then dial back the maximum.
Hell, it even opens up new mission types, like 'emergency destruction contracts'. Destroy as many x faction ships as possible. You've got an hour. You'll automatically be paid for each ship destroyed once the hour is up. Or however many units of cargo were delivered, whatever.
The reason people stack missions right now are twofold: One, it's the best way of getting credits.
Two: If you've got a ship with 500 cargo capacity what in the hell do you think people are going to do? Deliver 20 cargo at a time? No. They're going to sit there and stack as many missions as possible because doing anything else is ridiculous.
) that would be a different story. But right now the choice is to wait for the mission board to reload or switch mode. If I'm within a bubble in my Python, I'll just take a few missions available and do them. But if I'm somewhere outside the bubble or if I'm in a ship which can carry 720T of cargo, sure as hell I'm not going to do 20T runs. I will stack the missions or I will ignore them completely and just keep trading with full cargo.