Higher paying missions, just a discussion

[Camtheman]

They've said in the past that they dont want to encourage mission-grinding as a form of money making because it puts a lot of stress on the server. NPC random spawns are already based on server population due to that, but can you imagine a couple dozen people all grinding missions that spawn dozens of NPCs each? Lagrage would ensue.

Plus it would become like I understand EvE to be...

PvE...

And that's not really what Discovery RP is about...

Because you cant RP with the NPC's. And even if you could, would you want to? They cheat. They fire train CD's when they have no ammo left. They shoot SNAC's at refire rate...

Although, its not like trading has any interaction but piracy, which many, many people are either silent to or wait untill the server has 50 people and then trade...

[themikeruler]

Thing is, if missions become a good way to get money, why would anyone bother to trade/mine anymore?
I agree that it would make more sense to have missions pay more, (and npc caps be harder) but thats the problem.

Because i know a population that actually loves to mine and trade. I try to get my friends into fighting and mercing, but they can't let go of mining and trading.

Plus it would become like I understand EvE to be...

PvE...

And that's not really what Discovery RP is about...

Because you cant RP with the NPC's. And even if you could, would you want to? They cheat. They fire train CD's when they have no ammo left. They shoot SNAC's at refire rate...

Although, its not like trading has any interaction but piracy, which many, many people are either silent to or wait untill the server has 50 people and then trade...

Well Discovery will never be about PvE, that's not gonna happen if missions get higher pays, might as well play SP if u want PvE. And when im saying about RPing with NPCs, i'm saying that thats an option, but unlikely because people would rather RP with regular players and not duds.

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I'm baaaaaaaaaack.

[Syrus]

Yeah i getcha i getcha. but from what i know, it would be extremely hard/impossible for the description to actually say what ships are approaching. instead maybe it should be based on difficulty level. like 42+ are battleships, or something to that matter.

Well, as long as you can see what ships come by taking a look at the mission level, it's still ok with me. At the moment I had rather-low level missions (150k) which spawned 3 Osiris...

Should missions pay as much as trading? No.
Is there a big difference whether someone trades on a "set route" or kills NPCs near an enemy territory? In my opinion there isn't,...

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[ugliestmoose]

I'd really love to be able to do missions which pay much more.

But what I'd like to see is missions saying what the biggest ships are which might appear, so you can judge by yourself whether you can do it or not.

There should be "smaller paying missions" which only spawn fighters of all kind (NPC fighters can be adjusted to the mission level regarding armor, equip etc I think - I guess that's a lot of work to be done though). Then there should be missions which also spawn bombers - maybe even like 2 bombers and 2 fighters? - And missions which spawn ships up to gunboats ... cruisers ... battleships. The important thing is, missions should inform you about what you probably have to shoot when doing the mission.

Just some wishlist of mine, I know this is a lot of work...or at least I guess so. *shrugs* Something to consider for when 4.86 is released and unbugged.:D

The way the mission system is coded, it's practically impossible to predict whether caps will spawn or not. The way it works is each wave of spawned ships is assigned a number value based on the level and number of ships. If I remember right, Disco treats mission capships as level 18, which is the same as the highest level fighters. When you select a mission, the mission level dictates the maximum value that all spawned ships can sum to, and then FL runs a mysterious voodoo function to calculate which ships to spawn. Unfortunately there's a random aspect to it, so even if you make capships a higher level there's a chance that you will instead get like 5 waves of low-level fighters instead of one wave of caps. The only surefire way to make it work is to redo the mission system from scratch, which only an insane person would even attempt to do.



tl;dr It would be a TON of work to specify which ships spawn during missions

[Dab]

The way the mission system is coded, it's practically impossible to predict whether caps will spawn or not. The way it works is each wave of spawned ships is assigned a number value based on the level and number of ships. If I remember right, Disco treats mission capships as level 18, which is the same as the highest level fighters.

The level system is being redesigned so that this won't be a problem in .87 (or, hopefully, during .86 via updates), and we'll have greater control over mission spawns.


As for the topic in general;

More extensive, and profitable, missions will be available at some point. Likely not in .87, but it's possible that they will be.

This will include such things as fleet versus fleet missions, much more complex station assault missions (mission stations will be armed and have more armor on higher missions so you can't just fly in, drop a nuke, and leave. High-level missions will have bases that are unable to be destroyed by a lone fighter, but possibly by a well-flown lone bomber).

It's unlikely that missions will ever be as profitable as trading, for the simple reason that trade creates activity. Without traders there aren't pirates. Without pirates there aren't police or military. The activity line starts with traders, so they will always be necessary. Missions will be designed to be a nice supplement so that people don't have only trading or mining to do, but it will never be quite as profitable.

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