In Galaxy Legion, NPCing is something that is vital to success. Every other aspect of the game can be pretty much ignored (with a few exceptions on certain missions) if you NPC enough. That's not, to my mind a good mechanic.

There are those of us who do not find NPCing interesting. I'm sure there are various reasons for this, but for me? The ease. I'm at the point with PvP, that I'm mostly PvPing for sh!ts and giggles, ergo, energy efficiency isn't the interest - challenge is. That's exactly what makes NPCing so uninteresting. Challenge - or rather, lack there of.

Let's face it. NPCing is just mindlessly clicking targets over and over again repairing perhaps once, and restoring your neural interface should you be using one. Nothing more, nothing less. A few NPCs can change this up somewhat, but they are few and far between.

So, obviously, a lot of people like NPCing. Don't understand it myself, but here we are. Therefore, changing the system wouldn't be a good thing to do.

My answer? "Combat Missions".

Get yourself a button.

This button would change when you have a target lock.


From here, you can click the button. This button would allow you to take on a mission.

Okay. So this is the screen for if you don't have a target lock. You can see a few things from the screenshot, but I'll go over them individually.

1) "Accept a Mission", as in, you don't get the choice. Mission Control gives you the mission.
2) "Recent Missions". Here you can see the past 5 NPCs you fought as a mission. I only added 4 to the screenshot, because I was feeling lazy.
==> "Enemy Level" The opposing NPCs have ranks just like any normal NPC. This is displayed here.
==> "Time Taken" The time you take to defeat the NPC affects the drop you get.
==> "Wut, no images?" I think the images should be displayed here, but these non-existent NPCs sadly do not yet have sprites.
3) "View Enemy Data" The NPCs you've defeated are logged. It displays the stats of each one, the number of each you've defeated, etc.
4) "Drops can be the same as NPCs?" This is deliberate. Many of the "vital" NPC drops should be available from this. Terraformers, Caches, maybe Sacs spring to mind. Not all NPC drops will be available, and there will be drops unique to this.
5) "Genetarr Outlaw"? There would be three types of these NPCs.
==> "Outlaw" NPCs.
==> "Enemy" NPCs.
==> "Special" NPCs.
===> Outlaw NPCs are NPCs of playable races. These will have a race-related drop, as well as giving some political favour.
===> Enemy NPCs, are of the races you see in standard NPCs. These will have a drop similar to rare or elite NPCs.
===> Special NPCs are enemies pertaining to no faction. These are rare to encounter, and have powerful drops.

The NPCs that spawn would all be solo NPCs. No elites or bosses. Every NPC would have an ability, and it would be a powerful one too. More along the lines of Attiroth than the laughable Stryll Trapper. These NPCs would easily be able to take on an average player of a similar rank to it and win. They're supposed to be challenging to defeat, which is why it's not overpowered to have them drop powerful drops every time. Additionally, they'd give no bonus XP on defeat, they would however give "Mission XP", which would level up your combat mission levels.

So what does leveling up your combat mission levels do? Well, it's a requirement to find the better NPCs.

So, for example, at level one, you'd be able to see a Stryll Trapper-esque NPC in terms of drops, though it would be much more powerful. At this point, the NPCs shouldn't be too hard - perhaps the strength of the average elite NPC of it's rank.

At level two-hundred, you'd be able to see some truly special NPCs... but... you're looking at soloing particularly powerful bosses. The rewards? Terraformers, high-efficiency modules, etc if you can defeat them quickly enough...

...which wouldn't be easy, since all of these NPCs would be on a short time limit. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, the drops scale to how quickly you kill the NPC. You may have been trying for that Dark Smuggler's Cache, but ultimately it took you nearly 20 minutes to defeat the foe. Dark Pyramid for you! You're just lucky that was a 20 minute NPC... probably the longest of them.

If you have a target lock, the screen would look pretty much like if you have an enemy base locked, showing the timer, NPC, rank, etc.

The battle that ensues would be just like a normal fight, but difficult.

Anyways, I think I've explained everything. I had some other thoughts, but I wasn't sure about them.

1) Resource for getting targets. Personally, I don't want it to be energy. I don't want it to be free and nothing else makes sense.
2) Limit per day. I think one might be necessary, but I don't want one.
3) Boss fights to promote certain levels. Maybe 5, 10, 20 etc.

Brilliant idea. limit per day sounds like a yes though. Gotta make it something people cant charge through but that still requires a decent amount of ncping per day.

Wow. Very well thought out. Kudos.

I like +1

Great idea +1. I would really love to see something like this integrated into the game.

+1 Awesome idea

I gotta say.... I would LOVE to have this in the game. It would add an entirely new element to gameplay, as well as making NPCing more interesting. +1

Best idea I ever saw so far these day's. +1

I really like this idea. One of the best things about GL is the PVP because you can find good ships and challenge yourself. Makes the game more than just mindless clicking. This would bring a whole new aspect to the game. Big +1

+0.5

The only issue with this I have is that everyone has a different connection speed. Some folks would be at a major disadvantage, and others at a huge advantage. Those with slow connections could never kill fast enough more than likely for the good rewards.

this. i would prefer a bit more leeway on the time frames.

to make the challenge ... i would have the npc's have a 'random' set of abilities out of the following pool, but they could also be informed by the pilot's stats:

- tactical bypass effect - module(s) are broken and must be repaired
- attack debuff -50%
- defense debuff -50%
- cloaking device (can only hit once every 60 seconds)
- NORAD - must successfully hack or raid before each attack
- etc.

+1

very nice
And the 'race-specific' rewards must NOT be shareable with other races - an Inergon reactor/relay should not be usable by other races, if you change race, all race-specific modules must be uninstalled (and can't be installed if you're not the right race)
And no (race specific) planet modules please

+1

I wasn't thinking race specific for any of it. The outlaws are of the player races, but I wasn't intending them to be restricted to.

Anyways. I was thinking that every idea has to have GP related to it. So, I was thinking:

1) You can undertake X missions a day, but extend that number with GP.
2) You can skip your current mission (for no reward) with GP.


Perhaps make it rounds of combat? With uses of offensive artifacts etc. counting as a round.

The only thing that I would want to ask is would there be NPCs that can only be accepted by certain races or professions? But other then that, +1.5 because +1 just isn't enough

Well done. I hope Dan or a moderator sees this. +1

Not the intention. There could be, as obviously the developers get the choice.

Realistically, if this were implemented, I'm 90% certain there would be an energy cost on accepting missions... because it's kind of the done thing.

I should mention that I +1 this idea.