Mission Thoughts

[NapalmEnima]

So it sounds like there will be "attack" and "defend" missions automatically generated by the system. Folks accepting these missions will be placed into squads, and off they'll go.

But with the loss of the Sanctuary and the increase in gameplay speed, we're not going to see Big Hordes of vehicles and aircraft assembling and Going Forth to Kick Ass. Which would be a shame. That's epic.

To Address This Issue, I suggest an "Assemble Here with This Stuff at This Time" mission. Anyone within say 50 meters of the assembly point at the appointed time with the correct gear/vehicle gets the EXP. Anyone who's late, or ill-equipped doesn't.

This would mesh nicely with PS-Now's squad cert requirements. If half your squad is required to have Armored Assault II (or whatever the PS2 equivalent turns out to be), then you can expect 5 MBTs at the designated location at the designated time.

For Extra Epicness, the mission might designate particular spots for each squad member. Show up on your mark, in a Salute Pose, for Even More XP. An "autodrive/pose" feature would be nice to get everyone in nice neat lines. You'd want to let anyone break out of the pose with a move.

The same "autodrive into the gal/loadstar" logic could be used to get vehicles On Their Mark.

Give platoon/outfit leaders some extra alignment tools to get everyone in Epic Ranks, ready to deploy.

Bonus 1: Screen Shot Epicness.
Bonus 2: Assemble your troops, ready to rock.

Someone arriving early will know they have X minutes to go grab a drink or hit the head, and folks who aren't there yet should get a countdown display.

So:
In the right area: some XP
Properly Equipped: some XP
On Your Mark: some XP.

(You might want to make them all indepentent, though On Your Mark clearly assumes In The Area. If someone has the right gear but isn't there yet (but at least on the right continent?), they might get something... or you could require folks to be In The Area to get anything. Judgement call.)

Simple addition should be fine. 1/3 each, also fine. Total XP? Some flat amount + some fraction of the value of killing someone using the Required Gear (summed and averaged over the squad). You wouldn't want the gear to make up more than half of the total XP award. You want to encourage folks to be specific, but don't want to penalize cloakers vs tankers (for instance).


What you DONT want is to turn this into a free XP fountain. Several dials to tweak to control that:
1) Successive assembly orders give less XP, down to zero after a few.
2) Only allow N assembly orders over a given period of time. Say 2-3 an hour. TRAINABLE SKILL.