TL;DRThey can't give actual reward numbers, because the economy will always fluctuate; the session shows the reward algorithm and intent, not the final system, with more missions to be shown soon.
Well, in a way, that's what we've been trying to do for the last 20 minutes or so. We're showing you the EVR algorithm. We're showing you some of the considerations that are made. As far as what the actual numbers will be, that's a thing that, quite honestly, will always be in flux. Anybody who's worked on an MMO in the past, anybody who's played an MMO for several years will tell you that an economy is an ever-changing, ever-fluctuating thing. And at the scale that we're attempting to simulate across multiple star systems, it will be here too. So whatever that number reads today will not be what that number is however many weeks or months after that. That is the virtue of Quantum, which is, again, still the system in development, still where all this goes eventually. It's just, we're at a point now where 3.24 is so important to us, cargo is here. We don't have to wait until the finished thing to start laying the foundation of these new types of missions. We can use these other tools that we have. We can simulate all the same decisions, and then it's just a matter of plugging it into the system when that eventually comes online. So it's one of the more exciting aspects of 3.24 personally. I know all the hangar stuff is cool, but the idea that we're going to have these more involved missions that chain from one point to another point to another point, that are generated based on the need that you've been talking about, it's probably, for me, the signature element of 3.24. And again, in two weeks on ISC, we'll be talking about some of the content that's coming in 3.24, including a whole bunch of these missions we'll be showing you.
We're actually also already thinking ahead of how this can tie into an automated system in the future that basically robo-Jorrits me. So all of this, the Miro that I've shown you earlier, this whole rule set of what needs to go where, that system can be automated somewhere in the future.
There's many working parts to the backend systems, which are variously called Quantum or StarSim or whatever they're called. Just like Jared said, this is an illustration of our intent. It's not the final working system.
TL;DRThe new cargo missions have no buy-in, so players can start without capital; the boxes are real commodities owned by the corporation, so keeping them makes them stolen cargo that fences pay less for.
No, because originally the design for the cargo missions was: how are we going to make sure that players don't just decide this is a perfect opportunity to take a cargo grid of stuff for themselves? So they need a buy-in. But of course that feels just the same as commodity trading, where you have to have the money in order to do the thing. And that didn't feel inclusive enough. And also at a very large scale, you want to be able to use your large ship to do long, complex logistical exercises. If you also have to risk a huge amount of money to do that at the same time, and you fail once, that doesn't feel good either. So the whole design ethos changed to allow this to be an environment that people could play and thrive in if they follow the rules. But if they didn't want to follow the rules, then, because it's a sandbox, people will do whatever they will do. And the interesting thing is that these are not mission boxes. These are real commodity boxes that are being transported. And so if you were to misappropriate those boxes and do something else with them, they would be considered stolen cargo, and they are marked as owned by the corporation that has given you them to transport. So you would have to sell them at a fence, and you wouldn't be getting full market value for them.
Even fences consider these cargo containers to be high risk. Everybody knows that they are originating from a reputable source. These major corporations of Stanton are basically trading above our heads, and really, whenever they need you, they'll just hire you as a space trucker. Which means a fence location that gets their hands on these, chances are they'll probably give you a significant portion less.
TL;DRNo, only the new hauling missions drop the buy-in; the existing commodity missions that need it remain, more will be made, and the two types exist side by side.
No. He's talking about the differential between commodity missions and cargo missions, specifically hauling missions. So these are a specific new type of mission that do not have the buy-in. The original missions that require those, those commodity missions, still exist, and we'll still be making more and more of those. We got a whole other star system to fill and then another one after that, another one after that. Those missions don't go away. These are a new type of mission that exists alongside those.
Because this allows us to essentially build the hauling experience for even the early game, where usually sandbox commodity trading would require you to already have capital, as we mentioned before. Here you can go ahead and accept some of these space trucker missions from the corporations. And at the beginning it will be a low value, low risk kind of thing. But after a while they'll really start counting, and after a while maybe you'll be comfortable enough to the point where you'll think of starting your own little freelance business and going off and buying commodities in the sandbox.
TL;DRIf cargo is lost, stolen or late, the player can complete the mission early and get a partial reward if they did well enough, otherwise a reputation penalty that reduces future opportunities from that guild.
For example, a pirate, because the commodities have real values. Or maybe the cargo grid misbehaves, or whatever. Or maybe you run out of time. Maybe you decide that you're definitely going to do that supply late mission in your Aurora. These companies expect their cargo to be moved within a reasonable deadline. So you have the option to complete the mission early, essentially. So you have the complete button, and if you press the complete button, what it will do is the mission will take where you currently are at and it will submit that as your best effort. And then you will get a partial reward in terms of money and reputation if you do well enough. And if you don't do well enough, you will get a partial slap on the wrist in terms of reputation. If you decided to mislay 80% of your cargo grid's worth of titanium, then the people who asked you to transport it probably wouldn't be offering you that mission again anytime soon.
So you take a rep hit. You might make a little money on the side fencing it, but you're going to take a rep hit, and your future opportunities from that particular guild will be diminished.
TL;DRProbably yes: the reward system can handle any kind of reward, reputation-based rewards are expected to include non-money items, and the mission system is being extended to award items, with no timing given.
So I don't want to speak to the entire progression system, because that is a design owned by someone else. But EVR is designed to handle any kind of reward. So maybe.
He won't speak for it, but I can go ahead and say that yes. Obviously the reputation-based rewards through the organization system are one way in which you'll receive items that are not just money, but also there is an ongoing effort to evolve the mission system itself to be able to just outright award items beyond just money. So when that gets used, where that gets used, that's going to be the discretion of the game design team and the folks who are creating the missions. But the tech is there, and it's being worked on, and you should see more of that, just like you saw with the Overdrive and Xenothreat stuff, in the near future. Or in a future. I honestly have no idea when.
So we do have a design for hauling vehicles, but that won't be for this release. Currently for the release, we're basically making use of the different resource containers. So that will mean anywhere from one SCU to, I believe, 16 SCU, is that right?
TL;DRThey believe there are new commodities, including some specific to Pyro, but the speakers couldn't say which ones, though missions will use existing commodities like fuel and ammunition players may not have seen moved before.
We are trying to make use of as many commodities as possible, which is why I went through every single one in the game and I tried to make sense, building this whole infrastructure, figuring out what should go where, which means you might actually come across some commodities that you haven't seen before. For example, we've definitely got some missions set up where you're moving quantum fuel, hydrogen fuel, ship ammunition, and it turns out that this is actually the commodity that is being removed from a location whenever a player lands at a hangar and asks for a refuel and a rearm.
This is something that I actually spoke about with some other designers, and we decided to not do that this time because there are a lot of different kinds of considerations that come with that. For example, what if you damaged a ship? Currently that would probably get you a CrimeStat because you're damaging somebody else's vehicle, just like you would do another player. Would you have to deliver that vehicle back to the owner in some way? That adds a whole bunch of different steps and considerations for the law system.
TL;DRIt depends: only a selection of simulated NPC ships will be physicalized, with the majority not, and how many comes down to performance, with players always prioritized; they can't yet say how many.
So that's actually a StarSim/Quantum conversation, and the sensible answer is it depends. What you're essentially asking is: will NPCs in the StarSim system be physicalized? That's essentially the question you're asking, and the answer is it depends.
And that's been in the Quantum design for forever. I'm sorry, I'm still not used to calling it StarSim. There will be a selection of them that are physicalized, and then the overwhelming majority of them will not be, just because there's no use taking the performance hit for that. So the answer to how many will be will almost certainly come down to a performance thing as the game continues to evolve and as Server Meshing comes online and we start seeing the various performance improvements that we get from that, as all the game systems are hardened and developed in line with Server Meshing. We start to see all these performance improvements that, I swear, we're all dying for just as much as you are. That will determine how many of those other ones we can physicalize and put in there. There's not a person who works here that doesn't want to see that line of ships leaving Area18 and going up into orbit and hitting quantum. We all want it. But it will always come down to a question of: do we have that, or do we have another player? And we're always going to pick another player first. So that's not a question that we have an answer for. There will be some amount of it, but we couldn't tell you how many yet.
That's actually super interesting that you say another player, Jared, because these missions will tend to concentrate players. Because the routes are grade-specific and the grades are ship-specific, you will tend to find traffic of a certain type on certain routes.
TL;DRSince the cargo is real, a hauler can try to retrieve stolen cargo, but can't yet replace it with other goods; and serious enough infractions systemically generate a bounty on the aggressor.
Well, because it's real cargo, you, being the cargo hauler, do have the option, assuming it hasn't glitched out the ship and disappeared forever, of retrieving your cargo if you can retrieve it, because it is specific cargo for your mission that you need to deliver. It isn't the case yet that you could just replace your missing iron with some other iron. That would be a different mission type.
That would be resource gathering, coming in the future, where you're basically asked to just provide them with an item or commodity from anywhere in the universe. That's not stolen. Yeah, probably not.
Unless you can scratch the VIN off. Chris has talked about that too. Could be a thing. A way to legalize stolen [goods], again, for a smaller vig and whatnot.
So if you get pirated on one of these missions, you could totally ask a friend who's a really good shot to come out and follow the baddies and get your cargo back before the timer runs out.
I mean, it sort of does, because if the infraction is above a CrimeStat 3, then a bounty gets generated. So in a way, because it's systemic, the actions of the aggressor will generate a bounty.
Currently, you could do that using a tractor beam, where it will actually give you information about the different kinds of things that you're moving. So you'll have information about the commodity that you're moving, but also it should mention whether it's contracted or not. And then further in the future, we're looking into making that information available with your ship scans as well. So if you're a pirate, you scan a ship. In the future, you should be able to differentiate.