Forums » Suggestions
Escorts
Seeing that escorts/convoys are the main form of transporting large sums of goods from one station to another and one of the top missions to earn credits by. I would like to suggest making escorts more of a mission by which the player knows what they are getting in return of a successful convoy trip instead of luck/roll of the dice that the current escorts seem to run off of.
It follows like this, the mission board has a mission called Escorting, it operates much in the same way as the Trade Guild missions do. It drops down into several types of escorting missions and each type of mission has several of its own missions which are the actual missions. Each mission tells you the destination, the number of ships in the convoy, the cargo being delivered (optional based on the type of escorting job such as top secret equipment or information), and the payout (may vary based on the players levels/experience).
Further details for the various types of escort missions go as follows. Resupply for the stocking of essentials for stations in need. Shipping Orders for stations or actual players that order goods from one station and require it to be shipped to another; this particular mission opens up the possibilities of players ordering from stations and having it shipped to another station at a higher cost than picking it up themselves. Trade Convoy for either a station funded or player funded convoy to ship large sums of goods to one station for profit; again more possibilities for players to spend a little more to have cargo delivered to a station for profit in much shorter time than doing it themselves. Top Secret, which would probably be for the high level players meaning among the highest payout per mission, for the transporting of unknown cargo to an unknown destination until the mission is taken; the only available information is the payout and what type of escort job it is. Smuggling for the transporting of illegal goods with promise of a decently high payout; this can be station or player started missions, however this particular mission may only be seen through grayspace stations under the actual Escort Mission name or it would be available by talking to NPCs since it makes little roleplaying sense for smuggling missions to be out in the open for all to see.
Whether the Devs have already made up their minds about escorts I don't know (I hope not.) but I was brainstorming this and was getting tired of random payouts from 6k to 960k (of course the payouts were proportional in the sense to the distance to travel with the convoy) seeing that payouts for a one wormhole convoy can yield 6k to 480k.
That is my 2 credits worth on escorts and what they could become.
Criticisms/suggestions?
It follows like this, the mission board has a mission called Escorting, it operates much in the same way as the Trade Guild missions do. It drops down into several types of escorting missions and each type of mission has several of its own missions which are the actual missions. Each mission tells you the destination, the number of ships in the convoy, the cargo being delivered (optional based on the type of escorting job such as top secret equipment or information), and the payout (may vary based on the players levels/experience).
Further details for the various types of escort missions go as follows. Resupply for the stocking of essentials for stations in need. Shipping Orders for stations or actual players that order goods from one station and require it to be shipped to another; this particular mission opens up the possibilities of players ordering from stations and having it shipped to another station at a higher cost than picking it up themselves. Trade Convoy for either a station funded or player funded convoy to ship large sums of goods to one station for profit; again more possibilities for players to spend a little more to have cargo delivered to a station for profit in much shorter time than doing it themselves. Top Secret, which would probably be for the high level players meaning among the highest payout per mission, for the transporting of unknown cargo to an unknown destination until the mission is taken; the only available information is the payout and what type of escort job it is. Smuggling for the transporting of illegal goods with promise of a decently high payout; this can be station or player started missions, however this particular mission may only be seen through grayspace stations under the actual Escort Mission name or it would be available by talking to NPCs since it makes little roleplaying sense for smuggling missions to be out in the open for all to see.
Whether the Devs have already made up their minds about escorts I don't know (I hope not.) but I was brainstorming this and was getting tired of random payouts from 6k to 960k (of course the payouts were proportional in the sense to the distance to travel with the convoy) seeing that payouts for a one wormhole convoy can yield 6k to 480k.
That is my 2 credits worth on escorts and what they could become.
Criticisms/suggestions?
I'd agree with that as an overall structure Surbius, certainally for the legal escort missions. The smuggling missions would be welcome too, though prhaps under a different mechanism to allow faction loss if one was caught .
I have mentioned before that pay should be based on distance,risk , combat and a smaller percentage of the cargo.
I agree with everything there. I think vets don't have much to do when it comes to missions. Escorts really are a roll of the dice. It has been suggested before for us to see the payouts. i would definitely like to see more types of escorts. i would like them to be dangerous. i would like to see NPC Pirates, but that is another thread.