EDIT: Feel free to leave any feedback, ideas, comments, additional mission ideas, cool recipes, etc...

Ok first off my apologies if this or something like this has already been proposed. Now that the basics of ship interiors has been implemented I was thinking that we should have some missions that take place in our own ship. I was also thinking that it would be nice if from time to time while traversing sector space we were alerted to something on long range sensors like an anomaly, a concentration of certain particles, or even a distress signal. Now I'm not the best at laying this all out but I'll do my best here.
- You're flying along in sector space when a notification from a bridge officer comes up, (I'd suggest this be a small icon that pops up on the side of the screen so it won't be as obtrusive. Another option would be to use the "Scan" button and have it bring up the following prompt from a bridge officer).
Bridge officer:
Captain we've detected something on long range sensors. Would you like to investigate?
If you select "no" then the prompt closes and you go on your merry way, if you select "yes" then the bridge officer would elaborate on what they've detected.
BO:
"We're picking up a (spacial, temporal, subspace, etc) anomaly" or
"We're picking up a high concentration of (antiproton, dekyon, metreon, etc) particles"
You would then get a mission to travel to a nearby system to investigate the anomaly or particles. When you arrive in the mission one of several things could happen.
- You discover the anomaly is actually a non-corporeal lifeform
- If it's peaceful then they mission would proceed very much like a normal First Contact mission
- If it's hostile then it could try to posses or take over the crew and you have to fight to retake the ship (I have an idea for a "captured ship" mission I'll describe later).
- You scan or interact with the anomaly and it has a disastrous effect severely damaging your ship, (think of the TNG episode "Disaster"). You are on the bridge and must make your way to engineering in order to keep your ship from being destroyed (I also have an idea for a "damaged ship" mission I'll describe later).
Alternatively instead of the anomaly/particle response you could get this:
BO:
We're picking up a distress signal from a (civilian, Romulan, Klingon, Cardassian, Pakled, etc...) cargo vessel
This could end in various types of mission as well.
- The cargo ship is under attack and has been boarded. You have to fight off the enemies and then beam over to rescue the crew. Basically a rehash of the S.S. Azuria mission.
- The distress signal was a trap and you're ambushed by enemy forces.
- The cargo ship has suffered massive damage and system failure. You must beam over and help them restore power and get their ship back online. This would be very much like the "damaged ship" mission mentioned above. This would either end with their ship returned to power or with the crew evacuated to your ship.
- The crew was evacuated to your ship. Unfortunately they have decided they like your ship better and have managed to wrest control of it from you. This would be another instance of the "captured ship" mission mentioned above. It could turn out that they faked the damage or are just going to take advantage of your hospitality.
In the next post I'll describe the two types of missions I suggested here, the "captured ship" mission and the "damaged ship" mission.
Comments
Your ship has suffered massive damage and is in danger of being destroyed, (warp core about to go critical, drifting towards a black hole, etc...). You must make your way safely to engineering.
This mission would take place on your ship which would have fires and other debris laying around so it looks damaged. First you need to get off the bridge but fires or toxic fumes block your exits. You have to access a terminal and reroute power to the hazard systems on the bridge, (this could be a mini-game or a series of text prompts to determine how to successfully reroute the power).
Once that's done you gain access to your ships Jeffries tubes which could be littered with more fires that you have to bypass using a nearby terminal. You could also encounter injured crewmen along the way and could interact with them to help them out. Once you reach engineering you interact with another console and have another mini-game or text prompts to enact some technobable solution to the situation, (adjust the intermix ratio of the plasma converters or something).
Captured Ship
Your vessel has been taken over by hostile forces leaving you and your bridge officers trapped in the lounge. You must make your way to sickbay in order to create the proper mixture of gas to incapacitate or drive out the hostile forces. Then you must make your way to engineering to break into atmospheric control to pump the gas into the correct areas.
You start this mission in your ship's lounge with your other bridge officers, there is a forcefield in front of the doors preventing your escape. You interact with a panel along one of the walls which brings up a minigame or series of text prompts to rearrange the isolinear chips in order to override the command lockout and allow you to lower the forcefield. Once free you make your way to sickbay where you research the biology of the enemy, (or in the case of a hostile non-corporeal it's composition). From that information you go to a terminal and determine the correct mixture of elements or agents to create an effective gas that will knock them out or drive out the hostile elements, once again this would be a minigame or series of text prompts.
With that done you proceed to engineering and interact with a terminal to access atmospheric control. A minigame or text prompts would end with you gaining access and releasing the gas in the correct amounts in the correct areas of the ship.