Completed Missions QOL... an alternative to going back to mission giver for payment

[GraphicEqualizer]

Just like there are alternatives with additional costs for paying off fines at interstellar factors, or using carriers services etc., there should be an alternative way to get paid for completed missions where the payments are "wired" to your account rather than have to return to the mission giver/system in order to collect reward. E.g. for a 20% cut from payout there should be an Inbox message from the mission giver on mission success to accept or decline receiving the payment remotely.

I think this would enable much more fluid gameplay, where you can simply travel around like a roving freelancer picking up missions as you go, and not have to always backtrack to where you have been before, which is an empty time sink.

 

[CMDR_Halceon]

I was just thinking of making this suggestion! This world be my ideal way to play Elite, especially for transport missions. It seems small, but the friction of that return trip has from time to time been the thing that makes me stop playing for a while.

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

Yep, its also why a lot of the time I choose not to take missions at all from the small settlements mission boards... for example, at a station you decide to take a surface settlement delivery mission or something, and when you get there you are tempted to check out the local mission board but why the hell would I bother to take a mission from here at the settlement, I'd have to go back to the first mission giver's place to cash in that mission, then go do the new mission I just picked up, then come back here again to get payment for that... its just annoying and nonsensical.
I want to travel around taking missions as I go, not constantly have to double back just to pickup acknowledgement of payment from the place I got it from. It makes no sense, unless the mission itself requires something to be taken back where not getting interdicted and robbed or destroyed is part of that mission loop. Assassination, restore, delivery, destroy a thing missions etc., etc., should not need it and would make gameplay optionally less repetitive (at least from a revisited location POV)

 

[davinator791]

I agree with the suggestion, considering we get a message from mission giver when mission status is updated/completed almost immediately. The thing is, I'm not sure about the lore for communications in the future, normally we get missions in a different system and for radio waves to travel to the other systems would take equal amount of years as the distance in Light-years. Our ships basically travel much faster than the radio waves, which explains the need for going back to the station instead of waiting for messages, as well as taking courier missions to other systems since the ships are much faster means of transportation.

 

[MacHurto]

I think this would enable much more fluid gameplay, where you can simply travel around like a roving freelancer picking up missions as you go, and not have to always backtrack to where you have been before, which is an empty time sink.

+1 agree 100%

It would be a much more engaging gameplay (imho). Another way to do it could be to be able to turn in completed missions at Interstellar factions?

 

[HRDiagram]

I think it would be a sensible mechanics for non material payments to be allowed remotely, with some form of tax reducing its value, just like the IF or when selling data to a Fleet Carrier.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Been suggested many times, would be great indeed.

 

[Screemonster]

Any mission that doesn't involve fetching cargo/goods back to the station of origin should be cashable without having to return to the base. Assassinations and the like especially.
Even if they had to be cashed at a station where the mission giver is present that'd be great, as you could check the mission boards at odyssey surface settlements while you're passing through, then redeem them at the main station in the system.

For BGS reasons there is an argument for only allowing them to be redeemed in the system where you took them, but even allowing them to be done at a different station in that system would be great.

 

[MacHurto]

For BGS reasons there is an argument for only allowing them to be redeemed in the system where you took them, but even allowing them to be done at a different station in that system would be great.

But, if you are interested in BGS, you can still deliver them in the system. Otherwise, it could just not count

 

[Jmanis]

There's scant few missions that could apply to, so it hardly seems worth it. Like, Massacres, Assassinations, other attack-based ones. It is impossible to work it for any other mission type.

But hey, if FD wanted to blow resources on that, as long as all BGS effects (influence, security etc) were cut out and it was purely monetary (which is exactly how bounties/CZ vouchers work) then sure.

But again, less than half the mission types could function like this, so I don't see this being a great use of resources. Most have some requirement to hand-over something to the mission-provider at conclusion.

 

[CMDR_Halceon]

I agree with the suggestion, considering we get a message from mission giver when mission status is updated/completed almost immediately. The thing is, I'm not sure about the lore for communications in the future, normally we get missions in a different system and for radio waves to travel to the other systems would take equal amount of years as the distance in Light-years. Our ships basically travel much faster than the radio waves, which explains the need for going back to the station instead of waiting for messages, as well as taking courier missions to other systems since the ships are much faster means of transportation.

Yes, my person head cannon is that there isn't faster than light communication, which explains a lot of what pilots are asked to do, so in this case, my desire for one way missions is inconsistent with that. But the game itself seems to not care about that, implying instant communications.

 

[Screemonster]

There's scant few missions that could apply to, so it hardly seems worth it. Like, Massacres, Assassinations, other attack-based ones. It is impossible to work it for any other mission type.

But hey, if FD wanted to blow resources on that, as long as all BGS effects (influence, security etc) were cut out and it was purely monetary (which is exactly how bounties/CZ vouchers work) then sure.

But again, less than half the mission types could function like this, so I don't see this being a great use of resources. Most have some requirement to hand-over something to the mission-provider at conclusion.

There's several odyssey missions like deliveries, reactivate/restore, raid, massacre, takedown, assassination and sabotage that don't involve bringing anything back.
Odyssey even includes logic already for detecting particular mission types that enter a "completed" state where they can't be failed (such as by losing an item that needs to be returned) so that part of it wouldn't need any dev-time as it's already a solved problem.

Assassinate someone in odyssey and an extra 24h gets added to the mission timer. Collect an item that needs to be returned to base and it doesn't.

 

[Jmanis]

There's several odyssey missions like deliveries, reactivate/restore, raid, massacre, takedown, assassination and sabotage that don't involve bringing anything back.
Odyssey even includes logic already for detecting particular mission types that enter a "completed" state where they can't be failed (such as by losing an item that needs to be returned) so that part of it wouldn't need any dev-time as it's already a solved problem.

Assassinate someone in odyssey and an extra 24h gets added to the mission timer. Collect an item that needs to be returned to base and it doesn't.

Deliveries by definition involve taking something somewhere though. Finishing a delivery remotely doesn't make sense.

Nonetheless, we still have:

• Tourism/VIP Transport
• Bulk Passenger Transport
• Salvage
• Source
• Delivery
• Courier
• Hijack
• Mining
• Smuggle
• Pirate
• Surface Scan
• Surface Salvage
• Installation Scan
• Megaship Scan

And then Odyssey has numerous flavours of Salvage/Recover/Steal

It's easily more than half.... I really doubt the value-add of this sort of thing in this instance.

 

[Screemonster]

Deliveries by definition involve taking something somewhere though. Finishing a delivery remotely doesn't make sense.

... Deliveries are cashed in, and your reward chosen, at the station you deliver them to.
If you take a delivery or data courier mission from station A to station B, you get paid at station B. You don't have to return to station A.
Deliveries on foot, where you have handed off the goods to your contact, require you to return to where you took the mission even though the goods have already been delivered.

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

There's scant few missions that could apply to, so it hardly seems worth it. Like, Massacres, Assassinations, other attack-based ones. It is impossible to work it for any other mission type.

But hey, if FD wanted to blow resources on that, as long as all BGS effects (influence, security etc) were cut out and it was purely monetary (which is exactly how bounties/CZ vouchers work) then sure.

But again, less than half the mission types could function like this, so I don't see this being a great use of resources. Most have some requirement to hand-over something to the mission-provider at conclusion.

Yep but some of the hand-over something types don't make much sense anyway, e.g. the settlement powerdown missions... why need to take the dime-a-dozen regulators back to the mission giver? Also, the requirement to return items back could be handled in the lore anyway by cashing in somewhere else, the cut in payout covers the cost of fedex shipping those items back to the mission giver.

As for the faster than light communications issues also raised, that is a bit of a red herring IMO, that issue is already present in many other areas of gameplay, which I assume is waved away with some kind of Trekian subspace relay type setup. Ultimately that does not matter.

 

[Mersozz]

I can see why the suggestion is popular.

I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate, but returning to base to complete the mission can add some tension to the overall experience.

Sometimes I have taken on assassination missions that put me over my skis. Playing those sorts of missions in Open can be fun and satisfying to complete upon return to the mission giver. Just saying.

 

[GraphicEqualizer]

I can see why the suggestion is popular.

I don’t mean to play devil’s advocate, but returning to base to complete the mission can add some tension to the overall experience.

Sometimes I have taken on assassination missions that put me over my skis. Playing those sorts of missions in Open can be fun and satisfying to complete upon return to the mission giver. Just saying.

Oh, I totally agree with that too... don't get me wrong, I am not advocating for that to be eliminated, just for it to be optional for a lot of types of missions (for a reduced payout - and increased payouts if you do choose to return to the mission giver and get into scuffles), this is all in order to facilitate different gaming styles... I always think that many game loops are kept on too tight a rail, there should always be:

• multiple ways to start or engage in activities (missions, trading, mining, rescue, exploring, etc., etc.),
• multiple layers of interactivity of the activity itself (and additional side activities you can do while you are there -- I often advocate for the need for geology nerd gameplay), and,
• multiple ways to tie up that main activity and move on, e.g. remote mission giver payout, interstellar factor services, carrier services, going back to originating system.

It's often the restrictive "one way" of doing things that leads to the mile wide, inch deep feeling.

 

[whothe]

Because anyone hiring an assassin for a hit on someone would want the assassin to return to them personally upon completion of the hit right? Instead of melting into the shadows while the payment is deposited into some account.

Sometimes, like if you are trying to build rep, using the same station repeatedly makes sense.
But like the OP sometimes I would like to just travel around and grab different missions like a wandering rogue. 100% agree that the return to base style of mission completion is truly a pita, and just doesnt make any sense at all for many mission types, other than being a time sink. Like many other things in this game, FDev considers pure time sink = gameplay/content. Its not a difficulty or challenge kind of time sink, its just make X take longer somehow.

 

[MacHurto]

It's often the restrictive "one way" of doing things that leads to the mile wide, inch deep feeling.

It is exactly this. In many instances, doing missions is more a bother than anything meaningful as you need to come back to the point of origin. In Odyssey it is even worse as the timer is extremely short so you cannot (for example) log off on a planet you just recovered something from, look for biological signals / screenshots / whatever, a couple days later when you log in again and then return the missions.

Ideally (imho) you should be able to deliver as:

Courier missions (data/commodities) -> at destination (as it is now)
Supply missions (mining/commodities/money) -> At quest giver (as it is now)
Assassination / massacre -> At quest giver OR at Interstellar faction contacts (with penalty) OR from ship (if you dont want the material reward) (with penalty)
Theft/Liberation/Recovery -> At quest giver OR at Interstellar faction contacts (with penalty). Usually very small quantities that you could get shipped from the next port.
Surface operations -> At quest giver OR at Interstellar faction contacts (with penalty) OR from ship (if you dont want the material reward) (with penalty)
Sabotage capital ship -> At quest giver OR at Interstellar faction contacts (with penalty) OR from ship (if you dont want the material reward) (with penalty)

Not sure I miss any type of mission (Horizons/Odyssey) but in general, unless you need to bring stuff in bulk, you should not have to return to the quest giver's station.