At the expense of beating a dead Thargoid, I will add my experiences with long distance passenger missions to the smoldering pile of opinions and gripes. I recently returned to Elite after a long, long time away. Having never been to the galactic core, I was pleased to discover that there were passenger missions whose destinations were close to Sagittarius A*. They gave me the perfect excuse to refit my Asp and get out into the black.
Explorers have to make their own fun, and I love that Elite is the kind of game that gives players ample opportunity to do so. I decided to try to write an in-character blog about my first time to the core, and having passengers to write about afforded me plenty of creative primer. I spent hours researching the best way to get screenshots (alt+F10 FTW!!), and the best settings for anti-aliasing. I even made batch actions in Photoshop to process the somewhat washed out screenshots! Long story short, I was having a lot of fun hopping around the stars for nearly two weeks straight.
That is until I tried to get a screenshot on a ringed planet.
I'm crazy rusty at landing, so I bumped the surface of the planet a teeny tiny bit. Of course the bump caused me to roll a bit, which resulted in a second bump. The two bumps back-to-back caused my passengers to flip out, and leave. I'm not mad about losing the 50mil in credits, but I am a little perturbed about how long distance passenger missions are setup. It seems totally unnecessary to have them get upset about being scanned (something that happened by accident when I was exploring Sagittarius A*). I would be down right furious if they aborted their mission upon returning home after 2 weeks in the black because I was scanned at the dock. What am I to do? Slip in with silent running, and hope I don't crash into the mail slot?
Long distance passenger missions should be fun, as well as challenging. Adding challenge is necessary in order to make them different from solo exploration. They should be about sharing the joy of discovering new planets and interesting celestial bodies with fellow explorers (who just happen to be NPCs). I'll offer a few ideas, and open the thread to input. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about this mission type, as well as their experience with them. I only ask that you elaborate beyond single sentence comments.
Safe travels,
-MetroidSlayerP7
Explorers have to make their own fun, and I love that Elite is the kind of game that gives players ample opportunity to do so. I decided to try to write an in-character blog about my first time to the core, and having passengers to write about afforded me plenty of creative primer. I spent hours researching the best way to get screenshots (alt+F10 FTW!!), and the best settings for anti-aliasing. I even made batch actions in Photoshop to process the somewhat washed out screenshots! Long story short, I was having a lot of fun hopping around the stars for nearly two weeks straight.
That is until I tried to get a screenshot on a ringed planet.
I'm crazy rusty at landing, so I bumped the surface of the planet a teeny tiny bit. Of course the bump caused me to roll a bit, which resulted in a second bump. The two bumps back-to-back caused my passengers to flip out, and leave. I'm not mad about losing the 50mil in credits, but I am a little perturbed about how long distance passenger missions are setup. It seems totally unnecessary to have them get upset about being scanned (something that happened by accident when I was exploring Sagittarius A*). I would be down right furious if they aborted their mission upon returning home after 2 weeks in the black because I was scanned at the dock. What am I to do? Slip in with silent running, and hope I don't crash into the mail slot?
Long distance passenger missions should be fun, as well as challenging. Adding challenge is necessary in order to make them different from solo exploration. They should be about sharing the joy of discovering new planets and interesting celestial bodies with fellow explorers (who just happen to be NPCs). I'll offer a few ideas, and open the thread to input. I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about this mission type, as well as their experience with them. I only ask that you elaborate beyond single sentence comments.
- Change payout structure for exploration missions to include bonuses payouts for scanning specific types of celestial bodies. For example, if your passenger is a famous geologist, they could pay a tiny bonus for scanning rocky moons or ringed planets. The bonuses could add up, and they would make the missions more focused on exploration. Alternatively, scanning things that the passengers like could be a way of improving their mood, should you do something to offend them. I'm not against making these missions challenging, I simply think that they should have challenges that are unique to this mission type, and are more balanced for long expeditions.
- Get rid of the secretive mission perimeter. Who do these explorers think they are? Do they not want their bosses to know they're taking a working holiday?
- Change the destination. Scanning a tourist beacon is cool for now, but I'd like to see that be more fitting with the exploration theme. I assumed that I was embarking on a data retrieval mission, not a sight seeing tour.
- More chatting from the passengers. It would be great if every 60 jumps or so they chimed in with something fun. Stuff like "your ship has the best coffee packets!" or "zero-g makes me sleepy". Basically something to remind the player that there are other people on their ship.
Safe travels,
-MetroidSlayerP7
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