Mission suggestion: long term defence contracts

[Zetoss]

As title indicates, I think it would be a nice addition to more regular single missions that you only deal with for a short time.

How this could work: You need a high reputation with a faction and you need to visit one of their stations, they could then ask you to give their own security force a helping hand long term. (Alternatively you could locate and chat with the one in charge of defending their station and make them an offer.) While this "contract" is in effect any of your assets that blow up anything hostile to the station in the area surrounding it will give you a small amount of credits and a little bit of reputation gain. If you personally shoot the hostiles the rewards could be significantly higher (gives the player reason to keep an eye out) but either way you should gain something regardless of which of your ships scores a kill.

I think it would be most ideal if any station you've signed this contract with just has a small status icon of some sort, having these as missions could clutter your mission log rather badly. This also eliminates the need to worry about maintaining or canceling the contract, it will permanently remain in effect as long as your reputation with the faction doesn't drop below a certain value, after all you're just "helping a friend" whenever you feel like it.

[LittleBird]

Nice idea.
But the contract should expire or the difficulty should rise. Otherwise you just build enough defense and have an unlimited credit source without any further doing.

[Zetoss]

Hmm, while it's true this could generate credits with no effort (after initial setup) in essence that's actually comparable to owning a station, I think it should be a matter of balancing so that it isn't very profitable instead. Don't forget it also carries quite the risk, the player would have to put million credit ships on the line to earn some meager pocket money... I don't think there's been much revealed in terms of some details yet but since the whole universe seems to be playing out like a big strategy game it stands to reason a station you're helping could very well just happen to be a target for a random giant Xenon fleet by pure coincidence. Of course I'm speculating a bit here but as ES said, they want "as little fakery as possible" so fairly optimistic this defence contract idea could simply blend in with the way the universe works, if the station never sees any powerful hostiles you don't really get anything substantial out of it either.

An additional little bonus, or maybe quirk, is that by getting really cozy with an ally you would both be able to profit greatly together even if you don't build a bunch of stations. This might appeal to some players who don't like station building but like having fleets since the fleets could be used to generate a bit of extra funds while they're not out on any grand voyage. Sort of carries the possibility of you accidentally turning your ally into the most powerful faction in the universe, could have some severe and really interesting effects!

There is of course a possibility that simply signing an official alliance with some faction instead of setting it up per station could be another way to go with this concept, would mean you get some pocket money whenever you or your assets provide assistance to any of their stations. Simpler but maybe some other factions would be very displeased with you for such a grand show of allegiance. Anyway just blurting out ideas here, I personally think signing up on a per station basis would be the most fun, could even involve a bit of persuasion somehow like their defence commander wants you to do him/her a personal favor of some kind or maybe you could offer your services right after the station has been badly damaged in a raid so they're willing to throw credits at almost anyone to stay alive...

[Seanchaidh]

I do think it would be interesting to have very long-term generic service missions for late-game. Defense is a good one. It makes sense to me that there might also be calls for long-term provision of wares through an exclusive contract. Keep a station stocked on Reinforced Metal Plating, for example. Get guaranteed a buyer who wants a certain amount of the ware over time, and as long as you make sure they don't run out, then you keep the contract.

My only hesitation with exclusive contracts would be that if they can be made with the player, they should also be made between NPCs. But if NPCs had a bunch of exclusive contracts between each other, the economy might become as impenetrable as, well, ours in the real world. And that might make it hard to make a living as an independent trader. Perhaps it would be too real.

[Zetoss]

--It makes sense to me that there might also be calls for long-term provision of wares through an exclusive contract.--My only hesitation with exclusive contracts would be that if they can be made with the player, they should also be made between NPCs. But if NPCs had a bunch of exclusive contracts between each other, the economy might become as impenetrable as, well, ours in the real world.--

Now this is a very interesting idea! And very valid hesitation... Then again, if we theoretically say two NPC stations have this contract going on, wouldn't that make sabotage finally have some impact? Of course this would force the player to use dirty tactics that probably won't be enjoyed by all players but on the other hand some players could really enjoy roleplaying an evil business genius...

On a more technical note I wonder if any ideas in this thread so far would be unreasonably hard to get working properly, just curious really. X4 is already going to be the best of everything forever (my crystal ball knows X4 will be the ultimate space game) but suggesting even more little stuff like this in hope that an extra idea or two could become reality is fun!

[Axeface]

Good idea, I have always hated how when you accept a defence misison the enemies just suddenly appear, 1 by 1, through a gate. Like they were just waiting for you to accept it... it just CANT be like that again in X4.
Long term contracts is a great way to make them more interesting.

Nice idea.
But the contract should expire or the difficulty should rise. Otherwise you just build enough defense and have an unlimited credit source without any further doing.

Disagree, it should be possible to just leave assets defending permenantly, why not? You are using assets, you have to get those assets - it's all gameplay.
And anyway, in x4 races are going to expand. You might have your little defence fleet sitting there for a long time swatting pirates, and then suddenly a Xenon fleet shows up.

[Karvat]

It's a good idea, even if you put your fleet to defend the position, it's still better than making enemies appear from the gate

[PowerPC603]

Basically the X-games already have such a system in place: police licenses.

They must be bought and become an inventory item instead of a mission but the way it works, it works exactly as you described.
When you have an Argon police license, you get paid for every ship you destroy which is an enemy of the Argon and you kill it in Argon space, and the payment is based on which ship-type you destroy.

So it shouldn't be that hard to ceonvert it to a mission instead of an inventory item.
And adjust it to function for a specific station or ship instead of an entire race.

[j.harshaw]

We have such a mission, but no assurance that it'll make it to the finish line. Mission is called Area Security and is unlocked by having a police license.

When ships or stations are attacked, they send out distress calls, and these distress calls are used by the factions to direct their patrols. The mission taps into these distress calls and, if such a call is sent out in your vicinity (in the same sector, i think, but not sure. Been a while since i last looked at it in detail.), any ships hostile to the faction that issued the mission in the area where an attack occurred are marked by the mission. If you defeat these ships, a reward is paid, and you go on your merry way.

Three things don't look so good at the moment, though:

1. If you accept the mission while no attack is happening, nothing happens. Could feel like a bug.
2. If you spot an attack happening in space that is not policed by the issuing faction, you don't get mission guidance since they're not responsible for that area.
3. There's no way to complete the mission.

[Vandragorax]

@j.harshaw - sounds like a pretty good start.

I would however suggest the mission be timed, and be more like a blockade so like "Defeat the enemies blockading X sector before Y time is up". Then the mission would simply have a timer on it, and we'd get paid at the end after clearing out all the ships blockading the sector.

It could also escalate to bigger and bigger battles, so once you complete a Tier1 blockade fight, it could ask if you want to participate in a Tier2, throwing larger fleets or higher class ships at you.

Eventually it would be possible to have a huge fleet battle just by constantly tagging along with the consequent missions.

At any point the player could decide they had enough and cancel the mission chain, whereby they'd have to start again if they wanted to experience the same thing next time.

Sort of like a "wave defence" mode, completely under the player's control to cancel in between any wave, if they didn't feel their fleet was up to the challenge.

It would IMHO be a superb way of manufacturing big fights in whatever sector we desire to defend and a way to earn credits if we were to play cleverly with good tactics.

To avoid exploiting, and to have some down side to failure, the enemy fleet would remain in the sector blockading it (destroying all ships that try to enter - but crucially NOT attacking any stations - only knocking out defence turrets etc.) for as long as the mission timer is active. Even if the player cancels the mission, the blockading fleet would still be in the sector causing havok until the timer reached 0 when they would leave of their own accord.

[A5PECT]

To avoid exploiting, and to have some down side to failure, the enemy fleet would remain in the sector blockading it (destroying all ships that try to enter - but crucially NOT attacking any stations - only knocking out defence turrets etc.) for as long as the mission timer is active. Even if the player cancels the mission, the blockading fleet would still be in the sector causing havok until the timer reached 0 when they would leave of their own accord.

Enemies should be allowed to destroy stations in addition to ships, and there shouldn't be a hard failure condition.

For every asset you fail to defend, money and reputation are deducted from the mission reward. If you let enough assets be destroyed, it would go into negative values i.e. you lose money and reputation at the end of the mission.

[Nanook]

...
3. There's no way to complete the mission.

Why not? We had these mission types in X3, namely 'hold position' and 'defend against Xenon' (or something like that). The mission completed when all the current Xenon attackers were killed, either by the player or the local armed forces. I don't see why that wouldn't work in X4 for other factions. Or am I missing something (which is quite possible )?

[LittleBird]

We have such a mission, but no assurance that it'll make it to the finish line. Mission is called Area Security and is unlocked by having a police license.

When ships or stations are attacked, they send out distress calls, and these distress calls are used by the factions to direct their patrols. The mission taps into these distress calls and, if such a call is sent out in your vicinity (in the same sector, i think, but not sure. Been a while since i last looked at it in detail.), any ships hostile to the faction that issued the mission in the area where an attack occurred are marked by the mission. If you defeat these ships, a reward is paid, and you go on your merry way.

Three things don't look so good at the moment, though:

1. If you accept the mission while no attack is happening, nothing happens. Could feel like a bug.
2. If you spot an attack happening in space that is not policed by the issuing faction, you don't get mission guidance since they're not responsible for that area.
3. There's no way to complete the mission.

Why Area Security? It's not a generic "secure the area" mission. It's a concrete thread and a concrete task: "Ward off attackers"
If a ship/faction is under attack, the attack stops if all attackers are destroyed or are on the run --> mission completed.

For point 2. The player is allways a freelancer. in X. So receiving distress calls and the mission to help the ship/fabric should be possible even without faction, police licence, what ever. One way to do this is making 2 kinds of distress calls. The oficial sends to police and military. And the inoficial sends to every ship in range like a SOS.

[j.harshaw]

Oh cool! Discussion continued! Got worried for a bit there.

To clarify: the intention was a long-term defence mission, a lot like what Zetoss proposed in the OP, but instead of working for a station, you would be working for the faction. Thought of it as turning your police radio on with that radio tuned to the issuing faction's emergency frequency. So if:

- you have a police license with a faction (and the requisite reputation to have such a license),
- and you accept the mission,
- and you have the mission active,
- and you are in a sector that's policed by the issuing faction,
- and an attack occurs in that sector,

you get directed to protect whatever's attacked, be it a ship or a station. If another attack happens when you're done, you're directed to that one, and the next one, et cetera until you decide you don't want to actively do the mission anymore and either deactivate it or abort. Does sometimes turn into the gauntlet that Vandragorax described if you happen to be in a sector that's being invaded.

For every asset you fail to defend, money and reputation are deducted from the mission reward. If you let enough assets be destroyed, it would go into negative values i.e. you lose money and reputation at the end of the mission.

Interesting idea. Will consider.

So receiving distress calls and the mission to help the ship/fabric should be possible even without faction, police licence, what ever.

Of course, you're free to do what you like with or without having accepted the mission. This is pretty mid-game stuff after you've built up a reputation with a faction, or factions.

Interesting to note that the confusion my little post seems to have caused seems to underline the problems with missions like this, though. i won't have the luxury of explaining in this much detail in-game!

[MegaJohnny]

I don't really have any comments besides that I'm really glad this has been developed and hope it ends up in the game, at release or otherwise. It sounds like a great alternative to enemy-spawning combat missions.

[Seanchaidh]

For every asset you fail to defend, money and reputation are deducted from the mission reward. If you let enough assets be destroyed, it would go into negative values i.e. you lose money and reputation at the end of the mission.

This would make sense if you're assuming responsibility for protecting something, but it seems like there should be missions that entail less commitment as well; help defend X as opposed to guarantee defense of X.

[Vandragorax]

An escalating reward based on how much you manage to actually save in the sector sounds good, but I'm against making the player PAY (with a negative mission reward lol) that's just counter-intuitive and doesn't make a lot of sense since you were there trying to help them defend, no matter how much of a bad job you did