Military missions / career mode...

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

So, I was thinking, we have the biggest and possibly prettiest game galaxy ever created, but it odes feel a bit cobbled together when your military career progression is based on sooking up to civilian factions and being a good and loyal little lapdog to them "I'll deliver your data files & I'll recover your lost cargo & I'll shoot up a rival corporations skimmers etc".So I was thinking back through my space flying game career and after Frontier Frst Encounters there was no elite, so I had to scratch the space itch with [dun dun dun] other games... Mainly Tie Fighter and Defender of the Empire, Wing Commander 4 and a bit of Xwing alliance then I got to an age where I got my kicks racing cars and chasing girls. However one thing that always left a lasting impression on me from those games is that the mission breifings then the missions with clear cut objectives and different roles for each ship class were amazing. I used to love the feeling of importance as I was given a clear objective to perform in part of a bigger battle plan.

Out of nostalgia I've just rebought X-wing Alliance and X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter on steam to refresh my memory.

So I've been thinking about trying to integrate the defined sort of military career mode into elite, and I have an idea... From certain naval base systems, say those star ports with capital docks outside them, players could enlist sign up for a mission "Enlist for a tour of duty", during this tour of duty the player would be signed up for a chain of missions flying the navies ships rather than their own. Some of those missions could be as a fighter pilot aboard ANY deployed capital ship of the navy they enlisted with flying sorties in a current conflict zone, oh the wonders of telepresence. Others could be flying navy ships doing assassinations in say a fas or clipper, or freight runs in a t9 or cutter with a couple of npc vipers as your wing. Or you could find yourself as the pilot of one of those vipers, with the mission objective being to protect that freighter. Or doing salvage missions, or search and rescue missions which are essentially cargo salvage missions for occupied escape pods. Or infiltrating bases and scanning data points, or cutting the power. Or VIP personnel transfer (passenger missions). Or virtually any mission type, just a little bit of proceduraly generated narrative as a breifing and have the last step of the mission be to rendezvous with your cap ship (and dock with it) to complete the mission get another bit of narrative as your debriefing.

TL;DR, we have the missions, we have in game assets for most of the gameplay, so why dont we string them together into "military campaigns" / "tour of duty" which would basically be multi part stringed together missions with some narrative to give us immersion / reoleplay opportunities / military careers

 

[Siranui]

I believe FD have stated a number of times that they would like to overhaul the entire military careers thing.
I'd agree that there's a lot of scope there.

An important thing to remember though is that we are NOT members of the navy. We're privateers and auxiliary mercenaries, handed token titles and paid by results - unlike people who actually have to iron their shirts, do what they are told, and get a salary in the 'real' military. We have none of the duties or requirements of real soldiery.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Thanks for the reply, I hope you are right and that they make the military aspect of the game more plausible. Isn't it a bit daft that we get our naval progression for serving civilian organisations? Even as mercs of the auxiliary fleets?

Frontier Elite 2 and Frontier First Encounters had actual military missions from the navies, aerial photography of a planetary installation, nuke a satellite, things that only the navy could give you, as well as the usual small package or data delivery / cargo missions and assassinations. But those games didnt have capital ships, so I was trying to come up with some game play ideas to give Elite Dangerous a genuine military feeling game play that made use of as many existing assets as possible while requiring the minimum of new assets be created.

In my head I seen the concept as working with the existing mission board, but in stead of civilian factions there would be mission types for the player to select. Only new assets I see being necessary to implement my proposal would be the creation of a capital ship hangar/docking procedure, transitions between ships would be handled by the same fade to black and back as is used for switching into a SLF or SRV.

 

[Schmack]

There's no real military because there's no real regions of protection. The puppet military serves as only a place holder for USS convoy sites. Even CZs have faction aligned ships. So though the military ship is federal or imperial, it's still just a place holder. When have you ever been scanned by a military ship? I've been interdicted by them, but they never do anything but fly past me.

This game is rife with empty pages "this page left blank intentionally" as placeholders for future material that may never actually materialize.

 

[PhanttoM]

<snip>
When have you ever been scanned by a military ship? I've been interdicted by them, but they never do anything but fly past me.
<snip>

Ironically, they used to do this back around the original beta. (and maybe shortly after release)

Backwards development.


*EDIT: Disclaimer - I'm saying military NPCs used interdict and scan players, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[El-bizor]

Ironically, they used to do this back around the original beta. (and maybe shortly after release)

Backwards development.

It's an excellent idea, it's a shame the naval ranks weren't done this way!
Still could be done though with military hardware as an end result, not with each mission but after a series you got 1 item.
Bout time we had military lasers!

 

[rrobes]

Military ranks are just like those "honorary" badges law enforcement agencies give out to civvies to make them feel part of something when they really aren't.

They will not get you out of jail and will not get you out of a speeding ticket when you get caught 30 over the limit.

Of course, the Imperial nobility ranks are for real.

 

[Vardaugas]

I imagine a military career path could be useful for people that want to climb the ranks faster and don't mind wrecking their standing with the other powers in the process. I'm thinking of a military liason in every permit locked system which can be asked to be send off to a deployment. So you gain your first few ranks normally until you have the first permit system unlocked, then you go to the liaison, who will send you off to a (more or less random) border system where you have a mission contact for military missions.

These don't pay much but give a lot more rep. They usually involve sabotage, assassination, settlement bombardments, etc. against military targets of the local enemy superpower. As they are military operations, you don't get bounties for those, but they wreck your superpower standing with whoever you are bombing today.

Then, as you unlock a higher rank permit, you get a new liaison available who sends you off to more difficult missions.

 

[dekot]

There's no real military because there's no real regions of protection. The puppet military serves as only a place holder for USS convoy sites. Even CZs have faction aligned ships. So though the military ship is federal or imperial, it's still just a place holder. When have you ever been scanned by a military ship? I've been interdicted by them, but they never do anything but fly past me.

This game is rife with empty pages "this page left blank intentionally" as placeholders for future material that may never actually materialize.

Game has been out for almost 4 years now. You think FD has just given up on elite or do you think they are just inept? The revamps of the C&P system and engineering were very disappointing in their limited scope. I'm gonna say it's a mixture of both ineptitude and moving on from a game that probably doesn't bring in that much revenue.