So, I decided to try these out. I knew that I would be asked to refuel or repair an NPC, so I built up a ship dedicated to the task with both a fuel and a repair limpet controller. It’s also got guns and things…
I drop into the first Distress Signal (Threat 0) I come across and sure enough, there’s a poor NPC who has been fighting and needs repairs.
(Why they don’t just fly to the station nearby and repair is strange, but then there’d be no Distress Signal, so we’ll let that one fly…)
I target the ship, get the nice voice comms, fire off a repair limpet, watch while it does it’s thing, the NPC’s hull goes from 1% to 20% and then…
They just fly off and wake out!!!
Ungrateful blighter. No thanks, no rewards, no nothing…
Did this a few times, and also for some refuel rescues. Same thing, so I’m assuming it’s not a bug.
Well, good job for taking the time to do the voice acting and so on, but surely it would be better to have the NPC send a comms thank you before they shove off. I mean we all want to be heroes and save the day, don’t we?
The problem I guess is that while it was fun to do it a couple of times, what’s the point if the end result is just a silent dead end?
So, a couple of thoughts / suggestions.
1. Have the NPC offer a small reward, and more importantly say that they will tell their faction (where they are highly regarded) to increase your reputation with them. Maybe even suggest that a visit to their faction might be worth our while.
2. Perhaps as a way of saying thank you they might drop a couple of decent grade mats.
3. Have them offer a mission! We have chained missions, inbox delivered missions and tip-offs, why not have the NPC ask their newfound friend and rescuer to do them one more favor and complete an (interesting) task?
This would be entirely optional, but for a repair could offer an assassination mission to get back at the NPC that did them damage, for a refuel perhaps a data delivery that they were trying to do when they ran out of fuel, and you would obviously be much better placed to accomplish it. Or it could be a tip-off that the NPC gives you after helping them out, which would surely be more believable than the anonymous ones that pop up occasionally for no discernible reason. And most if not all of this is already in game, so it’s just a matter of having it triggered by an action rather than by RNG.
Now, in my experimentation (only about six Distress Signals) all except one were Threat 0, which is just a straight up limpet job. One however was a Threat 2 Distress Signal, so I was looking forward to dropping in, fight off a pirate or two and save the sender of the distress signal. The problem being that when I dropped into it there was no NPC in distress, just a wing of NPC’s which I presume were the pirates, but they weren’t pirating. A bug perhaps?
It would surely be good if, based upon the threat level, there were a variety of NPC’s attacking a victim, and the player could destroy the pirates and repair the victim. After all, I did mention my rescue ship has guns, didn’t I?
This probably shouldn’t be endless waves of enemies spawning, but an actual scenario where you fight off one hostile (or wing of hostiles depending on the threat level) and then if you succeed, you can repair / refuel the victim and then perhaps get the rep bump or mission offer as suggested above.
Anyway, just a thought. The groundwork is there, it’s just that at the moment it all fizzles out after a promising start, and firing one limpet is probably not going to be compelling enough game-play to make players want to go out and actively find and engage with these distress signals.
TL : DR Make dropping in on a distress signal more than just firing off a single repair or refuel limpet.
I drop into the first Distress Signal (Threat 0) I come across and sure enough, there’s a poor NPC who has been fighting and needs repairs.
(Why they don’t just fly to the station nearby and repair is strange, but then there’d be no Distress Signal, so we’ll let that one fly…)
I target the ship, get the nice voice comms, fire off a repair limpet, watch while it does it’s thing, the NPC’s hull goes from 1% to 20% and then…
They just fly off and wake out!!!
Ungrateful blighter. No thanks, no rewards, no nothing…
Did this a few times, and also for some refuel rescues. Same thing, so I’m assuming it’s not a bug.
Well, good job for taking the time to do the voice acting and so on, but surely it would be better to have the NPC send a comms thank you before they shove off. I mean we all want to be heroes and save the day, don’t we?
The problem I guess is that while it was fun to do it a couple of times, what’s the point if the end result is just a silent dead end?
So, a couple of thoughts / suggestions.
1. Have the NPC offer a small reward, and more importantly say that they will tell their faction (where they are highly regarded) to increase your reputation with them. Maybe even suggest that a visit to their faction might be worth our while.
2. Perhaps as a way of saying thank you they might drop a couple of decent grade mats.
3. Have them offer a mission! We have chained missions, inbox delivered missions and tip-offs, why not have the NPC ask their newfound friend and rescuer to do them one more favor and complete an (interesting) task?
This would be entirely optional, but for a repair could offer an assassination mission to get back at the NPC that did them damage, for a refuel perhaps a data delivery that they were trying to do when they ran out of fuel, and you would obviously be much better placed to accomplish it. Or it could be a tip-off that the NPC gives you after helping them out, which would surely be more believable than the anonymous ones that pop up occasionally for no discernible reason. And most if not all of this is already in game, so it’s just a matter of having it triggered by an action rather than by RNG.
Now, in my experimentation (only about six Distress Signals) all except one were Threat 0, which is just a straight up limpet job. One however was a Threat 2 Distress Signal, so I was looking forward to dropping in, fight off a pirate or two and save the sender of the distress signal. The problem being that when I dropped into it there was no NPC in distress, just a wing of NPC’s which I presume were the pirates, but they weren’t pirating. A bug perhaps?
It would surely be good if, based upon the threat level, there were a variety of NPC’s attacking a victim, and the player could destroy the pirates and repair the victim. After all, I did mention my rescue ship has guns, didn’t I?
This probably shouldn’t be endless waves of enemies spawning, but an actual scenario where you fight off one hostile (or wing of hostiles depending on the threat level) and then if you succeed, you can repair / refuel the victim and then perhaps get the rep bump or mission offer as suggested above.
Anyway, just a thought. The groundwork is there, it’s just that at the moment it all fizzles out after a promising start, and firing one limpet is probably not going to be compelling enough game-play to make players want to go out and actively find and engage with these distress signals.
TL : DR Make dropping in on a distress signal more than just firing off a single repair or refuel limpet.
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