[Jan DevBlog] The Mission System

[NQ-Naunet]

Hey there, Noveans!

As we ramp up for the next Dual Universe update, we wanted to begin sharing information about some of the interesting new features you can look forward to with the arrival of 0.24.

 

One of the key highlights of 0.24 is the Mission system, affording the movers and shakers an opportunity to, well, move and shake their way to a wealthier DU lifestyle. And who doesn’t love the delicious sound of quanta cascading in their coffers? ?
 

OUR MISSION

In listening to player feedback, we know that players have been looking for more ways to make money. The Mission system will provide those opportunities in a number of ways that suits a wide swath of playstyles and experience.
 

The intent of Mission system is to:
 

• Offer new ways for players, especially new players, to make money.
• Allow merchants to focus on creating goods rather than spending time traveling to markets to sell their wares.
• Give those who enjoy traveling more than making things a lucrative reason to take to those beautiful, wide-open skies.
• Create more traffic in space, hence more opportunities for pirates.
• Help organizations to coordinate internal work.
   

The long-term goal is to enrich the Mission system with more mission types, starting with “taxi” missions, SoS, and later adding PvP and various other “formalizable” activities. For now, we’re introducing the Mission system with transport-type hauling missions.

It all starts with the Mission Panel, a dedicated dashboard tab for job and hauling missions. It is equivalent to other dashboard tabs such as the organization dashboard tab. Within the Mission Panel, you’ll find the "Job Forum" section and the "Hauling" section. Each of these contains a similar page: a home page, a search page, a creation modal, etc.

THE JOB FORUM

The Job Forum allows players to create jobs with various specifications. (Please note that the UI for the Mission system is still in progress. The images below are samples of what it will look like.)

 

The upper part of the interface lists “Aphelia” jobs, which are created by Novaquark to provide information about game events, like discovering new wreck ships, etc.

Players can inspect job details in a dedicated window and engage in a conversation with the job issuer in a mini-chat integrated to the mission.

 

You will also find Aphelia (NPC) missions that will provide new ways of making money. And, lastly, issuers can limit their missions to fellow org members only as a way to keep transactions and missions in-house.

HAULING MISSIONS

These come with formal guarantees on the rewards, collaterals, time, etc. It is tightly-coupled with the possibility to create sell orders so that you can express your intention to sell a good on a distant market and simultaneously create a transport mission to arrange transport of the goods to the said market.

The definition of a hauling mission includes:
 

• Start/end point + indication if this is in PvP zone or not.
• Collateral (lost by the mission responder if the mission is not completed).
• Time limit.
• Reward.

The game enforces these, picking the rewards and putting collateral in escrow when the mission is created. The content of the mission is to be retrieved either from a “mission container” (a new type of container dedicated to hauling missions, think of it as a mailbox) or from a market container. It is then stored as a package with the content hidden for the mission responder. (Opening the package voids the mission and the collateral is paid.) The package can be retrieved or delivered by interacting directly with the associated container (via context-menu entries) or within a 2km range by using the controls on the interface.

Failing a mission can occur if:
 

• The responder does not deliver within the given time frame (including if the package is destroyed).
• The package is opened by either the responder or someone else (i.e. pirates).
• The destruction of the destination container does not fail the mission. Instead, the mission responder can keep the package and open it without penalty; however, this means the mission cannot be completed anymore.
   

CAVEAT EMPTOR

What is important to remember is that negotiations about rewards, or even the job description and purpose, are entirely declarative and non-binding. It is there as a statement, made clear with various warnings and “Are you sure?” windows.
 

There’s often an element of danger involved when doing business. For some, the lure of pulling one over on an unsuspecting stranger has an even larger allure than the money to be made. Sure, you can scam sweet, trusting little lambs for a time, but eventually you’ll be the one to pay the price. Both the Job Forum and the Mission system have the possibility to rate the interaction for the issuer and the responder. Scores between 0 and 5 are attached to players as responders or issuers of missions (both formal and jobs), which will help to identify and potentially weed out scammers.
 

YOUR FIRST MISSION STARTS HERE

Your mission now, should you choose to accept it, is to head over to this section of the forums to share your thoughts about this devblog. Which do you anticipate doing the most: creating missions, doing missions, or pirating missions?