Story missions to guide players through the cool stuff Frontier has added

Elite doesn't need a story with cutscenes, or at least not many. What it could really use is a set of simply missions that can steer players through all the events that Frontier has added in a contained environment where they are "new".

1. Start with the Tutorial, where you have someone guide your ship. It's been a while since I saw it but it was good.

2. From there, Pilot's Federation sends you Story Missions. These should probably be done in Solo mode so they can cater the experience to each player.

3. Missions take you through all the cool stuff they've added. Be sent to the Civilization Ships to hear their awesome recordings. Visit Pleaides, see the Thargoids yourself in guided ways. Be "the" CMDR that discovered their re-emergence. Be "the" guy that investigated the Guardian ruins. etc. Let the player get hyperdicted as part of the story. Then have missions to aid stations, etc. Scale them to a single player.

4. It might not be a bad idea to have a "rental" ship from the Pilot's Federation for specific missions as an option. This way, the player's money is not an issue and they can experience the story and be prepared for what's required, as well as get a taste of the more expensive ships and be introduced to many gameplay methods.


I am sure Frontier and this community can make this a much better idea than my quick brainstorm from Reddit, but hopefully it can be made useful. This wouldn't require any huge cutscene rendering or whatever, and hopefully that would make implementing a story missions feature a lot easier than some of the other stuff on Frontier's plate.
 
Yes please FDev...

Funny, I could have sworn I already saw some handy little cut-scenes for mission overviews on the youtube channel?

Wasn't there one with Ram Tah promising shiny new Guardian tech to the CMDR in return for digging up a few fossils...

Oh, lookie what I finded :)

[video=youtube;E5XRWy7Cq9U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5XRWy7Cq9U[/video]

So, at some point after Lei Cheung spills the beans about nice uncle Rammy and texts him your number, why can't the original audio (less the possibly out of context bits, like the thargoid fighting) file for this video be sent to the players in-game mailbox?

Would asking for a "Remind me later" and "Tell me more now" mission option be too much?

Ram Tah: "We're dealing with some significant distances here CMDR. You'll need to show me you have what it takes by achieving Surveyor Exploration rank. The Pilot's Federation tells me your promotion is waiting on feedback from you so, I'll get back in touch when you make the grade. I'm going to need to see some Classified Scan Databanks so I know you've formed some good situational awareness habits. Fifty should be enough. You can track your progress on the engineers console but like I said, I'll contact you if and when you qualify to access my engineering facility."

A. Bored, TL;DR, let me out...
B. Cool, I'll get stuck right into it!
C. Wait, what about the weapons?
D. Er, Classified Scan Databanks?
E. How do I grind Exploration rank?
F. Plot a course to this engineer... [Open galmap]

CMDR: C. Wait, what about the weapons?

Ram Tah: "Oh, that. Well, you could go out to the Guardian Ruins without upgrading that ju... Er, ship. But, it's a long way, you might get lost, I'm not sure I want to invest my time if you won't make it back..."

How come we don't need to unlock Ram Tah the engineer to do missions for Ram Tah the Guardian ruins guy? Are these two different but identical twin looking Ram Tah's or just one Ram Tah with an exceptionally bad memory?

Anyway, the point is, FDev already have loads of animated stuff they could insert into the actual game, even if some of it might need a little rework so the dialogue doesn't refer to the player doing things they're actually not.

It could be as simple as a voice acted invitation from each engineer to collect and replay from the engineers list window instead of them being auto-cleared from the comms panel. Collecting things, like achievements...

FDev, can PC have achievements please and q!? With a cherry on top :D

PS: Including all the visitor beacons and memorials from the live stream ;)

PPS: And please cross reference with passenger mission selection so you can seamlessly identify places you haven't been to before and skip the ones you have and complete your Elite Dangerous grand tour of the galaxy achievement!

Hmm, Dangerous idea: How many tourist beacons are there anyway? Surely they could be grouped in some way eg: Perseus Arm or Neutron Layer, say 20 that are reasonably local to each other. Space is huge, tell us what's there to look for ;)
 
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Oh, and please this:

4. It might not be a bad idea to have a "rental" ship from the Pilot's Federation for specific missions as an option. This way, the player's money is not an issue and they can experience the story and be prepared for what's required, as well as get a taste of the more expensive ships and be introduced to many gameplay methods.

"Insurance Claims" integer haunts me in my sleep. Arg, the pain!
 
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