Making Certain Missions More Engaging

[Faded Glory]

This is a suggestion to make the discovery of targets in assassination missions and space salvage missions a more engaging experience, meaning that we (hopefully) get the feeling of searching for a mission target, rather than waiting for the target to magically appear.

Take as an example, an assassination mission. At the moment, we know from the mission description the system where the target is expected to be, we go to the system, scan the nav beacon, and get directed to the object in the system where the target will be. We fly there, get within range, and then... Wait. Wait for the target to spawn.

My suggestion is that as soon as we get to the location specified by the scan, the target spawns and is discovered by our ship's computer. There should be no RNG timer to determine a delay. The target however need not spawn in front of us. It could be the other side of the planet, it could be behind us, it could be some distance away requiring us to target it and then manage our speed as we approach it. The target could even spawn not as a USS, but as a ship in SC identified by a local chat message that then drops from SC allowing us to follow it's wake, either with or without a wake scanner. Any of these things would give some feeling of hunting our target, and would IMO add to the engagement with the target.

Some assassination missions also have a wrinkle where the target is not in the specified system, and we have to go to a nearby system to meet a contact who has information for us. Although I have read from a couple of posters that they got sent to a different system to find their target, I have had many of these, and I always get sent back to the original target system and told that I need to scan the nav beacon again. This makes no sense, it's just a mindless repetition of something I just did.

So, for these wrinkles, I suggest a couple of options.

Firstly, I get sent to a different system than that mentioned in the mission description. Again, this would give some feeling of chasing, hunting a target. In this case, the informant might or might not have the target body, so I might have to repeat the nav beacon scan when I get to the new system.

Secondly, I get sent back to the original system, but the contact has told me where I will find my target. It only makes sense that the informant actually had useful information.

Either of these would be combined with the mechanic suggested in the first part of the thread for actually finding the target in space.

TL;DR - Make missions where we are supposed to hunt something feel more like a hunt, and less like a wait for that something to magically spawn.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Back in the day, when you took on an assassination mission, your target would in fact be flying around in supercruise.
Usually announcing themselves, with over the top comms spam.

You didn't really do any searching, you just interdicted and destroyed them.

I'd like assassination missions to actually be a real hunt.
Your mission government gives you some basic information, like what they usually fly, where they usually hang out, and what times they tend to do certain things. Nothing too exact.
You get a very long time to complete the mission, but you need to actually track them down.
No auto flagging or give away comms spam, mission USSs, etc.

You just get a semi persistent NPC that's doing a routine, and you need to figure it out.

 

[Faded Glory]

Back in the day, when you took on an assassination mission, your target would in fact be flying around in supercruise.
Usually announcing themselves, with over the top comms spam.

You didn't really do any searching, you just interdicted and destroyed them.

I'd like assassination missions to actually be a real hunt.
Your mission government gives you some basic information, like what they usually fly, where they usually hang out, and what times they tend to do certain things. Nothing too exact.
You get a very long time to complete the mission, but you need to actually track them down.
No auto flagging or give away comms spam, mission USSs, etc.

You just get a semi persistent NPC that's doing a routine, and you need to figure it out.

Sure, if they had persistent NPCs, all these things within reason would be good, although in all honesty, there'd have to be a decent likelihood that your prey would turn up. I think players would (not unreasonably) get very frustrated if they spent an hour or two trying to track down an NPC that simply didn't show due to RNG.

NPCs do still appear in SC for those who wish to interdict, but I think what I'm trying to suggest is less reliance on the RNG to put your target in front of you at some point in time with a wait until it happens, and more go somewhere, and then spend a bit of time closing in on your target, rather like planetary scan and salvage missions work.

 

[Wariamu]

Considering the direction in which the game is going (with commander customisations and the ability to walk around), I think it's something that will have more potential to be developped and to make missions more engaging with more NPC interactions possibly.

Though I was thinking it could be nice if they introduced a system where you can communicate with NPCs in flight for various purposes.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Considering the direction in which the game is going (with commander customisations and the ability to walk around), I think it's something that will have more potential to be developped and to make missions more engaging with more NPC interactions possibly.

Though I was thinking it could be nice if they introduced a system where you can communicate with NPCs in flight for various purposes.

Like This Idea I had?

 

[Wariamu]

Yeah pretty much what I had in thought, that sure would be a very nice addition to player/NPC interactions while piloting.