Design your own mission.

[Boff'in]

Since it's been a few years and the pool of templates for missions have worn thin for the existing gaming mechanics.
We look to now to Beyond with the promised love to the core careers as the game move forwards:
people expect new mechanics and new gameplay loops.

But Missions, always need to dip into these new resources.
Since so many seam to have "ideas" about missions are bad, boring and repetitive;
it's time to give a little back to FDEV, and we can collate our ideas.

Design Brief:
This is your basic summary of the mission. Single, chained & branched (choices). Think of Careers.
Write a story. Concentrate on the feeling of what it would be like.

I would be awesome to have to find a large asteroid to mine (for self or client) just like in the trailer.
It would feel powerful with a fleet of ships of an aligned faction/power to an actual war zone, or hold the line in defending a station or groundbase, but then the choas and panic creeps in as the our lines faulter.

I want a white-knuckle ride with a canyon run, to drop off some cargo, complete with time for the client.
I want to sneak into a large facility and pick up some delivery, or steal some data from a datapoint (I had one of these occur naturally in game). Manifest scan an annaconda for some goodies, only for have played dead to lure you in,
calm and chilled?
Frantic and sweaty?
strange & bizare?
nervous, heist?


Template:
Requirements and expectation of the player.
Career Skills required : merc/pirate/smuggler/miner/trader/explorer (Harmless->Elite)
Expected Challenge: Long distance jumping (but then....) high volume trade capacity.
Equipment Required: Existing ship/weaponry/modules or something of your own invention.

Journey Out: What can we expect.
Middle Part 1:
Middle Part 2:
Middle Part as many you like:
Journey Home:

Make use of:

[Location] Planets/outposts/CQC assets/Invent your own.
[Triggers] & [Events]
(whether an action such as a scan, cargo pick, arrival at a waypoint, spawns in something or triggers something)
[Characters]
[Alliances (rep)] & [Conflicts of interest]



Things to consider: Skillset.

As an aside, and and something to think about, but don't let it distract you...
Me and another fellow commander was talking about, too much emphasis is put onto increasing the number require goal from X to Y (and some AI tweaks) to denote an increase Challenge and merit higher skill and mastery.
The disconnect being that skilled pilots can perfom this challenge in smaller ships, where as larger ships have a natural capability.
Say an Elite merc and an Elite trader. Both earned their ships fair and square but one will find the new Quantity of Goal, hard, and the other may not.
Either way the high skill level denoted by Fetch Y / Move Y / Destroy Y) offers no different gameplay the lower level (Fetch X / Move X / Destroy X)

Mix and match actual game-loops and mechanics as a resource,
So as the skill level increases (in your template) you can use Fetch More X if you like.
or you can increment the number of tasks and mixture of skills/proffesion/ship-types (but not too far off the core career).
This could be in one set mission, or broken down into chained/branched mission.

So you could have a long-distance supply run, in small quantites, but then volume increases as does the distance and number of locations one must drop off as the skill level increases, and some scanning to find some locations to drop off ship-to-ship.

Forcing a commander to sabotage Reputation could also be thought of as a higher "skill"

 

[Saxon Kili]

It would be nice to be able to design your own mission or mission campaign with an in-game option to browse other players' missions and play them. Let the players generate some side story content.

Having recurring characters in your own little story missions could make the game quite expansive.

 

[JesusRocks1988]

Literally did this in the suggestions forum earlier today:

So many times people here have requested longer story and narrative based missions for the game, and it go me to thinking about the new players to the game, the upcoming Codex and new exploration mechanics and thought that, actually, the stories that have come out of the Elite Dangerous Community over the years are some of the best narrative events in the game - and they're totally emergent. It is a shame therefore that newer players won't get the opportunity to experience them, and it remains really hard to follow the overarching narrative in the game; nearly impossible if you don't come on the forum or Reddit or use any out of game resources at all. Especially as time marches on and Galnet articles get deleted or buried. It is a crying shame that new players will have missed out on some of the best content Elite has to offer.

That's things like the Distant Worlds journey, various other expeditions, harrowing Fuel Rat rescues, and what was for me the very best story of the bunch... The Formidine Rift mystery. Never forget that though FD got involved in the Formidine Rift mystery, putting assets here and there, it was primarily the baby of Drew Wagar, who aside from writing a few canon novels for Elite, was basically just another player like us.

So what I thought was, "What if there were a way to use missions to recreate some of these scenarios from a PvE or single-player perspective, using NPCs in place of the original CMDRs?"

Well, for a test run, I thought I'd draft the full text of a story mission to introduce new players to and take them through the Formidine Rift Mystery - not treating it as if it's happening now, but taking place in the aftermath of the original community story.
These story missions would be one-off missions that give special rewards like decals or paintjobs as well as being incredible high paying due to their sheer length and sometimes the effort required to complete them.

So, without further adieu, I present:

The Formidine Rift Story Mission
Location: Starports in Reorte & Riedquat
Rewards: 100,000,000CR and Formidine Rifters ship decal
Special notes:
- Mission can only be completed once per CMDR.
- No time limit.
- Remains in transactions tab until complete.
- Cannot be failed.
- Given via Comm Panel message on docking at any starport in Reorte or Riedquat
- Can be accepted or rejected.
- If rejected it becomes a persistent stickied mission at the top of the mission board for the controlling faction in those systems until accepted.
- Mission can be shared with a wing.
- Mission messages also voice acted.

Initial Mission Text:
Greetings Commander, I have something that might be of interest to you. Who am I? That’s not important right now. There is something that you need to know, something that needs to be known far and wide, something that goes beyond the Federation, the Imperials and the Alliance. There’s an area of space at the edge of the galactic arm where the stars thin out called the Formidine Rift, and there is something out there from the days of old Galcop. Something looming in the darkness that the powers that be don’t want us to know about. Where exactly is it? Take a line from Reorte to Riedquat out to the edge of the arm and... keep going.
If you’re feeling the pull of the unknown and the drive to uncover the dirtiest secrets of the Superpowers, there’s a faction called The Children of Raxxla in the HR 6421 system – go to them, they will tell you more.
[Accept] or [Reject]

Upon accepting, the mission goes into the transactions panel with the following text:
The Formidine Rift Mystery
An enigmatic figure has contacted you and told you about the mystery surrounding the Formidine Rift. Go to HR 6421 and get more information from the Children of Raxxla.
Current Destination: Serebrov Terminal, HR 6421
Mission Reward: 100,000,000CR | Ship Decal
Mission Rank: Elite
Hostile ships may be sent against you.
Required: 30LY+ Jump Range, Advanced Discovery Scanner, Detailed Surface Scanner, SRV.
Optional: Shields, an Auto Field Maintenance Unit, [Limpet Controller Bay] and Hull Repair Limpets, Weapons.

Upon docking at the Children of Raxxla controlled station in HR 6421, another Comm Panel message comes up:
Commander, we’ve been expecting you. Our mutual friend sent word that you had accepted the challenge to uncover a dangerous mystery. Our former leader, Lady Kahina Loren, herself a former Senator of the Prism system, uncovered these secrets a long time ago and laid down her life to make sure they got out. However, the Federation and Empire did a good job of quashing this knowledge and keeping it hidden, especially while the whole galaxy is distracted by the Thargoids and the Guardians… It is still too dangerous for us to come out publicly with this information, but the more people like you who can uncover the secrets, the harder it is for them to keep it quiet. In the early days, we had a staging post out past the Heart & Soul Nebulae. It’s the site of a tourist beacon now, but all is not as it seems. I have modified your ship’s receivers to detect a special transmission that will help you on your journey. Fly safe, Commander.

The mission text in the transaction panel changes to:
Current Destination: Children of Raxxla Staging Post, Eafots BP-I D9-35
Upon arriving at the Tourist Beacon and scanning it, the ship picks up the normal Tourist text, plus an extra “mission critical” message that simply says:
Eafots EU-R C4-1
Plaa Aec IZ-N C20-1
Pru Aescs DL-W C15-37
The transactions tab updates to those destinations. It is now up to the Player where they go first.
Upon arrival in one of those systems, the player gets a mission critical message that resolves that area into the several target systems.
Eafots EU-R C4-1 becomes:

• Eafots EU-R C4-1 A
• Eafots LZ-H B10-0 D,
• Eafots RA-G B11-0 3,
• Eafots GL-Y E2 A1

Plaa Aec IZ-N C20-1 becomes:

• Plaa Aec IZ-N C20-1 A
• Plaa Aec XZ-Z B41-0 A1
• Plaa Aec TT-B B41-3 B1
• Plaa Aec RY-B B41-1 A

Pru Aescs DL-W C15-37 becomes:

• Pru Aescs TY-J A64-1 1
• Pru Aescs HW-S B31-2 A
• Pru Aescs OI-K A64-0 1
• Pru Aescs NC-M D7-192 A

These are the locations of the Beacons pointing to the Rally Point Outposts in those systems.
Listening to the broadcasts from the Beacons reveals the puzzle to decode the rally point locations.

Scanning the planet with a Detailed Surface Scanner and getting within the Sphere of Influence of the rally point planet brings up the “Search Zone” mechanic which leads the player directly to said the outposts where the player can listen to the message logs.

Once all the rally points have been visited for a certain area, they mark as complete in the transaction panel.

Once all the areas have been completed, a Comm Panel message is received:
You see, Commander? You see what they’ve been up to? The Dynasty Expedition set off from Reorte and Riedquat in 3270 to distribute beacons around Earth-Like Worlds in the Formidine Rift, Hawking’s Gap and the Conflux. There were three fleets and they set off around the same time, and as you have seen, all did not go according to plan. What happened to the fleet? Why were they surveying Earth-Like Worlds? Who bankrolled this expedition? Well, I hear they have some good journalists in Tionisla…

The mission text in the transactions tab changes to:
Current destination: Brett High, Tionisla

In the Tionisla system, there is a high chance of interdiction by wings of ships (engineered if the mission is shared to a wing). The NPCs are all in black paintjobs and say things over Comms like “You’re in way over your head, CMDR” or “You know too much” etc…

Read the local Galnet in Tionisla and a simplified version of the original puzzle from Rebecca’s Cobra points to the system Syreadiae JX-F C0. The mission text in the transactions tab changes the current destination to this system. All the way there, the player needs to avoid and/or escape interdiction by hostile NPCs.

Upon arriving and using the Advanced Discovery Scanner, the location of The Zurara is revealed for the player to listen to the logs.

Once the logs have been listened to, the player receives another mission critical message:
Congratulations Commander, you’ve found it. This is what they were hiding – what they were covering up. They enticed these brave and desperate souls to come out to the most inhospitable parts of the galaxy, never intending for them to return. There’s one last message you need to hear... from Salome herself.

The mission text in the transactions tab updates to:
Current destination: Panacea Medical Centre, HIP 17519 1A
The player goes there and scans the Salome’s Requiem audio uplinks.
When the logs have been scanned, the mission completes and the reward is available to claim from either Reorte or Riedquat.

Mission Path: Reorte/Riedquat – HR 6421 – Children of Raxxla Staging Post (EAFOTS BP-I D9-35) – The Formidine Rift Sites | The Conflux Sites | The Gap Sites – Tionisla – Syreadiae JX-F C0 – HIP 17519 - Reorte/Riedquat
___________________________________________________________________________

Other suggestions for missions include:
- Fuel Rat-style deep space refuelling missions to NPCs
- Mission to follow the path of the Distant Worlds Expedition
- Investigating the Thargoids

Would appreciate some thoughts on it.

 

[Exeider]

the odd part is didnt Fdev say they wanted to release a mission editer so the commmunity can develop content for themselves?

I would have made that a year 1 thing, so they could focus their energy on other things.

 

[Truesilver]

I would like someone (Frontier, anyone) to design apex, optional, missions that require me to do something using piloting skills and by improving my ship, quite probably failing without improving the skills and redesigning the ship, and showering me with rewards if successful. If it comes with a good story, so much the better.

Two examples:

1. Combat.

Offer me the chance to attempt to go up against fully engineered AI with specific loadouts and gameplans that match those loadouts.

The current wing terrorist assassination missions are a good starting point but as they have one template and can be solo completed in short order and without risk using a ceilinged ship, are still just a starting point.

2. Speed and manoeuvring

Give me a reason to make a really fast Courier and the opportunity to be a courier - and I don't mean in supercruise. Give me a challenge that means I have to canyon run or fly around and through complex structures to complete it.

I find it ironic and disappointing that three and a half years after launch, a game based on flying spaceships should offer a wide array of driving time trials (in the form of base raiding) and precisely zero spaceship time trials.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I'd like to be able to apply this sort of thing to CGs as well.

E.g.:
Pop princess wants to create a colony for released pod people, but they need feeding. The system the freed slaves are in has no agricultural potential, but does have plenty of gas giants with icy rings.
Scientists propose seeding the ice rings with Baltha'sine Vacuum Krill. So large amounts of vacuum krill eggs need mining.
Special RES are identified in the rings of Baltha'sine 4B where vacuum krill eggs are plentiful and at the right age for transplanting.
Miners are requested to mine the vacuum krill eggs from these RES. Bountyhunters are employed to protect them.
A science vessel waits in the orbit of Baltha'sine 4B, to collect the eggs and prepare them them for transplanting.
Independent pilots are contracted to transport the processed eggs to a second science vessel in the system with the new ex-slave colony.

 

[NY09]

Mission: Deliver 900,000,000 Yttrium and 4,000,000,000 Modified Embedded Firmware to Hutton Orbital without being scanned.

Reward: 5000 credits and +2 rep.

 

[Cervantes01]

Mission: Deliver 900,000,000 Yttrium and 4,000,000,000 Modified Embedded Firmware to Hutton Orbital without being scanned.

Reward: 5000 credits and +2 rep.

You must be one of the devs...

 

[Marc_Hicks]

Since it's been a few years and the pool of templates for missions have worn thin for the existing gaming mechanics.
We look to now to Beyond with the promised love to the core careers as the game move forwards:
people expect new mechanics and new gameplay loops.

But Missions, always need to dip into these new resources.
Since so many seam to have "ideas" about missions are bad, boring and repetitive;
it's time to give a little back to FDEV, and we can collate our ideas.

Design Brief:
This is your basic summary of the mission. Single, chained & branched (choices). Think of Careers.
Write a story. Concentrate on the feeling of what it would be like.

I would be awesome to have to find a large asteroid to mine (for self or client) just like in the trailer.
It would feel powerful with a fleet of ships of an aligned faction/power to an actual war zone, or hold the line in defending a station or groundbase, but then the choas and panic creeps in as the our lines faulter.

I want a white-knuckle ride with a canyon run, to drop off some cargo, complete with time for the client.
I want to sneak into a large facility and pick up some delivery, or steal some data from a datapoint (I had one of these occur naturally in game). Manifest scan an annaconda for some goodies, only for have played dead to lure you in,
calm and chilled?
Frantic and sweaty?
strange & bizare?
nervous, heist?


Template:
Requirements and expectation of the player.
Career Skills required : merc/pirate/smuggler/miner/trader/explorer (Harmless->Elite)
Expected Challenge: Long distance jumping (but then....) high volume trade capacity.
Equipment Required: Existing ship/weaponry/modules or something of your own invention.

Journey Out: What can we expect.
Middle Part 1:
Middle Part 2:
Middle Part as many you like:
Journey Home:

Make use of:

[Location] Planets/outposts/CQC assets/Invent your own.
[Triggers] & [Events]
(whether an action such as a scan, cargo pick, arrival at a waypoint, spawns in something or triggers something)
[Characters]
[Alliances (rep)] & [Conflicts of interest]



Things to consider: Skillset.

As an aside, and and something to think about, but don't let it distract you...
Me and another fellow commander was talking about, too much emphasis is put onto increasing the number require goal from X to Y (and some AI tweaks) to denote an increase Challenge and merit higher skill and mastery.
The disconnect being that skilled pilots can perfom this challenge in smaller ships, where as larger ships have a natural capability.
Say an Elite merc and an Elite trader. Both earned their ships fair and square but one will find the new Quantity of Goal, hard, and the other may not.
Either way the high skill level denoted by Fetch Y / Move Y / Destroy Y) offers no different gameplay the lower level (Fetch X / Move X / Destroy X)

Mix and match actual game-loops and mechanics as a resource,
So as the skill level increases (in your template) you can use Fetch More X if you like.
or you can increment the number of tasks and mixture of skills/proffesion/ship-types (but not too far off the core career).
This could be in one set mission, or broken down into chained/branched mission.

So you could have a long-distance supply run, in small quantites, but then volume increases as does the distance and number of locations one must drop off as the skill level increases, and some scanning to find some locations to drop off ship-to-ship.

Forcing a commander to sabotage Reputation could also be thought of as a higher "skill"

I have actually written several fairly long posts, in the Suggestions Sub-forum, about how they could inject more variety & life into the existing mission templates....

Step 1 is to make the mission templates/targets offered by a faction make more *sense*, in regards to the Faction Type, System Economy & Faction State.

Step 2 is to have much more variety to the available "Flavour Text". For a player like me, who enjoys roleplaying, a good introductory text-one which is a bit more 'personalised'-can really make even a stock standard mission feel more exciting.

Step 3 is to have mission complexity/difficulty more closely tied to mission rank.....& hence mission reward. By this I mean that a Rank 1-2 mission (say, Harmless to Mostly Harmless) will be a very 'by the numbers affair', with pretty much no complications/wrinkles or follow-on, but a rank 7-9 mission (say, Dangerous to Elite) will be extremely complex/difficult, involving extremely short mission times; plenty of complications/wrinkles-both random, pre-generated & player triggered (possibly even ones that can change the Mission Template); highly varied mission locations & an almost 100% chance of a follow-on mission.

Step 4 is to have missions taking place in more than simply 1 location. For example, Salvage, Assassination & Wet-job missions almost always take place in the empty space around planets. Why not, instead, have those missions take place in Deep Space (between planets), or in Belt Clusters, or in Planetary Rings, or in Oort Clouds......just for starters? If it is in space above a planet, then why not have it be within a very dense, procedural generated Debris Field/Wreckage Site? Or within the Procedural Generated wreckage of a Python, T-9 or Corvette? Or within the proximity of a CQC asset, Outpost or Mega-ship (all procedural generated)? Or why not have the mission take place inside the Orbital Cruise range of a land-fall planet?

Step 5 is to have few to no artificial boundaries on what kind of Wrinkles or follow-on missions the primary mission can take......or even when they can crop up in the mission time-line.

Step 6 is to vary the ways in which players can pick up missions, other than mission boards. Scanning Shipwreck data cores or Private Data Beacons, scanning Data-links of surface settlements, or salvaging certain types of commodities (Encrypted Data, Rebel Transmissions, Military Plans, Black Boxes & Escape Pods) being the most obvious ones. Having missions offered by the Black Market, Interstellar Factors, Search & Rescue & other contacts would be great too.

If all of those 6 steps were taken, then I believe even the most stale mission template could feel truly varied & exciting, especially for those willing to take more high-risk missions.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Cross posting a bit here, but similar theme to another thread. I’ve advocated for this before anyway, but it seems timely.

Player Beacons.
These are expensive (like an A rated big ship).

They are cargo and might need a specialized limpet to deploy.

They can be deployed on surface or space.

The player can input some text (profanity filter of course).


When another CMDR scans the Player Beacon it reports:
1) The input text.
2) The Name and Time stamp of the First CMDR to scan.
2) The Name and Time stamp of the most recent CMDR to scan.

So players can set up their own:
Races.
Treasure Hunts.
Puzzles.
Taunts.
Historical Notes.
Red Herrings.
Outrageous lies.
Declarations of love or war.
Recruitment advertising.
Memorials to CMDRs who have passed. Or perhaps just to much loved NPC fighter pilots.

They could have a lifespan.
Or be destroyable.
Or require maintenance.

Lots of uses.

Buckyball Racing club could mark out their circuits.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

That's what sandbox players do on every single login.

If you need something like that, it's super easy.

Mission name: Close mission board and go play.

The end.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Step 5 is to have few to no artificial boundaries on what kind of Wrinkles or follow-on missions the primary mission can take......or even when they can crop up in the mission time-line.

I'd reverse that. If it's too random, then it will be a mess. What I think would work better is if there is some tree structure to wrinkle acceptance/refusal completion or failure.

e.g:
NPC1 "You were a hard one to track down, would you like to betray your employer for 20cr?"
You "Wow, temping but no thanks. They are offering some biowaste if I complete this mission." NPC leaves
Later, NPC2 "You demonstrated amazing loyalty there, would you like to take the cargo to Hutton instead and we'll throw in some more biowaste?"

The NPC2 bit wouldn't make any sense at all without your refusal of NPC1's tempting offer. The trees could be made pretty long and complex for some missions or choices, simple for others.

 

[Schmack]

I want to pick up passengers at Allen Hub and drop them off at Smeaton for about 500m per trip.

Wait... nm

Ok for real this time:

Infiltrate the Empire by shacking up with Aisling Duval, and then declare prima nocturne in the empire. If you cannot kill them, breed them out. Find wedding barges, approach, kidnap the bride and bring her back later... you know.

 

[Chaparral]

Probably a brutal overhaul of the mission system - but something like EDDB.

In EDDB, you input the parameters of the mission type you are looking for (Most profitable trade loop given limiting conditions for example), and it tells you where to go.

I'd like to see this for assassinations, massacre missions, scan missions etc. etc. You put in the mission type you want to do given your various capacities and levels, and the mission board returns a "go here and meet guy or girl X to get the mission".

In this way if I really am a mercenary for hire, I go where the best action and pay are.

If you really wanted to get all RP about it, you could have a chained/gated contacts list that expands as your reputation for successful mission completions is achieved.

 

[Marc_Hicks]

I'd reverse that. If it's too random, then it will be a mess. What I think would work better is if there is some tree structure to wrinkle acceptance/refusal completion or failure.

e.g:
NPC1 "You were a hard one to track down, would you like to betray your employer for 20cr?"
You "Wow, temping but no thanks. They are offering some biowaste if I complete this mission." NPC leaves
Later, NPC2 "You demonstrated amazing loyalty there, would you like to take the cargo to Hutton instead and we'll throw in some more biowaste?"

The NPC2 bit wouldn't make any sense at all without your refusal of NPC1's tempting offer. The trees could be made pretty long and complex for some missions or choices, simple for others.

That's not quite what I meant by Complications, though the type you mention above should only trigger if you're at least Cordial with the alternate mission giving faction, & should definitely offer a minimum of 50% above whatever rewards you are offered for doing the mission for the primary mission giver.

However, what I meant was in shaking up the existing Mission Wrinkle system, so that the wrinkles can be of *any* severity, & occur at any time along the mission timeline, but always with the proviso that you get a bonus payment for meeting the criteria of the wrinkle.

So, for example, if you take a mission to salvage something in space, you might get a "Time Bonus" sometime after completing the salvage part of the mission...usually once you enter the system you are dropping them off at. However, why not have a Time Bonus occur en-route to the mission target. You might get Time Bonus (Mission Target is at risk of severe damage) or Time Bonus (a rival salvage team are en-route to the salvage site). Achieving the time bonus in either case (based on the mission rank) would gain you a bonus pay-out. Failure, though, would trigger a specific new wrinkle. In the former case, you'll be tasked with repairing the salvage prior to bringing it in (the salvage will already be at less than 50% integrity, meaning you'll have to be much more careful when picking up the salvage). A list of materials & data required for repair will be given in the text for the Mission Update, & you'll repair the salvage via your Synthesis Tab. In the latter case, you'll trigger a new "Liberate $Commodity_Name" Mission wrinkle. You'll now be tasked with liberating/pirating the commodity you were sent to salvage, as the rival team has already grabbed it before you could get there.

Just by opening up the parameters for time bonus wrinkles, you've not only increased the level of jeopardy involved in the mission, but also given several entirely different ways in which this very basic mission template can play out.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Probably a brutal overhaul of the mission system - but something like EDDB.

In EDDB, you input the parameters of the mission type you are looking for (Most profitable trade loop given limiting conditions for example), and it tells you where to go.

I'd like to see this for assassinations, massacre missions, scan missions etc. etc. You put in the mission type you want to do given your various capacities and levels, and the mission board returns a "go here and meet guy or girl X to get the mission".

In this way if I really am a mercenary for hire, I go where the best action and pay are.

If you really wanted to get all RP about it, you could have a chained/gated contacts list that expands as your reputation for successful mission completions is achieved.

You can in theory do this already, the problem is it keeps changing.

When first learning that you could stack missions, the first thought i had was to find my own system to do this in, including bonus conditions such as superpower rep. So spent a few months via trial and error trying to keep track of the conditions that caused certain mission types to spawn (and in a certain manner). To some degree, the bgs attributes do play a part in what missions spawned where. The main attributes very likely were: Government of controlling faction of station, Active state of faction (boom, bust, famine, outbreak etc) and economy of station. Other attributes such as population also did, and was useful for the best stacking.

The issue and dismay is it keeps changing with each patch. First, the mission board got slowly more integrated into the bgs until it was as it peak of predictability, but then it took a nasty turn with what i can only guess is frontiers subjective responsive design being the far greater factor. Ie, frontier wanted players to do passenger missions, the dynamic completely changed. Frontier wants you to do wing missions, the dynamic completely changed. (guess) Frontier wanted to lower the support tickets of players complaining theres not enough variety.. completely changed into the dumbness that is now.

Around 2.2 was the peak of its integration.. where if you wanted a base all to yourself that you could stack skimmer or massacre missions, all you had to do was go to eddb.io (or better still, just filter the galaxy map and make an exploration game of it). I also completely accept that the galaxy is evolving every patch, but the current state makes it no where near deterministic enough, (OR WORTHWHILE BECAUSE OF the passive agresssive anti stacking counter measures) to go update the logic to be able to find the gem systems.

Having said all, i'd love to be corrected wrong on this.

 

[Chaparral]

You can in theory do this already, the problem is it keeps changing.

When first learning that you could stack missions, the first thought i had was to find my own system to do this in, including bonus conditions such as superpower rep. So spent a few months via trial and error trying to keep track of the conditions that caused certain mission types to spawn (and in a certain manner). To some degree, the bgs attributes do play a part in what missions spawned where. The main attributes very likely were: Government of controlling faction of station, Active state of faction (boom, bust, famine, outbreak etc) and economy of station. Other attributes such as population also did, and was useful for the best stacking.

The issue and dismay is it keeps changing with each patch. First, the mission board got slowly more integrated into the bgs until it was as it peak of predictability, but then it took a nasty turn with what i can only guess is frontiers subjective responsive design being the far greater factor. Ie, frontier wanted players to do passenger missions, the dynamic completely changed. Frontier wants you to do wing missions, the dynamic completely changed. (guess) Frontier wanted to lower the support tickets of players complaining theres not enough variety.. completely changed into the dumbness that is now.

Around 2.2 was the peak of its integration.. where if you wanted a base all to yourself that you could stack skimmer or massacre missions, all you had to do was go to eddb.io (or better still, just filter the galaxy map and make an exploration game of it). I also completely accept that the galaxy is evolving every patch, but the current state makes it no where near deterministic enough, (OR WORTHWHILE BECAUSE OF the passive agresssive anti stacking counter measures) to go update the logic to be able to find the gem systems.

Having said all, i'd love to be corrected wrong on this.

Your observations seem completely valid to me. I was suggesting that mission offerings not be limited to a single system, and that mission assignments be offered bubble wide. It would be a hell of a lot more user friendly than try to find a system in the right state, with the right economy, with the right population, with a reasonable rate of pay for the job. As things stand now, unless there is a bh cg, I log into my home system, see if anything is interesting on the board, and if not, go play another game.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

Your observations seem completely valid to me. I was suggesting that mission offerings not be limited to a single system, and that mission assignments be offered bubble wide. It would be a hell of a lot more user friendly than try to find a system in the right state, with the right economy, with the right population, with a reasonable rate of pay for the job. As things stand now, unless there is a bh cg, I log into my home system, see if anything is interesting on the board, and if not, go play another game.

Well thats it, mission board conditions that are appealing are almost certainly not limited to one system. We know today data delivery isn't. I really gotta nerf my long winded posts, i wanted to say that frontier keep screwing with the reasonably complex understanding of how to find the system/station with conditions exactly what you're after.

Today, the really dumb rule seems to be closer to 'you can get what you want at any station, just depends how much you're willing to board hop'. Dont get me started. In the past could zero in on stations with nothing but skimmer/data/massacre missions... Think -> find -> rewards.

 

[kofeyh]

How about story missions; with proper voice narration, cut-scenes (omg!) where frontier actually offer a multi-step mission that builds on challenges and has some actual, genuinely cool reward at the end, like access to a new ship, with the resulting choice based on how you responded to the various tasks (so that you could redo a few times, with different choices and different outcomes, to access others).

Maybe have it be a bit "spoiler" and surprise us? Actually give something that connects us to the experience more than jaded station attendants tut-tutting speeding and the same tired and half-zombie looking faction representatives blathering on about the same inane, pointless missions with all the soul of a masonry block to the equally half-attentive commander who's long since heard it all before?

Anything? Something?

*crickets*

Okay, just me then. :/

 

[SAB380]

New Mission:
Determine why the tucks on space stations are driving around in and endless loop.
Where are they going? What could they be doing!?