Mission ideas

[bszlrd]

Got the idea for this thread from mike5 from IRC, we were talking about some ideas for missions.

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This, what if you could spawn an outpost and make mission more "planet-centric?"
"Our outpost for {Geoseysmic study|ecc...} on {System unhabited} is running low on {something}" "Be careful to have enough fuel to come back"
"There are rumors on a ship near {planet} that drop {equipment type} to escape gravity"
"a combat between {faction1} and {faction2} occured in orbit around {planet}, there's plenty of scrap there"
Espionage: "We ({faction1}) need info on military base on {planet} and we need to acquire them" ...a kind of "outpost" mission...
And obviously: "Please blast this enemy outpost!!!" :D ...but then you need Bomb and a way to drop them :/
and the winner is: Archeological missions ;)

My notes from earlier (lotlot of these are mentioned above, and there are lots of similarities in them anyway. Some might almost work as a SAR flavor for example)
• SAR alternative: deliveries to and from tiny settlement on the ground. Research installatios, shady smugglers, etc. Would need rough landing. Could be recuring.
• SAR alternative? salvage mission: Bringing and returning a salvage crew to a wreck. Would need a certain amount of free cargo space. Pay could be a % of the loot, so if you have a small ship that has small cargo space, then the payout might be smaller too.
• Looking for somebody. Taxi-like, but with a chain of stops. Maybe even spotting the target ship (if it is a ship).
○ Alternative: you have to find a certain ship in a system and report it's location back. Possibly you have to land on the same base and wait for your passenger, who's gonna plant a tracking device on it or steal something from it. Could result in the ship noticing and attacking you.
• Expedition - taxi like. Some scientist, surveyors or so want to survey possible sites for an operation, want to do some research in an area. Player provides transportation of personel and equipment to the area, then fullfils requests from them. General in-orbit survey, then possibly checking out multiple areas on the ground.
○ Might be chained: they are looking for a place that fits, and you need to check several, then return
○ Possible follow-up mission: bringing expedition crew to the selected spot.
○ Could happen to check out a little settlement/expedition base. Intel gathering, which could result in attacks from it. Could include stealth too, like flying low enough to be undetected, or making a ballistic pass close enough. Ballistic, so no exhaust plume. (Would need proper stealth mechanics)
• Sample gathering: go to a given place, land and bring back samples. Could be from several different areas.
○ Skim an atmosphere for atmo samples. Harder ones would need gas giant samples, or even Sun corona samples. Might pay by the ton of samples returned, but with an upper limit.

[darekdeo]

I have few ideas also. What I was thinking recently is that there is small amount of game in the game. It would be great to have more missions involing player flight skills (or any other actions), because right now during gameplay one can spend most of time on setting autopilot fly from one place to another only. Autopilot is good for traveling long distances, it allows safely speed up time. It is also good to introduce new players to the game till they are ready to fly by their own. The problem with autopilot is that it is easier way to get the reward. Unfortunately after using autopilot for some time the game feels like about grinding the money, there is no fun in using autopilot all the time, but greed of earning money faster to buy new equipment often wins.

• SAR cargo: Cargo could be lost either in space or on planet, you name it. Obviously to pick up cargo player would need to have enough space, then land or if in space then get nearby cargo, which would require manual flight skills. What would even more make SAR missions challanging is flying across tight asteroids fields without autopilot. Autopilot could get player only nearby asteroid field.
• Expedition variant (or different story behind it): Landing on abandoned/destroyed space stations. Again, autopilot could get player nearby the station, but player would need to manually do the docking. Possibly station could be visually destroyed and spin faster because of some accident?
• Escort: The mission would be mostly about staying nearby friendly ship (maybe with use of autopilot to stay in formation). There would be possibility that friendly ship we escort could be attacked by bandits or that friendly ship would have some kind of accident/damage and we would need to get closer to it to help solve the problem.

This is it so far, I haven't played enough to see most of stuff in the game (haven't had single fight yet), but I feel these are 2 main issues for me: 1 is grinding money by using autopilot to proceed further in the game. 2nd is game feels currently not alive, mostly because of lack of traffic, but this is for different topic.

[kennworl]

I do tend to agree with darekdeo, however I want to stress that this is no-ones fault, there just needs to be some story or arc, some motivating factors, other than acquisition of wealth. Some people play games like these to build empires, not just make money. Others want to go exploring, or rather, hunting on a quest for something bigger than profit. Myself, I would love to build a unique ship with collection of parts that I find, or I research, or trade for, so that I have unique abilities to give me the edge in trade, combat, exploration, etc.

Not that easy to fix, as the game needs a lot enrichment, and balance, but not impossible if people spend the time (like I intend to). Currently I am putting a hardware flight console together to give me a lot more immersion (big red "FIRE" button, etc.) But that only goes so far, so more missions, some kind of story arc as a setting for those missions, far away quests, excitement, adventure, and really wild things! But all I can do is chip away like everyone else. We will get there.

And while I'm on the topic, I had a thought about the autopilot. It is true that newbies (and I still count myself among them) need something to take some of the technical out of flying. However it is too easily relied upon. Also if we are thinking about why we would have a crew (such as pilot that you have to pay), when an autopilot does that job. What can a pilot do that an autopilot can't? Well what happens if an autopilot malfunctions (which it actually does do on occasion - if you read the issues log), or gets hacked by an enemy (if/when we incorporate electronic warfare - Cylon style)? We should probably dumbed down version of the autopilot such as what existing aircraft have which are great for cruising, but not so much for takeoff/landing and tricky maneuvers. Again, there needs to be some more game features to warrant a helm or nav officer, such as docking with other ships, or negotiating asteroid fields...or actually flying through a hyperspace tunnel on manual - where you can screw up and drop out prematurely into interstellar space (Thargoids anyone?). I'm still learning how this game is put together, but the potential is enormous. That's what excites me the most. <end-of-rant>

[Marcel]

For another idea about what you might hire a crew for check out the combat autopilot for Pioneer Scout Plus.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pionee ... z/download
It feels very cooperative. You fire the thrusters via the keyboard and the autopilot controls pitch and yaw and fires the gun. Instead of buying one you could gain that capability by hiring a co-pilot.

[emptyhead41]

Sorry to resurrect this thread.

Hi first of all. Loooong time lurker around this project. I often feel like doing something to contribute but find the code just far too intimidating (only very limited experience programming).

So recently started playing again and have started drawing some stuff for the facegen, as i just couldn't bear to look at them anymore - I remember the chap doing it and fair play to him for getting it all together and others for putting the code in, but my goodness, they don't half ruin my immersion.

So playing again and drawing has got me wanting to contribute a bit more, but I'm wondering if anyone is able to point me in the direction of some guides to the code or something (I'm still exploring everything on the site)

Regarding missions - are these exposed in any way outside of the code? Ie. is there any sort of scripting-type files that determine mission content?

Likewise the GUI stuff? Is this exposed to any sort of text file-style configuration?

Also can anyone point me in the direction of the time acceleration code? I'd like to look at it to see if it's possible to introduce some forced granularity - eg. so forced in that any time acceleration can be selected with no restrictions, and granular in that I'd like to be able to have finer adjustment of the time acceleration (maybe even just a step in between each of the current selections).

Sorry this has gone a bit off topic. Can repost elsewhere if needed.

Oh also, absolutely fantastic work by everyone. It is absolutely amazing where this project is compared to where it was. Congratulations everyone on your hard work.

EDIT: Just (re-)discovered the wiki and an article about missions. Any pointers on GUI and Time Acceleration still very welcome :)

By GUI I mean the station UI (incl BBS etc). In FE2 you could cycle through the different sub headings by pressing the menu button repeatedly. eg. in pioneer you press F2 to bring up personal details. It would be good to be able to cycle through each of the sub-screens by pressing F2 again.

[impaktor]

Mission scripts are all in data/modules/ folder. Start by reading something small, like DonateToCranks. (beware, the wiki description of mission scripting is probably a bit outdated, so don't trust it 100%). This is in Lua scripting language.

GUI is in state of flux, as we're swiching to imgui, you can find tutorials online for how that works, and then look at our code data/pigui/. You might have to read some C++ for this, althoghu we're moving it into lua.

Pioneer is a great place if you're willing to teach yourself programming, and starting out simple, and then increase from there. We'll give you pointers if you get something running, of if you have some specific questions.

If you want to make new faces, you could start by making it a module. You know how to draw? Or you're doing the code-path, to ascend from the uncanny valley?

Regarding time accel, you can force it with Ctrl+click. Rather than tell you the line, I'll tell you a more general technique I would use to find it: find the icons (look in data folder), or tooltip text then find that place in the code. git grep is very useful.

The station GUI will be replaced soonish we hope, with imgui. F3 menu is being worked on.

Come by IRC if you want to have a chat we're there mostly except at CET night.

We need all the help we can get, so welcome!

[impaktor]

Wow, really good faces.

But if you don't like to make face parts, maybe we can use youre drawing skills elsewhere?

Regarding "module": if you modify stuff in data-folder, and then zip that and place it in your own local pioneer folder, pioneer will use those modifications intead of the "vanilla" version in pioneer/data-folder.
https://pioneerwiki.com/wiki/Mods

I think Xchat might be one option, or any other depending on your OS of choice.

[FluffyFreak]

Not sure that this counts as a "Mission" per-se but I've only just seen it and didn't want to forget about it
WKFO did this somehow -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdT6IQ64u-E "Visiting ancient ruins in Pioneer" which I think is great!

[impaktor]

With the new scoop-mission merged, I got to thinking we don't have the inverse, i.e. no mission making use of jettison, so here's a loose thought:

- some maffia or other seedy character wants revenge on a station / faction, and hired the player to dump X tonnes of radioactives over a station, (under altitude H, and distance D from station).

However, this mission would be horrible, since the player would get fined, but maybe when you land back at the mission contractor, you'll be offered to wipe your criminal slate clean in that faction, maybe by changing registration number of the ship?

Anyway, this is not anything I intend to work on, so up for grabs, if anyone feels inspired.

[tropicalpioneer]

If there is a planet good for mining, farming or production, how about having the possibility to establish a business?

After settling a mine/farm/factory (accessible from nearby bases), it could be possible to:
- market: set your prices (for once, instead of just buying and reselling)
- input management: choosing supplying factions/systems for machinery (mining cannons, robots, farm machinery, storage systems), robots (production), ...
- output management: choosing systems for the sale of the mining/farming output (minerals, fruits/veggies ...) or of the production (machines, robots, ...).
- engineering: regularly have to visit systems for supervision (machinery status, productivity, balancing)
- defense: hiring patrols to sweep/protect the business area
- politics: have to protect the sites by keeping a good reputation with police (doing business with legal factions), pirates (letting them pass through the defense system)
- partnership management: regularly have to visit partner systems to confirm/maintain/improve partnerships