How do the counter missions work?

Well, the idea is that what we don't want to do is build this location and all these assets and everything like that just for one mission. And we also want to really bring players together as much as possible, because obviously it's an entire galaxy. It feels empty if they don't meet someone quite often, so we try and make concrete reasons for them to come across each other. In the previous mission Gareth made, the Clovis mission, we pit you basically directly against each other. So one person has to steal a chip from a downed satellite and then go and rip it at a...

Yeah, it was very much see guy, shoot guy.

Yeah, exactly. While the others chase it. And so that's fine, but some players don't like the direct PvP. So on this one, we decided that we would have it so that they're guided to the same location, but they're not necessarily there to take out each other. They just happen to be in the same place doing conflicting things.

Yeah, slight conflict of interest.

So in the mission that Detox is playing right now, you're out to get one very specific item, a box of particular drugs for Pacheco, and it's Maze. It's a very rare drug that's worth a lot of money. I think Maze is Tevarin. And it's this thing they use like, I guess, the Native American peace pipe kind of thing. They use it in ceremonies. But it's very rare, and a small amount of it can make a lot of drugs, I guess like LSD kind of thing. You need a small volume, but you get that and it's worth a lot of money.

So she's sending you out for this thing because she's heard through her contacts, like obviously the Antari Company have a few security on the payroll, and they've got wind that security forces are going to do a drug raid, basically, on a competitor. And what she's trying to get you to do is get there before this goes down and steal this one particular item. You are sent there to basically wade through 300 boxes and try and find the one in particular that has been very vaguely described to you and bring it back to her. Which sounds straightforward. Obviously you get there, there's going to be some people to fight, maybe, hopefully. There'll be turrets and stuff like that, because this is obviously a working drug lab at the time you're arriving; the bust hasn't happened yet.

So where the counter mission comes in is, we could have just done that mission and that be it. But we wanted to inject some possible tension into the mission, because we also tell you in the description that you can steal anything else you want while you're there. We don't care. Pacheco doesn't care. She just wants the box. That's all she cares about. You can steal the rest. So there's plenty of opportunity to be greedy, and in a game, that's a fantastic idea, that you can get greedy and maybe if you get too greedy, bad things will happen.