Special BGS Altering Missions

[Barking_Mad]

One of the problems (as I see it) about the BGS is that the impact individual players have can be fairly limited (minus time and effort to understand some of the complexities of it). Additionally I feel the current system lacks a little dynamism, so I thought this could be mitigated somewhat by having some rare but powerful missions that would only occur under certain pre-determined circumstances. These might be triggered due to a combination of player reputation along with the pending/current status of systems and factions. So I've added an extra reputation rank beyond ‘Allied’ from which they could potentially spawn. I’ll call this ‘Embedded’ but I’m sure a better word can be found. At the other end of the scale I’d add once called ‘Traitor’, which would be used for a player going against a faction they are currently Allied or Embedded with.

So with the idea being that an individual player can trigger fairly rare system changes under pre-defined circumstances here’s a few examples that would come via the mission board or player inbox.

1) A player Embedded with a minor faction receives an inbox mission to track down and defend the ship containing their faction leader as they have heard it is the subject of an assassination attempt.

a. A successful/unsuccessful mission will directly start or stop a conflict between factions.
b. The player will get a large financial pay-out but also, because of their political intervention become hostile to the opposing faction.
c. Having accepted the mission to defend the ship, the player could have a counter-offer made by the faction doing the assassination. “Betray them, join us and take him out. Here’s XXXX credits and an Allied status.”
d. Declining the mission would lead to an RNG decision on what happens to the faction leader and a loss of reputation for the player. At the next server tick the RNG outcome would be rolled into the game.

2) A player Embedded with a faction is offered a passenger mission that involves taking the Faction Leader to another system for an important business meeting.

a. A successful/unsuccessful mission will directly lead to a Boom/Bust status (or maybe extend both)
b. The player will get a large financial pay-out but also, because of their political intervention become hostile to the opposing faction.
c. Having accepted the mission to do the messenger mission, the player could have a counter-offer made by the faction doing the assassination. “Don’t let this meeting take place, save yourself and hand him over.”
d. Declining the mission would lead to an RNG decision on what happens to the faction leader and a loss of reputation for the player. At the next server tick the RNG outcome would be rolled into the game.

3) A player Embedded with a faction is offered a passenger mission that involves taking a terrorist to another system in order to plant a bomb.

a. A successful/unsuccessful mission will directly lead to the system being put into lockdown/civil unrest (or maybe extend both)
b. The player will get a large financial pay-out but also, because of their political intervention, become hostile to the opposing faction.
c. Having accepted the mission to defend the ship, the player could have a counter-offer made by the faction doing the assassination. “Don’t let this meeting take place, save yourself and hand him over.”
d. Declining the mission would lead to an RNG decision on what happens to the faction leader and a loss of reputation for the player. At the next server tick the RNG outcome would be rolled into the game.

I won’t list more examples in detail, but you could have similar ones for:

a. Cargo missions to take vaccinations to prevent an outbreak before it actually happens.
b. Passenger missions to take faction representatives for talks to force an election rather than triggering war.

Additionally I’d also trigger the same missions, but in reverse. So instead of stopping an outbreak, you’d be charged with taking out a ship carrying 'vaccinations' to actively cause one. You want to start a war? Go take out the faction representative to stop the peace talks. You want to make a faction go bust? Then take out the ship carrying the faction business leader. I'd also have the same counter missions, but in reverse.


I think something along these lines might get players a little more involved with the BGS and feel greater affinity to their factions. It also asks the players to make system altering decisions, decide on their role in the game and make decisions about betraying a faction or factions you are allied with. All of this could also make the BGS feel more alive and give players those ‘save the princess missions’ without actually making them one-off scripted events. They also have repeat-ability because players can see and feel the direct consequence of doing them. I have a some other ideas that might be tied into them but Ill save them for later....

Edit: Oops, I forgot to say you could take this further and have the missions directly flip a system. So maybe in certain circumstances killing the faction leader reduces their reputation entirely and they lose power.

 

[VR Golgot]

I think something along these lines might get players a little more involved with the BGS and feel greater affinity to their factions. It also asks the players to make system altering decisions, decide on their role in the game and make decisions about betraying a faction or factions you are allied with. All of this could also make the BGS feel more alive and give players those ‘save the princess missions’ without actually making them one-off scripted events. They also have repeat-ability because players can see and feel the direct consequence of doing them. I have a some other ideas that might be tied into them but Ill save them for later....

Edit: Oops, I forgot to say you could take this further and have the missions directly flip a system. So maybe in certain circumstances killing the faction leader reduces their reputation entirely and they lose power.

Nice!

Yes I think these are the kind of 'personalised' and more impactful hero / villain stories that would fit well with the world. It's not quite 'rescue the princess', but kinda 'take out the Princess's royal guard' maybe. (I think full state flips is a bit too powerful, but having a major impact could be intriguing. Even more intriguing if embedded missions in Open could involve an opposing embedded Cmdr being sent to stop you )