Reward comes to those that are brave

New mission chain unlocked by medal pt.

100 energy/click
40 click/completion
20 completiton

Completion reward: Encounter with Infested Cargo Ship

Infested Cargo Ship
Matched, ~same atk as assassin, twice as much hull and def.
Ability: Contagious (low chance)

Contagious: upon encouter, player will be given a choice before able to perform any further action:
1. abondon: abondon the crew members that have contracted the contagion, lose 1-3 random crew.
2. Qurantine: Qurantine crew members to control the disease. Unable to perform any ship related action for 1 hour, 25% chance to lose 1-3 crew, 5% chance to lose 4-6 crew.
3. Ignore: ignore the disease and keep doing what you are doing. 20% chance nothing happens, 30% chance lose 1-3 crew, 30% chance lose 4-6 crew, 19% chance lose 7-10 crew, 1% chance to gain "infestation" status(explained later)

Ship drop:
Infested cargo box.
Upon opening: 25% chance to cause "contagious", and require player to make the above choice. This does not affect the content of the box.
drop: 50% Contagion sample, 30% cure vial, 20% chance large amount of AP/MP (3-10 hours worth)

Contagion sample: can be used on self or enemy ship. When used on self, 50% chance to cause "infestation" status, 50% chance to lose 3-20 crew.
When used on enemy ship, 50% chance to affect your own ship with above chance distribution(this is independent of the effect on target ship), 5% chance to cause "infestiation" status to target ship, 45% chance to cause "contagious" to target ship(the target player, upon next login, will need to pick one of the 3 stated actions), 50% chance to kill 1-3 crew members.

cure vial: reduce remaining duration of "infestation" status by 50%.

Chain #2: Seeking the cure
50 energy/click
100 click/completion
1 completion
1% to fail per click, when failed, this mission cannot be done again until the next day and progress is reset. there is a 10% chance to cause infestation status onto your ship when the mission fails.
You can use a cure vial to advance the completion status of this mission by 10 clicks with no risk of failing.

Chain #3A: repeatable mission
Cure manufacture.
100 energy/click, 10 CTP+2 engineered virus/click
20 click/completion
Reward manufactured cure.
Manufactured cure: reduce remaining duration of “infestation” status by 30%.
Manufactured cure is tradable. (This is fairly safe from multi abuse thou, as the chain require medal point to unlock in the first place, and it’s not exactly cheap to do)
Chain #3B: invasive enhancement
120 energy/click
100 click/completion
5 completions
Reward: enhancement serum
Risk: 5% chance of 1-3 crew death per click (expect 50 total crews to die through the entire mission)
Enhancement serum: Choose a crew type, on first use of a type of crew, permanently increase the effectiveness that crew by 3%, but cause 1-5% of the crew of that type, minimal 50, to die. On second use, change the boost to 5%, and 1-4% minimal 40 to die; on third use change boost to 6%, 1-3% minimal 30 to die. Each type of crew can only use this 3 times at most.
This bonus is removed if all crew of that type dies.

Now, the fun part
Infestation status:
1. There are two phases to this status. Dormant and outbreak. The first 12 hours of the status is dormant, and after that it will enter outbreak phase. It will stay in outbreak phase until it expires, even in the event of extension of duration. When it is expired and contracted again, it will start at dormant phase again.
2. The initial period of the status is 14 days. If the status is received again, if the current duration is 11 days or less, the status duration returns to 14 days. If the current duration is above 11 days, increase duration by 3 days with no upper bound.
3. This cannot be removed except by its own effect
4. Effects:
a. At the time this status enters outbreak state, and for each 24 hours passed after that, this effect will occur: i. 1% chance that one of your crew type efficiency is increased by 1% permanently. This boost is ONLY removed if all crew of this type dies. ii. Lose 10-100 random crews. iii. 10% chance of infestation status being removed from your ship.
b. If you raid a ship, you have a 1% chance of giving the target the infestation status. The target is then immune to this status from your raids for 12 hours(you can still raid, but cant cause the status. Other ppl can raid and cause the status). If you are raided, the raider have a 25% chance to gain the infestation status.
c. If you colonize or successfully invade a planet while under infestation status, the planet will gain planet infestation status.
d. If all crew on your ship are dead, the status is removed.
Planet infestation status:
This status is progressive; starting on the day it is first “contracted”. PTV will also advance this status.
Effect:
Day 1: population -10%, invasion def+5%
Day 2: population -20%, invasion def+8%
Day 3: population -30%, invasion def+10%
Day 4: population -40%, invasion def+11%
Day 5: population -50%, invasion def+10%
Day 6: population -70%, invasion def+9%
Day 7: population -90%, invasion def+7%
In addition, any ship that attempts invasion on an infested planet have a 10% chance of receiving infestation status, successful invasion will give an additional 40% chance to receive the status (50% total)
The status can be removed by the following ways:
1. Apply 10 manufactured cure to the planet
2. Abandon the planet
3. “Cleanse” the planet by killing all population. This will cause the planet to -99% max population and recover 1% max population per day afterward (so it takes 99 days to fully recover). PTV can speed this up. Production is reduced by 50% of the % of population reduction % (so -80% pop means -40% production), invasion def will be reduced by 75% of the population reduction %.


I know the concept of heavy crew loss isn't very appealing to most people. But the infestation status is mostly optional and would rarely occur on someone that is "unwilling", thou possible.
And in those rare events, just buy a couple (or storm pass the mission as you are already infested, to make) manufactured cure and you will be mostly unaffected.
Now, the mission and artifact doesn't have to do the exact stuff as described. The basic concept is simple:
1. something that have both the potential to be good and bad.
2. something that spreads around the galaxy via player interaction.
so if you can come up with your own variation, feel free to.

Well thought out, but seems unlikely. More player debuffs aren't exactly needed....

it's... not what you would consider a... debuff...
does not provide any imediate combat benefit, nor is it defintely negative. it's.... complicated

It IS complicated. That's it's beauty, and also its only downside along with the incredible strength of the infestation. I think the rewards of increasing crew effectiveness is nice, but some tweaks and modifications, and it would be a pretty cool mission chain.

Ok this could be fun question is do any of your crew grow immune?

Humm... there could be a slight reduction at the rate of death as the infested status progress, thou I consider the contagion to be a morphing virus and that different strains are mutated rapidly, such that any new form of contact will cause immunity to become useless and hence the rate of death resets whenever a new infested status is received as per infestation status rule #2. ANd due to the morphing of the virus, immune members might be subject to the virus again at a later time, so the rate of death will not ever fall below 50% of the original rate regardless of the period of time. Furthermore it will always be possible for all crew members to die.

That's probably the realistic and best way to go about immunity.

I kinda like it, but I kinda don't. I'd be pretty pissed to come online and find out that after I pissed a legion off I lost a lot of crew members and for the next 14 days I continue to lose crew.

remember, there is a 12 hours dormant period. And the cure can reduce the duration greatly. So if you get online after getting "tagged" soon enough, you can minimize your losses. (granted 200 CTP and 40 E virus isn't exactly cheap XD, probably sold for ~400 CTP each and u might need multiple)


And as a player can only have 1 chance of giving the status to a target every 12 hours via raid, even if their entire legion of say 50 people are contagious, it will take them on average 24 hours to get you infected.
On the other hand, they could use the sample on you, but as only 20 ships are spawned, that means only average of 10 sample per person, and each sample only have a 5% chance of infecting another person(and a large chance to infect self even if used on another person) it shouldn't get too bad. In the least, the samples shouldn't be more annoying than CCM on ur best planet.

I tried to balance the problem of getting infested unwillingly with the ability to spread the virus, I think it's not too bad atm thou modifications are welcome.

Perhaps change the cargo box to 45% sample, 45% cure, 10% resources

If cure amount via drop is increased, then the boost on chain #2 from the cure would have to be reduced or it's way too ez. at 45%, I would say it can only count for ~6 clicks each.

That, in my design, is the real purpose of the mission cure, to unlock the manufactured cure much easier. As you can see, the seeking cure part will take quite a bit of effort and lots of risk without it. As for curing the disease, the manufactured should suffice.

That said, as long as the cure can only account for ~50-60% of the 2nd mission on average, any adjustment of drop rate etc would be fine.

Thou I think sample need to be at least 30%+, 40-60% preferred.