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Bumpity bump for Great Justice!!!

Seriously though, let's make and keep this one a hot tamale.

What kind of missions could work within the framework of an instanced 'Mission Space/Ground Zone'?

I am thinking, defending a convoy from pirates and or slavers, or perhaps rescuing hapless folks from slavers. Attacking Imperial/Rebel Convoys and stealing any cargo that might be available, which could be of either extremely rare resoruces or practically unique resources, like some really high stat materials or something like Alderaanian Flora.

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NightGun wrote:

While instanced space session and such would be really cool (Look for it in the future) I still say if we want something quick we should aim lower since most of the ideas I see so far sound extremly complex to me. (Also if boarding parties are a seperate part how does loot get distributed and such). Maybe just some missions to go and board a ship to get something specific with a payout already predetermined. That does eliminate the random pirating that would be so fun so I am not sure on that.

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Why have something quick, when something much better will only take a while longer?

There is an old adage that the poor man buys everything twice. Instead of holding out, saving and then buying the better item, the poor man buys the same item or the poor item and then later replaces that with the good item. It's a waste of time and resources to buy things twice.

The best thing would be to implement one such grand space/ground instanced mission, get it working well and then add from there. That way, there is no wasted time on making some half-bantha system that would most likely be tossed out to us like a bone and ignored while the real deal is being worked on.

The loot could be distributed based upon how much everyone contributes to the mission. The best pilot(s) 'stuck' out in the ongoing dogfight could obtain some VERY special loot, perhaps something that is really good and may not be RE'able because of that. The people going into the ship/station/whatever would have the loot from the mission and the one or two or more that took on significant risk and contributed heavily in combat/healing/whatever could obtain a unique piece of loot.

Any other loot obtained during the mission can be figured out by the group taking on the mission. For instance, if the overall best, by sheer skill pilot, ends up staying in the Dogfight and he/she is also the Shipwright that got the mission going to obtain the ultra rare resources/components for their 'Uber' construction project, it would behoove the group to hook that SW up with that part of the loot.

Even then, the loot doesn't have to be anything all that super special, unless the mission is something designed to be excruciatingly difficult. There could be lower risk missions without any Uber loot that are run of the mill missions and then there could be Uber missions where you need to build a kick bantha squad together to take on. Things like regular mission terminal missions and then a few ultra special NPC missions with the real danger/risk and reward.

That's my take on the whole thing.

Message Edited by rols_cerentz on 11-16-2004 11:52 AM

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NightGun wrote:

The super special was the JTL expansion. I would love to see some small things added to enhance performace short run (While devs work on the next big thing the Combat Revamp) and then see them add to the little things they have done to appease us making things even bigger and better.

The poor man doesn't buy an item twice he simply can't aford too. But the man who waits to buy the best item ever never buys anything (Progress continues to make better items too quicklly).

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You are missing my point with that analogy.

Take two people. One 'poor' one not 'poor'.

Both want to buy a laptop. The not 'poor' one just goes out and buys the best laptop he can afford and has something that she can use and perform many tasks with, from gaming and other more intensive computing tasks. The 'poor' one has a choice, buy a laptop he can afford and be only able to handle basic computing tasks and run some 'standard' software, but have something severely outdated after a few years and thus not able to meet his tasks or he could wait out a while, save a little extra money and get something closer to what the not 'poor' man purchased, get a longer period of use out of it as well as be able to perform more tasks.

Taking my analogy to the oppostite extreme doesn't make my statement have less worth.

/sign

/sign_again

/yell_encouragement

Can you say 'Wookiee Pirate Boarding Party'!!!!?

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NightGun wrote:

No the point of taking the analogy to the opposite extre was to show that it could be done. I would much rather have a small little addition with the potential for more later than to have nothing at all cause I am waiting for it to be the best it can.

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We have seen things like that in this game already, in the form of the first 'Dungeon Caves' in the game. The only content was the existence of a handful of tough critters and a handful of 'Magnetically Sealed' boxes. That was hardly worth the effort to put the whole thing together.

Right now, we already have half of the proposed enhancements in place. You can disable any starship, from fighters to freighters to Smaller capital ships. You can do this to an 'Instanced' light capital ship, in the form of the Master Box Mission in the Kessel System. The only thing you can't do is take that next step of entering into that capital ship and raise heck within it.

We also have a 'fully' realized ground game complete with a number of interesting content pieces and we also have available to us one isntanced dungeon in the form of the Corvette.

Since both the ground and space game use the same engine, all the Devs need is some time to put together a number of comprehensive, fully realized Instanced Space/Boarding missions and BAM! we will have a ton of extra content that will greatly enhance the long-term game, after reaching Master Pilot.

In order for these missions to work there needs to be 'run of the mill' mission terminal types with simple layouts, simple dogfighting scenes that can be done with as little as 3 people and then there has to be special NPC versions that may end up requiring a hardcore team of 10 to 20 pilots/boarders to even stand a chance at success.

How about some ideas for varying levels of such instanced missions.

Here's an idea for a 'low-level' mission that could be good for groups of 2 to 4 pilots/boarders.

This should be available at a 'Pilot Mission Terminal'

"Stolen Merchandise!"

Mission Brief - "A Thief has made off with a rare resource needed in our project. Unfortunately, we weren't fast enough to stop the thief from leaving the planet. However, it was a good thing that we had a Hyperspace Transponder installed into our shipping containers. This has provided us with coordinates to track this Thief's cargo ship. We need you and some friends to disable the freighter, board it and retrieve our resources. Be careful, we have reason to believe that the freighter has a heavily armed escort!"

Payment: 15,000 Credits

Details: The mission should be performed by 2 to 4 players, who will also end up being the boarding party in this mission. The party groups together on the ground or in space and the leader activates a 'Hyperspace Coordinates Disk' and the group enters hyperspace.

After coming out of hyperspace the group will be in a smaller then normal 'instanced' space zone with the Thief's Freighter somewhere in the zone, this ship would be marked visible due to the transponder in the resource packages. Coming upon the freighter a number of defensive fighters could hyperspace into the zone and immediately attack the Player group.

A timer could start as the NPC freighter captain attempts to either reach some predetermined point to jump to hyperspace again or a timer can start until the freighter can jump to hyperspace. In that time, the group would have to fight through the NPC fighters and disable the freighter.

If the freighter is disabled, the party must finish off whatever enemy defenders are still around and then the boarding operation can happen. Everyone can dock with the freighter and they load into a 'Ground' zone onboard the freighter.

Once on board the group has the option of battling through whatever NPC crew is onboard and then seek out the stolen goods or the group could sneak around and get the goods and then get out. The layout of the ship, needn't be overly complicated. It could consist of one or two decks with anywhere from 4 to 8 rooms one would expect on a freighter ship.

After getting the resources and returning to their ships, the group has a new option. They can return the resources to an NPC that is then generated on some random planet in a Major NPC City or they could keep the resources and cancel the mission.

If they return the resources, which could be very high quality or very rare and used for creating very rare items, like RIS Armor. The group receives the 15k Credit reward. If they chose to keep the resources, each member of the group suddenly becomes 'slightly' visible on the Bounty Hunter terminals. The more often they do this, the more visible they become.

This would add a very 'Jabba the Hutt angry at Han Solo so he sends out Bounty Hunters' aspect to the game that would increase the immersiveness and long term playability to the game. Of course, keeping the goods doesn't have to be an option from the get go, but it would certainly add a decent amount of actions we players can choose that WILL have consequences. This would also bring more 'Star Wars' to the game.