News Implementation of a dedicated mission server

[Mangal Oemie]

The thing is, gameplay includes the search for good opportunities. That's why the game doesn't remotely tell you where modules and ships are, where good trade routes are, how the BGS works etc... Flying around to find what you need or want is part of the game, part of the enjoyment, and just sitting at a station board flipping obviously does nothing for that.

How do you suggest that would work if my goal is to move a faction in a particular system, that may only have an outpost and a surface port, and I am visiting both?

I agree that board flipping is not fun. I just want some missions, please, sir!

 

[Mephane]

I know you are only the messenger so this is not directed at you, but the devs:

Will we be increasing the amount of mission options so that players have more choice?

We won’t be increasing the amount of missions spawned initially. We will however be reducing the time it takes for a mission board to spawn new missions from 15 to 10 minutes. This means that players should overall see more variety and it won’t take as long for new missions to appear on the board.

Please go into yourself for a moment and consider what this means. You essentially tell us that if there is no mission viable, useful, interesting, rewarding, or in any other way relevant for us (lots that can mismatch here, especially with the more specialized ship loadouts), we are supposed to sit there idle for 10 minutes? Is that your idea of gameplay, to alt-tab and watch some video on Youtube in the meantime?

Is there a possibility of adding a ‘refresh’ button if all available missions aren’t suitable?

We won’t be adding a refresh button at this time. It’s important to note that missions are shared between players so it could be frustrating if another player refreshed the mission board just as another player spotted one they wanted.

This makes complete sense, I always chuckled at the idea of a refresh button. But this emphasizes the need for a significantly (e.g. 10x) increased number of missions, and caps on individual mission types spawned (nothing more annoying than seeing a faction with 20 missions listed but 18 of them are "kill 100" ships).

Is it possible to separate wing and solo missions into different categories?

We are not separating Wing Missions into a different category at this time, but in the next update (3.3), you should see fewer Wing Missions spawning per board. We are trying to balance the right amount for all player types, and as said before, it’s an ongoing process.

Can we at least get an option to filter them out entirely then? I am not the only one for which missions asking to haul 2000 tons or kill 500 pirates may as well just not exist at all.

 

[jonesskill]

Yep, I agree with you on this one. Completely.

I don't need to stack missions (I never did actually). When I board flipped it was because no mission was available for me and my ship at that time.
I was either in a different ship and transferring the appropriate ship would result in (guess what) waiting or the board was full of massacre missions or something similar which I simply don't do.

A good balance in mission variety and reward is all we need. But so far ED only chose to take away board flipping without increasing the number/variety of missions (at least that's what the latest update sounds to me).

Well i already think that prevent stacking is something really DUMB.
For what a reason people will buy bigger ships if i'ts not to make more missions at the same time.

Don't fall on the fanboys trap - Limiting the option to people chose missions, widouth making a proper mission generation system is bad for everyone.

 

[Six6VI]

The thing is, gameplay includes the search for good opportunities. That's why the game doesn't remotely tell you where modules and ships are, where good trade routes are, how the BGS works etc... Flying around to find what you need or want is part of the game, part of the enjoyment, and just sitting at a station board flipping obviously does nothing for that.

The term "enjoyment" is subjective, and unique to each consumer.

The game DOES tell you where (almost all) the modules and ships are, including the 15% (or better, if you know what to filter for) Li Yong-Rui system control discount. It also outputs trade data, including relatively current quantities and efficient commodity loops can be extrapolated from that data. What the game doesn't provide, is an in-game interface to use that information for your competitive advantage. You're forced to access and manipulate it REMOTELY.

If you haven't stumbled across EDDB.IO yet (Please run another holographic ad competition, I just thought of a good one...), you might like to check it out. It's FREE! You don't even need an account. The problem, is you have to LARP the interface manually to see your other monitor, or Alt+Tab, or install a 3rd party app to display Interwebz inside your "enViRonment" (TM). I'm saving up for VR, but I heard googling in a cockpit with a HOTAS while blind-fold is, tricky.

BGS? Pass. Haven't poked it hard enough to find it's limits or break it, yet. Based on the negative comments in this thread, I'm not in any rush to invest my limited and valuable (to me, the golden goose) time any time soon (TM). You're welcome to invest yours in loan-winder heaven, drifting Aimless among the stars until your air runs out as well but I can afford all the best stuff and my personal (goal driven, capitalistic) narrative is different, yet equally valid.

In a capitalism, people are rewarded in direct proportion to their efficiency in business, using up to the millisecond market data, in 2018. Moore's Law would suggest an improvement or three compared to the century it took the species to advance from industrial revolution to a global debate on why there still aren't enough decent jobs in a real-time, 1:1 simulation of the Milky Way, 1300 years into the future. "Telepresence" dictates galaxy wide data must be instant.

Meanwhile, in the mess hall aboard the Gnosis...

CMDR Oliver; "Please, sir. I want some more."

FDev; *Recoils in astonishment* "What!?"

CMDR Oliver; "Please, sir. I want some more."

Spoiler

FDev; NERF BAT!

[video=youtube;BbdNgbCOq_s]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbdNgbCOq_s[/video]

 

[Seonid]

To reiterate, the implementation of a dedicated mission server is not to remedy "board flipping", but to bring about much greater server stability and reduce crashes, and the removal "board flipping" is a side effect of these improvements.

So when you want to support your faction (in a system they do not control) by running missions and all 20 missions are Mining and all 15 passenger missions are VIP, what options are you providing the player?

 

[galaban]

I'm curious how that "2.8%" is holding up now that:
A) there's a time limit for grinding rank for the Empire/Federation in less than 50 hours
and
B) no one is holed up in the Gnosis

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

i wonder if once this has moved over to its own server there will be a lot more flexibility that FD can do behind the scenes. I agree that it is silly have 15 out of 20 missions on a board from a faction to be the same "massacre X number of ships"
ideally what i would like to see is a window saying

"greetings CMDR what type of service are you looking to offer today? or do you have a system in mind if so why not let me see what we can offer you whilst you are heading there " (check all that apply - with the option to set defaults). the game can then send a database query and we get a selection of missions.

once that is done, there is a follow up option from us to the mission giver... "thanks for that bud, please can you check and see what else you can offer me flying to X system.... ".

The actual mission server could be holding 500 missions for that system... but it will only need to send a small section of that data over the internet.

 

[spiresofillusion]

i wonder if once this has moved over to its own server there will be a lot more flexibility that FD can do behind the scenes. I agree that it is silly have 15 out of 20 missions on a board from a faction to be the same "massacre X number of ships"
ideally what i would like to see is a window saying

"greetings CMDR what type of service are you looking to offer today? or do you have a system in mind if so why not let me see what we can offer you whilst you are heading there " (check all that apply - with the option to set defaults). the game can then send a database query and we get a selection of missions.

once that is done, there is a follow up option from us to the mission giver... "thanks for that bud, please can you check and see what else you can offer me flying to X system.... ".

The actual mission server could be holding 500 missions for that system... but it will only need to send a small section of that data over the internet.

I'm pretty sure, such flexibility would imply a thorough revision of the mission system, or in other words:

(...) If you mean will it be possible to have a mission board spawn a specific type of mission based on player input (...), this is not currently planned.

 

[Maro-Val]

If only the 2.8% of the daily active users can stress out those crappy servers so much to be a problem, then i can only laugh on that. But makes sense because, when in a CG system, the system can melt down with only the presence of 2.8% of the max cmdrs allowed in a single instance lol.
In multi crew, the game can be stable for the 2.8% of your play session and many times even less.

 

[FrogsFriend]

How do you suggest that would work if my goal is to move a faction in a particular system, that may only have an outpost and a surface port, and I am visiting both?

I agree that board flipping is not fun. I just want some missions, please, sir!

Doesn't that just mean that it's a difficult system to manipulate and you'll need to put some effort in, perhaps doing missions that you wouldn't do otherwise? I don't think everything should be made trivially easy by using glitches in the current mission generation system (board flipping) or changing the BGS so you get 20 +++++ influence missions whenever you want them.

 

[Humourous]

I'm always suspect of statistics, if they are either really high or really low, this 2.8% of people board jumping seems really low. Anyone with a Beluga liner at Parutis has board jumped, there is no other way of filling it. So crazy pitch, mad idea, fix the need for board jumping rather than taking away the workaround the players have found to balance out a bad mechanic. We seem to have mastered interstellar flight, then forgotten how to centralise a mass transit system

 

[SciTrekker]

This one concerns me

Is there a possibility of adding a ‘refresh’ button if all available missions aren’t suitable?

We won’t be adding a refresh button at this time. It’s important to note that missions are shared between players so it could be frustrating if another player refreshed the mission board just as another player spotted one they wanted.

Won't it also be frustrating to get 0 missions (say, in a heavy player-traffic system or station) because "All missions have been accepted. Try again in 10 minutes."?

Wouldn't a better solution (to not frustrating the player) be to let each Cmdr input what they're looking for and then RNG them off the template(s) that applies?

 

[rootsrat]

This one concerns me


Won't it also be frustrating to get 0 missions (say, in a heavy player-traffic system or station) because "All missions have been accepted. Try again in 10 minutes."?

Wouldn't a better solution (to not frustrating the player) be to let each Cmdr input what they're looking for and then RNG them off the template(s) that applies?

How do you imagine this? You come to a system where 2 factions are waging war and you ask them to give you lucrative cargo transport missions?

I personally like the fact that the offered missions are random and based off one simulation-related criteria, rather than nonsensical ones. There is enough of other stuff that doesn't make sense. Let's not add missions to that list please.

 

[SciTrekker]

How do you imagine this? You come to a system where 2 factions are waging war and you ask them to give you lucrative cargo transport missions?

I personally like the fact that the offered missions are random and based off one simulation-related criteria, rather than nonsensical ones. There is enough of other stuff that doesn't make sense. Let's not add missions to that list please.

Initially, I imagine something simple like the Navigation panel's filter but with mission types, distance (ie, short-range, mid-range & long-range - not a specific number of LY away), and rewards (ie, Credits, Rep, Inf, Commodities, Materials).

EDIT: My point was about the shared pool of missions.

 

[rootsrat]

Initially, I imagine something simple like the Navigation panel's filter but with mission types, distance (ie, short-range, mid-range & long-range - not a specific number of LY away), and rewards (ie, Credits, Rep, Inf, Commodities, Materials).

EDIT: My point was about the shared pool of missions.

That would work.

I was under the impression that you were talking about something like:

- Generate me 20 cargo delivery missions, all to the same system, 5 million Cr minimum and BANG! you get 20 missions.

I don't mind SOME customisation - as long as it doesn't make the missions system silly (as if you always got exactly what you wanted they may as well add "Credit my account with X cr" button )

 

[SciTrekker]

That would work.

I was under the impression that you were talking about something like:

- Generate me 20 cargo delivery missions, all to the same system, 5 million Cr minimum and BANG! you get 20 missions.

I don't mind SOME customisation - as long as it doesn't make the missions system silly (as if you always got exactly what you wanted they may as well add "Credit my account with X cr" button )

Instant gratification in a video game isn't for me. Leaving some criteria up to the mission engine (FD has to maintain some control) is a good thing for a video game. FD also needs to prevent long-running queries in such a system. Adding too many options to it would only lead to query performance issues. KISS is always better (not counting Gene Simmons ).

 

[Genus]

FD has to maintain some control

Re-gain control.

 

[Screemonster]

This one concerns me


Won't it also be frustrating to get 0 missions (say, in a heavy player-traffic system or station) because "All missions have been accepted. Try again in 10 minutes."?

Wouldn't a better solution (to not frustrating the player) be to let each Cmdr input what they're looking for and then RNG them off the template(s) that applies?

I'm sure they've already said earlier in the threat that one player taking a mission won't remove it from the board for other players. It'll just be flagged as "taken" for you personally and removed from the list.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

That would work.

I was under the impression that you were talking about something like:

- Generate me 20 cargo delivery missions, all to the same system, 5 million Cr minimum and BANG! you get 20 missions.

I don't mind SOME customisation - as long as it doesn't make the missions system silly (as if you always got exactly what you wanted they may as well add "Credit my account with X cr" button )

Personally I am not asking for customised missions at all. More a server side pool of missions in the high hundreds and rather than us download them all we query the database via an NPC comma panel UI
They would still be linked to bgs however. Some systems have people in the billions remember

 

[Rick Bravo]

Please god no refresh buttons. That would just be rubbish. A choice of material reward on the other hand could be good though.

The mission board does not work without board flipping, so if there is no ability to refresh it without waiting 20 minutes then it is a complete fail, just go ahead and remove all the large passenger and cargo ships from the game because they will be useless.