Ok, I'll contribute an idea to ED: Mission Hubs

[Sentience]

This has probably been suggested before, but I'm too lazy to go search for it (sorry).

Current Mission Format

You dock.
You access the station computer (from inside your ship).
You get missions.
You undock.

You can't even see other player ships parked nearby.....zzzzzz....boring.

Suggested Mission Format

You dock.
You get out of your ship and enter the station common area (cantina, bar, lounge....whatever).

Yes, this would require FDev to design, texture, and code an interior space with avatars that walk around. But, they would only have to make 1 single room.

The idea is any pilot that docks to a station will access the same common area shared by other player pilots.
If one gets too crowded, another instance opens up...similar to various MMO's that shard the same area over and over to accommodate increased player load.

Pilots can request missions from a mission board, providing a central object to socialize around. A local chat channel specific to the common area lets players request crews for harder missions on multicrew capable space craft.....which makes it much more attractive and social then just going to your comm window and teleporting into someone else's ship no matter where they are in the galaxy.

Overall, it would improve the game's social mechanic, give a boost to multicrew, and give those who want the ability to walk around somewhere the chance to do it without it just being some novelty that's completely unused (like EVE's captain's quarters).

Best part is it doesn't matter where you are in the galaxy...any mission you take will be assigned to the actual station you're at but you take it from inside this shared area. Players that join your mission can use the telepresence mechanic to leave the station they're docked at and join you on your ship at yours, which again makes way more sense then doing it from deep space.

Just throwing it out there. It would definitely make me want to play more if I knew I would actually see other players gathered in a social area, talk with them, and join up to tackle missions together.

Sadly, I know there's a 98.9985% chance of this just being sucked into the void of nothingness...but at least I contributed.

 

[RagingxPenguin]

Kinda like the relays in warframe?
They are kinda neat

 

[Chris Simon]

It would be a nice option to have, but it can't replace the current interface.
There should always be a "shortcut" - an option to do everything from your ship like until now - for people who just want to take a mission and get on with it.

Personally I can imagine myself enjoying a "common area", but
a) for normal operation it just hinders gameplay. I know exactly how many journeys to the mission board would it take to start being annoying. Two.
b) it would only really be a thing at places line CGs and PP HQs, where there is actually more than one person docked at any one time.
c) it would be a feature usable/useful in only one game mode

Don't forget that most people play Elite singleplayer, or with a friend at best. I'm not saying that that is a reason the "Open" people shouldn't have it, but considering how people receive and react to any feature that promotes the MMO-ness in Elite (not very kindly - see wings and powerplay and any other bit that makes people interact) I don't think this is something that should take priority over core improvements.

 

[Sentience]

a) for normal operation it just hinders gameplay. I know exactly how many journeys to the mission board would it take to start being annoying. Two.

Gameplay includes social mechanics in Open & Private Group servers, like Mobius. The current system hinders the social aspect of these types of servers.
The extra time it would add is at best, 10 seconds to walk across a virtual room and access the same mission board you do in your ship, except with the added benefit of multiple commanders standing and talking around you.

b) it would only really be a thing at places line CGs and PP HQs, where there is actually more than one person docked at any one time.

Anyone docked in a station would have access to the hub, anywhere in the galaxy. I specifically explained how it didn't matter what station you were in or where.
Pilots dock in plenty of stations outside of CGs and powerplay areas.

c) it would be a feature usable/useful in only one game mode

Two.
Open, and private groups. Large groups like Mobius would get more out of it then smaller wing groups.

Don't forget that most people play Elite singleplayer, or with a friend at best. I'm not saying that that is a reason the "Open" people shouldn't have it, but considering how people receive and react to any feature that promotes the MMO-ness in Elite (not very kindly - see wings and powerplay and any other bit that makes people interact) I don't think this is something that should take priority over core improvements.

How do you know the majority of players play solo? Got any data?

I would also say that people treated wings, multicrew, and powerplay negatively because they were buggy, poorly designed and implemented mechanics. I don't think it had anything to do with the social aspect.

 

[zarking]

In theory it's cool, and sort of how I'd imagine it to be.
However, after seeing the animation a few times (dock, walk out of ship, walk to location, look for mission, walk back to ship, enter ship), I'd be clicking the "oh just hurry up and give me a mission so I can get out of here" button.

It's a bit like saying, "when I put a new cannon on my ship I want to see the old one removed and the new one appear", and look how annoying that gets lol, and that's only 5 seconds.

But I'll agree that something along those lines would be good. Maybe like the way the "galactic power's" section works, click missions and a new screen opens, with more visuals, descriptions, a little interactivity (possibly ask for a higher reward at the risk of reduced influence), more mission types (galaxy wide missions as well as local missions, grouping by type, combat, trade, science, espionage etc, the Palin and ram tah type "special" mission's could show up here, that way it also acts as a bulletin board to some of the more interesting things going on in the Galaxy).

Of course, anything like this would kill board flipping and being able to quickly stack as many missions as possible to do rank grinding and increase the time it takes to earn x amount of money, so it would need an overhaul to other parts of the game as well.

But anything that adds more flavour and diversity to the game gets my vote

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

It would be a nice option to have, but it can't replace the current interface.
There should always be a "shortcut" - an option to do everything from your ship like until now - for people who just want to take a mission and get on with it.

Personally I can imagine myself enjoying a "common area", but
a) for normal operation it just hinders gameplay. I know exactly how many journeys to the mission board would it take to start being annoying. Two.
b) it would only really be a thing at places line CGs and PP HQs, where there is actually more than one person docked at any one time.
c) it would be a feature usable/useful in only one game mode

Don't forget that most people play Elite singleplayer, or with a friend at best. I'm not saying that that is a reason the "Open" people shouldn't have it, but considering how people receive and react to any feature that promotes the MMO-ness in Elite (not very kindly - see wings and powerplay and any other bit that makes people interact) I don't think this is something that should take priority over core improvements.

I think we can keep the mission boards as they are on ships, but when you go to a bar/cantina, faction head quarters etc, you have more option available to you such as negotiation over pay, proper dialogue trees etc. Have that bit more interactive with some possible better pay options, while leaving the basic mission board static as it is now.

 

[smiths121]

Interesting idea, pointless if you leave the shortcut in.

I hate Star Citizen go to the control room and summon your ship, then go to landing pad.Got stale very, very quickly. Unless there are other players around, or other activity other than mission hub, its a time-sync, that I expect given how we do things now, would not sit well with all players in the community. I expect version +3 of the mechanic will require 1000 different prcedurally generated "mission hubs" to stop it going stale.

A comment of it only takes 10 seconds longer - blimey, that is a an awful lot of new mechanic to add the game for a repeat interactive cut scene. Remember a lot of player consider docking a time-sync.

However I think early on in space legs, we will probably get something very similar to what you propose as mechanics come on-line looking for content.

Simon