Hi all! Quick question: what is the closest you can get to an actual story mission in this game? I'm not expecting cutscenes and dialogue, but are there missions I can take that will lead to the exposition of a story of any kind through either mission descriptions or lore texts? Especially with the PowerPlay characters, it seems like there ought to be some meaningful agendas to help advance in some way, with related developments to read about. Thanks for any advice!
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Newcomer / Intro Story missions?
- Thread starter BaruchSpinoza
- Start date
At one point, Fdev introduced the "Chained Mission" concept but really had no idea what to do with it - (the icon is still used on some missions - but they are not actually connected to each other).
SO, this also has fallen by the wayside in order to promote other ill-conceived concepts which have no actual purpose or inhibit gameplay rather than enhance the Player's experience.
I have offered suggestions about this concept and have also offered scenarios players could actually follow as an "open-ended" storyline where the ideas are laid out but how to accomplish said, "chained missions" are left up to the player to determine -
- They have been ignored. -
SO, this also has fallen by the wayside in order to promote other ill-conceived concepts which have no actual purpose or inhibit gameplay rather than enhance the Player's experience.
I have offered suggestions about this concept and have also offered scenarios players could actually follow as an "open-ended" storyline where the ideas are laid out but how to accomplish said, "chained missions" are left up to the player to determine -
- They have been ignored. -
For a scripted set of missions with lore, I think Ram Tah is all we've currently got. Galnet and the COmmunity Goals / Interstellar Initiatives ocasionally had some plotlines and were ocasioanlly linked to PowerPlay characters, but they were temporary week-by-week or at best month-by-month things; all that's left of them is the Galnet archive.
You will occasionally get given a "chained mission" - if you successfully complete a high-value mission for a faction, they might give you a second, usually more lucrative mission. Trouble is, these missions aren't logically connected to the precursor mission - though the procedural generator tries hard. Example: I successfully complete a cargo-delivery or donation mission and I'll be given a mission chain. Sometimes it's "deliver these two or three tonnes of cargo for several million credits"; more often than not, it's "go and assassinate these people for us". I'm an explorer doing part-time space-truck driver and courier guy work, I don't know why they think I'd make a good assassin. And that, I think, is it - no multiple-link-chain mission series, no significant reward when a chain is complete.
Personally, the kind of chain mission I'd like to see is a chain to support a small, struggling colony that nobody ever visits. "Bring us this list of urgent supplies". You bring the list, maybe they throw in a "stop this pirate from harassing us" or something else, and at the end of the chain, there's a tangible uptick in the colony's wellbeing - perhaps an increase in population, perhaps a change in economy type from "colony" to something else. Right now, the closest thing we have to this sort of thing is the "station repair" mechanism - which is far too big, too slow and too tedious to qualify, requiring millions of tonnes of cargo to be shipped, with the eventual reward - the restoration of a fully functional space station - nowhere near compensation enough for the majority of players.
MIlitary chain-missions are another possible option to add, to help flesh out the much-neglected "military career path". Go and steal this data for us. Right, the data shows us they've got a secret weapons research base over there on that planet, we want you to take the base out. Well done, but now it appears their chief researcher escaped from the ruins of the base and we need you to hunt her down. That kind of thing, at the end of which you might get a nice shiny medal to pin to your holo-me chest, as well as a significant rank-boost.
You will occasionally get given a "chained mission" - if you successfully complete a high-value mission for a faction, they might give you a second, usually more lucrative mission. Trouble is, these missions aren't logically connected to the precursor mission - though the procedural generator tries hard. Example: I successfully complete a cargo-delivery or donation mission and I'll be given a mission chain. Sometimes it's "deliver these two or three tonnes of cargo for several million credits"; more often than not, it's "go and assassinate these people for us". I'm an explorer doing part-time space-truck driver and courier guy work, I don't know why they think I'd make a good assassin. And that, I think, is it - no multiple-link-chain mission series, no significant reward when a chain is complete.
Personally, the kind of chain mission I'd like to see is a chain to support a small, struggling colony that nobody ever visits. "Bring us this list of urgent supplies". You bring the list, maybe they throw in a "stop this pirate from harassing us" or something else, and at the end of the chain, there's a tangible uptick in the colony's wellbeing - perhaps an increase in population, perhaps a change in economy type from "colony" to something else. Right now, the closest thing we have to this sort of thing is the "station repair" mechanism - which is far too big, too slow and too tedious to qualify, requiring millions of tonnes of cargo to be shipped, with the eventual reward - the restoration of a fully functional space station - nowhere near compensation enough for the majority of players.
MIlitary chain-missions are another possible option to add, to help flesh out the much-neglected "military career path". Go and steal this data for us. Right, the data shows us they've got a secret weapons research base over there on that planet, we want you to take the base out. Well done, but now it appears their chief researcher escaped from the ruins of the base and we need you to hunt her down. That kind of thing, at the end of which you might get a nice shiny medal to pin to your holo-me chest, as well as a significant rank-boost.
Thanks! How do I actually go about initiating the Ram Tah missions?
Story dont need to be about anyones CMDR. IT could be about some npc, or faction. Just like side quests from many games. side campaigns or chained story sidequest would do the trick. Its all about telling a good and entertaining story, that can make you feel "being" in the galaxy, not just doing empty repeatable game loops.
Interaction with others is good, but look at other mmos, or space games, how they did it?
And even Grind can be fun if it have some deeper meaning, Community Goals or Interstellar Initiatives (or how it was called?) was some kind of substitute for it. Ram Tah's mission is quite interesting one, but beside from lore reward you got just credits. And thats just silly, no matter the amount, and aside it's just not profitable today. Adequate reward for it would be some unique item, ship decal or maybe some guardian crystal for your windshield. Some guardian weapon obtainable only that way could do the trick.
visit some abandoned places. Then you will see...
Visiting them is fun, you can scan and collect data logs, some have scattered materials you can collect, and thanks to logs you can find out what happened there. But finding them without data collected from other players is very unlikely.
Devs could make some missions giving you hints and asking to find that places, also giving you proper rewards. (For example by getting allied with some faction you get access to their secrets and to that kind of missions, which in some abandoned places you find out the story that was dark, there was some sort of tragedy, and that is better kept hidden from everyone). Also by finding what happened there you could activate some other missions, that's what i meant in my previous post.
Because... there are almost none of the type of missons that OP asked, its more like META game.
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