Istvan's Update:
A New Mission System -- With a Dash of
Spice!
A few columns ago, I outlined four
major components of the Military system presently in development. Those components are
Building Damage, the Military Flight Registry, Territorial Conflict, and Privateering. Now
that a provisional form of building damage is in the game, a lot of development time has
been going into an important component that I haven't yet described in detail: Military
Missions. I'll describe in this column why this is a vital subsystem for enabling the
Military Flight Registry.
Not long after I joined the Jumpgate team at NetDevil, it became very clear to me that
Jumpgate had a big problem. PvP might be a lot of fun, and very important to the design of
the game, but there was little way for PvPers to make money. Miners and haulers make money
easily, but the PvPers in the game tend to lose money because of deaths. PvPers need the
miners and haulers to keep up the economy so there's gear to support PvP, but the PvPers
can't really afford to pay other players for these services: it costs too much just to
keep your ship equipped. This problem might be the biggest fundamental weakness in
Jumpgate's original design.
The potential solution to this problem evolved slowly as other ideas came together. The
present plan is to use the new military gameplay to attract PvP pilots to serve their
factions, rewarding them with both solid RP reasons to fight each other and payments for
doing so. The intent is to dramatically increase the income of the PvP pilot in factional
service. The foremost method to get this income into the hands of the PvP pilots will be
the Military Missions.
The Military Missions will be accessed from within the existing mission computer, but only
by pilots who have selected the Military registry. Interface changes to make this possible
have been my major behind-the-scenes focus for several patches. The original mission
system is complex as it is, and the military plans double what the mission system has to
do for us. Because the free switching between Civilian and Honor Guard registries has
caused such trouble for Jumpgate PvP, the Military system must be more stringent: pilots
choosing to play as factional Military will sign on for a "Tour of Duty" which
will require a limited number of Military Missions before it is complete. During a tour, a
pilot will not be permitted to change registry. When the tour ends, pilots will
automatically be switched back to Civilian status, but may of course sign back on to
Military to continue a career. Military pilots may continue to choose Civilian missions of
interest to them, but tho!
se will not count toward completion of one's Tour of Duty. Besides the planned lucrative
payments for the Military missions themselves, new medal sets are planned to reflect tours
and missions completed. Military Missions and completion of tours will thus be the
regulating mechanism both for transferring in and out of the Military registry and for
accessing its privileges.
The Military Mission types are being specifically designed to arrange increased risk of
engagement among PvP pilots. This goal is the main point of Military service: the
expectation is that pilots wishing to play out the factional conflicts inherent in the
Jumpgate story will be playing as Military, not Civilian. The missions will also change
their character on based on the factional relationships at the time each mission is
generated and offered. Therefore, if two factions are currently friendly, missions from
one targeting the other will be somewhat covert in character. As two factions become more
hostile, available mission options will shift to be more overtly antagonistic and
hazardous.
Current plans include at least seven types of Military Missions.
- Courier (Transport) missions will have value, particularly in peacetime when more
challenging missions may not be available.
- Military Patrol missions can be targetted to pay pilots for flipping home space beacons
back to the "correct" color. When there is a hostile faction to target, Patrols
can be assigned to flip beacons in enemy space, putting pilots more directly in harm's
way.
- Scout missions for Military use are being designed to interface with a planned military
intel system, so a pilot on a scout mission may act as a relay for local sector data.
Intel from the system will be available to factional Military pilots of rank, to help in
planning impromptu raids.
- A parallel for the Civilian Cargo runs will pay Military pilots to deliver specific
equipment to home stations. Yes, this will pay pilots directly for station stocking, and
even help define what is most needed.
- Mining is about as nonmilitary as you can get. A Military equivalent will send pilots to
steal the vital ores from other faction's ore depot buildings.
- Espionage missions will send pilots into harm's way in other factions' space: get in,
get your data, get out. Don't get downed.
- Combat missions will resurrect a feature many pilots may recall from beta: seek out and
destroy hostile faction Military pilots. You are only in the Military because you want
some PvP action, remember? Well, this is it.
Further Military Mission types are still being considered. There's only room for one more
type within the existing architecture, and I'm looking at ways to add subtypes to give us
plenty of variety. A candidate at the moment is a type of Raid mission to send pilots into
hostile space to sabotage or destroy buildings. I would very much like to incorporate
Escort (multiplayer) missions, as an enhancement for all other types, but the logistics of
that sort of thing is not simple. I experimented with missions assigned inflight many
months ago, when the Ore Depot buildings began to assign ore delivery missions. That
system proved successful in implementation and I hope to capitalize on what was learned in
building it to provide more flexibility as the Military mission system evolves.
The implementation of this system should provide several things Jumpgate needs: spice for
our tired old mission system, an access tool that will go hand in hand with the addition
of the Military registry, a way to focus PvP gameplay and RP with other PvPers, and a
clear justification for and means to deliver greater income for the PvP pilots. The wait
has not been short, and I have considerable work left to do, but my fervent hope is that
the results will be well worth it.
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