Topic: A peacetime server?

[NuclearWessels]

As always, I've been toying around with mission ideas, but am a little tired of writing variants on shoot-em-ups.

I was curious if there'd be any interest in a peacetime server.  This would be a time of tension, minor skirmishes, and influence peddling rather than fleet-to-fleet mayhem.  Missions would still affect hex DVs, but based on accomplishing mission goals which wouldn't always be destruction-oriented.

For cartel pilots, missions would focus on raiding, bribery, smuggling, assassination, etc.

For empire pilots, missions would focus on border patrols, escort duties, quashing rebellions, and shows of force to impress the yokels in friendly space, plus scouting, provocations, raids and attempts to inspire rebellions and acts of espionage in hostile space.  In enemy space the idea would be to cause as much trouble as possible without actually getting caught red-handed breaking any treaties between the hostile parties.  The missions and goals would need to be tailored to reflect the attitudes of the different races.

Anywho, if folks have an interest in this, mission suggestions, etc, I'd love to hear them. 

If anyone has an interest in actually adminning something like this (if I write the missions) I'd be even more interested to hear it   

dave

[NuclearWessels]

Heh, what actually provoked this was seeing the tribble episode on the tube late late last night, and thinking about how to write a mission so whichever ship had the tribbles aboard at the end of the mission would be the loser 

[Soreyes]

You mean stuff like Intercepting Illegal shipments of Romulan Ale? Flying Boarder patrol in your Lil ol Friget and coming across a pair of Mating Sungliders

[NuclearWessels]

You mean stuff like Intercepting Illegal shipments of Romulan Ale? Flying Boarder patrol in your Lil ol Friget and coming across a pair of Mating Sungliders

Hmmm ... the latter might require a special Kroma rule 

[Bonk]

Interesting idea. Well worth exploring.

[Dizzy]

Oh yeah. Thats where the spirit of this game comes from... I'd love to see a return of the missions that dont call for the simplistic clobbering of your enemy. Im with you 100% on this and I'd consider using these missions on a mainstream server too.

[NuclearWessels]

Initial thoughts for a mission list (trying to keep this to what I'm sure can be done with the scripting API with a minimal level of bugginess and still support PvP)

Monster mission
No direct combat is permitted between the empires, but they can try to use the monster to stir up trouble
   - defending empire ships try to analyze/neutralize the monster (a la SFB style monster missions)
   - attacking empire ships try to drive/control the monster to attack the defender ships/planets/bases

Delivery missions
Again, no direct combat, but the attacker is trying to make the defender's life miserable
   - defending empire ship tries to pick up and deliver key supplies/personnel to a disabled planet/base/ship within a time limit (the longer it takes, the lower your victory rating)
   - if an attacker is drafted their goal is to impede the process as much as possible without firing on the enemy directly (tractors, picking up the supplies first, etc)
(possibly the supplies are scattered across a variety of asteroids, so the sides are racing between the rocks or some such)

Search and rescue
Again, no direct combat, but both sides are trying to be the ones to "rescue" the third party
   - tow a disabled ship out of range of a black hole/ion storm/sun/meteor shower

Smuggler/patrol
An empire-vs-cartel mission
   - the cartel ship is trying to find and pick up goods from a planet/base/asteroid/wreckage and get away with them (may involve scanning a number of locations to find the goods)
   - the empire ship is trying to make sure the cartel ship's mission fails, by any means necessary

Pirate duty
Basic pirate-vs-empire ship-to-ship combat

Base busting
Another pirate-vs-empire combat mission, but in this one the empire ship needs to find the pirate base (scanning through an asteroid field, they detect the base when they're within range X with scanners on?) while the pirate ship is trying to prevent the empire ship from surviving if they do find the base.

Convoy escort/raid
Much like the existing convoy missions, except it's cartel-vs-empire, and the cartel player is seeking to capture and escape with one or more freighters

Infiltration
Empire-vs-empire
   - the attacking player is attempting to place a spy/saboteur/instigator onto a planet, give them X turns to carry out their mission, then recover them and get away
   - the defending player is attempting to capture the spy/saboteur/instigator red-handed, in which case they are permitted to open fir on the attacker's ship (scanning the planet for the spy for a certain duration within a certain range allows detection of the spy)

Plant the flag
Empire-vs-empire: no ship-to-ship combat is permitted, but firing upon planets/moons is ok:
   - a race to capture and hold a number of planets/moons within a small system, victory goes to whoever controls the most ground at the end of the mission

The trouble with tribbles
I've always wanted to come up with a mission version of this episode... will post ideas later

dave

[Dizzy]

All the ideas are good. I like all the cartel vs empire ideas. But here are some ideas off the top of my head for a few as of now...

Monster mission
No direct combat is permitted between the empires, but they can try to use the monster to stir up trouble
   - defending empire ships try to analyze/neutralize the monster (a la SFB style monster missions)
   - attacking empire ships try to drive/control the monster to attack the defender ships/planets/bases

Putting the player in a monster ship vs the enemy empire is great. Giving the monster something to do besides just kill the enemy ship is great.

Search and rescue
Again, no direct combat, but both sides are trying to be the ones to "rescue" the third party
   - tow a disabled ship out of range of a black hole/ion storm/sun/meteor shower

Remember the 'Surprise Reversed'? Same deal, but have a defending player ship a long ways off and have to swoop in and save his friendly inactive AI ships from getting creamed by the attackers. The more ships he saves the better chance he has to win the mission. I mean come on... everyone wants to be a hero and savior, right? Firing on helpless ships, what can be more fun! Ship setup is easy. Instead of spawning them in their current ships, stick them in crappy outdated basic hulls so they dont have to worry if they die.

Pirate duty
Basic pirate-vs-empire ship-to-ship combat

Wow, can you have this ready this weekend? Something where you have a fleet action pirate mess on both sides? And I always liked the Pirate in the middle mission. Whatever happened to it?

Infiltration
Empire-vs-empire
   - the attacking player is attempting to place a spy/saboteur/instigator onto a planet, give them X turns to carry out their mission, then recover them and get away

Thats brilliant.. And simply all that needs be.

The trouble with tribbles
I've always wanted to come up with a mission version of this episode... will post ideas later

Each side has an allied LP behind them. Each one contains Tribbles that need to be beamed unto the enemy ship. The 1st player to land tribbles on the enemy ship wins. So each player myst race to the enemy LP, beam unboard the tribbles and then beam them on the enemy ship to win... or something.

[NuclearWessels]

Cool ideas, thanks Diz

.....

Pirate duty
Basic pirate-vs-empire ship-to-ship combat

Wow, can you have this ready this weekend? Something where you have a fleet action pirate mess on both sides? And I always liked the Pirate in the middle mission. Whatever happened to it?
...

Hmmmm - I can probably have the pirate mission ready tomorrow night (it's the easiest of the lot), will take a look.

I've still got the pirate in the middle script around.  I haven't dusted it off and included it in a pack in awhile, but I can certainly take a look at it

dave

[FPF-DieHard]

A Cold War server, interesting . . . .

[Dfly]

Perhaps a mission where your team must transport back to your ship more dilithyum crystals than the other, till there are none left? 

[KAT Chuut-Ritt]

Dave I cancelled my membership to the DIP since it wasn't doing anything, but if you still have yours i think I had posted a bunch of mission ideas on the missions subforum there.  I think many would apply.  If you still have acess to those I think you could find a few possibilities.

[NuclearWessels]

Righto - thx Chuut, I've been meaning to go back and re-read all the DIP mission material

dave

[Bonk]

Cool ideas, thanks Diz

.....

Pirate duty
Basic pirate-vs-empire ship-to-ship combat

Wow, can you have this ready this weekend? Something where you have a fleet action pirate mess on both sides? And I always liked the Pirate in the middle mission. Whatever happened to it?
...

Hmmmm - I can probably have the pirate mission ready tomorrow night (it's the easiest of the lot), will take a look.

I've still got the pirate in the middle script around.  I haven't dusted it off and included it in a pack in awhile, but I can certainly take a look at it

dave

As I recall the pirate in the middle script would only draft 1vs1. (though I might be confusing it with the enigma mission) I pretty much refuse to use missions that will not draft the maximum players in a hex. Inexperienced players see it as a bug and myself I find it completely defeats flying with a wing. Inevitably when flying with a wing I end up getting drafted by a BB or something in my light cruiser all by my lonesome...    Same goes for ambush, and other Nvs1 missions.

I like the other ideas though, particularly the delivery race for multiple objects scattered around, that one sounds like fun.  Rescue/Tug-of-war sounds like a blast too! Plant the Flag sounds cool also. I'm curious to see what you have in mind for Tribbles... 

[Dizzy]

enigma is a 1v1. Pirate in the middleshould have 3 slotson either side.

[NuclearWessels]

Hmm, just dug it out - Bonk is correct: as it is Pirate in the Middle just drafts 1v1. 

I'll have to take one of the current ED scripts and create a 3v3 version instead.

dave

[Dizzy]

If you do, it'd be more fair to see a pirate opposing each side rather than just one pirate that unfairly comes after one side leaving the other alone.. So the pirate placement would need to be setup so that each pirate would go after each side. My 2 cents.

You could call it Pirates in the middle! Be neat interrupting one of their rendevouz and them not taking kindly to it, hehe.

[Bonk]

Some of these missions could be made Freighter Captain friendly. DieHard and I were discussing last night how a few such missions might be nice and bring freighters back into the game. Are there any features of freighters that could be used such as a higher capacity for items to be transported to a planet? Delivery missions, Smuggler/patrol and Convoy escort/raid concepts might be able to be adapted to this... OP+ has provided us with quite the selection of freighters, it might be fun to make use of them.

If one can put loads of items on a freighter for transport to a planet, perhaps a scenario where you transport as many items as you can to the planet before you are chased off and the PP payout (if you get away) is proportional to the amount of cargo successfully unloaded?

Bonk, the friendly Space Trucker. 

[el-Karnak]

I have a couple Dockyard Raid missions that could be converted to peacetime parameters, by substituting the raider ships with pirates.  Same thing could be done with the convoys.  There's also a 3 year old Pirate Base Assault mission that was used for SG3 that could be updated for peace-time env.

There could also be some specialized tac. warping Andro scouting missions in any hex,  and some ISC police action missions in neutral hexes.  Could also throw in some web snaring Tholians in certain areas.