Mission packs and the grind

[phkb]

I'm getting closer to a release of my mission pack, but I thought it might be useful to discuss the concept of leveling or grinding or whatever you want to call the process of doing certain missions repeatedly in order to achieve some secondary goal (a medal, better mission opportunities or higher rewards, better influence with planetary bodies, etc). Firstly, are these secondary goals necessary, or can the missions exist in semi-isolation, where things don't change very much at all? Does there need to be some secondary framework for the missions exist in?

I'm at a point where I have all these missions to do, but no real reason to do them other than for the monetary reward, similar to the cargo, parcel and passenger missions. Yes, completing many missions will give you a greater return-on-investment in future, but nothing beyond that. Is it necessary, do you think? If so, what sort of secondary goal(s) would be compelling to strive for, taking into consideration the limited geo-political makeup of the Oolite universe?

[Disembodied]

what sort of secondary goal(s) would be compelling to strive for, taking into consideration the limited geo-political makeup of the Oolite universe?

Medals, etc. are worth pursuing, I think: they're just as good as (if not better than) financial reward, after a certain level of credits has been reached. What framework they're awarded under would depend on what the missions are like: whether the player is working for the Co-operative, or a galaxy-wide organisation, or for something more local.

Becoming a Local Hero™ could be a possibility … complete enough missions in or for a particular system and (depending on what the missions are) people regard you as someone to look up to. Passing merchant ships hail you by name, or with a friendly "Right on, Commander!"; the system station notices your arrival in the aegis, broadcasts a welcome and - at the upper end of your fame, perhaps - clears the docking queue for you; local police might even clear some minor offence from your record for you.

Leaving a permanent mark in a game is always rewarding: if it's possible, having a ship or station or some other persistent feature named after me, or having my name embedded in a permanent alteration of an F7 system description, would give me a bigger sense of satisfaction than just another dollop of C*.

[Norby]

Good idea. I think missions could be chainable using a condition list: which ones must be done before this mission will be available, like A and (B or C). If a mission is repeateable then the required number is a condition also (3*A or 2*B). This make possible a whole web of events and different walkthroughs.

In this way a secondary goal could be a very short one step mission with conditions on the real missions, giving instant reward.

[Disembodied]

There are types of repeating missions, of course, where nothing much changes and where the only reward might be a warm fuzzy glow - being part of an "underground railroad" for runaway slaves, for example. Such missions could be difficult and dangerous, with no tangible reward and no chance of overthrowing the social and economic systems which underpin the existence of slavery: they might even cost money, with the player might even be expected to contribute C* to help the escapees start a new life at the end of the line. Something like this might, of course, have a belated reward: much later, the player might receive a message thanking them for their help. No money, no gadget, no medal - but giving the player a sense that what they did, mattered, could be a quite memorable achievement.

[Mazur]

Becoming a Local Hero™ could be a possibility … complete enough missions in or for a particular system and (depending on what the missions are) people regard you as someone to look up to. Passing merchant ships hail you by name, or with a friendly "Right on, Commander!"; the system station notices your arrival in the aegis, broadcasts a welcome and - at the upper end of your fame, perhaps - clears the docking queue for you; local police might even clear some minor offence from your record for you.

Very funny, I was just thinking along those lines about 15 minutes ago, only something for instance along the line of (military) titles, or nobility titles, what I thought was: if the average reputation of all reputation scores is over 90%, you're addressed as Commodore instead of Commander. and over 99% as Admiral. (Given we traders cannot control more than one ship anyway, it wouldn't interfere with proper military ranks, and would be mere Ego-confirming.)

You could start out as a Lieutenant Junior Grade, etc., when Jamesoned out of Lava acad.

[Astrobe]

Grinding is what I do most of the time in Oolite. What I'd like to see more is stories. So I'd rather prefer a long string of missions with a long-running plot.
OXP programming and story telling require different skills and talents, so if you could make your mission pack easily hackable so that story writers could map a new story on it (and if possible rearrange the order of the missions), it would be great.

[phkb]

so if you could make your mission pack easily hackable so that story writers could map a new story on it (and if possible rearrange the order of the missions), it would be great.

Umm... ok...
<looks at huge pile of code, starts sweating profusely>

[Cody]

<chuckles> Stories... we like stories! Every picture tells a story! Hmm... not a bad album, that.