Imperishable
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Posted - 2004.02.19 09:21:00 -
[1]
We all know that pirates like to camp gates at choke points, right?
Why not have faction navy level 4 agents give missions that request your corp to protect a gate for a certain period of time?
Here's how it works. You ask for a mission from an agent, the agent checks the map, looking for "ships destroyed in last hour" and "pod kills in last hour". If there is a system that has a number of those, then it's a candidate for special protection services. Note that it is possible to have other means of candidate system selection, such as significant presence of people with big bounty, even if there are no pod kills or ship destroyed in last hour. It is also possible to have lower level scouting missions, data from those can be used in this type of mission.
The agent also checks CONCORD standing of all members of the corp that asked for the mission. If all members have acceptable standing (doesn't have to be 0.0+), then the agent will be able to offer the mission. There may be some other simple requirements, I won't get into those.
Anyway, once the mission is accepted, a special ship spawns near the agent's station. This ship belongs to the same corp as the agent. This ship will be a shield tanked battleship with no weapons - none whatsoever, just some defender missiles. This ship has 1 important ability - it can warp to safe spots. The corp that accepted this mission will create a gang and invite this NPC ship, it will automatically join that particular corp gang. The NPC ship will always follow the gang leader, but it will serve absolutely no purpose until it gets to the destination system.
If the mission corp fails to get to destination system within reasonable amount of time, the NPC ship returns home and the mission is failed.
Once the mission corp gets to their destination system, they automatically become allied with the sentry guns and any CONCORD ships. The mission gang will have a right to shoot at anyone who sentry guns want to shoot. Just make the game think those players are CONCORD members. This won't lead to abuse tho, since the mission gang can't attack anyone unless aggression has occurred, according to whatever rules the game uses, just make sure there's no maximum range for detection of aggression.
Once aggression is initiated or an "outlaw" enters the system, mission corp can have a field day shooting at stuff. They will also have a right to chase bad guys all over the system.
And here's how NPC ship comes in handy: the mission gang leader can scan the system and have the "warp to" option available. NPC ship will warp in first and then the rest can follow it. This feature will work only in mission destination system.
If the pirates are too strong and manage to kill the NPC battleship, then the crop that accepted this mission will have to pay for that battleship! in cash (ok, maybe just pay insurance cost). That'll make people think twice before choosing such a mission.
Figuring out "rewards" for such a mission is rather difficult. Rewards should be judged on the number of aggressions initiated in the system. More = bad. Also should take into account how many aggressors were destroyed during the duration of the mission. If the corp violates rules and becomes target of sentries, then the mission is failed, NPC ship returns home, sentry guns shouldn't target it.
Oh, and there's gotta be special marker on the map to indicate to ALL players that this particular system is currently "protected". This will let friendlies know when it is safe to enter, it will also let pirates know, so the defenders probably won't have to stay bored for long.
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Sounds complicated, doesn't it? Not as simple and clearly defined as current mind numbing agent missions. But hey, we want **** like this, don't we? With a little fine tuning from the devs, we could have a variety of level 4 missions based on this principle. Fun for everyone!
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