Quote: Original post by ToohrVyk
I think you could also set something like the required frequency of reports from the people on that mission. Frequent reports allow you to control the men more closely, but also increase the chance of the communication being intercepted (which in turn can raise the chances of failure).

Nice tradeoff, both in gameplay and UI. It's almost like submarine command and control. I could see this working well. I'll integrate it.

Quote: Original post by ToohrVyk
Also, maybe you should be able to select the level of secret of a particular mission. For instance, you could choose not to tell most of the crew about what they're going to do (what's inside these containers they carry, what's on this planet they spy on, etc...), so that only the highest officers are aware of the mission. This would go well with the following gameplay events:

- Mutiny when the mission handed out goes against the ethics or beliefs of a big enough proportion of the crew (like attacking their own home planet).

- Intrusive telepathy being used on a lowly private that allows spies to know everything about the mission.

- Drunk crew members saying the wrong thing to the wrong person in the wrong bar.

Yes, I actually already have this in the form of a gameplay setting called "policies." Policies cover a bunch of areas ranging from pay to privacy to criminal behavior to smuggling (both by you and the crew). It affects morale, loyalty, discipline and a bunch of other areas. Ultimately policy settings are what allow you to run either a ship or a colony without the game becoming unweildy.

Quote: Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
I think that sending a team would be a sort of mitigated way to do missions. You hear that there's a disabled craft in orbit around Titan, and the crew has only a few days of life support left, so you can either plot a course and go rescue them, ignore them, or "send a team".

Right, this is good, too. I saw this as a way of supplementing your strength and acting in two or more places at once, but it could also be a way of handling stuff you don't want to do directly. (It's like the "autofight" option in many old school RPGs).

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I'm trying to decide if it would be possible to make these missions up, like "You three get in light fighters, fly to Luna, wait for the freighter PN4239184, escort it to its destination, and then return to this location for a rendezvous." That would be a real pain in the butt unless each of those actions were individually scripted in as action types.

I do see the player able to compose mission strings. However, I see a need here for compound actions. What if the game shipped with several defined compound action strings, but you could compose and save your own?

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Since this will all be handled behind-the-scenes with random numbers and such, you'll probably be able to handle a few dozen different "mission components", but maybe it would be better to have the missions structured automatically and just make the character design an away team to handle it.

Yes, I'm still deciding on how much granularity to give here. If you get too much control, you'll be ticked off if the results don't go exactly as you expected. But if you don't get enough, then it's a tacked on feature with no depth.

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So, what will it look like when you make one of these things? I'm guessing that you'd have a little assignment screen, vaguely reminiscent of the team-building system in Rainbow Six, where you choose personnel, equipment, etc. Add in what kind of supplies and spacecraft they'll be taking along, and finalize their primary and secondary mission objectives. Then you hit the "deploy" button and wait for the reports to come it.

I see you looking at the map with two quarter screens below it: One shows your inventory, the other shows the team you're arranging. You click a location on the map, and it pathfinds from where the team is to where you've clicked. At each significant leg, a flag (piracy, nav hazards, war, etc.) shows up, along with a percentage chance for successfully passing it. you can dynamically add or subtract things from the deployment, and it will change the percentages and maybe even the flags.

Click a waypoint, and you'll get detailed info on resources and known threats. Double-click and you can zoom the node in question and add detail to the sub-map that comes up (for instance, detailed nav intstructions through a system or city). The last is only for the control freaks, as it will only gain you a few percentage points.

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So, for a strike on a pirate stronghold
...

Good scenario, it's very similar to what I see you being able to do. I want to avoid micromanagement and detailed scripting of movements (especially since I'll have to be juggling maps and memory otherwise). I didn't think about secondary objectives, though, so I'll have to add those in. This sort of thing could also dovetail nicely with personality, as the objectives and events could trigger personality events (heroism, betrayal) among the team you send.

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Then I just push the "go" button and find a nice comfortable orbit, or cruise to my next patrol route. If it works, I'll get my ship back and all my men, and I'll blow some pirates to hell to boot. Worst case scenario, I lose twelve good men, three suits of armor, three fighters, and gain nothing. Anything on the continuum between those extremes is possible.

Right, and this along with the same semi-random events that can happen to you makes a universe which is hopefully alive and dynamic without becoming unweildy. The results of the mission could lead you to compose or undertake directly further successive missions.

What if the pirates captured your men but your guys disabled the nuke? Now the pirate is demanding a trade of components to fix the missile for your guys.

Or what if your guys succeed but come back with severe radiation poisoning? Now you have to race to a med facility.

The key to doing this, btw, is to have a good rule system of actions and reactions that tie directly into the semi-random event generator. I'm about 40% on that right now, in case you're curious. :>

As far as mutiny on away missions go, just who the crew member is could determine factors as to just what he would mutin... munatin... muntinize... over. Well, you get the idea.

Lets say you've got a mercenary, for instance. Now, mercenaries are pretty much in it for the money, so its possible to be bought off for a better price. He gets a better pay, possibly even coming back to kill you.

Then you have a doctor. Send him to a place and he notices they are in a state of continual woundedness, he may just jump ship ion order to help them, meaning it would be a better idea to send an inexperienced medic as opposed to the all experienced doctor.

There are a lot of factors that could affect mutiny in away missions, so whoever is in control will have to spend a good deal of time deciding just who he is going to send in.

Quote: Original post by AnonymousPosterChild
As far as mutiny on away missions go, just who the crew member is could determine factors as to just what he would mutin... munatin... muntinize... over. Well, you get the idea.

Heh, right. :)

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Lets say you've got a mercenary, for instance. Now, mercenaries are pretty much in it for the money, so its possible to be bought off for a better price. He gets a better pay, possibly even coming back to kill you.

Yes, the way this works is through personality and perceived loyalty, both of which you can alter / level up. When NPCs are randomly created, their alignment (what I call the Moral Compass) determines their occupations. You'll find that not all but a good chunk of the mercs fall under a couple of personality types like Bloodthirsty, Opportunistic and Merciless, all types which have attendant probabilities that kick in when you hire them on.

So when you're selecting a team for a mission, you have to look at both personality and what you think their loyalty is. You can have a pretty opportunistic guy who you've managed to aid so much that he's completely devoted to you (the highest loyalty possible) and he'll never sell out. OTOH, you can have a theoretically loyal personality with a low starting loyalty, and under the right stressors or temptation (which depends on the savvy of the faction you're going up against) he / she can be corrupted or intimidated into backstabbing you.

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Then you have a doctor. Send him to a place and he notices they are in a state of continual woundedness, he may just jump ship ion order to help them, meaning it would be a better idea to send an inexperienced medic as opposed to the all experienced doctor.

I haven't worked out all the exact details (because this has to tie into the stats of the planet / location with the wounded), but the more loyal the person is, the more likely they'll ask about something like this. Now, if you refuse or don't do what they think is right, it lowers loyalty, making them more likely to do as you say, prioritize the people over your current mission.

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There are a lot of factors that could affect mutiny in away missions, so whoever is in control will have to spend a good deal of time deciding just who he is going to send in.

The ratio of discontent to content in a mission or on any one of your ships or bases determines if there is to be a mutiny at all, and the leader's personality and skills determine how bad it will be (from protests to hijack attempts to assassination).

(Btw, here's where having personalities becomes strategic: A devoted NPC with the Merciless personality has a chance to immediately capture or kill a mutiny leader whenever a mutiny starts, causing the mutineers to start in random, disarrayed locations throughout the ship or base. This might make it worth putting up with the potential for them backstabbing you or demanding more pay when you're in a bind. ;>)