Two new mission types: Survival & Assault

[Serdinor_Darkrose]

Let me preface this by saying, yes these two missions already exist in the game. The names are placeholders, however current Survival is more like Distraction (we draw the enemy attention from a "lone Tenno operative") and Assault has a cool concept that has not been explored or expanded for a long time. This will be a detailed post, so early warning that it's not a short one.

Survival:

A player must have completed Second Dream in order to gain access to this mission. You can trigger this mission in two ways:

• Select the mission from its designated planet node (all warframes and weapons need to be at max Rank 30 for the mission to start).
• At the start of any mission (Excluded: Void Fissures, Arbitrations, Free Roam, Syndicate Missions, Special Events like Gift of the Lotus or Halloween, Sanctuary Onslaught, Archwing Missions, Junctions, Rathuum & Index) there is a % chance for the mission to turn into a Survival. Map generation based on the planet the mission was triggered.

Ordis: "Operator! We are heading towards a storm! I will try to redirect our flight path...Oh no, this this isn't good. I suggest ABANDONING ALL HOP, err to try and remain calm."

The screen blacks out and a loud crashing sound occurs (ideally cutscene but this requires a substantial amount of work).

You are in a large new tileset (variants for Grineer, Corpus, Infested and whatever we get in the future like Sentient planets) like an outskirt and your Liset has crash landed (use of a generic Liset model with obvious damage, it has set HP & Shield pools that do not regenerate). In the distance you can see the entrance to an enemy base.

Ordis: "(static) Operator, are you ok? We managed to land on...what is this place? Give me a moment, checking the database."

Ordis: "You may not like it. This is a heavily fortified base of the (faction) (followed up by "or at least what was left of it" if the faction here is Infested). Our generator is still functional but its slowly running out of power. (sigh) Not many options. Storm that base and find some supplies to repair the ship, HURRY UP OR WE'RE DEA(static)at your earliest convenience...Operator...Be careful."

From here on out the map generation can be anything. New tilesets? Sure. Don't want to waste Dev time? Classic procedural map generation from the existing tilesets (since the bases are fortified, Grineer tilesets could use Kuva Fortress and Corpus ones the new Jupiter and upcoming Corpus ship reworks). A timer starts counting down and the players need to explore the base and find 3 Spy Vaults, raid them and extract valuable supplies, then return back to the crash landed Liset to repair it partially so they can escape this area. Once the timer runs out, the Liset Generator shuts down and Ordis will comment:

"We're running out of time! Cutting off Shields to preserve power!" 

The Shield pool will permanently start decreasing at a set ratio and once it runs out the generator shuts down. At that point repairs are no longer possible, resulting in a mission Failure. The mission can also fail if:

1. Players run out of Revives.
2. The Liset's HP pool reaches 0 thus making repairs impossible.
3. Fail 2 Spy Vaults since you no longer have enough resources to start repairs.

Mechanics & Rewards:

• The facility has Sortie 3 level enemies and multiple Eximus units.
• Each Spy Vault will hold one repair resource. All 3 are needed to be brought back to the Liset in order to start phase 2. Once that happens, Ordis will state "Beginning repairs right now. Buy me some time." and the players will have to defend the Liset for an X amount of time. If no alarms were triggered, this will set the repair timer to 10 seconds (the player doesn't need to defend the Liset so no reason to waste their time).
• To access the Vault, the players will need to locate one new enemy labeled as Head of Security (for the Infested a powerful Ancient can be used), who will spawn on the tileset connected to the Vault. Killing them will make them drop a Datamass that can be used to open the Spy Vault. Failing one Spy Vault doubles the repair time needed.
• Triggering an alarm will set the entire base on full alert, this cannot be reversed after it begins by hacking security consoles or using Air Support. At that moment a new timer will pop-up on the screen and Ordis will state "They are scanning the facility! Hurry up or they'll find the crash site!". After that timer expires, enemies will begin leaving the facility to assault the Liset. In the case of the Infested this will not occur, instead they will spawn x2 the amount of enemies inside the facility to try and overwhelm you (they will assault the Liset after the repairing process begins).
• There are multiple lasers and traps inside the facility, as well as cameras and drones.
• Failing the mission in any way will result in your top % used equipment (excluding Companions) to get locked. This will unlock mission #2, Assault.

Rewards (a few suggestions, these things are up to the Devs):

• The facility holds caches and containers with extended loot tables that contain stuff from Endo to Kuva, as well as slight chances for more rare rewards such as random Riven mods or built Formas. Players will need to juggle the time needed to escape while raiding the enemy supplies for potential profit.
• Each Spy Vault will reward an additional thing upon completion (scaling rewards for each succesfull Vault). Those can include new mods, Captura Scenes and Ephemeras.
• A new Emblem called Makr of the Survivor that evolves similarly to the Stratos one and maxes out once a player has succesfully completed a Survival on each available planet without failing a Vault (unless all 3 Vaults are succesfull the mission won't count).

 

Assault:

A player can access Assault after failing a Survival.

Ordis: "I might have good news Operator. Someone says they have information about our missing gear, they've been circulating in the underground Market. Shall we?"

The players will have to buy a cheap BP from the Market (infinite amount of uses) named Recovery Coordinates. In order to craft it, a large amount of credits and some rare materials are required (we're essentially buying information at the appropriate price) and crafting time will be 1 minute. Upon claiming it, the mission will unlock on a specific designated node (make a new Node exclussively for Assault otherwise it would have to be randomized and will stress the servers in the long run). This mission has no time limit and can be attempted multiple times, however it requires a newly crafted Recovery Coordinates each time. Only one Recovery Coordinates is needed from the Host for a whole party to access this mission in order to aid them.

How it works:

• The enemy level is Sortie 2 tier.
• Classic procedural map generation with one new altered room, the place we recover our lost equipment.
• It combines Rescue (instead of a person we recover our lost equipment) and Sabotage (blow up the facility and leave noone alive since they have studied our weaponry).
• Upon extraction, the players can now use the locked equipments again (*also see note #2 bellow).

 

A few more notes:

• Assuming a person ignores Assault they won't be able to start or encounter a new Survival. This can obviously change but it's a lot of Dev work in my opinion. This idea basically locks the top % used equipment (Warframe, Primary, Secondary, Melee) which is easy since they are tracked by the game anyway.
• Assuming potential bugs, it might be better upon finishing Assault for the players to be granted one new cheap-to-build BP similar to the Ascaris and claiming it will unlock the equipments. This is to prevent bugs such as the mission completion not unlocking the gears due to Host Migration, crashes etc. which would lead to frustration.
• I do not mention Assault tilesets used. I think Corpus tilesets fit the best since they are the ones dealing in black market the most, but then again so can Grineer. Also why not use Infested tilesets? Maybe the ship that was carrying your stuff had an infested outbreak. Many possibilities but I'm trying to make this concept take as little Dev time as possible.
• A good balancing of the rewards and the cost of Recovery Coordinates is required. If the rewards are not enticing the Dev time put into these will be a waste. If the drawback is not substantial then the rewards become "free" even if their drop chance is low. This is also why I included the new Emblem idea, it becomes an extra completionist milestone.
• Some of you might disagree with the random chance for Survival to trigger. Consider this, the game already features such things. Syndicate death squads and Assassins already invade you and can cause the player to fail the mission and lose all rewards. The Zanuka even features a similar concept where dying during the invasion will strip you of your weapons and have you break free. Survival is a high risk high reward mission, you can earn very good rewards but also risk losing resources (to craft Recovery Coordinates) and also lose temporarily lose access to your favorite gear.