Missions & contracts

Mission 2.0 is meant to let designers build robust, scalable content more easily, adding story scenarios, quest chains, persistence between logins, finer sharing and reward options, and better contract presentation.

They attribute recurring mission breakage to huge content volume, complex interactions, missing automated regression testing and a brittle Mission 1.0 toolset, and say they plan more automated testing and focused robustness work.

They agree on the need to offload loot during Siege of Orison, are looking at item banks along the way possibly tied to local inventory, but the details are still undecided; it's something they'll look to add.

The mission first teaches players to take the shuttle to a transit platform and join an instance, with no reward, and the new instance lets a group of four play a more directed experience without outside interference.

Huckaby says this is a mission-team matter and that a Missions 2.0 refactor, long planned, should enable rewards beyond credits and the kind of multi-crew payoffs asked about, though he gives no specifics or date.

Mission rewards were held back by technical limitations, namely freight elevators, Server Meshing and the mission refactor, and the intent is to move beyond UEC and extend rewards to other missions beyond Wikelo.

Reward value is a balancing act, with a mix of mission-only, mission-or-loot, and loot-only items, some kept visually distinct by how they're obtained, and value isn't just about UEC worth.

Asteroid bases are planned in different categories (sandbox mission, exploration, contested) to vary gameplay, with always-populated bases to explore and puzzles and treasures, though this is described as "the plan going ahead".

Contested zones support three playstyles: a quick loot-and-leave run, completing the whole zone using keys found inside to reach the final reward room, and wider progression across multiple zones and asteroid bases.

Contested zones have short-term, mid-term and long-term branches, and the long-term branch requires ingredients from other places, so players must visit multiple zones to progress.

Loot generation uses the same system as harvestable containers, letting designers define tag-based loot archetypes that also pick up tags from the surrounding environment, with flexibility for designers as the main focus.

In 3.12 nearly all mission givers have reputation, where good or poor performance raises or lowers favor, and three bounty organizations unlock higher difficulty and rewards, as a first iteration to be built on.

The missions themselves need to be finished first, with reputation then layered on as an optional influence; reputation is also meant to gate FPS gear progression so it isn't tied only to money.

They aim to make enough content to keep players within one planetary system, bringing other systems up to the content density of Crusader, though some missions that send players across the system will remain.

Distance-based rewards aren't in yet; a separate economy team sets rewards after mission designers set difficulty, and they hope a dynamic mission system will make this easier, while still exploring ways to measure difficulty.

Showing a distance or travel time before accepting is possible since missions are calculated in advance, but they think time tied to quantum travel would be more useful and haven't settled how to compute it.

In the first-tier design, a party leader can share any member's accepted mission with the party, where others join as junior owners who can't make decisions, rewards split evenly, and leaving the party forfeits it.

Luke Pressley says Scramble Racing is a first-tier stepping stone toward Death of a Spaceman, not opposed to it, with a non-lethal version and injured-and-revive mechanics expected later, though the current game doesn't yet reflect that.

Players must keep checking the General tab of the contract manager, where an active Scramble Race appears and is accepted; a task exists for the future to let players flag tabs for pop-up alerts.

Offline travel between planets isn't planned for now, since the team doesn't want players bypassing risk and content, though they might look at other ways to offer something similar if there's a need.

New modular missions keep the same core task, such as cargo delivery, but randomly choose the cargo, outpost and location each time, so the same mission plays out differently.

There is no single solution: mission boards filter crowds in big places, remote NPCs make players wait their turn or may refuse annoying players, and spread-out locations help, with tweaking expected after release.

Homestead aimed to test how mature the planet tools were in artists' hands, so they picked an arid, savannah-highland landscape over jungle, which was held for later, and worked daily with engineers.

Roberts doesn't expect players to work jobs like station security at big NPC mining stations soon, but says players could take contracts or missions from large NPC organizations, with career paths a long-term idea.

Chris Roberts says he is unsure what the question means, but missions are designed for roughly half an hour to an hour of play, with longer tasks spread over sessions and no strict metric.

You can fly the Freelancer in 2.1, but gameplay for it depends on a cargo system that has no ETA, with missions around it being discussed and no known timing.

They want oceans, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, trees and animals on planets, focused on exploration and procedural missions with players creating the story rather than a No Man's Sky-style living world.

NPCs will sometimes initiate interactions and offer jobs, because the goal is for NPCs and AI to be active rather than merely reactive, via a planned Meta AI.

When broke, players are being considered for loan-shark loans or for paying jobs from players or NPCs, like piloting or menial work, that earn enough for repairs or fuel but not a lot.

Holding cells are still being worked out; the thinking is that a captured player appears in the cell via a cutscene but only for a short time-out, to avoid griefing, before a prison interstitial.

A dedicated scholar or diplomat role is probably too specific this early and no ambassador plans exist, though exploration will tie into academia and more roles may be added over time.