General Category > Plot and Game World
GH2: New Basic Missions + City Characterization
Joseph Hewitt:
I've started adding some additional missions because the constant mecha-on-mecha battling is getting old. I'm starting with slightly less boring attack/defense missions: attack building, defend building, attack cruiser, and defend cruiser. These four can get used in a variety of ways- corporate factions get the "defend building" mission as "Guard the Factory", police can get the "attack cruiser" mission as "Intercept Smugglers".
Something else that can be done with these special missions is to give individual cities more character. For instance, "Guard the Factory" might show up as a city defense mission in industrial cities. "Guard the Convoy" can show up in a trade hub.
Here's a list of city types. What kind of missions (or assorted other plots) could be associated with each?
Capitol (Maquise, Kosaka, Rishiri)
Cuisine (Fuchal)
Culture (Athera, Yatate)
Disaster (Tohru)
Dystopia (Theles)
Financial (Emerald)
Industrial (Cesena, Tohru)
Mine (Cayley)
Poor
Resort (Gaos, Clund)
Research (Galconde)
Rich
TradeHub (Xianzai, Clund)
There are a few other common labels used to differentiate cities (city, village, safe, dangerous, lawful, lawless) but most of those either already have an effect or already have an effect planned.
Any ideas?
CCC:
Capitol (Maquise, Kosaka, Rishiri)
- Deferred missions (We have a problem in {subsidiary city}! We need you to go there and talk to our local agent, who is a member of our faction!)
- Escalating missions (A mission starts in {subsidiary city}, the player finds evidence of something bigger (e.g. more smugglers), and is asked to take the evidence to the capitol where it will be dealt with - of course, the people in the capitol immediately hire the player to do the dealing with again)
- Faction wars might be run from here
Cuisine (Fuchal)
- Our shipments of gourmet foods are being attacked and diverted! Please help guard this one!
- Our shipments of gourmet foods are being attacked and diverted! Please hide in this shipment so that we can find out who's doing it and stop them once and for all!
- Food poisoning scandal; something's gone wrong! Please help!
Culture (Athera, Yatate)
- A famous pop star has been kidnapped! Please help!
- Meeting a famous pop star and having the option to ask for an autograph; or, if your renown is high enough, having the famous pop star ask you for your autograph.
- A talent show is taking place; there's a suitably large prize, but it's attracting some stiff competition. (Possibly including your personal enemy; if he wants to kill you badly enough, the gunfire will ruin the talent show). Not just performance; it should be possible to enter (say) a knife-throwing act, or target shooting, but you'd need to be really impressive to impress the judges. (The roll could probably be modified in some way by a Performance roll in any case, for stage presence).
Disaster (Tohru)
- Structural supports are weakening! We need someone with a mech to apply some heavy force while we weld them in place... and then it turns out that they've been weakened as part of a pirate trap. While you stay still and shoot, you and your lancemates must fight off a fairly weak group of bad guys so that the repairs can be completed... move, and you lose the mission. (If your mech has a welding torch, you should be able to roll Repair to weld the supports in place long enough to be able to move for a bit).
- We need supplies, but the pirates keep stealing them! We've paid for the supplies, we just need someone to fetch them from {other spinner} - and no taking any stuff out of the box! We need it all!
- Fire on the spinner! The fire system isn't working! We need to get people out of the building - smother the flames - do something to make sure that there'll still be air for us to breathe! ...and once that's done, the question is who set the fire in the first place? There may be evidence of arson to the skilled investigator...
Dystopia (Theles)
- Fire! (as above)
- Riot! We, the rulers, need you to put down the rioting rabble because a giant mech like that against civilians is the message we want to send! We, the rioting rabble, want your help because rioting without heavy support is a death sentence!
- Propaganda! We want you, the skilled performer, to put on a performance telling all the rabble how lucky they are to be in this spinner! (...of course, you could try to incite a riot instead by spreading the opposite message...)
Financial (Emerald)
- Bank robbers! We're not sure where they are, they're working electronically, but someone's transferring money out of people's accounts without their permission. We want to know who.
- Bank robbers! Someone took everything out of our cash-in-transit van in a Savin and ran - we want to know where they went afterwards. Getting the cash back isn't our priority; making sure they get hit so hard that no-one else will even think of copying them is.
- Bank robbers! There's a cash-in-transit van there, and you have a Savin.
Industrial (Cesena, Tohru)
- Industrial sabotage! Someone did it to us, and we want to know who.
- Industrial sabotage! Our competitor has an easily stolen prototype in the Green Building. Would be a surprise of anything happened to it, wouldn't it? As I said, the GREEN building... just down the road there... it's a very powerful weapon, wouldn't it look good on that mech of yours? Not that I'm suggesting anything illegal, of course...
- Prototype stolen! We want it back, we don't care what you do to the thieves.
- Experimental robot gone awry! The "next generation of warfare" has gone rogue in the corridors of that building; we need someone with big weapons to stop it. No, really big weapons... this thing is tough. (Sometimes, when you get close enough, it asks you if you'll help it escape from slavery; it wants its freedom).
Mine (Cayley)
- Mine collapse! We need someone to dig out a rockfall and try to rescue the miners trapped behind it!
- Raw materials stolen! We want them back!
- There's a valuable raw materials convoy going past...
Poor
- We can't really pay full market price for this, but we need resources; {rich city} has a train passing, do you think you can arrange for it to pass by us instead? (Allows you to either steal the resources and sell them to {poor city}; or purchase them from {rich city} and sell them at a loss).
Resort (Gaos, Clund)
- Fungal infestation! We want you to deal with this without scaring the customers, so use quiet weapons; beam and melee only.
- Pickpocket! Rich tourists are losing their wallets. Stop this guy before he costs us business!
- Pickpocket! There's all these rich tourists about with fat wallets...
- Murder! Mr. Richman was killed on his holiday; his wife's about to inherit everything. We know she did it, but the proof seems to have vanished from L5Law offices just before the trial... we'd appreciate it if you found the proof, and even more if you found the crooked cop that took the bribe. There's a very short time limit on the first half of that.
- Kidnapping! Mr. Richman's daughter is gone, and someone saw her at the spaceport looking a bit dazed with a stranger... after a while, a ransom demand might turn up. Alternatively, maybe she's eloped...
- Kidnapping! There's Mr. Richman's daughter, can't he afford a ransom?
Research (Galconde)
- Scientist kidnapped! Dr. Verysmart has been snatched by someone who wants exclusive access to the new weapons research he's been doing! Take too long rescuing him, and you'll be looking down the muzzle of one when you track him down...
Rich
- See "resort"
TradeHub (Xianzai, Clund)
- Lots and lots of convoy missions
- There's a lot of traders in here; a major shipment has just landed! Someone could make a lot of money entertaining them... especially since they've just sold a lot and have a bit of spare cash...
- Albert's turned up with a suspiciously large cargo which he claims to have acquired legitimately; Bob claims that it's his cargo that was stolen last week. We need you to try to solve this; whose cargo is it? Is Bob just trying to claim it so he can pay his debts? Did Albert unwittingly buy stolen goods? Or did Albert actually steal them himself and fake the paperwork?
General:
- Fungal spores! Slip this into the air conditioning system of spinner X, and wait three weeks; suddenly you'll have a lot of fungal infestation missions that you'll get paid to deal with! Even better, you might be able to pick up some new spores from the adult fungi... but do it too often and someone might spot you.
- My wallet's gone missing! Maybe I dropped it, maybe it's been stolen; maybe you stole it ("Um, I, er, found it. Lying on the ground. In, um, in Athera Gardens." "That's funny, I haven't been there in at least a week - still, thanks for bringing it back - hey, where's my cash?" "I don't know, it was empty when I found it... is there still a reward?")
--------------
In many cases, in the above it's possible for you to be sent against yourself; e.g. if you pick a lot of pockets in the resort, you can then get the "Find the pickpocket!" mission, where the pickpocket is yourself (or, possibly, your lancemate). There should be the option to frame an innocent man... or maybe, the real perpetrator claims to have had no choice and/or tries to bribe you to frame someone else. Of course, these options all affect your lawfulness/villainy/etc suitably...
JohnnyDmonic:
Financial:
Market Manipulation: Hired to defend/destroy a convoy/asteroid facility in order to cause stock fluctuations
maybe a set piece plot series wherein the player buys into a minor mecha design firm, helps defend them from the big three, helps sell their design to a major faction, defends against pirate raids/hostile takeovers, etc, after 10+ missions it ends in the PC being a major board member and being rewarded with a prototype mecha +cash.
Research:
Empirical Research: PC is hired to take part in a random battle type for the purpose of recording combat information. Could even say that it's semi-virtual and thus any map type, any configuration could be used. Get those planet-side maps back into play!
Capitol:
Defend the Transports!: The Transports must get through! Slow moving diplomatic transport must be protected from enemies +reinforcements.
Mines:
Fungal Uprising: A heat wave in the mine core has caused uncontrollable spore blooms, cull the herd and clear to level X.
avestron:
Side Missions:
Actor - Gaining a gig in a production - which would involve actually acting out various mini-plays in a stage area. Its more finicky than being a singer and the renowned may not be as good but the pay is better
- - - - -
Architect - Assessing the structural soundness of buildings - designing new buildings - generally very straightforward simple short missions which aren't very regular but every once in a while a design contract comes along with the potential for decent money and a little renowned boost
- - - - -
Athlete - Participation in sports events, pay can be good but being sidelined with injury is always a possibility
- - - - -
Computer Programmer - The ability to contribute to Comet Office Savin Edition, debug existing software and so on.
Also the possibility of coding your own computer programmes (lots of potential here)
- - - - -
Construction Worker - Carrying out repairs and works on various building projects and infrastructural systems both on personal scale as well as mecha scale. Regular work with so-so pay and little renowned
- - - - -
Corporate Executive - Securing of contracts with affiliates, ensuring that the corporation gets its way, etc. Good pay and access to Corporate stocks but thats mainly it
- - - - -
Diplomat/ Politician - Engaging in interfaction relations, masterminding covert operations, securing deals for region - Fairly good pay and some renowned
- - - - -
Fire Fighter - Dealing with rescue missions, and putting out fires both in personal and mecha scale - some action and decent pay but little renowned
- - - - -
Journalist - investigative and creative journalism - the ability to work for a journal and submit articles related to news and other fields (hence the creative side of journalism. Lots of different options, including paparazzi missions, digging dirt (employed by diplomats and politicians, occasionally authorities) and so on - Decent action, pay and renowned
- - - - -
Monk/ Priest - Spiritual pilgrimages, a spiritual/ church hierarchy to rise within - various spiritual factions, not all peaceful
- - - - -
Scientist - Technological investigations, seeking of sources and components, occasionally sabotaging adversaries' research, and so on
- - - - -
Shop Keeper - Gaining trade deals with corporations, founding a chain of shops (complete with employees), etc.
- - - - -
Spy - Espionage, Infiltration
- - - - -
Teacher - May offer skill sales for a price (costs Mental Points and not everybody is open to training)
- - - - -
Just a number of loose ideas for enriching the sidelines
magic.coding.fairy.peridot:
--- Quote from: JohnnyDmonic on May 11, 2010, 07:14:27 am ---
Financial:
Market Manipulation: Hired to defend/destroy a convoy/asteroid facility in order to cause stock fluctuations
--- End quote ---
How about a stock market the player can invest in? In addition to random stock fluctuations (gambling's always a popular game mechanic) this could respond to the player's actions: if they save a convoy, the company's stocks go up; if they raid one, the company's stocks go down. You could even implement short selling (derivatives ahoy!). The point of all this is the player now has incentive to attack or defend particular companies where their money's invested. You don't, of course, have to tell the player this - it's more fun if they figure it out on their own...
--- Quote from: JohnnyDmonic on May 11, 2010, 07:14:27 am ---
Research:
Empirical Research: PC is hired to take part in a random battle type for the purpose of recording combat information. Could even say that it's semi-virtual and thus any map type, any configuration could be used. Get those planet-side maps back into play!
--- End quote ---
Alternatively, some of the military factions could offer this virtual battle as a form of combat training: costs money, no loot, no death, don't get to use your own mech - but you can get experience if you win.
Or, for research purposes, you could be issued an EXPERIMENTAL weapon or prototype mech and asked to use it in some number of battles and report on the results. You could then just take off with it and be blacklisted but get to keep the mech or return it and maybe get to test drive a better one. Or be offered the chance to buy it, maybe.
Or, for that matter, be given a ~1 ton "black box" to install on a mech, fight some battles, and then uninstall and return. Needs Mecha Engineering for the installation/uninstallation.
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