Introduction #
A large part of the game progression depends on improving your standing with the various empires on the map. There are a number of low-intensity actions that influence these, including trade of in-demand goods. There is also the option to make donations. But the heavy lifting was always intended to be a set of missions that players can accept. Let’s dive into that.
Player Missions #
While entirely optional - I find it important that it is possible to complete game without any missions - they are intended as a shortcut to better relations. If you do something for some aliens, they will consider you more trustworthy and more likeable. Though their neighbours, who hate them, might think less of you at the same time. There can be interesting trade-offs involved.
I do not yet have a full list of mission types, but this being a space trading game, most of them will involve either travelling somewhere or finding something. There is one very simple mission already in the game that helps players start: A human intelligence agency paying you to discover new star systems.
Procedural Generation #
Since the entire galaxy is procedurally generated, quite obviously there isn’t much traction to be found in manually created missions. The vast majority of missions in the game will be procedurally generated, based on demand, diplomacy and other world states.
Procedural generation has two main features. The good: It can provide with unlimited amounts of variety at scale. A few thousand star systems is easy once I had written the galaxy generator. Scattering a few hundred missions around those is likewise going to be trivial, once the generator is created. Which brings us to feature two, the bad: Getting a procedural generation system working and working well is quite a bit of effort. I spent weeks building the first iteration of the galaxy generator and months fine-tuning it.
Mission Consequences #
While “just for fun” is a reasonable motivation, both in-game and out-of-game there should be mission rewards, and there will be.
First, obviously, is money. Most missions will reward the player with credits, and this way also serve as an alternative route to profit. Or at least some additional profit.
Secondly, standing. Completing missions will affect your reputation and other faction values outlined in Information & Diplomacy, reputation with the various empires is an important part of the game, and missions will have a big influence on that.
Current State #
Only a few hand-crafted starting missions are in the game right now. I have started work on the procedural missions and the UI necessary to handle it. Won’t be in the next update, but I hope to bring it into the playtest I plan to run soon. So stay tuned and check the Steam announcements from time to time.