Well I was trying to think about a way to make them harder yet consistent, and what I've come up with is this:

When posted (or ideally when taken, but I figure that's impossible to do) an escort mission checks to see how many ion storms will be in its path. Then it will include X number of bot attacks at wormholes so that X + # of ion storms is around some decided number like ten. So...

If a mission is posted that has 3 ion storms in it's jump, and our magic number is 10, then that mission will also include 6-8 bot attacks (outside of storms).

If it had 6 ion storms it would include 3-5 bot attacks outside of storms. This way you get a given amount of action each mission without precise repetition.

Discuss?

The problem I see with this, is that multiple escort missions run through the same wh's... Thus if one person takes an escort mission the bots that are spawned at the wh will cause troubles for many other missions, not just the one just taken. Plus, think about the bot overflows here, if you don't kill all the bots the mission created what happens to them? Are we going to get hundreds of unrats sitting at every wh again? Please don't!!

Anyhow, my solution to this dynamic escort problem is this: During each escort mission have 1 of the transport ships in your group get lost. Lets say they have a computer malfunction that jumps them to an empty sector with guardians or assaults or unrats or something. The mission computer would notify the player of the situation and tell them where the bot went. This gives the player a choice path, they can continue escorting the rest of the voy to the final destination, or split off to search for the missing ship. You should tie profit into this, lets say the ship that gets lost carries the most profitable widgets... so if you let him die you get normal (low) pay for the escort missions, but if you choose to go save the idiot you will make lots of $$$.

This solution would do two things, spice up the excitement of the escort missions (something the ionstorm free missions really need) and give the player a choice in the mission. Having to make a split second decision like this during the mission will only make it funner IMHO.

Okay I like your idea a lot better. But in mine, the bots could only attack their voy, and then jump out as soon as they're gone... this way they wouldn't harm other voys or clog whs

Or we let players do the pirating. ARR.

You'd think after about the 30th escort mission, they'd learn to set their navroute correctly.

I'm for things in the game to be dealt wtih as logically as suits. Why would the hive suddenly attack a convoy less often if there were more storms in it's way. How would the hive know where the convoy is going, and precicely how many storms are in it's path? For that matter, how does the convoy know?

If the problem is that Escort Missions don't have enough random encounters with enemies, then why not just add a few fleets of pirates or whatever to fly around the universe and randomly attack whatever they encounter? Heck, it could be a mission taken at Corvus, that uses the same mechanisms as the Escort Missions. Fly around such and such path, blasting every red dot you see. And maybe one day, collect their cargo for a prize.

"Fly around such and such path, blasting every red dot you see."

I thought that was the point of VO?

I thought statements aren't supposed to end with question marks?

I agree with Mynt. One would think that after a couple voys hitting the same storm the convoy would at least *attempt* to fly around the storm. Instead, they fly right through it even if the previous two or three voys met their untimely demise in that storm.

I'd rather see more intelligent voys before making their lives more difficult. Someone mentioned in another thread that the player is always referred to as a "veteran". So why doesn't the player pick the route to the destination? It'd make sense.

It might screw with the way payment works right now, but perhaps only pay the player for the "minimal" course-correction -- if the voy only needs to take a one-jump detour to go around storms, only pay for that one jump extra (ie, three sectors in a system rather than the five or six the player might have taken just to be absolutely certain), and maybe add a slight bonus for voys that arrive "ahead" of schedule. I remember the original version of the Escort missions gave an estimated travel time. Could we bring that back?

Well, as they are right now, convoy missions are fairly boring without ion storms. Since a fair number of the missions do not include storms on their routes, I think until it changes we should look for ways to make it more difficult/exciting.

I think out of about 100 or more escort missions I've taken in the last week and a half, more than two-thirds of them had at least one storm on the route, and probably more than 10% had two storms or more.

I think storms are plenty prevalent, and they are still more annoying than exciting. You might not be taking the escort missions through stormy space. Try the Rhamus/Dantia/Pyronis area.

I guess a lot of it does have to do with the systems the convoy goes through, I did three throughout Itani space and only one had an ion storm. I much preferred the stress of holding off apu techs while trying to keep track of my voys over the straight jumping.

Just took two more in Sedina/Odia/Latos/Azek, and had one ion storm that didn't have any bots.