Modifications to mission rewards.

[DemiserofD]

For the most part, I find mission rewards acceptable. They're not great, but they're...okay.

But there are a few aspects that could use some tweaking.

1. Commodity Rewards

Commodity rewards are simply far too small to ever really bother with. Why do I want 30 units of Coltan, for example? And usually, the commodity is barely a percentage of the total mission reward value.

It would be nice if the number of commodities were MUCH larger, and you could claim them for, say, 24 hours after completing the mission.

For example, off my mission list I'm looking at right now:

Instead of the second one, you would have something like, "Neofabric Insulation: 1790 UNITS. 10000 CR. Rep+. Inf+.". Then, you could collect that over the next day or so and actually have enough to use for other things, or just sell it all.

This would be much better than right now, where commodity rewards are basically purposeless 99% of the time.

2. Explorer vs Sightseeing Missions

Take a look at these two comparable missions.

The first one requires about 240ly of travel, and pays 4.1m credits. The second one requires 2400ly of travel, and pays 3.1m credits. See the problem?

Basically, explorer missions pay about an order of magnitude less than they should for their difficulty. This is compounded by the fact that you cannot be scanned while doing them or you instantly fail. AND the fact that you need long distance travel equipment to do them, while for a sightseeing mission you really don't even need a fuel scoop.

At minimum they should pay out about 10x more than they currently do. They really need to have their rewards uncapped as well, as currently they often hit the 50m credit cap for the absurdly long ones.

3. Donate Commodity Missions

Lastly, could "Donate X Commodity" missions be rethought? They really never make sense to do, especially since you can't actually do them without the commodity already on board, but they never ask for commodities available at that station, and by the time you go get them, the mission board will have reset and they won't want them anymore!

For all that trouble, they don't reward you any more than the basic 200k donation missions, so they're basically pointless.

--

Thank you for your time.

 

[varonica]

3. Donate Commodity Missions

Lastly, could "Donate X Commodity" missions be rethought? They really never make sense to do, especially since you can't actually do them without the commodity already on board, but they never ask for commodities available at that station, and by the time you go get them, the mission board will have reset and they won't want them anymore!

For all that trouble, they don't reward you any more than the basic 200k donation missions, so they're basically pointless.

--

Thank you for your time.

You umm, take the mission before setting off to collect the donation material? I don't do missions much, but even I understand that about donation missions. And asking you to donate stuff already on the station? That would be silly, you would just buy them off the station, donate, rinse, repeat forever until all the donation missions are gone and get basically free rep update or whatever for no effort.

 

[DemiserofD]

You umm, take the mission before setting off to collect the donation material? I don't do missions much, but even I understand that about donation missions. And asking you to donate stuff already on the station? That would be silly, you would just buy them off the station, donate, rinse, repeat forever until all the donation missions are gone and get basically free rep update or whatever for no effort.

It won't let me take the mission, see?

 

[Sapyx]

1. Commodity Rewards

Baby steps. Having the commodity rewards as an option you can either choose or refuse is a big, big improvement on what we used to have, which was commodities coming bundled as part of the reward whether we wanted them or not, whether we had cargo space for them or not, and missions refusing to be accepted until and unless we had cargo space to receive the commodities. I, for one, don;t object to the current system - even if I never, ever actually accept the commodities reward option.

2. Explorer vs Sightseeing Missions

This ignores the fact that, just like for most types of combat missions, the mission reward for sightseeing missions is only a small portion of the total income obtainable from the trip - because you'll be exploring and collecting exploration data as you go. So yes, you'll get 3.1 million for the mission - plus an extra 5 to 10 million for the exploration data. You might only get 1 or 2 million in data from the local tourist loop - especially if you're passing through areas you've already thoroughly explored. So overall, the exploration mission will pay more.

3. Donate Commodity Missions

It won't let me take the mission, see?

The problem here is the cargo capacity of your current ship. Yes, it is a flaw with the current mission system; it now will allow you to accept a regular trade mission when you don't have the cargo space (it didn't always allow this), but won't let you do this for a donated goods mission.

I'd personally like to see the concept of donations revamped, and made more like the "old-fashioned" model used in the prequel FE2 game, where you got to decide how much you wanted to donate.

Eg. a mission is offered: "Please Give - all donations gratefully accepted". You click on it and are given some options:

• Donate 10,000 Cr
• Donate 100,000 Cr
• Donate 1,000,000 Cr
• Donate [something currently in your cargo hold that the local economy demands].

They've already got the pick-your-rewards programming in the mission system; it "shouldn't be that hard" to rework that into a pick-your-donation scheme.

 

[DemiserofD]

This ignores the fact that, just like for most types of combat missions, the mission reward for sightseeing missions is only a small portion of the total income obtainable from the trip - because you'll be exploring and collecting exploration data as you go. So yes, you'll get 3.1 million for the mission - plus an extra 5 to 10 million for the exploration data. You might only get 1 or 2 million in data from the local tourist loop - especially if you're passing through areas you've already thoroughly explored. So overall, the exploration mission will pay more.

i dont think this really helps; After all, I'm also scanning things on tourism missions, often coming back with several million credits worth of data. A longer mission does also mean more data, but per time I'm still making far less than the sightseeing missions. Especially since exploration missions are always to explored destinations.

In fact, the exploration missions possibly make you lose money in the long run, because you have to sacrifice valuable space and weight to carry the passenger. If you skipped them entirely and traveled in a more purpose-driven exploration vessel, you'd get to undiscovered territory much faster and end up making far more credits in the same amount of time. Instead you'll spend much more time traveling and scooping, and end up losing a significant percentage of your total exploration profit over the long run.

It seems like mainly negatives, with the only positives being meager by comparison.

The problem here is the cargo capacity of your current ship. Yes, it is a flaw with the current mission system; it now will allow you to accept a regular trade mission when you don't have the cargo space (it didn't always allow this), but won't let you do this for a donated goods mission.

Oh. Huh. I suppose I should report that as a bug, then? Thanks for letting me know.

 

[varonica]

It won't let me take the mission, see?

Because you don't have enough cargo space, see that red 84 down the bottom? The quantity to fetch exceed your cargo capacity and since this is a single fetch mission not a wing mission you can only do it in one load!

Ah I see I was beaten by a couple of other forumites...anyway yes that's the reason.

 

[DemiserofD]

Because you don't have enough cargo space, see that red 84 down the bottom? The quantity to fetch exceed your cargo capacity and since this is a single fetch mission not a wing mission you can only do it in one load!

Ah I see I was beaten by a couple of other forumites...anyway yes that's the reason.

That bugginess aside, they're still relatively pointless. The only reason to do the normal donation missions is because they can be done instantly. If you're going to go somewhere else to collect something, why do it for free? Especially since the paying versions give far more reputation or influence for the same exact task.

They really should give ++++ or +++++ for being a donation.

 

[[PS4] Lorenzo Waringos]

Instead of the second one, you would have something like, "Neofabric Insulation: 1790 UNITS. 10000 CR. Rep+. Inf+.". Then, you could collect that over the next day or so and actually have enough to use for other things, or just sell it all.

I’ve seen wing missions offering those amounts to shift, this proposal makes a whole other chore out of collecting your reward. Fine if you have a cargo Conda or Cutter but if you’re in a Krait or anything smaller you’re making a few runs just to collect the reward.

 

[GroG79]

Now why haul in a krait?

 

[DemiserofD]

I’ve seen wing missions offering those amounts to shift, this proposal makes a whole other chore out of collecting your reward. Fine if you have a cargo Conda or Cutter but if you’re in a Krait or anything smaller you’re making a few runs just to collect the reward.

True, but you don't have to pick that reward option. It would just become something you'd occasionally take. For example, if you had a big wing demand mission, you could take another mission that offers 2k of the stuff as a reward and then just transfer it from one mission to the other! Which I'd really enjoy, at least.

 

[Halloweeen]

The older system was better for long distance!.
300 million per cabin and 6 weeks

... But it was probably making to many cmdrs billionaires.
I never really understood the mission rewards 5 grade 3 data or 20t of gold?!
How about 20 grade 3 and 5t of Ltd or some high paying commodities

 

[Jmanis]

That bugginess aside, they're still relatively pointless. The only reason to do the normal donation missions is because they can be done instantly. If you're going to go somewhere else to collect something, why do it for free? Especially since the paying versions give far more reputation or influence for the same exact task.

They really should give ++++ or +++++ for being a donation.

Not bugged... not all mission types have been implemented to use the cargo depot. Same applies for:
Salvage
Hijack
Smuggling
Other cargo- based missions which aren't source, delivery or mining.

Can agree they need to offer more Inf/rep.

But disagree with thousands of tonnes of cargo as a reward. That would be a complete pain to deal with.

Bear in mind, massacres are (one of) an exception to the rule in terms of their reward. Most missions are just a million or two reward. The concept behind the cargo reward is that it's deducted from the credit reward based on galactic average, and you can scrape a couple extra credits sending it to a import location with a high price... though who bothers when you can YOLOLTDMINE.

WRT the post above, LTDs can't be a reward, because cargo rewards are only ever cargos they the mission source station can provide. No station supplies LTDs, so LTDs cannot be a reward.

Biggest problem with bigger reward quantities is you can't accept rewards when you don't have room. That is, if i have room for 19 G3 materials of a type, i can't accept a reward for 20.

Because the rewards are procedurally generated, if you don't have a sane cap, you'll potentially get offers for things like 1000 G1 materials, which you could never accept. Likewise this is the same issue for cargo rewards... you could just as readily be offered 20,000t of biowaste.

 

[DemiserofD]

Not bugged... not all mission types have been implemented to use the cargo depot. Same applies for:
Salvage
Hijack
Smuggling
Other cargo- based missions which aren't source, delivery or mining.

Can agree they need to offer more Inf/rep.

But disagree with thousands of tonnes of cargo as a reward. That would be a complete pain to deal with.

Bear in mind, massacres are (one of) an exception to the rule in terms of their reward. Most missions are just a million or two reward. The concept behind the cargo reward is that it's deducted from the credit reward based on galactic average, and you can scrape a couple extra credits sending it to a import location with a high price... though who bothers when you can YOLOLTDMINE.

WRT the post above, LTDs can't be a reward, because cargo rewards are only ever cargos they the mission source station can provide. No station supplies LTDs, so LTDs cannot be a reward.

Biggest problem with bigger reward quantities is you can't accept rewards when you don't have room. That is, if i have room for 19 G3 materials of a type, i can't accept a reward for 20.

Because the rewards are procedurally generated, if you don't have a sane cap, you'll potentially get offers for things like 1000 G1 materials, which you could never accept. Likewise this is the same issue for cargo rewards... you could just as readily be offered 20,000t of biowaste.

What I want is to have a meaningful choice.

For example, if I had to choose between 2m credits or 20k biowaste, I'd usually take the 2m. But what if I want to bio-bomb that station for BGS and cause an outbreak? Suddenly that 20k biowaste is really lucrative! Or what if the station is about to go into an Expansion and the price of a commodity is about to skyrocket? I could take the commodity today, sell it tomorrow, and get 5x the reward!

But right now, the quantities are so small it's never really relevant. You still wouldn't usually pick the commodity choice, but at least you'd pick it sometimes, as opposed to never!

You WOULD have to modify the reward menu so you could claim the reward in multiple shipments, however.