Request: Please, No Escort Missions!

[Honved]

If the attacking opponents can't just materialize anywhere, and actually have to travel FROM somewhere to reach the convoy, it might work a lot better than it did in X3:TC.

It would also help if the freighters maintained some kind of formation, rather than individually taking different routes where the player had no way to cover all of them until much later in the game (where one could simply flood the whole sector with friendly ships). Not a whole lot you can do when the freighters are taking fire in two different sectors, and it only takes the hostiles 2-3 passes to destroy a ship in either of them.


I think adeine had it right: "Escort missions are great as long as they work properly." Please make them work properly.

[spankahontis]

If the attacking opponents can't just materialize anywhere, and actually have to travel FROM somewhere to reach the convoy, it might work a lot better than it did in X3:TC.

It would also help if the freighters maintained some kind of formation, rather than individually taking different routes where the player had no way to cover all of them until much later in the game (where one could simply flood the whole sector with friendly ships). Not a whole lot you can do when the freighters are taking fire in two different sectors, and it only takes the hostiles 2-3 passes to destroy a ship in either of them.


I think adeine had it right: "Escort missions are great as long as they work properly." Please make them work properly.

Maybe it would be better if they were missions that you stumbled upon when Transport Vessels are passing by.

I liked those Dynamic Missions you got in the Torride System, don't know if a Hostile Faction Attacking a Neutral triggered the Mission or the Mission was spawned?
But even a convoy parked outside a Gate to reluctant to travel to it's location because of a high influx of Pirates would be cool.

[MegaJohnny]

Maybe it would be better if they were missions that you stumbled upon when Transport Vessels are passing by.

Yes please! This would be hard to get right, because for it to be fun you'd have to rig it so most trade runs make fun escort missions. But it would be the holy grail IMO.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

Maybe it would be better if they were missions that you stumbled upon when Transport Vessels are passing by.

Yes please! This would be hard to get right, because for it to be fun you'd have to rig it so most trade runs make fun escort missions. But it would be the holy grail IMO.

Missions that arise naturally out of the environment like this would be fantastically cool.

For escort missions, factions would need to keep metrics on attacks that have happened in zones/sectors/systems recently, so they'd know when they're about to send a transport through a dangerous region and respond by spawning an escort mission for that transport. Patrol missions could draw on similar data - a system where a faction has detected a lot of hostile activity would generate patrol missions to keep the skies clear. Piracy missions could do the opposite, and look for places with a lot of high-value transports but not so much gunnery to protect them, and choose a transport for you to pick on.

The downside, of course, is that when missions arise naturally, they'll have the potential to disappear entirely (if the conditions for their appearance aren't being met anymore), or to be annoyingly ubiquitous (if the conditions are met frequently and in a lot of places). So, it would be an interesting and non-trivial balancing act to get it right.

EDIT

To the OP's original topic, I enjoyed Rebirth's escort missions actually - but largely because I keep being offered like a million credits to babysit a Gigurum to literally the station next door. I actually thought it was a separate section of the same station at first, lol.

[Alan Phipps]

I have always found it a bit strange that you cannot give a few simple directions to the ship(s) in your charge to assist in their protection. Examples:

"Stop here (until the local enemies are cleared)."
"Go and wait at that position (ditto). *
"Start moving now (to the next waypoint, gate, dock, etc)."


* ie "Move near to that station (that will help to protect you)." or "Put that station, warship, patrol, asteroid, etc between you and the enemy or their entry point."

[Tenlar Scarflame]

I have always found it a bit strange that you cannot give a few simple directions to the ship(s) in your charge to assist in their protection. Examples:

"Stop here (until the local enemies are cleared)."
"Go and wait at that position (ditto). *
"Start moving now (to the next waypoint, gate, dock, etc)."


* ie "Move near to that station (that will help to protect you)." or "Put that station, warship, patrol, asteroid, etc between you and the enemy or their entry point."

YES PLEASE. Maybe with a small but non-zero chance built in that the transport captain would disobey your orders (either out of panic or just being stubborn), but seriously. Delivering your Bofu on time isn't worth your life or my paycheck.

[spankahontis]

I have always found it a bit strange that you cannot give a few simple directions to the ship(s) in your charge to assist in their protection. Examples:

"Stop here (until the local enemies are cleared)."
"Go and wait at that position (ditto). *
"Start moving now (to the next waypoint, gate, dock, etc)."


* ie "Move near to that station (that will help to protect you)." or "Put that station, warship, patrol, asteroid, etc between you and the enemy or their entry point."

YES PLEASE. Maybe with a small but non-zero chance built in that the transport captain would disobey your orders (either out of panic or just being stubborn), but seriously. Delivering your Bofu on time isn't worth your life or my paycheck.

I saw a Star Citizen idea from Chris Roberts where he said constant attacks by Pirates that belong to a specific Station that are successful leads to that Station issuing Missions to protect it's Cargo Ships, or to kill the offending group. Triggered by actual circumstances.

[AkrionXxarr]

I say Egosoft create an escort mission where you're the one being escorted and the more things you to do the detriment of your escort the higher the payout.

[Fulgrymm]

If you're being escorted, why would causing harm to your escort result in higher payouts? Surely the reverse would be true.

[spankahontis]

I was thinking about this idea.. Why not alter the behaviour of certain Pirate Fleets/Galleys to raid areas with a high concentration of Trade Fleets.
The sudden disruption sends warnings to Stations those Ships belong to, triggering an Escort Mission for ships that are in travelling to those Stations as well as Triggering the Torride style Rescue Missions.
If you are in the vicinity you get a distress call.

[Morkonan]

I was thinking about this idea.. Why not alter the behaviour of certain Pirate Fleets/Galleys to raid areas with a high concentration of Trade Fleets.
The sudden disruption sends warnings to Stations those Ships belong to, triggering an Escort Mission for ships that are in travelling to those Stations as well as Triggering the Torride style Rescue Missions.
If you are in the vicinity you get a distress call.

In X3, pirates would sometimes attack stations on their own. I do recall seeing a "defend station" sort of mission being offered by one, once. I didn't take it, though, fearing it would just be a random coincidence and end up generating more pirates.

IOW - The ability to do this should already be available in X3 if there's something that checks the status of stations or could be. (Stations take a long time to be destroyed by simple pirate spawns, so it wouldn't have to be every heartbeat or something.)

[A5PECT]

Certain trade mission types were conditional, as well. If a station went long enough with very low stocks of resources, a delivery mission would automatically be generated.

[Tenlar Scarflame]

The older X games did have some (simple, but present) conditionally-triggered missions, that's true. ^^ So there's precedent!

I'm 99% sure there weren't any conditional combat missions though - I believe they all just spawned their attackers.

[Morkonan]

Certain trade mission types were conditional, as well. If a station went long enough with very low stocks of resources, a delivery mission would automatically be generated.

Yup! And, IIRC, the "Build Station" missions were the same way in X3, with the game making those available to the player when sectors had economically improved. If the player didn't take them, the game would eventually do the job and set up the mission for a TL to place a station.

I know that after I focused on improving trade in certain regions, Build Station missions would be all over the place once the game ran a little bit. Very, very, profitable and tangible results for all that effort, to be sure.

...I'm 99% sure there weren't any conditional combat missions though - I believe they all just spawned their attackers.

Xenon invasion missions, perhaps? I know that if one was offered and I didn't take it, it seemed that they would eventually spawn, anyway. And, during an invasion, not a "migration," you could often still find that mission. I don't recall if there was a mission associated with Xenon migrations in X3TC.

[spankahontis]

Certain trade mission types were conditional, as well. If a station went long enough with very low stocks of resources, a delivery mission would automatically be generated.

Yup! And, IIRC, the "Build Station" missions were the same way in X3, with the game making those available to the player when sectors had economically improved. If the player didn't take them, the game would eventually do the job and set up the mission for a TL to place a station.

I know that after I focused on improving trade in certain regions, Build Station missions would be all over the place once the game ran a little bit. Very, very, profitable and tangible results for all that effort, to be sure.

...I'm 99% sure there weren't any conditional combat missions though - I believe they all just spawned their attackers.

Xenon invasion missions, perhaps? I know that if one was offered and I didn't take it, it seemed that they would eventually spawn, anyway. And, during an invasion, not a "migration," you could often still find that mission. I don't recall if there was a mission associated with Xenon migrations in X3TC.

Personally i'm hoping that the Xenon have an entirely self-sustaining Economy that they use to build Fleets of Ships that they throw at our Stations in order to shake up the economy, finding these Stations and destroying them being imperative to stopping Xenon Activity in that section of Space.

[PowerPC603]

If you don't like escort missions, then don't do them.
Every player has something in a game he doesn't like.
If Egosoft would remove everything that some player dislikes, they'll be programming an empty game and selling an empty game.

You don't like escort missions, some other player hates fighting mssions because they suck at aiming or simply hate dogfighting, some others don't like the build missions and a few will certainly avoid trade missions as they can be boring as well.
Let's remove all those as well and see how the game will flourish and attract many players, because all disliked stuff is removed from the game. Now only the fun stuff should remain after deleting it all, right?
*being a little sarcastic*

An idea for escort missions:

Basically every trade-ship could generate an escort mission.
Since every trader is transporting goods from one station to another, every trader has the potential to create an escort mission.
Like X3, where ships could offer missions like the lightbulb ones, this could as well be an escort mission where the pilot asks you for protection against pirates.

They could also make it so NPC fighters in the area could respond to that escort mission and escort the freighter.
This way, the player needs to act fast if he wants the mission.
The freighter could also ask for several ships. This way, the mission will stay open until all escort-spots are filled. As long as there is at least one empty spot, the player can join the escort.

While the freighter has at least one escort, enemies begin to raid the escort ships.
This also allows the player to kill enemies without joining the escort.

And it allows for a way to dynamically create NPC groups that are flying in formation, which disband automatically when the freighter reaches his destination.
After the mission, the fighters continue with their previous orders.

[Morkonan]

If you don't like escort missions, then don't do them.
Every player has something in a game he doesn't like.
If Egosoft would remove everything that some player dislikes, they'll be programming an empty game and selling an empty game.

I think most people have already agreed that they just want the escort missions to "work." In X3, escort missions were pretty much avoided by seasoned players because they just didn't work very well. ie: Very unpredictable results that were not always determined by the player's choices.

When the results of play aren't determined by the player, then... it's not "play." It's not that people don't like escort missions, they just want them to work well and they want the success or failure of the mission due to their own actions.

...Basically every trade-ship could generate an escort mission.

I wouldn't have an issue with that as long as other variables were lowered, like rewards, actual number of fights encountered, etc, to make up for the increased number of escort missions available.

In X3TC, escort missions were pretty common, so that mechanic may have actually been in play in X3TC.

[ero_sk]

I think that escort missions are very immersive so I'd definitely like to have them in X4. But yeah, they should be well balanced- having said that, I don't mind some of those "lazy" escorts every so often.

[Zloth2]

I have always found it a bit strange that you cannot give a few simple directions to the ship(s) in your charge to assist in their protection.

I think that can work but it won't be trivial to do. Some folks will try to use their "escorts" as a free fleet by taking multiple escort missions and telling them to all wait near their target. At the very least, they would make for good cannon fodder. Egosoft will need to make sure either that the player can't do such orders or punish the player in some way. (Maybe escalating rep damage if you lose multiple escort missions inside of, say, 10 minutes?)

[Alan Phipps]

@ Zloth2: My answer to that would be that the escorted ships would only obey your commands whilst mission-relevant enemies are detected within the same zone as themselves. Once there are no such enemies in range, the ships would automatically revert to mission course and would ignore player orders until the next wave of attackers.

Think of it as the lead freighter captain remaining mission controller at all times except when attacking enemies appear and when they temporarily give mission command precedence to their escort commander holding the military expertise.