Missions and Events (challenges, goals, quests, scenarios, etc.)

[Rickswan]

I apologize if anybody has already created a similar thread, but I didn't see any so I decided to start one. There are many additions I'm excited for, but there's one thing I haven't heard about: missions.

MISSIONS
At its core, a mission is an objective with a win/lose condition. The game could generate missions based on conditions, e.g. whether you're at war with a faction, as well as randomly with pop-up messages that you can choose to accept or not (kinda like Spore did). Perhaps even simple user-made missions could be created for other players/factions to complete. Missions would be optional, so you could continue to explore and create uninhibited, but the option would be there.

Examples of simple missions:

• pirates have taken over a sector, clear them out
• protect a station against waves
• escort/protect ship(s) safely from one sector to another
• If at war with another faction, a mission to destroy/take over a station/ship/planet of theirs

In addition to simple single-goal missions, I can imagine bigger multi-part missions, such as:

• wipe out an entire enemy faction
• create a galactic empire by having a certain number of sub-factions (like states under a federal government) or territories under your control
• prevent annihilation (stop some kind of invading force like the Reapers in Mass Effect)

But what would be the point unless there were some sort of reward? Possible rewards could be: credits, valuable resources, free NPC crew members (like in FTL), making a faction like you more, and increase in some kind of stat not yet implemented in the game.

EVENTS

What is an event? As in FTL (where that pic above is from) or chance cards from the Sims, events are simple choices with outcomes. Perhaps you'd get a reward, perhaps nothing would happen, perhaps there would be a negative outcome, and perhaps you choose to ignore it altogether.

HISTORY
being a sandbox game, the "story" is a byproduct of the emergent gameplay. One thing I liked about the Sims series is it cataloged things that happened with "memories". Perhaps a simple log could be added, and it could read things like: "June 15th, destroyed [faction] home. June 20th, created new ship [ship name]. June 25th, died."
...

Also, and this is just me musing some more, perhaps some day some more on-foot stuff could be added. Just imagine investigating a derelict vessel à la Alien, exploring a cave for materials to build a light-sword, walking around a cantina populated by NPC's...

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Fantastic, they could be randomised as well so each and every event and quest is as unique and unpredictable as the planets. This would make the game very unpredictable and make for some great stories.

For example:

Ship very dark, but abandoned/vacant (Tense)
Ship seems quiet, exactly one enemy
Ship has no enemies, is a honeypot trap, pirates sent to kill you

 

[CyberTao]

Well... The Sub factions thing might be a tad... impossible to do with how Starmade is done (Since you can technically not be part of more then 1 factions), and The Faction base attacks might be a bit much (Factions can just do that on their own after all). But these;

• pirates have taken over a sector, clear them out
• protect a station against waves
• escort/protect ship(s) safely from one sector to another

The seem easily doable and are more or less planned as is I believe :u I except a very simple system that is almost modular in the sense that you can mod in custom missions and questlines. Though I believe Missions will Mainly take the Role as "PvE", with factions being the "PvP" of starmade :x But I guess it is a Sandbox :u

 

[ToyotaSupra]

Well... The Sub factions thing might be a tad... impossible to do with how Starmade is done (Since you can technically not be part of more then 1 factions), and The Faction base attacks might be a bit much (Factions can just do that on their own after all). But these;

• pirates have taken over a sector, clear them out
• protect a station against waves
• escort/protect ship(s) safely from one sector to another

The seem easily doable and are more or less planned as is I believe :u I except a very simple system that is almost modular in the sense that you can mod in custom missions and questlines. Though I believe Missions will Mainly take the Role as "PvE", with factions being the "PvP" of starmade :x But I guess it is a Sandbox :u

Yes, this game is more multiplayer than single player. But eventually in the lategame they could add some more single player stuffs

 

[Valan]

A mission editor would be a great tool for continued play. Operation Flashpoint had the best mission editor ever seen on a game.

 

[Valan]

Valan I think that´s too much work to do it, but doing random missions may.

Even so I love your idea, would open the doors to creativity, most of which are now open.

Thanks, we will probably able to mod StarMade enough to do our missions but not everyone can do that and then you have to battle with your mod every time a new version comes out. If you have a supported mission editor tweaking missions is easier a more consistent. I would've thought the logic would be easy enough. Detect changes in a sector with regard to objects, spawn objects in a sector and just have a method of triggering them.

 

[Rickswan]

A mission editor would be a great tool for continued play. Operation Flashpoint had the best mission editor ever seen on a game.

Great point! I love the ArmA series (successor of Operation Flashpoint) and its mission editor is superb, creating nigh-infinite replayability. Something similar here would definitely keep me addicted. In fact, ArmA is more about making and playing custom missions with other players than the campaign mode. I agree that modding is important but most don't know how, so an in-game editor would be great.

Yes, this game is more multiplayer than single player. But eventually in the lategame they could add some more single player stuffs

I agree, lategame I would like to see them develop more on-foot stuff and single player PvE things, such as missions.

... seem easily doable and are more or less planned as is I believe...

Ooh, missions are planned!? Where did you see that? That's great!

 

[Ithirahad]

Thanks, we will probably able to mod StarMade enough to do our missions but not everyone can do that and then you have to battle with your mod every time a new version comes out.

Yeah... That's the problem with Minecraft. Sometimes I feel that Mojang is just letting modders create all of the good, significant content for them while they do background changes. Not a bad idea in principle, but when mods have to be fixed every single update it ends up being an awful system in practice.

 

[CyberTao]

In the 0.14 Update, The ground work for missions and such were started :u
If you go to an advanced shop and attempt to buy a Dave Npc, you might notice a 'missions' Option, although it leads to a blank page with only the option to exit.
I think Calbiri has a general idea of how the planned default missions will go, Nothing fancy but holds potential for adventure styled universes in the future * ^*

 

[Ithirahad]

In the 0.14 Update, The ground work for missions and such were started :u
If you go to an advanced shop and attempt to buy a Dave Npc, you might notice a 'missions' Option, although it leads to a blank page with only the option to exit.

That's not ground work for missions, really. That's not much more than a test of the conversations system; I doubt that the "no missions available" screen is in any way programmed to contain any actual missions and information. It's just another page like the explanations about the pirates and Trading Guild and what-have-you.

 

[CyberTao]

I say ground work cause I believe it is related to the Lua Scripting functions of the game, which were worked on :u I believe anyways

 

[Viridis00]

I think it would be great if we can get our own modules for less savvy players to cobble together their own missions from presets, and more advanced tools for complex missions. Will Lua be able to accomplish that, or is Lua just going to be used for AI scripting?

I'd love if we could have some kind of Bounty or Treasure hunting type quests. Those pyramids need some use. For bounty hunting we'd need some kinds of settlements and populated space stations though. No fun in hunting a target when there's just one guy on an entire planet.

Delivery/smuggling Y-hole missions would be a cool prospect too.

 

[rece ktore leczo]

Yeah, missions!


I wonder if my comment would also get a like from Rickswan like almost every post in this thread

Edit: Woohoooo! Got it :D

 

[Visitor]

Events or some sort of quests are okay, but they should have to befit certain context. For example, for one player working with major corporation going to a certain sector on their turf to take pirates out may be a reasonable request and a normal job to perform. However, if some other player plans to play as an explorer, requests to take out pirates somewhere away would be plain silly and even disturbing the immersion.

So, I'd rather keep continuing with creation of different factions, single NPCs and so on and pin certain types of missions on them depending on their relations with other factions and NPCs, rather than make any globally-available 'get your own escort mission today!' quests.

Events as proposed I feel have little of a place to be in this game. Again, I'd simply rather have certain structures, items and so on randomly generated around the galaxy, with certain ways players can interact with them to different effects. This way events won't be completely preprogrammed things to take care of, but just another 'sandbox-y' set of toys meshing with the rest of the world in a fluid fashion.

However, I wouldn't mind certain events stemming from interaction between computer-controlled inhabitants of the galaxy. I don't see why there shouldn't be a notice that two factions nearly wiped each other out in a great battle and for some time, in sector x, y there may be several (quite wrecked but still) ships up for scavenging, repairs, whatever or that a star in sector x, y which previously was labeled as unstable now is at high risk of getting very dangerous with strong impulses of energy, solar flares etc so anyone in sectors these and those should consider going for a field trip and finishing their operations in the area if they don't plan to be obliterated.

Lastly, why is this in General Discussion and not Suggestions subforum? Gonna ask someone whether it should be moved.

 

[Rickswan]

For bounty hunting we'd need some kinds of settlements and populated space stations though. No fun in hunting a target when there's just one guy on an entire planet.

Delivery/smuggling Y-hole missions would be a cool prospect too.

Smuggling missions would be great! Better than Nerf herding anyway... It's a good sign that there is a laser pistol for players on-foot, because maybe that means they plan to expand the out-of-ship aspects of the game... I can imagine all manner of sci-fi weaponry (stun rays, blasters, lightsabers, etc.). Of course, you would need something to shoot at, which is one reason why I really like the idea of ships/stations/planets being populated with NPC's and alien life forms :D.

Events or some sort of quests are okay, but they should have to befit certain context. For example, for one player working with major corporation going to a certain sector on their turf to take pirates out may be a reasonable request and a normal job to perform. However, if some other player plans to play as an explorer, requests to take out pirates somewhere away would be plain silly and even disturbing the immersion.

So, I'd rather keep continuing with creation of different factions, single NPCs and so on and pin certain types of missions on them depending on their relations with other factions and NPCs, rather than make any globally-available 'get your own escort mission today!' quests.

However, I wouldn't mind certain events stemming from interaction between computer-controlled inhabitants of the galaxy. I don't see why there shouldn't be a notice that two factions nearly wiped each other out in a great battle and for some time, in sector x, y there may be several (quite wrecked but still) ships up for scavenging, repairs, whatever or that a star in sector x, y which previously was labeled as unstable now is at high risk of getting very dangerous with strong impulses of energy, solar flares etc so anyone in sectors these and those should consider going for a field trip and finishing their operations in the area if they don't plan to be obliterated.

I agree that the missions shouldn't interfere with the core exploration and creativity aspects of the game. Maybe there could be something like the "bounty boards" in Borderlands, where you can choose to do missions if you want, but otherwise you're free to explore.

Lastly, why is this in General Discussion and not Suggestions subforum? Gonna ask someone whether it should be moved.

Alrighty, if you think it's better suited to that subforum.

 

[ltmauve]

Well, maybe if there are "requests" (NPC coming up to you and saying "hey") they could be based on stats (like sectors discovered, pirate bases neutralized, faction fleet size, etc.) So someone who has discovered a lot of sectors might get a mission to find a derlict vessel, while someone who has neutralized a bunch of pirates would get a mission to do something similar.

The bounty board is a good idea too.

 

[jorgekorke]

+1. Those kind of operations and activities are essential to keep the players interested on the game, I totally support it.

Back when I was an owner of Illusive I used to make several PvE missions, encouraging teamwork, objectives and such things. Even made a small story around it, and the outcomes of those missions could make positive and negative impacts all over the server (for example, when the players failed to destroy a enemy base, random waves attacked all online players for a week. also, there was a event that the prize was giving every online player one resource drop-off).

You see, this gaming element is so strong and catchy that I've kept the server mostly on the Top 5 during my time, even having such weak provider (VeryGames was very frustrating on the time, rendered me a lot of lag, crashes and headaches).

 

[Killbot101]

YES! good thing to see that im not the only person in the forums that played spore.in starmade we have this HUGE universe,but the only things we can do right now is build,mine,craft and fight,missions and events could spice those things up,making them even more fun!

 

[Rickswan]

Well, maybe if there are "requests" (NPC coming up to you and saying "hey") they could be based on stats (like sectors discovered, pirate bases neutralized, faction fleet size, etc.) So someone who has discovered a lot of sectors might get a mission to find a derlict vessel, while someone who has neutralized a bunch of pirates would get a mission to do something similar.

The bounty board is a good idea too.

+1. Those kind of operations and activities are essential to keep the players interested on the game, I totally support it... You see, this gaming element is so strong and catchy that I've kept the server mostly on the Top 5 during my time, even having such weak provider (VeryGames was very frustrating on the time, rendered me a lot of lag, crashes and headaches).

YES! good thing to see that im not the only person in the forums that played spore.in starmade we have this HUGE universe,but the only things we can do right now is build,mine,craft and fight,missions and events could spice those things up,making them even more fun!

Most excellent news! So I managed to get the current dev build (starmade-build_20140514_235417) and guess what the first thing I saw was? An NPC, and he offers a quest! As of right now, he says "there are no quests available", but the mere fact that it's there...

So ltmauve, looks like you were pretty close about the NPC coming up to you and saying "hey" thing, and this system looks like it would work kinda like the bounty boards. You just find an NPC, walk up to them and say "hey." This doesn't mean anything is set in stone though, probably just a placeholder idea by the devs. I wonder what other methods of activating missions/events there could be.

I can seriously see the possibilities here for a mission editor though. Of course, one as in-depth as ArmA would be ideal, but Killbot101, credulo, you ever play Spore: Galactic Adventures? Even a mission editor that simple would be enough to expand the longevity of the game for me.

I took pics of everything new I found in the dev build, you can see them on this photobucket album. New blocks, new laser colors, NPC's, dialogue-trees... exciting stuff!

 

[Killbot101]

Most excellent news! So I managed to get the current dev build (starmade-build_20140514_235417) and guess what the first thing I saw was? An NPC, and he offers a quest! As of right now, he says "there are no quests available", but the mere fact that it's there...

So ltmauve, looks like you were pretty close about the NPC coming up to you and saying "hey" thing, and this system looks like it would work kinda like the bounty boards. You just find an NPC, walk up to them and say "hey." This doesn't mean anything is set in stone though, probably just a placeholder idea by the devs. I wonder what other methods of activating missions/events there could be.

I can seriously see the possibilities here for a mission editor though. Of course, one as in-depth as ArmA would be ideal, but Killbot101, credulo, you ever play Spore: Galactic Adventures? Even a mission editor that simple would be enough to expand the longevity of the game for me.

I took pics of everything new I found in the dev build, you can see them on this photobucket album. New blocks, new laser colors, NPC's, dialogue-trees... exciting stuff!

Yes,i play spore GA,i love that game,and i agree with you,a mission creator would be great,and with aliens coming,i can see myself making a mission about clearing a space station from hostile aliens.