mission variety

[darkroastbeans]

I've been playing the E:M demo today, and I must say I'm very impressed. I could never get into the X games, but E:M is a lot of fun. The demo only seemed to have a limited variety of missions however, roughly five that I could choose from. Is this typical of the full game, or is it just a limitation on the demo? Thanks!

[Vice]

Glad you're enjoying the game. The starting location in the demo (Sapphire) is a peaceful system with just a few options to help get you started (no combat or other more challenging objectives). There are a couple dozen different 'types' of contracts involving various factions and objectives depending on your location (ie planetside versus open space) and reputation (your civilian rating). You can also complete various objectives on your own terms without being bound by a contract and you can also take on military missions in combat zones which focus on combat objectives.

[Maarschalk]

Hi darkroastbeans, welcome to the forum and hopefully the game.....darkroastbeans can be a tempting call sign for other players in Multiplay.....:P

[Taurondir]

Did a few searches, but didnt find anything, so Im asking here, also, I only just bought the game, so im not aware if any of this exixts already.

Has the suggestion of player "scripted" missions ever cropped up, ie how complex it might be or what might be involved, I mean.

Im not saying that a complex script engine be made, I was just wondering about "filters" to current missions, that can trigger failures or cause another mission to chain directly, like killing a bad guy ship triggers a new mission to get/destroy his escape pod/cargo, which could trigger information about a cargo ship with contraband cargo that needs to be stopped/destroyed, etc etc.

A mission that involves "6 possible enemy ships" could end prematurely when the ship with the leader is destroyed, and the rest run away, or could have a trigger that causes an emergency mission that pushes the player decision to either abandon this one or rush it (would need a timer system i guess though).

Anyway, was just wondering, as great "missions" could be swapped and modded by players to either put on their own servers, or put into general circulation.

[Marvin]

The main quest can be altered, however, that is linear with no consequence for failing the quest missions.

True. And I'm not sure how hard it would be for Vice to add "divergence" (IF THEN, ELSE) to the Quest subroutine. But, what's worse, it seems my old, addled brain can no longer come up with a good story line for a new quest.

[Ravenfeeder]

If you are on a mission, in MP, and your lead gets killed, then, the mission is failed. To find out who is the lead on an MP mission, hit the tilde key, and whoever is top of the list is the mission leader.

One of the attractions of ME, and the other Evochron games, is that they are not mission dependent, as most other games are. It can take a while to get your head around that, but, once you do understand that, you realise that EM is completely open for you to do your own missions - you can do anything you want, mine, explore, trade, fight, in MP you can join a clan and do clan co-op missions, or just join in with whoever is online, and do co-op missions with them, you can even hitch a ride with a more experienced player as their gunner, or, persuade someone else to act as your gunner - the possibilities are very broad - enjoy!

[Taurondir]

My main reasoning behind a mission "script", even something simple, is that it allows players that want to run a server for friends set up the equivalent of "quests", so when they do get togheter they can do missions where the parameters are long term, have chained events that could take hours, and are more unpredictable.

You can freeform the game anytime, and at times you join up - or even be forced to split up - to complete a co-op sequence of events.

It would be awesome if one day we could all contribute snippets that get put into a new galaxy, say rechable by special gates, especially if this new galaxy was modded regularly. If we had 1000 players and each player contributed one "cool mission" per year that ended up in the new galaxy, thats still three scripted per day ON TOP OF freefrom gameplay.

It would be very interesting to see.

Oh yea, and it would kick Freelancer's ass, as I still dont think is missions scriptable

[Marvin]

As with any scripted scenario, you need to start with a ... script. Or, if it's to be a group project, a three-page treatment would probably be acceptable. Something similar to what screenwriters usually submit to the studio suits before getting the go-ahead to write the full script.

[Atollski]

Scripting is a great idea, but I imagine choosing what data/events could be scripted in multiplayer will be a tough decision. For instance, using a script to spawn hostile ships could be used to ruin another player's experience.

That said, a full blown scripted campaign could be epic entertainment and recreate some of those situations that make this game so amazing. Running out of fuel when in a star's gravitational pull or being unable to escape the enemy because your engines are damaged...

Maybe the If...Then...Else stuff could be handled through a scripting language like Lua?

[Marvin]

For instance, using a script to spawn hostile ships could be used to ruin another player's experience.

Picking a hostile system for any portion of the script will usually result in a spawning of numerous Reds.

[Maarschalk]

Hi Taurondir, welcome to the game and forum. Hope to see you out there some time....

[Taurondir]

Forgive me if it sounds like im try to infer that I know what im talking about from a programming view, im just here to swap ideas I have fun that way.

As far as "unfair missions", id have a "resouce counter". the more you add to a mission the higher the counter, so if you try to spawn 10 enemies, thats 10*XX, with XX being a point value assigned to the threat of those ships, so this would reflect in the bounty given out and maybe a "threat level" of the mission.

As far as people trying to make missions to grief players, thats why we have save and restore, plus we could always have a rating system so a missions could be graded from say 1-5 stars, and people could always pull down and install only missions they personally have tried out.

Since this game is not a MMO where people really can cause permanent "real" grief anyway, I doubt we'd see major issues.

For the record, a great mission isnt necessarily one with lots of twists and turns, it could simply be one where the coords to Fulcrum jump you were assigned, ended up putting you smack in the middle of an unknown asteroid field being used as an enemy base, or being told to escort a cargo ship that instead of paying you, fires a volley of missiles and takes off, or a random event pulls you out of a Fulcrum jump cause the drive blows up (no jumping till repaired) and leaves you stranded in hostile territory for a while, this could be ones that could be made just ripping variables out of memory and changing values (im thinking anyway)

Whatever "mission variables" access we ever get to, im sure we would all get rather creative with it and make the universe a much more fun place to explore.


[Edited on 12-8-2010 by Taurondir]

[Marvin]

... if you try to spawn 10 enemies, thats 10*XX, with XX being a point value assigned to the threat of those ships, so this would reflect in the bounty given out and maybe a "threat level" of the mission.

In EM, the higher your rank, the more you're paid for a contract. Same goes for the contract's difficulty.

[Taurondir]

I had come across that, but I think what was meant is that when a mission is scripted by a person, the difficulty is set by the mission storyline, rather then a self adjusting formula.

The game engine can still decide the AI strenght in say the dogfight - better AI are more accurate - and that can increase dificulty on top of sheer numbers, hence boost the reward as well.

[Marvin]

... when a mission is scripted by a person, the difficulty is set by the mission storyline, rather then a self adjusting formula.

Actually, the difficulty is set by the location. For example:

-1
Objective=2
LocationX=-3
LocationY=0
LocationZ=2
Contract=0

In the above example, the location is Sapphire. A pilot's rating in that system is "Good" ... therefore, contracts will be easy. For more difficult contracts, you need to order your pilot to do contracts where the global rating is more difficult.