This is a re-post of what I posted in my guilds message board in response to Obsidians request for PvE ideas.

I've been thinking about this kind of mission since I first felt Vendetta Space beneath me.
The idea has sort of snowballed, and my original typed idea was atleast twice as long, but I shortened it and simplified it somewhat.

Also, I've modded the idea a bit to include a way to clear out over-hive-populated systems in case the players can't manage without gamecode assistance.
This sort of mission should obviously not be available all the time. I'm thinking that certain conditions must be met:
1) A system is over-populated by the Hive
2) No "mystic wormhole" is allready active
3) A large enough guild (50 members?) is looking for guild missions.

---Mission text: (Feel free to exchange Nyrius with any system, "trader fleet" with "fighter wing" or whatever and TPG with any faction.)
2 minutes ago we got this transmission from the TPG trader fleet in Nyrius:

** Voice transmission transcript **
Plea-- hel-! We are --der attack!
Large ships of an unkno-- origin have entered Nyrius and is a----king stations.
Between ----ions we ha-- had reports that the Hive is a--o being attacked, so we have no idea who is --ing this!

This is the TPG trad-- Bol-- R--na requesting assista--- from anyone in the area! Ple---!
They are sen--ng out fighters from their la-ger --ips now.
W--t! They're not shootin- -- us!
They're attatc---- to the hull! They're burning thr--h!
CO-- QUICK! MAYDAY MA--AY! We are being bo--ded by an unknown force!
*** TRANSMISSION CORRUPTED -- PLEASE RESEND ***
*No response: Target out of reach

Will you assist the trader fleet?
[ACCEPT]

Mission control:
Go to Nyrius right away and assist the TPG trader fleet from the attack.
From what little we can see of the transmission the ship is under attack from a major force, so you may want to bring some friends...

--
Then:
--

Upon searching around in Nyrius a few ships (large, like a Queen, alien-looking) is discovered in [random empty sector], and all Hive activity is vanished from all of Nyrius.
When approached the ships jump out, but not until atleast ONE player is close enough to see where they jump to.
Following them there, they jump out again, save for one that stays behind to engage the group/guild/whatnot.
You can stay and engage or jump after the ones that left. If the one that stays behind is not destroyed, it will follow the players into the new target sector.
This repeats until there is only one left, and they should be really hard to beat.
Each kill rewards substantial TPG standing and financial reward. They also drop alot of cargo.
(If all players die so the attacker can follow it's buddies to the new target sector and they can all jump from there without anyone being within 1000 meters the mission ends.)

At this point it heads to an empty sector and flees towards nothingness.
When it is really far out there (6000m is far enough?) it engages it's jump drives.
[unidentified 4] has jumped to [UNKNOWN SYSTEM B-2]

And TADAAA! The guild/group/whatever has a new wormhole, only it's not marked and it's pretty hard to find.
At the other end there should be a new gray system, with no stations, not even the return wormhole is marked and the roids hold vast quantities of [UNKNOWN ORE] that sells for a whole lot.
The downside, ofcourse, is that theese roids belong to the ultra-agressive aliens...
After about a month the wormhole phases out and is no longer available.

No matter how much I think about it I can't shake the idea of a Minbari Sharlin Class Warcruiser out of my head.
See this page for pictures, if you're not a B5 nut like me:
http://hyperspace.isnnews.net/minb/index.html#sharlin

This is a very cool idea. Exactly the type of storyline mission we need. However it does seem like it would take a lot to implement, probably wouldn't be viable until the "exploration" expansion came out. Then again, the devs are always full of surprises.

I really like that part about "one ship stays behind, the others jump ahead.. repeat until there is only one left." An extra level of difficulty would be that if you take too long to destroy the one ship, the rest of the fleet would be gone by the time you get there.

Something like this could also be done in the current framework of the game, leading to a hive queen or leviathan.

Couple questions: what if one player stays behind to engage the ship, and the rest jump ahead to follow the fleet? What does the fleet do if some random players not from the group stumble across it?

Mad props, Demonen.

P.S. I also love the idea of one group or guild having access to a secret wormhole. Perhaps it would be marked on all of the guild players' HUDs, but other players could follow them through the wormhole. To non guild members it would show up like a secret wormhole from the old universe, but there would be no hints pointing to it, so it would be really hard to find unless you followed someone who had it marked.

Players who just stumble across it would be allegable to join the fight, and it would be up to the guild "owning" the mission to pay them.

If they jump ahead and engage the bulk of the enemy fleet they would get attacked by all of them at once and would most likely not survive it.
The whole idea of jumping around like that is to make it take endurance to keep up with.