Now, i know this isnt the most complex idea, but it seems that people are running out of rare mission artifacts. What i would like to propose is a system of weekly missions that are either repeats of old missions, or new missions that reward old or similar to old artifacts.

For example. Everyone needs more crimson cluster missiles. Say that the Konqul CIA equivalent uncover the location of some transport ships carrying the missiles. You could initiate the mission, and it would have 3 rounds to completion giving the player 3 more cluster missiles. On the other hand, the Genetaar also need your ship to go out and destroy a stryll station synthesizing more mutagenic cartridges. 2 rounds to completion. You need to pick one mission, and once you choose, you cant go back to do the other one. Missions like this would be random, and 2 or 3 would be available at a time. What i was thinking was along the lines of

2 round mission for Zolazin Analyzers
3 round mission for Crimson Cluster Missiles
2 round mission for Mutagenic Cartridges
2 round mission for Stripcore Mines
1 round mission for Temporal Flux Orb
1 round mission for Kronyn Data Cubes
3 round mission for Statue of the Magnus
etc. you guys get the idea.

there are alot of artifacts that are usable on planets, but planets are often stolen. Because of this, many ships are museums. Holding on to all their artifacts for fear of using them on something that will not be secure. I know i'm guilty of this aswell. i've only used mission buildings on my exotic (dont have the other invincibles yet). This will allow players who obtained some of the nicer artifacts early on and then either wasted them or lost them a chance to regain the mission buildings and special artifacts. It can also be a teaser for some of the lower levels to obtain artifacts from a higher level.

Again, two or three mission options will be available at a time. Maybe a slight 5% xp bonus will be applied if you do a mission for your particular race (for example if i'm inergon, and the inergons are offering a 2 round mission for experimental crates, then instead of say, a 75 round 25 energy mission for 55 xp, i'd get 58xp.)

OR maybe the mission steps will be reduced a bit, (like if youre konqul, and the konqul offer the ccm mission, instead of say 75 rounds to completion they would do 60.)

but you would only be able to initiate one at a time. for example, if a datacube mission, a ccm mission, and a stripcore mine mission are all offered at once, you would have to pick one, and hope the others reappear soon.

Then, and this is just an idea, but if you complete the mission you get some bonus political favor (since its used in some nice defense buildings, sold off for bases, and wasted on soldier outposts at low levels) since youre earning literal political favor by doing missions for that race. but this would only be if you could complete all of the rounds for the weekly mission (for example if its a 3 round mission, you would have to do all 3 rounds to get say, 25 political favor)

Good idea, except for the "easiness" of it.
Make it 1 round per week.
Make the energy cost per round scale with rank.
Make it a fairly high energy cost.

Some things are limited for a reason.

75 steps at 25 energy each = 1875 energy. x3 is 5625 energy. thats about 805 energy per day. but, you also have NPCing and normal missions you need to do, as well as the biweekly. so this is mainly for players past 300 that easily finish the biweekly, and have quite a few of the other missions done. if this was to scale with rank, then you would have some players paying 2500 energy per step, which would be too much. this is not supposed to be difficult, its supposed to be fun.

and yes, obviously things are limited for a reason. but 3 extra ccms every 3 or 4 months if not longer dosnt hurt anyone. look at all the special artifacts and buildings in this game. if 3 of those appeared every week for a year, i doubt the ccm mission will pop up more than 4 times. at most. thats 12 ccms after 12 months of playing. i dont know about you, but ive only been playing for 13 months, and i have yet to use any of mine. this is because i KNOW i'm not getting more of em, so i'm saving em for an opportune time. and that time has not come yet. however, i would be much more inclined to use them in my strategy if i knew there was some way of getting more of them. Same with mission buildings. i rarely use them on 'normal' planets because i know they will get stolen. With saboteurs and cluster missiles, its just a matter of time, and theres nothing i can do to stop it. anyway, if i knew i could get more of em, then i'd use em more often. this is just to prevent more museums from getting made, and get players more engaged in the game using mission artis.

and while some artis are good enough to warrant the 1 round per week cap (like datacubes or temp flux orbs) others are not, and shouldnt be treated as such, or no one will do those random missions when they appear.

5625 energy for 3 rounds? I can do that in 1 day , 2 days if I put energy into base fight and NPC's.

I think if this is put in it should be 1 round per week and a min of 2K energy.

Other then that +1.

Edit: Temporal Flux Orb's have a mission that can be repeated any # of times.

I like this idea. I do agree with spyder that if these missions pop up as weekly specials, they should be harder than they are in the normal mission chain. Not a lot harder, just slightly. Like, if it normally takes 75 rounds to complete, maybe it now takes 85 (or maybe it scales: e.g. 5 extra rounds per 100 ranks, rounded up (so for a rank 50 it now takes 80 rounds and for a rank 550 it now takes 105 rounds)). Or maybe instead of taking extra energy to complete, it gives less experience than it did in the normal missions list - or maybe even have no XP reward since the purpose is to make the artifacts available again. So people have to choose between getting the hard-to-come-by artifact and gaining XP from regular missions, NPCs, etc.

I confess I could go either way on planet structures - yes, planets can be stolen; but at the same time I have taken inactive or undefended planets that had 'mission' structures installed. It goes both ways.

Consumables, on the other hand, I agree 100%. At my level, a Mutagenic Cartridge could easily be the difference between a successful invasion and a failed one... but I'm not likely to use them any time soon because I only have 5 and I'm always waiting for a time when I need them more.

i aswell can easily do 5625 energy in one day. thats not the point. the point is to make this available to everyone. yes, lower levels will find this much more of a challenge then higher ranks (as i stated, above 300 is when it gets easy). but if you start to scale the missions, then its not fun for anyone because some ships either grew due to arti production and still find them extremely easy for their level, or some ships who didnt grow properly will find them near impossible, and only getting harder. Also, with only one round to completion, some artifacts will be completely ignored. for example, if you have to choose between one kronyn datacube, or one prejoran ship part, youre obviously going to choose the datacube. but if the option is between 1 datacube, and 3 or 4 prejor ship parts, then it will be a tougher decision. (obviously if youre maxed out on decks then youll go for the datacube, but if youre 6 or 8 decks short from installing your next velox thruster, then maybe youll go prejor ship parts.) all artifacts are not equal. the amount of rounds however, is best left up to dan if he decides to put this in. i'm sure there are many players that agree with you that only one round to a mission is acceptable, and many players who agree with me that all artifacts are not equal. but instead of arguing over simple details, which if this is implemented dan will have final say anyway, perhaps an evolution of the overall idea would be better to discuss?

and yes, i know the tfo is a repeatable mission, but it involves exotic matter, which is growing in value due to bases. the weekly would not require exotic matter to produce. at least thats how i envisioned it. if it would be better, perhaps a planet flux for the cost of 4000 energy would be more appropriate.



while this is true, many players, especially as they climb the ranks, get less and less planets because either 1) they cant afford to colonize, or 2) because they dont have the amount of credits/star chart purgers necessary. i believe it was reverus who only did the stellar cartography mission, and when it was changed from what it was to what it is now, he confessed it was not a viable method to procure star chart purgers. It is absolutely necessary to get the best planets you possibly can, because eventually you will colonize too many to scan more. This happened to Kaos back in the day. he said he had a couple hundred planets colonized, and couldnt scan efficiently, which is why he asked that scanned planets NOT be counted towards the planets scanned when scanning, which i totally agreed. Anyway, if a planet is undefended, that means that the owner wants it to be stolen because its not good enough and they have a better planet on their scans. if they have mission artis on it, its because they really want it gone, and they felt it was bad enough to entice another player with a mission arti to steal it. if i had the chance to replace my zolazin analyzers, or get more of them, i would take that chance in a heartbeat. Same with stripcore mines. i'm running out because i put them on my made toxics, and you only get 15 of em. i'm sure there are many players with more than 15 16x megarich toxics. if they had the chance to get more stripcore mines, i'm sure they would take the chance. I'm not suggesting we give out mass quantities of buildings and artifacts, for as spyder said, theyre limited for a reason. I'm simply suggesting we give out 2 mission planetary buldings per mission, 3+ weak artifacts, and 1 super powerful artifact. This would make the choice more difficult instead of the cut and dry go after the most powerful artifact every time.