Basic NPC quest types

[Markus_McCloud]

Markus once again.

Since and the rest of Schine are working on a quest system, I just thought I'd belt out a few ideas for quests. To make them adaptable, I'll keep the details vague. (When I mention Pirates, it could be any future hostile faction.)

BRONZE TIER: Easy enough...
-Fetch Quest: Bring the NPC a certain amount of something to complete.
-Easy Vehicle Delivery: Pilot the given ship from Point A to Point B. There are no Pirates in this version.
-Messenger: Bring a parcel to a specific NPC. Similar to the vehicle delivery.
-Small Invasion Defense: Repel a small Pirate raid.
-Station Inspection: Just go to a specific station and return with your analysis.

SILVER TIER: A bit harder.
-Raid: Destroy a Pirate base with the help of an NPC fleet.
-Moderate Vehicle Delivery: Pilot the given ship from Point A to Point B. Pirates will make some attempt to stop you.
-Mid-Size Invasion Defense: Repel a decently-sized Pirate raid.
-Stop This Crook!: Destroy a certain ship controlled by Pirates.
-Convoy Crasher: Destroy all the ships in a convoy before they reach their destination.

GOLD TIER: Earn your money!
-Solo Raid: Destroy a Pirate base... alone.
-Difficult Vehicle Delivery: Pilot the given ship from Point A to Point B. Pirates will go out of their way to stop you.
-Large Invasion Defense: Repel a large Pirate raid.
-War!: Assist your allies by destroying all of the enemy fleet.
-Ship Escort: Defend a ship as it travels to its destination.

DIAMOND TIER: All aboard the pain train!
-Full-Scale Invasion Defense: Repel an entire fleet of Pirates.
-Convoy Escort: Defend a series of ships as they travel to their destination.

YOUR SUGGESTIONS:
-Build Mission (Megacrafter127): Build a ship within specifications
-Search and Destroy (jayman38): Find a specific ship and destroy it.

(Missions with red dashes can be failed.)

These are nothing more than suggestions, though. Schine, as always, has the final say.

 

[jayman38]

View attachment 25825
-Ship Escort: Defend a ship as it travels to its destination.
-Convoy Escort: Defend a series of ships as they travel to their destination.

I normally recommend replacing any escort missions with search-and-destroy missions. (Intelligence suggests that a certain strike force is mustering for an attack. Intercept the strike force before it can attack the convoy...) Escort missions are hard to make good.

Also, I am most familiar with single-player missions. Fleet dynamics may bring a whole new set of missions.

 

[Megacrafter127]

All of these seem to be more or less standard, so [apart from your tiering system] they will most likely make it into the game in one form or another.

I personally would also suggest build/spawn quests. E.g:
Build or spawn a ship that meets the following requirements:

• Cost must be lower than 300000 [cost is the sum of the credit value of all used blocks]
  
• It must have at least one Cannon-Cannon-EMP weapon, that meets the following requirements
  • At least one firing group must deal more than 50 damage per shot
  • The reload time of the weapon must be lower than 0.5 seconds
• The ship's energy storage must hold at least 1000000 units of energy
• The ship's reactors must produce at least 100000 units of energy per second

Additional requirements may be regarding docking(e.g. must have at least 1 rail-docker, that can dock to <insert any rail structure related to the quest[must be present on server]>), shielding (e.g. minimum and maximum shield capacity and regen), structure- and armor hp(again minimum and maximum), ship-dimensions(minimum and maximum on each axis), mass and block-count(min and max), etc.
Additional requirements regarding weapons could be: group-count(min&max), energy consumption(min&max), total damage(min&max, per shot&per second), effect% and block-count (min&max), blockcount (master&slave, min&max), etc.

 

[nightrune]

All of these seem to be more or less standard, so [apart from your tiering system] they will most likely make it into the game in one form or another.

I personally would also suggest build/spawn quests. E.g:
Build or spawn a ship that meets the following requirements:

• Cost must be lower than 300000 [cost is the sum of the credit value of all used blocks]
  
• It must have at least one Cannon-Cannon-EMP weapon, that meets the following requirements
  • At least one firing group must deal more than 50 damage per shot
  • The reload time of the weapon must be lower than 0.5 seconds
• The ship's energy storage must hold at least 1000000 units of energy
• The ship's reactors must produce at least 100000 units of energy per second

Additional requirements may be regarding docking(e.g. must have at least 1 rail-docker, that can dock to <insert any rail structure related to the quest[must be present on server]>), shielding (e.g. minimum and maximum shield capacity and regen), structure- and armor hp(again minimum and maximum), ship-dimensions(minimum and maximum on each axis), mass and block-count(min and max), etc.
Additional requirements regarding weapons could be: group-count(min&max), energy consumption(min&max), total damage(min&max, per shot&per second), effect% and block-count (min&max), blockcount (master&slave, min&max), etc.

Build quests would be awesome. Especially if there was a faction that after asking for that ship would "sell" it, and you would start to see that ship in the universe.

 

[jstenholt]

Yeah, the entire OP just seems like stuff we can assume will be in the game. I'm way more interested in having quests and missions that are actually interesting.

If the quest system never evolves beyond things that have been a mainstay of RPGs since before they were played on computers I will be extremely disappointed.

 

[Markus_McCloud]

I normally recommend replacing any escort missions with search-and-destroy missions. (Intelligence suggests that a certain strike force is mustering for an attack. Intercept the strike force before it can attack the convoy...) Escort missions are hard to make good.

Also, I am most familiar with single-player missions. Fleet dynamics may bring a whole new set of missions.

There's nothing saying you can't use your biggest leviathan to protect it. Still, you have a point. Escort missions do have a bad rep.
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Build quests would be awesome. Especially if there was a faction that after asking for that ship would "sell" it, and you would start to see that ship in the universe.

I agree. Thanks for bringing it up! :D

 

[Madman198237]

All of these seem to be more or less standard, so [apart from your tiering system] they will most likely make it into the game in one form or another.

I personally would also suggest build/spawn quests. E.g:
Build or spawn a ship that meets the following requirements:

• Cost must be lower than 300000 [cost is the sum of the credit value of all used blocks]
  
• It must have at least one Cannon-Cannon-EMP weapon, that meets the following requirements
  • At least one firing group must deal more than 50 damage per shot
  • The reload time of the weapon must be lower than 0.5 seconds
• The ship's energy storage must hold at least 1000000 units of energy
• The ship's reactors must produce at least 100000 units of energy per second

Additional requirements may be regarding docking(e.g. must have at least 1 rail-docker, that can dock to <insert any rail structure related to the quest[must be present on server]>), shielding (e.g. minimum and maximum shield capacity and regen), structure- and armor hp(again minimum and maximum), ship-dimensions(minimum and maximum on each axis), mass and block-count(min and max), etc.
Additional requirements regarding weapons could be: group-count(min&max), energy consumption(min&max), total damage(min&max, per shot&per second), effect% and block-count (min&max), blockcount (master&slave, min&max), etc.

Difficult to implement, but not impossible.

For the docking requirements, have a structure somewhere that the ship MUST dock to in order to gain completion. The ship must be docked, and the player must pass through two area detectors' fields in order. Meaning that there is, in an indestructible station, a corridor, with one end going to the rest of the station, and one with the docking apparatus. You must pass through the docking-end gate first, then the interior gate.

Though still exploitable, it's a basic metric.


Perhaps also always require some percentage of hull or something, to prevent flying systems bricks.