While botting with a lower level player, it is frustrating with the lack of freedom in which bots you can attack based on the advance combat mission, beginner combat mission, the group leader's levels and group member's levels.

I suggest that there should be a general Combat Practice mission that will give exp and bonus money no matter what type of Hive bot it is. Of course depending on which type of Hive bot you kill your exp gain and bonus money will vary.

For example, you're hunting for queens and you have a variety of assaults, killing an assault will give you the basic exp with which ever weapon you used to kill it with but also give you a percentage of the initial exp gain as an overall exp gain and a small money bonus. Such as +400 Light Weapons with +100/+0/+100/+100/+100 and 1000 credits or in a scenario with collectors it could be +20 Heavy Weapons +5/+5/+0/+5/+5 and 100 credits.

The exp can either be given to the person that dealt the final blow or copied equally among all group members that hit the same target.

Ideas?

That would make it easier when you nuke levis

I tend to agree with Surbius. We see many new players asking about the combat practice missions on 100, and streamlining them might be a good idea. I also suggest including the word Hive in the mission title, " Hive combat practice " perhaps .

Might be an idea to emphasise in the mission description that the mission does not end , but that it can be taken and left as the player feels like it.

In the design wiki, Incarnate mentioned replacing the anti-Hive combat training missions with something more fun and in-universe. Perhaps he has more detailed thoughts that he might share?

This is a good idea, I like the concept of a third practice mission that is designed for a less restrictive list of bots.

I don't understand the commerce/mining exp though. In fact, it strikes me as a TGFT style of joke. Mining exp for shooting assaults, who ever heard such...

yeah, you can only mine traders

Well, you can "mine" collector bots and transports. They're just like traders, except not. Still, if we'll be handing out Trade exp twice (once for the kill, and again when the loot is sold), there must be an immediate amendment to the nations' taxation laws to allow double taxation, or a taxation tax.

After all, if you're getting two slices of pie, Big Brother needs a bite from each. How else can he afford to hand out such generous portions?

(The circular logic is deliberate.)

Surbius, first of all, Brilliant! I like the idea of a less restrictive bot hunting mission that lends itself to groups of all skill levels.

I don't know how unrealistic it is, but what if the XP gained per player was dependent on the percentage of damage they had inflicted? So of a typical queen's 2000XP, 3 players could divvy it up 20/50/30(%) as it happened.

I'm not sure I like the idea of getting anything but combat/weapons XP, but I am reasonably sure it was a joke...

-R IBA 3.14rat

They should just get rid of the silly missions. If you off a Hive bot, you get XP for it. If free-bus flying n00b wants to take out a mess of assaults or pop a queen, more power (and XP) to him.

More the point, there should be variation in the combat practice line-up. Should Combat Practice only be hive bots? Shouldn't there be a pirate hunt version or an easier "catch the runner" version of Border Patrol for beginning players, something to spice things up? Don't get me wrong, I did the Basic and moved on to skirmishes and Border Patrol just like everyone else, but it was incredibly boring. If you want people to stick around past the trial, you need to have variety beyond this stuff and eventually giving up and looking directly for PvP. If PvP is all the game will ever end up being from beginning to end, the marketing will be limited.