Need more time for Odyssey missions

[Jmanis]

I’m not a coder, so I could be way off, but I don’t see why you couldn’t have longer hand in times.

Yes, you need to do the mission within 6 hours because of the BGS, but why can’t a mission register for the BGS when you’ve completed the task, and then you hand it in at your (relative) leisure?

I covered that in my post above.

Extending hand-in times allows a level of exploitability by banking certain mission types/actions.

For example, missions have no influence effect during wartime, so handing them in only helps win the war, but only marginally so compared to actually winning warzones. CZ Massacre missions are almost always +++++ influence due to the credit rewards involved. Wartime is also one of the few times you can deliberately target missions against a lawful faction (via massacres), otherwise it's incredibly difficult to target negative effects against lawful factions.

It's doable now with the 24 hour timer (which, as I've already claimed, is already too long), but what you instead do is just ensure you have a stack of 20 completed massacre missions at the end of the war... once the war is over you just dump them out for major damage against your enemy's influence, and major positive effect for your supported faction. For a single player, it's a substantial effect, for a coordinated group, you might as well just kiss goodbye to that faction.

Again, banking missions is far more situational these days, but it still works, and would be made easier if you just extended hand-in times.

EDIT: As I also posited though... would be happy for longer hand-in times if a reward got pared back in that case to just credits.

 

[Northpin]

Yes, you need to do the mission within 6 hours because of the BGS, but why can’t a mission register for the BGS when you’ve completed the task, and then you hand it in at your (relative) leisure?

Some missions can be completed when objectives are finished - like assassination or base restore.
Others, like fetch stuff, can't.
Guess it's extra work for the team to differentiate between missions and trigger the mission completion action (bgs wise) when objectives are met, instead when completing mission at panel/npc
Edit: i personally dont mind the short timers.

Generally speaking, missions can still be stacked in EDO assuming the cmdr is able to manage their gaming time and not overextend by taking more missions than they can finish in their allotted gaming time (been there, done that, but then i learned my lesson)
Here is yours truly handing in a stack of 10 missions.

 

[Jmanis]

Some missions can be completed when objectives are finished - like assassination or base restore.
Others, like fetch stuff, can't.
Guess it's extra work for the team to differentiate between missions and trigger the mission completion action (bgs wise) when objectives are met, instead when completing mission at panel/npc
Edit: i personally dont mind the short timers.

Generally speaking, missions can still be stacked in EDO assuming the cmdr is able to manage their gaming time and not overextend by taking more missions than they can finish in their allotted gaming time (been there, done that, but then i learned my lesson)
Here is yours truly handing in a stack of 10 missions.

View attachment 256041

Yeah, the attribution of when a BGS-relevant event occurs is a major design flaw with, well, the BGS. Like how killing ships in a CZ only has an effect when the bonds are handed in, not when the kills happen, which makes no sense

 

[Koma Pahu]

It's not the bgs influence that matters - that can be applied whenever. What matters is that the bgs puts the bases in the states required for the missions. So you can't have 7 day timer to get to repair a base as the base could go active at any time in those 7 days.

They could extend the hand in time if they wanted to, but given it's only a few who refuse to adapt I don't see much pressure to do it

You’re contradicting yourself there. Of course the BGS influence matters, that’s what puts the bases in whichever state to spawn missions.

 

[Factabulous]

You’re contradicting yourself there. Of course the BGS influence matters, that’s what puts the bases in whichever state to spawn missions.

By the time the missions spawn the BGS in already in the state...

Edit: I was talking about it not mattering what the BGS effects (the mission reward) of the mission are - they can apply at any time as that is after the mission.

 

[Koma Pahu]

By the time the missions spawn the BGS in already in the state...

And you completing the mission causes changes in the BGS, determining what missions spawn at the next tick.

 

[Factabulous]

And you completing the mission causes changes in the BGS, determining what missions spawn at the next tick.

Well, partially, but essentially no. One mission won't change a system state. And won't stop existing missions being fine - as (as I'm sure you know) bases don't change state until after a 1 day recovery period. And even if they did - it wouldn't matter.

You seem to be arguing the hand-in period couldn't be extended to 7 days because it might affect the BGS - but who cares? You have by definition at this point completed the active part of the mission - so you no longer care what happens to the base. Even if your single mission could flip the base state it wouldn't matter - because you have completed that part of the mission.

 

[Koma Pahu]

You seem to be arguing the hand-in period couldn't be extended to 7 days because it might affect the BGS - but who cares?

That’s the opposite to what I’m arguing…

 

[space voyager]

but given it's only a few who refuse to adapt I don't see much pressure to do it

Damn, Facto... You used to be full of facts, now you're only full of poo. If you check my 1. post you'll see that I CAN NOT adapt, not that I do not want to.

 

[Northpin]

With non-Odyssey missions I'm able to stack at least several missions and have enough time to complete them over several days, saving the time to travel to and fro getting the missions and turning them in.

Damn, Facto... You used to be full of facts, now you're only full of poo. If you check my 1. post you'll see that I CAN NOT adapt, not that I do not want to.

The point everyone is trying to make is: Dont stack missions if you cannot complete them in the same game session.

Right after EDO launch i used to play EDH style. Filling the transaction panel with 15-20 missions.
And then failing half of them or more.

After adapting i rarely stack more than 5-7 missions, with my top result being apparently 10 missions completed in the same session.
So no, nobody is forcing you to take 6 missions when you know you cannot play more than 1h today and you have a visible completion timer of 5-7 hours.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

Damn, Facto... You used to be full of facts, now you're only full of poo. If you check my 1. post you'll see that I CAN NOT adapt, not that I do not want to.

Yes he was, and yes he is.
Little bit sad as this poo shines over the whole canonn group.

Funnily he is trying to defend ED but doesn't notice how much he hurts it with his arrogant and selfish behavior towards the remaining community and especially to new forum members...

But well, this post will be deleted as it's not about the post but the poster blah blah

so back to topic
Same here, it's not that I'd not able to adapt, but that the pace of EDH timers very much better fits into my RL.
I for example was able to take some missions in the morning, play them as far as possible, get interdicted by RL and were able to complete them, or turn them in, at the evening.
Would be ok for me if the rep/inf part of the reward is lost then, as bgs/pp is much more for gamer with more time for it I assume.
But at least credits/mats could be rewarded even weeks later....

 

[Northpin]

Same here, it's not that I'd not able to adapt, but that the pace of EDH timers very much better fits into my RL.

EDH missions are not as much anchored in BGS as EDO ones (as in being so dependent on them BGS states)

Still, an EDH CZ massacre mission will have a completion timer of 22-23h. And you could still fail it if you take that mission today, before the bgs tick and after the tick the war concludes and you have no CZ to kill your targets.

If anything, as pointed by Jmanis, i would reduce the timer for EDH missions instead of increasing the timer for EDO ones.

 

[Koma Pahu]

EDH missions are not as much anchored in BGS as EDO ones (as in being so dependent on them BGS states)

Still, an EDH CZ massacre mission will have a completion timer of 22-23h. And you could still fail it if you take that mission today, before the bgs tick and after the tick the war concludes and you have no CZ to kill your targets.

If anything, as pointed by Jmanis, i would reduce the timer for EDH missions instead of increasing the timer for EDO ones.

My preference, which would no doubt take too much work, would be:

Choose a mission reward as you accept the mission.

All missions, EDO and EDH, have short timers to complete - so you can’t take a week soloing a wing mission.

When the task is complete, the BGS is updated. - That might still be at hand-in for fetch missions etc, but raids and scav missions would tick as you fly out.

Then there’d be a hand in timer to get your credits/rep (the influence would already be done). A day would do for me, just to cover those time RL gets in the way - Jimmy stop bleeding everywhere, Daddy’s got to go hand in this mission. Then we can go to the hospital. - more casual players may want longer.

The idea of doing a job and then choosing your payment has always seemed odd to me.

 

[Rudi Raumkraut]

EDH missions are not as much anchored in BGS as EDO ones (as in being so dependent on them BGS states)

Still, an EDH CZ massacre mission will have a completion timer of 22-23h. And you could still fail it if you take that mission today, before the bgs tick and after the tick the war concludes and you have no CZ to kill your targets.

If anything, as pointed by Jmanis, i would reduce the timer for EDH missions instead of increasing the timer for EDO ones.

Great for BGS.
How would that help me?

 

[Northpin]

My preference, which would no doubt take too much work, would be:

Choose a mission reward as you accept the mission.

All missions, EDO and EDH, have short timers to complete - so you can’t take a week soloing a wing mission.

When the task is complete, the BGS is updated. - That might still be at hand-in for fetch missions etc, but raids and scav missions would tick as you fly out.

Then there’d be a hand in timer to get your credits/rep (the influence would already be done). A day would do for me, just to cover those time RL gets in the way - Jimmy stop bleeding everywhere, Daddy’s got to go hand in this mission. Then we can go to the hospital. - more casual players may want longer.

The idea of doing a job and then choosing your payment has always seemed odd to me.

Yea, i would also like a disconnect between the completion at panel/npc (where we get the credits/materials rewards) and the BGS inf / rep / generic_effect - when allowed by the mission (fetch missions would not qualify of course)
But i guess it would require an overhaul of the entire mission system - which i find quite unrealistic to happen.

So we're back to: don't take more missions than you can finish in the current session for EDO only missions.
With the corollary: failing a mission here and there is not the end of the world. Granted RL happens and can interfere with a gaming session, but ED is running on a realtime clock too - the Galaxy doesnt turn off when we dont play the game.

 

[space voyager]

Jimmy stop bleeding everywhere, Daddy’s got to go hand in this mission. Then we can go to the hospital. -

 

[Sapient6]

It's not the bgs influence that matters - that can be applied whenever. What matters is that the bgs puts the bases in the states required for the missions. So you can't have 7 day timer to get to repair a base as the base could go active at any time in those 7 days.

They could extend the hand in time if they wanted to, but given it's only a few who refuse to adapt I don't see much pressure to do it

OR

It could just let you shoot yourself in the foot. Let you have a 7 day deadline (or whatever) with a warning along the lines of "you've got 7 days, but if you don't get it done soon then someone else might [bring the settlement back online]. If that happens your reputation will suffer and you may be fined."

 

[Northpin]

OR

It could just let you shoot yourself in the foot. Let you have a 7 day deadline (or whatever) with a warning along the lines of "you've got 7 days, but if you don't get it done soon then someone else might [bring the settlement back online]. If that happens your reputation will suffer and you may be fined."

Followed by an avalanche of threads like "i cant complete the mission, doom, fd is crap, ed is crap, stuff to be haz'd" ... i don't know... just saying... not like anything like that ever happened

 

[Jmanis]

Followed by an avalanche of threads like "i cant complete the mission, doom, fd is crap, ed is crap, stuff to be haz'd" ... i don't know... just saying... not like anything like that ever happened

And that's the thing; more complex, onerous or unintuitive systems with poorly- defined edge cases (e.g all missions have a 7 day timer, except really they don't) just create confusion and frustration with the mission system. It's why FD got rid of mission timeframes, because it was confusing to get a mission with 24 hours on the clock, but the mission text says "the target will only be around from 1300-1400"... which coincidentally still fails hijack missions behind the scenes.

Like you said, the real solution is a total overhaul of the mission system yet again, but frankly, even if we got that, I'm doubtful it would get done right still... but that notwithstanding and just working within what we've got, simple fact is longer timeframes = more chance of things going wrong/ greater exploitability... and overly complex rulesets to mitigate that just make the system even less usable.

Shorter timeframes just give things less opportunity to go wrong, and in most cases missions are no more than 15 minute jobbies, and if they're Odyssey, 90% of that (the travel time) can be done AFK. It still comes down to "don't take more than you can do".

But to talk about the unmentioned... what's wrong with failing missions? Funnily enough, it has its own exploits, but i get it. You're in the middle of a group of 10 missions, and suddenly your kid thinks razor blades are food. Been there, done that, failed those missions.

But it's not a big deal.

You'll lose rep and influence, maybe cop a pittance of a fine (<1m for odyssey missions). But it's hardly a dealbreaker. Hell, it's a blip in the grand scheme of things. Maybe you miss the anticipated rewards, but did you have fun in the time you did before having to leave the mission?

if not, the problem is more than mission timers.

Edit: and a good deal of bgs effecys can be mitigated by abandoning rather than failing missions

 

[space voyager]

Yesterday I was doing a collect mission and no matter what I did (SC away, relog, went to complete the second mission, whatever), the canister remained burried into the ground. My gaming time ran out and that's that, a failed mission for no good freaking reason.

Besides moaning about the timer being too short, I have a question - what could I do to reset the mission in the allocated time? And would doing the mission the next day (was it made possible by the mission timer) make any difference? I have no idea where the mission seed is saved and how to reset it.