A way to releive work from the lazy devs

[defacto]

I and many other people have screamed to the staff for a long time to add more variation to the whites, but we haven't been listened to. Why? The answer's simple. Ofcourse, the devs prioritize fixing bugs and adding new systems higher than this, which is something i understand.

That's how i got this idea, inspired by the make your own plnaet one.

Make youre own Mission

You would basically be able to download a ´´Editor´´ and then, you could select any planet.

After some loading, you eneter a birds-eye view of the planet... you have a compass that you cna move around using the right key, or you cna move by arrow keys.

Now, it get's more similar to the adventure editor from Galactic Adventures, if you ever played that. The mission is split up into different objectives. It can be, for example:

- Kill X amount of Y Mantis or any other ship
- Get to a Location
- Get to a Location, without dying
- Escort (a) ship(s) to a location
- Wait until the timer is at 0
- Land on the Surface
- Go to Orbit, of this planet or another
- Go to the Hangar
- Follow a ship, with settings on how close and far you have to be from or to it.
- Collect an object

You can also spawn Mission-Only ships and attach objectives to them, maybe by having a objective pallette and dragging a objective onto a ship spawn.

Certain events can also happen:

- Get a message, custom text and you can select between player avatar pictures, main characters such as Ivanova or the General, and generic images such as pilot, evil pilot, rebel, prosperian, Mantis and so on... or maybe just have a blurry image named unidentified.

- Insta-pod any ship except a player-controlled

- Make a ship spawn or go to Orbit

- Make a ship take damage

- Add an animation to a ship (smoke, thermoblast, stun, teleporting, other things)

Then, the mission would be submitted and if the devs liked it, it would be added!

Examples of mission layout:

Smuggler Hunt

- Message from Ivanova
- Objective: Land

- Message from Pilot
- Message from Ivanova
- Objective: Follow ship Smuggler, min distance 0 max 400

- Message from Pilot
- Objective: Kill Smuggler

- Message from Pilot
- Message from Ivanova
- Objective: Collect escape pod
- Objective: Collect cargo pod

- Message from Ivanova
- Objective: Travel to: Village

Mission Complete

 

[defacto]

Awww come on, noone?

 

[Toorimakun]

the Devas are adding some extra stuff in the next release patch.

for this kind of game this might be a little hard.
tho IF/when i get my game company off the ground i have found a way to add this in to one of my projects already.
it is more going to be a guild function then a personal player option tho... and your guild has to find a non calmed planet in order to unlock the option.

for PG Pros:
1: will add a lot of game content

for PG cons:
1: will use a lot more server room
2: will unbalance economy
(unless mobs only drop normal PG drops and missions have no cry rewards.. taking a large amount of fun away from this option.)

the only way i see that PG could do this is have all the clans compete (every X amount of months) for the prize of making the missions for a planet only end game players can do.

 

[defacto]

Well, not every mission would be added, only the good ones, or it could easily be abused.

 

[pbhuh]

not making own missions, but automatic missions, that all planet has kill missions (time) and blueprint missions. Every time a dev makes a planet + mantis, all missions are made auto.

 

[defacto]

not making own missions, but automatic missions, that all planet has kill missions (time) and blueprint missions. Every time a dev makes a planet + mantis, all missions are made auto.

So that we have more of these boring grinding missions?
According to the help section, trhe whites are ´´mission aimed towards a strategic purpose, such as raiding mantis transports´´... the only thing you do in whites are help this Bruno guy kill a random Mantis...

 

[Glasswolf]

I personally like this idea a lot. It reminds me of my first Strategy MMO... *sigh* good times...
I loved planet editing on that one. In fact, I was known for making fair maps in a game full of unfair ones.
However, I don't think that ran on java... that applied itself upon a disk-game... and think about it O_O how would the cryo count be calculated? You can't make a one step mission and get 100000000 cryo.
It'd have to be a function of the number of mantis times the number of steps in the system times a function related to which system it was.

Texture mapping, and... something else... where you can go vs where you can not go, were a key part of the map editor I knew. It's what stops us from being able to fly over those mountains, yet enables us to fly halfway up lustra's wall by the E 100's. > Yep. ya'll missed a spot. xP But it lets me fly down from the sky, so I don't mind one tiny little bit.
Then adding water, oh that was the interesting part. the things you could do with that! Bridges, buildings, swamps... of course, you had to set the water table height and choose the color of the ambient lighting, which had quite an effect upon the color of the water! Then you have to place the LZ beacon.
...Oh, and I learned to never go with allshaders. D: That texture sucked royally. So did the giant plant pictures. Flying on a picture of a plant was not cool. TwT

As far as story missions are concerned, that gets tricky, but defacto seems to have an understanding.
As you completed different parts, you had to set up different "Triggers", such that the boss would appear, and travel along a certain path. When did something turn into a hostile? All of that was a complex process indeed!

:O My only worry? Server stress. At a guess, I've seen some parts of the map layout that suggest that splitscreen may be using a map editor similar to the one I played around with back then.
You guys and your sharp vertical rises... the mountains have the telltale jagged edges on lustra.
What was that Height brush called again...? Fweh... I can't remember.
Placing mantis is the interesting part I'd think. And E field locations. O_O
E fields might be a beacon on a recharge rate. I wouldn't know. They might also have a position offset that is determined by a random variable generator but stays within a set range, at a rough guess. But that'd probably be integrated into such a thing as the fine print behind an "energy beacon".

If server stress is the issue here, why not integrate a rating system? Players who liked or disliked the planet could leave a rating, and if that rating fell beneath a certain level, the map could be removed. In addition, profane maps would also need removal. (YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. ) Would we as players be able to do this properly? I have doubts... but a guy can hope right?

My take:
I like the idea. It's just a matter of whether the folks at SS do. I'm not sure if it's manageable Defacto, but I share your interest in the idea... though I think my text wall has made that relatively apparent! xD

Wolfie - Loves map editors. It's my wolfbane I guess... the thought lights me up like a kid on Christmas. which might account for the amount of text and whatever else here.

 

[defacto]

Well one idea of mine is that the maps and missions would be validatded by mods first, and only the good ones would be added to the game.

 

[CommanderCody]

I think this would be a great idea for getting ideas the gamers want into the acual game, it would be really fun to have person made side missions.

Btw the NPC ships you need to be able to choose what class they are and their weapons/levels, the same for the Mantis. I'd like one with a convoy of transports and you heading it, you have escorts too, you objective is a Human Location on the planet to build some new facilities and weapon updates, no transports must be destroyed or the mission fails.

Also, Player made missions should have some note by them about that, also you should be have a option to complete ______ Mission and then this Mission is unlocked or something like that.