Mission System / PvE Elements

[Gunthoo]

Let me start by saying, I've read a few threads on this forum where people are saying this game needs to cater more towards PvP and the idea that "why should I play if I cant risk everything..."

While I understand some people may enjoy that challenge, I myself enjoy building, saving and the security of knowing there is a way to play without losing everything. I put a lot of time and effort into ship builds, and I'm happy knowing that work is able to be archived in some fashion to be able to bring it back up and work on later if I choose.. Sure... every once and awhile I'll enjoy some PvP in a cheap ship that I take outside the bubble to see if I can survive a fight or do some long range mining... but that's not why I play the game.

There is a case for both PvE and PvP so thank you for continuing to support both of those communities. There are inherent risks with both which makes both directions challenging/fun for a range of player styles

On the topic of PvE, I would love to see some type of Mission system beyond the jobs that you can get at stations in the beginning... I think we could expand on the solo/coop gameplay. Here are some examples I think would be unique and really open the doors to a new genre of player...

Some initial Ideas:

• Delivery Missions (ore/components/packages) - Would be awesome to be able to use the capacity of my ship to make deliveries to NPCs on other origin stations or even a player made marketplace for jobs where player stations can request materials to drop off points on their stations to earn credits.
  
  
• Recovery Missions - NPC's could provide coordinates for derelict ships that spawn in that you can recover or even recover specific items from to claim credits. Or you could go out to help get a ship working. (Like a space repair service)
  
  
• Transit Missions - Utilizing the transport ship class, allowing you to be a part of between-station transit. Maybe include a license system that allows you to work towards becoming certified transport pilot - this could be expanded to other PvE / PvP titles...
  
  
• Exploration Missions - Being able to navigate to certain areas using your onboard computer systems, or travel to safe/unsafe areas on moons that require you to land, get out and explore on foot maybe even fend off PvE creatures or humanoid npc's. Would need to be randomized so unsafe area's aren't camped.

Another random idea:

• Social Areas on Stations / Moons - Would be nice once you're done pulling in a large haul or surviving the gauntlet outside the bubble, to relax at the station where people are incentivized to hang out, show off ship builds, company recruitment boards etc... Maybe there is an area to play music, or play mini games like cards, chess, pool etc... Could be part of the shopping halls that are under development. Could be a fun addition.

Well, I'm back to mining. Let me know if yall agree or disagree with any of this. Love this game, just want to contribute my thoughts to help this game grow!

Safe travels in space yall!

G

 

[J.D.]

I have seen this has already talked about back in alpha days. npcs are not coming. if they ever did, it would be an addition on top of what they already had planned. the game development is on hold. so, that adds a more unlikely bit to it. The game is not in a state for taking new ideas for mechanics. as the ones already planned have been delayed due to a funding problem. My guess is maybe they had an investor who was russian who was impacted by the sanctions, because the Frozenbyte ceo suddenly disappeared around the time things were getting bad, and then came back to announce a lack of funding, this happened abruptly. Before, they were confident in a long schedule of development. 2+2=4. So, theres that until they get some funding from additional projects. As far as social areas, there are 30 origin stations within a safezone. There is also the moon city, which also has a safe zone. you might most likely find the most amount of people there. But, there is no voip.

 

[pavvvel]

How do you plan to perform these types of missions without flying out of the safe zone? Any profitable activity in the game must necessarily have a proportionate risk

 

[Gunthoo]

I have seen this has already talked about back in alpha days. npcs are not coming. if they ever did, it would be an addition on top of what they already had planned. the game development is on hold. so, that adds a more unlikely bit to it. The game is not in a state for taking new ideas for mechanics. as the ones already planned have been delayed due to a funding problem. My guess is maybe they had an investor who was russian who was impacted by the sanctions, because the Frozenbyte ceo suddenly disappeared around the time things were getting bad, and then came back to announce a lack of funding, this happened abruptly. Before, they were confident in a long schedule of development. 2+2=4. So, theres that until they get some funding from additional projects. As far as social areas, there are 30 origin stations within a safezone. There is also the moon city, which also has a safe zone. you might most likely find the most amount of people there. But, there is no voip.

Sad day on NPC’s but not a big deal. I heard that development was on pause from a friend, but yea decided to still collect my thoughts here if and when they choose to continue down the roadmap for full release. For the social areas, while stations in the safe zone do exist, I don’t feel like players are incentivized to congregate/gather to communicate with other players other than chatting in chat and playing with friends. Would like to see something introduced that makes socialization more of a priority as outlined in my previous post. But obviously that’s just an opinion. Thanks for the reply, didn’t realize that the war may have impacted this games development.

 

[Gunthoo]

How do you plan to perform these types of missions without flying out of the safe zone? Any profitable activity in the game must necessarily have a proportionate risk

Oh! I think it would be for both right? Safe zone missions like station to station courier missions for smaller pay - less risk for people who like a safe euro truck in space experience, and then making deliveries to player made (maybe pre-made stations) outside of the safe-zone that have a bonus for the risk of delivery plus the income you get from the materials being sold.

Could be a fun addition

 

[Askannon]

To be fair, I call the ore terminals NPCs, and in terms of what they would need to achieve (providing missions and checking for completion) that is all that would be needed: a list of tasks and the option to accept and to return to get your money and maybe do another mission.

I think the easiest mission type would be ore requests for the local station and after that ore requests for other stations, as for that you only need to "sell" your ore to the terminal as you would at the existing terminals.

The others, I don't know if they can be made easily.
Recovery would hinge on adding markers (or a map with coordinates) and on having the system spawn ships, which might not be that much, but probably too much for now, especially since you can have that already if people ask you to get their ship running again (am active on the SOS discord, where there was some of this, but sadly people became better pilots) or if you find a ship e.g. crashed on the moon (I found two already, 200+ km away from the gate, so shouldn't be that difficult).

Transit... people can just ask for one and pay themselves, so not really a need to have a dedicated system (yet) I'd say.

Exploration is currently being covered by people flying to other moons with basic ships, logging the coordinates and returning with the coordinates to later come back with a capital ship. So while yes, this will run out eventually, it might not require a special mission, at least until they manage to make the vistas in a belt more nuanced (though one of the moons apparently has its belt inside its gravity, so if you want to explore, try mining there).

And finally, social
Currently new players spawn at Origin 2, maybe 3 and most I know have migrated to there as well, as that is where the activity is the highest.
And then there is also the project to build up a station between Origin and Markka (The Dredwerkz) to 1) provide new players the intel that there is a Trading Station Markka and 2) provide interested designers a place to do buisness, though this basicaly requires the overhaul of station access to allow all players access.

 

[Vexus]

My only contention with missions is that it wasn't really part of the initial framework for the game. It can be added, for sure, but was never really part of the thought-out experience. The presence of the SSC for example basically suggests that players are in charge of experiencing the game they want to experience - not playing a pre-made experience designed by a dev. Frozenbyte has done this with their other games - given players a defined objective - and Starbase is a step away into something much more amazing. To enter into NPC-land means adding shallow game mechanics when the whole purpose was depth.

You're supposed to, for example, transport weapons and other things by using the cargo lock frames. Not in shallow UI / inventory management schemes. They kind of had to do something with the ore crates - but the ore crates take up more size than an individual ore block would, so it's actually done well and thoughtful to give everything meaning. You're not stuffing 1000 ore stacks into a small UI box. Sure, your player character has slots for a bunch of stuff, but that's to be expected; the larger gameplay has player-created meaning behind almost everything. At least... that was the intention...

Then they began giving us pre-made things to do. Pre-made stations for PvP conflict. Pre-made this and that... what a lost opportunity. A PvE mission would be working with a community member, where that member builds a huge station somewhere, and then it becomes a "permanent" game object over time, visible from anywhere in local space. The "mission" then isn't given to you by some soulless NPC, but instead by a player and an engaged community who will be paying for your ore - and putting them to use building something you would then be a part of!

I think the support from the community should be around giving the devs the confidence they need to realize their initial vision for the game as a free form space sandbox with no limits. It is truly possible, but only if they see it and stop looking so close to the immediate scope of gameplay. If there were no dev-made warp gate, there would be no one camping the gate - if the gate were crafted by players, voluntarily, they would be accepting the risk of players combating that construction and so on. So much gameplay was lost when they defined a "warp gate" and just slapped it down for everyone. The "mission" for EA, which could have taken months, could have been to funnel resources into the construction of the warp gate to get everyone to the moon. This is depth and what the game was supposed to offer, but instead they began giving players a game instead of letting their players create the game.

Starbase has the dev team which can do these things. Which can take a player-station and make it "permanent" and visible to the wider universe at distance. They have the tech and the brains to pull off amazing things that no game has come close to even touching. "New content" is simply giving players a new moon to build a warp gate for - on BOTH ends - again netting massive time frames of player interaction, logistics, and of course plenty of opportunities for meaningful combat.

It can truly be player-driven, and was intended initially. The game was "ready" many, many months ago, and then... they added "gameplay" such as warp gates and so on. Probably the best thing in this direction - giving players a reason to participate in building the game out - is shown on the moon city, where there's a unique red building in the center as a combat memorial for some fight at some place who knows where. But it's there and unique and you know it's special when you see it. The entire game could be this way, if given a little love - tough love, where you don't handhold players, but instead, sit back and say deal with it, knowing your players will deal with it, because the game is just that good.

I know it's possible and I hope one day it is realized to its full potential. I would work on this game myself if I could. I believe in it so much.

 

[Askannon]

Have to agree that missions will probably not fit that well into the game, even if I previously posted on their ease of implementation.
Even the one mission that I think is viable to be implemented in a short time could just as easily be done by changing the base price (what the "NPC" ore terminals pay) for ore to promote ships transporting goods from A to B.

That way, if the ores are oversaturated at one place will be shipped to another to gain the profit that the oversaturation prevented.
All by just having stations not be cookie-cut-outs from each other but in fact unique markets that don't pose a certain demand.

 

[pavvvel]

Oh! I think it would be for both right? Safe zone missions like station to station courier missions for smaller pay - less risk for people who like a safe euro truck in space experience, and then making deliveries to player made (maybe pre-made stations) outside of the safe-zone that have a bonus for the risk of delivery plus the income you get from the materials being sold.

Could be a fun addition

players will do these missions in the AFK, the ship will fly on the "compass". and the player will watch the serials or drink beer.
If you offer missions, pve, then offer adequate ideas in which the reward will be commensurate with the risk