test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The Ultimate Recurring Mission Plot Suggestion / Discussion
System
Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
In an effort to aid and consolidate various recurring mission plots (i.e., Patrol, Exploration, et al.) -- I would like to introduce an outline form that I suggested for improving the Aid missions...but am thinking now that one could extend that to all recurring missions.
Please either post a short synopsis of your suggested mission or mission plot type so I can add it to this first post "Plot Outline Tree" and/or post additional canon episodes or RL events that could conform to the Plot Outline Tree as it exists or evolves and/or post links to other threads with helpful elements.
Items in Blue highlight the first mention of a suggested method or change and/or future insertion point for same.
Whatever mission methods Cryptic uses, for this discussion assume a "Trigger" and a "Plot" constitute an "Episode/MIssion"
=================
Universal Suggested Mechanic Assumptions -
=================
Triggers-
Diplomacy Trigger -> Patrol, Exploration, as directed by Faction HQ
Aid "New Trigger" ->
Shipboard Life Trigger -> Assigned from Faction HQ / apropos Starbase, allocates random mission event, frequency: once each even numbered level.
Revisit / Continuing Story Trigger -> This would be a delayed trigger that would setup a "continuing" mission with the same people / location your interacting with in the current mission.
=================
Additional Plot Variation Modifiers:
(applicable to almost any mission plot, however some almost demand it)
T = Timed --- This mission should be timed to heighten the "need" to finish (i.e., the "crisis"...which is a big part of many such Trek episode plots)
M = Moral Dilemma -- This mission could be enhanced/modified with an additional moral element pitting the "right" choice vs. the "proper" or "legal" choice.
B = Barter --- The player may exchange something of value they have in inventory as trade or demand to party or parties involved. It maybe item "XX" of the mission (spares) or energy (that is supposedly converted into any widget of choice.)
N = Non-Lethal Skill Use -- The player & BO's must use their non-lethal skills to accomplish goal, such as the Science officer using a Tachyon beam or other deflector skill, or medical healing skills on ground...or the player using their resuscitate skill on wounded persons; usage of specific stun weapons of melee skills vs. inanimate obstacles, etc. -- as in the TNG episode "Hide & Q", perhaps if Data could've removed the obstacle off the little girl faster she would not have died yet obviously phasering the obstacle would've killed her just the same, etc.
=================
Plot Outlines-
Please either post a short synopsis of your suggested mission or mission plot type so I can add it to this first post "Plot Outline Tree" and/or post additional canon episodes or RL events that could conform to the Plot Outline Tree as it exists or evolves and/or post links to other threads with helpful elements.
Items in Blue highlight the first mention of a suggested method or change and/or future insertion point for same.
Whatever mission methods Cryptic uses, for this discussion assume a "Trigger" and a "Plot" constitute an "Episode/MIssion"
=================
Universal Suggested Mechanic Assumptions -
- Duty/Honor and/or Race Ethics / Respects or similar.
- Mini-game or similar in use for more complex scanning/diplomacy (top pg 3 link), etc. operations in certain missions as required by designer.
=================
Triggers-
Diplomacy Trigger -> Patrol, Exploration, as directed by Faction HQ
Aid "New Trigger" ->
1. receive aid mission from Star Fleet or Local Request (i.e., get XX of THIS and goto HERE)
2. Go get (or Replicate from a stored pattern and your Energy Bank) "XX of THIS" and goto/return to "HERE"
3. *IF* you have the required "XX of THIS" in your backpack Begin variations (otherwise inform player you don't have required "XX of THIS" to continue mission)
Shipboard Life Trigger -> Assigned from Faction HQ / apropos Starbase, allocates random mission event, frequency: once each even numbered level.
1. "Report to Starbase XX for Overhaul of ZZ shipboard system" - Opens a type "G" or "J" mission the reward would be an upgrade of that ship component (from "normal" to "uncommon" or "uncommon" to "rare", etc.)
2. "Guinea Pig" - ship to be used as a testbed for experimental technology (SF or Alien) -- this may transition to a B2 type mission to arrive at a "repair" solution.
3. "Personal crew event" - Opens a type "G" or "J" mission, the reward being the upgrade of a personal component (weapon, shield, etc. from "normal" to uncommon" or "uncommon" to "rare", etc.)
Revisit / Continuing Story Trigger -> This would be a delayed trigger that would setup a "continuing" mission with the same people / location your interacting with in the current mission.
=================
Additional Plot Variation Modifiers:
(applicable to almost any mission plot, however some almost demand it)
T = Timed --- This mission should be timed to heighten the "need" to finish (i.e., the "crisis"...which is a big part of many such Trek episode plots)
M = Moral Dilemma -- This mission could be enhanced/modified with an additional moral element pitting the "right" choice vs. the "proper" or "legal" choice.
B = Barter --- The player may exchange something of value they have in inventory as trade or demand to party or parties involved. It maybe item "XX" of the mission (spares) or energy (that is supposedly converted into any widget of choice.)
N = Non-Lethal Skill Use -- The player & BO's must use their non-lethal skills to accomplish goal, such as the Science officer using a Tachyon beam or other deflector skill, or medical healing skills on ground...or the player using their resuscitate skill on wounded persons; usage of specific stun weapons of melee skills vs. inanimate obstacles, etc. -- as in the TNG episode "Hide & Q", perhaps if Data could've removed the obstacle off the little girl faster she would not have died yet obviously phasering the obstacle would've killed her just the same, etc.
=================
Plot Outlines-
A) "normal" Space Enemy (Pirates, Kling, Rom, Hiro, etc...or local rebel / rival nation state or sister planet, etc.)
- Resolve combat, murder death kill.
- War Aims Mission
- Convoy Escort / Raid
- System Blockade / Blockade Running (segway to ground also)
- Negotiate -- transition to a G2b B below.
"special" Space Enemy (Space Amoeba, et al.)
- Resolve combat, it must be destroyed and you can do it without qualms (Asteroid, Comet, etc.) T
- Research
In either case you must scan anomalies, etc. whilst avoiding it, a certain amount of combat damage -- or science combat (Tachyon Beam, etc.) causes it to back off for a short while, etc.
- a) It must be destroyed, but is too powerful to fight normally.
- b) It is unique and can be managed, so can't be destroyed (but you are still able)M /& N
C) Lost Shuttle - Space (key BO and/or NPC lost in shuttle)
- 1) Variations on A or B above with the shuttle crew as hostage, resolve as those
- 2) "lost" shuttle, scan asteroids, anomalies, planet or moon locations, etc.
- a) rescue complete
- b) transition to D1
- c) transition to D2
D) Lost Shuttle - Ground (Captain and/or BO's lost in shuttle)
- Repair Shuttle under duress (2 to 3 steps of escalating enemy action until repair is complete)
- Rescue Crew under duress
E) Administer Aid on Ground (any of the above can continue with this, or it can "stand alone"; *each type would be logically associated with the type of good "XX of THIS" that was requested/required)
- Medical Emergency
- a) Scan victims / anomalies, etc. to find proper application of aid
- Infectious Plague - Capt/BO's are "plagued"T
- Ask local medics questions, choose "right" answer from list T
- b) Disaster Aid N
- c) Combat variation on option 1 a or b adds groups of "infecteds"M or other enemy that are "in the way"
- Equipment Assistance
- a) Point to Point equipment install/repair/scan mission
- NPCs accompany, players must note which are where during mission because one is Saboteur of this new equipment, player will finger saboteur through interviews with NPCs -- possible to move on to option b of the Equipment Assistance group or an option A1 (above) space encounter, etc.T
- Simple point to point steps and finish
- b) Combat crisis with enemy
- Enemies actively combat the installation steps.
- Hazardous conditions (i.e., fire, radiation, etc, etc.) impede progress to each point.
G) Diplomacy Missions
- Factional Influence
- a) Show The Flag
- Liberty Party Legal Incident
- Avoid/Correct Diplomatic Faux Pas
- b) Deal/Dont Deal with Other Faction
- c) Evaluate for Inclusion in Faction
- Conflict Resolution
- a) Diplo Courier, taking NPC(s) from one place to another.
- b) Arbiter of Negotiations
- c) Obtain Needed "Aid" Item from a reluctant source
- First Contact
- a) Covert Observe and Evaluate
- b) Introduce Faction, avoid Faux Pas
H) Exploration Missions (for Survey assume This or similar)
- Astrophysical Survey (Space)
- Geophysical Survey (Ground)
- Archeological Survey (Ground)
- Normal Survey
- Galactic Scavenger Hunt; remnants of ancient artifact must be gathered from n-other places and reassembled back on the ground at exploration system. Each of the n-other places has a mission whose reward is one of the artifacts.
- Activation of ancient technology
- Team accidentally activates, must shut down
- Team encounters situation which ancient tech can't stop, must restart it.
- Survey as above but with "surprise" segway to some other mission type or variation.
- Rescue from low techM
- Isolated Crew Action (Ground)
- a) Abducted Crew (no away team choice, no help from ship possible)
- Arena Combat
- Native InteractionM
- b) Away Team Awry (away team choice, no help from ship)
J) Shipboard - External Crisis
- Ship Taken Over
- a) Taken to Exotic/Unintended Location [The Nth Degree (TNG), Star Trek V]
- b) Taken to Exotic Location and Used as A Weapon [Defiant (DS9)]
- Conflict Aboard Ship
- a) Crew vs. Enemy [Space Seed (TOS), First Contact]
- b) Crew vs. Unknown Infiltrator
- c) Lone officer vs. enemy Boarding Party [Acquisition (ENT), Starship Mine (TNG)]
- d) Crew vs. Itself [Mirror Mirror (TOS), The Naked Time, The Naked Now, Genesis (TNG)]
- Crew Replaced
- Crew Mutated
- Crew Afflicted with Psychosis or Brainwashing
- Ship Destroyed / Destroy Ship
- Destroy Ship [StarTrek III, First Contact, Several Episodes of Voyager] (Story Arc ending in replacement?)
- Time Loop Destroyed / Must Break Loop
- Alternate Timeline No-Win Scenario to Restore Main Timeline
K) Shipboard - Internal Crisis
- C/BO cultural crisis
- C/BO personal crisis
- Those darn holodecks acting up again...
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
1. Ship Taken Over
- Taken to Exotic/Unintended Location [The Nth Degree (TNG), Star Trek V]
-- Taken to Exotic Location and Used as A Weapon [Defiant (DS9)]
- Conflict Aboard Ship
-- Crew vs. Enemy [Space Seed (TOS), First Contact]
----Crew vs. Unknown Infiltrator
-- Lone officer vs. enemy Boarding Party [Acquisition (ENT), Starship Mine (TNG)]
-- Crew vs. Itself [Mirror Mirror (TOS), The Naked Time, The Naked Now, Genesis (TNG)]
---- Crew Replaced
---- Crew Mutated
---- Crew Afflicted with Psychosis or Brainwashing
- Destroy Ship [StarTrek III, First Contact, Several Episodes of Voyager]
This could be expanded out quite a bit. Just giving you a skeleton to add.
(Including choices)
Explore Mission
-You warp in a system and are hailed by a local authority that is missing ships in the near asteroid belt (or maybe a nebula?)
- You search one or two of this ships, they are showing weapon damage on their hull.
- You receive a distress call from another nearby of that local authority ship, when you approach there are several whatsoever race ships around.
- The "enemies" are hailing you. When you explain why you came up they will tell you that they need the medical supplies for their homeworld or most of them will die. The "local authority" is the only one selling the needed medical supplies but only for an price that ist 3 times higher than normal. They dont have enough money for that and are forced to steal them.
- Referring back to the authority they will tell you that they need the money for the special producing and the research and that they have to pay their workers as well. If they dont pay them properly the facility will go bancrupt.
PLUS: They remind you that they are acting within the intergalactic law. They can set their prices as they want. The attackers are just thiefs that dont want to pay and if you let them go on maybe other groups will do it the same way and avoid paying for their goods if they are too expensive.
- You choose:
- Fight the robbers.
- Let them the supplies and fight an encounter of the local authorities.
- Declare the supplies property of the federation and fight both.
- Try to negotiate a truth betweeen both parties.
(Its a very classic "hazard choice" scenario)
Let me hear your thoughts about a mission like that. I have some more in mind but not the time right now to write them down properly.
Updated 1st post...however, there are some details from your posts since last update that I need to work in there.
Good brain storming and inputs so far!!!!
How about pay the difference yourself.
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=115699
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=115708
(That last sentence has got to be the worst one ever written...Sorry about that)
Things like this are a good example of why travel should be possible from the bridge, with a ship's perspective first-person view on the viewscreen. You'd only need to apply a field of view wide enough for the viewscreen so it might not require too many system resources to implement.
I don't mean to troll and run but it's late and I need some sleep.
Report to Starbase 114 for maintenance -> Random distress call, signal detection, etc en route
Visit planet n for R&R, diplomacy, etc -> Random attack, diplomatic snafu (damn that Crusher boy), etc
-such a delivery would require the Make Active button to actually serve the purpose of priming the secondary random generator, but I would think that shouldn't require too much effort
Pretty much it would simply be adding a random initial objective, but it would give missions a more episodic beginning to them IMHO.
K
If not, then perhaps you could link directly to those posts or threads in your opening post.
A Bolian freighter is traveling through a system with a pre-industrial human civilization on a planet. It has a warp core containment failure which the crew is unable to solve. The crew escapes in a shuttle just before the ship explodes. The shuttle is badly damaged and has to land on the planet. It crash lands in a deep lake and sinks. Only four crewmen survive, two of whom are seriously injured, but all make it to shore. One goes off to scout the lay of the land. The other goes off to get fire wood and materials to make a quick shelter (its late fall and cold). Both get lost and before they find their way back, local inhabitants come to investigate the noise, find the two unconscious Bolians and take them to the nearby town.
Locating the Bolians by their lifesigns is no problem. However, this is one of those worlds with an abundance of Nocantransport III in the soil so beaming them out is not an option. To rescue the injured crew, you will have to bring them to your shuttle. Interaction with the locals cannot be avoided.
By covert observation you know that word of the two aliens and of the strange devices they carry has spread all over town. Some of the people are terrified and want to kill them. Some are more level-headed and want to find out what they are and where they come from before making any decisions. The building they are in is surrounded by guards. A message has been sent to the area magistrate and it is anticipated he will return in a day or to with a large number of troops to find out what is going on.
Possible Options / Complications:
Go in at night, phaser-stun everyone you see, grab the crew, locate their communicators and small hand phasers (standard in shuttle survival kits) and split. Mission is accomplished, and the incident becomes a story that makes the town famous for centuries to come.
Make contact with one of the more level-headed leaders or citizens, explain your situation and ask them to help. Mission is accomplished but you have to reveal the existence of alien beings who travel the stars, and hope the person or people who help you can keep such a secret to themselves.
One of the people will help, but only if you cure his wife of a serious illness which has to be treated in the ships sickbay. Do you bring her to your ship?
One of the people is examining a communicator, inadvertently activates it and the comms officer on your ship responds and a short but revealing conversation occurs.
The commander of the local milita accidentally fires the small hand-phasor. Realizing he has a very powerful weapon he decides to settle some personal scores he has.
A leading citizen of the town is a respected scientist and astronomer. He is willing to help you, but would you please answer just a FEW astronomical questions he has that have bugged him for years?
You have multiple elements. There is a Time limit. You need to rescue the crew before the area magistrate and more troops arrive.
Non-Lethal Skill Use You can just phaser-stun everyone you see and rescue the crewmen, but what if the person you encounter is a child or pregnant or old or ill? Phaser-stun might kill or seriously injure an old person. Using some skill to Hold them in place might be better.
There can be a barter involved. Do you answer the astronomers questions? All or just some? Or maybe you give him a few 'tips' on how he can make a much better telescope?
Moral Dilemma - Do you complicate the situation of inadvertent first contact by bringing the sick wife to your ship to be treated? Or is that considered a 'barter'
Just a thought.
If it's a full player team, the player can fight their way out to the others who are trying to reach them.
In any mission in which you have multiple choices, change the screen to a view of your conference room with your Bridge Officers, and let the suggestions for those choices come from the BOffs. It could even be a static view: No need for a loading screen and all that. Just a static shot of your conference room with the standard communication boxes over it.
have to agree that the same old a to b to c formula is feeling a bit worn at this point.
currently the game feels like it is missing around half of what made the shows so good when considered all together.
one suggestion i had for exploration "Aid the Planet" missions, and might work for others, is to make it be the beginning of a chain (perhaps randomly chosen each time) where a while after completing the initial mission, you get a call from HQ (since this logic can apply to any faction) saying that you have been asked for by name to go back to this planet to help with another issue. not sure how many individual missions there should end up being, but ultimately perhaps the planet erects a statue, or throws you a party or some other such thing. or if diplomacy gets added, you are asked to take the planet officials to HQ so that they can apply to become part of your faction.
It looks like the OP already touched on the #3 point. Good ideas.
There are so many variations in the go and fetch mission style that you could use that basic system but still have it be varied.
Some more ideas --
Away missions where someone joins your away team that isnt part of your crew (NPC scientist, first contact civilian)
Away missions where you beam down with a red shirt and you get accolades if they dont die (with higher accoldes for the more that live thru your missions)
Id like to also see missions with REAL danger. How about a BOFF is kidnapped for X reason and if you arent successful in rescuing them, they die.
When they start having ships be decoratable (if that happens) Id love to have random missions that occur while flying in sector space where something related to that mission allows you to get a decorator item.
I'll take it. Would love to see a mission like that.
They are simple and direct, but at least they would easy to incorporate. STO does already have a few of these.
(it's only a bullet list, and not in outline form)
- We should be able to actually see friendly civilizations. Currently there only spawn enemies. Scan missions on civilized planets we should spawn friendly citizens (sometimes). It would be a blast if sometimes one of them has an aditional mission. Even if it's only a "talk to XY" one.
- Non linear missions. There should be the possibility to make decisions during a mission, which lead to different mission outcomes. For example it depends on your decision if you have to fight or talk your way through. Or you can pick the group you want to support. Or you have to figure out who is behind a crime. And at the end you decide which person you arrest. You can make a wrong decision and get the message from Starfleet that the court figured out your supposed criminal was innocent.
the link as it stands gives an error.. the url part is shortened...can be worked around but still... just fyi
Fixed it
This tech offers initial advantages but goes horribly wrong. As an observer you must stop the impending disaster (non combat, timed , diplomacy (arrange evacuation of nearby civvies, calm hostilities of impacted parties ).
As a testbed, failure reduces the capabilities of your ship. Spawn a secondary mission which the player must overcome with a handicap, possibly using non conventional solutions