Making Empyrion Warframe 2.0 - Mission Types \ Map Changes \ Endless Dungeon in Space

[xxswatelitexx]

Empyrion is a great idea but I feel it does not add enough unique feel to the game to reach a stage where it should be.

I think Empyerion mission system should change from Traditional nodes - to something similar to Path of Exile Map system.

 

Essentially you start Empyerion on a "starting node" each node is various difficulties. Each node connects to other nodes with different mission types.

Those mission types provide unique advantages and challanges to players.

These Nodes are connected as a "Single Run" approach. Where you keep moving forward with your team to progress through the map. Then when you complete the run, a new map is created. 

Matchmaking is done through "Expedition" Match making which matches to ships in "Expeditions" 

 

Mission Types ( Individual Nodes - Can connect to each other in Random Order ) 

• Mining Operation

Mining Operation - you fly around an asteroid belt looking to place Titan Extractors. Once the Titan extractors are placed enemies spawn to attack you. You need to use the Rail jack + archwings to protect the Extractors. These Mining Extractors give tons of resource but only of a single type. More importantly you scan the asteroid to see what type of resource it provides.

The Main Mission might require you to Mine a certain amount of specific Resource - when it is done you are free to mine other type of resources and keep the profits.

• Salvage Operation

An Ancient Derelict Ship is floating in space. You must salvage parts from the ship. You go to Mining Zones on the outside Hull of the ship and use a Plasma Cutter to cut out armor plates and hardware. While the enemy attacks. There are also various parts of the ship you can enter through hatchways to gather parts inside.  The enemy also has a salvage operation running at the same time, - which you need to stop or steal from. 

• Frontline

You are the Tip of the Spear in a Battle to Protect the Sector. You need to survive the area and weaken the forces until reinforcements come. During the Battle Various Supply Ships will warp into the sector which you can use to rearm and repair your ship. But if you leave the resources too long enemy ships can steal them. Once the timer is over - you will see other Friendly ships warp in - allowing you to move onto the next node

• Investigate

Mission can be in a Nebula Cloud \ Asteroid Belt \ Any enviroment that has low visibility

You have to investigate a large ship \ space station \ Abandoned Mining Asteroid. Mission type has low lighting when inside the ship. 
Mission requires either - saving a person ( rescue ) - Killing a Boss Litch ( Assasination ) or Destroying a Reactor ( Infested Colony ) 

• Defend the Objective

Space Station \ Capital Ship is under attack - The ship \ station needs time to repair. Random they may not have the part they need, so you will need to invade the Grineer Capital ship ( that conveniently spawns ) to raid it for the parts and destroy it. 

As the players progress through the map nodes it steadily becomes harder Similar to Sanctuary Elite - as well as the rewards get better. The difference between Nodes branch and lets players choose which node they want ( only 3 max branches will be available ). After a hard fight they may want to switch to a mining node to restock their supplies for example. 

Edited December 16, 2019 by xxswatelitexx

[NinjaKitsune56]

Bit complex (the map node idea) compared to the base layout for Warframe, but would certainly be rewarding in the long run.

[Steel_Rook]

A couple of points here:

The Railjack game mode feels almost entirely hollow at present. We have game mechanics and basically nothing else. It reminds me of stories told of Warfame circa 2013, where you had four Warframes, one tileset, one enemy type, a small handful of guns and a P2W upgrade system. Well, Railjack right now has one Railjack, effectively one mission type with maybe four or five different enemies and very insular design. Hopefully it'll get more content as we move forward. Hopefully it won't take another 6 years.

On the other hand, I've often said that the Railjack approach to missions is just plain old BETTER than the old means of going to instances via loading screen. It's also more in-tune with how people tend to play instances, which is to say "jump in, rush to the end, jump out." Railjack's smaller "points of interest" pretty much fit that description. Rather than being a separate mod all its own, the Railjack ship could serve as our uninterrupted link from mission to mission. Sometimes we'd use the ship for combat, sometimes we'd hid it behind a rock and go in on foot, sometimes we'd Archwing from mission to mission, etc.

I don't think we necessarily need a "campaign map" for Railjack, but I do wish it could be integrated with standard missions, rather than used only in its own mode. DE want to integrate it with the various Free Roam maps, fine, but this is NOT enough. Railjack needs to be integrated with standard indoor missions before I'll personally consider it complete.

[Genitive]

3 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

Rather than being a separate mod all its own, the Railjack ship could serve as our uninterrupted link from mission to mission.

This is what DE said to be the end goal for railjack. I also hope it won't take too long to implement everything.

About the OP - I like some of the mission ideas.

[Loza03]

30 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

• Mining Operation

Mining Operation - you fly around an asteroid belt looking to place Titan Extractors. Once the Titan extractors are placed enemies spawn to attack you. You need to use the Rail jack + archwings to protect the Extractors. These Mining Extractors give tons of resource but only of a single type. More importantly you scan the asteroid to see what type of resource it provides.

The Main Mission might require you to Mine a certain amount of specific Resource - when it is done you are free to mine other type of resources and keep the profits.

I like this idea. Basically, Excavation, but less disjointed.

32 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

• Salvage Operation

An Ancient Derelict Ship is floating in space. You must salvage parts from the ship. You go to Mining Zones on the outside Hull of the ship and use a Plasma Cutter to cut out armor plates and hardware. While the enemy attacks. There are also various parts of the ship you can enter through hatchways to gather parts inside.  The enemy also has a salvage operation running at the same time, - which you need to stop or steal from. 

Basically the same idea but for random-rolled loot - also like it. Above suggestion also reduces the load of resources, which is nice.

33 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

• Frontline

You are the Tip of the Spear in a Battle to Protect the Sector. You need to survive the area and weaken the forces until reinforcements come. During the Battle Various Supply Ships will warp into the sector which you can use to rearm and repair your ship. But if you leave the resources too long enemy ships can steal them. Once the timer is over - you will see other Friendly ships warp in - allowing you to move onto the next node

I'd retool this into a Railjack version of an invasion, complete with battle pay. It'd probably need the Corpus elements added in, but it'd be worth it. Invasions are already pretty cinematic (when you actually get their unique tileset) and having two giant galleons going at it, with their various levels of fighters.

Perhaps also standard AW enemies too? Up the stakes by having them throw literally everything at each other. Plus it'd be a neat power fantasy to fly into a squad of weak AW enemies and just bulldoze through them.

38 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

• Investigate

Mission can be in a Nebula Cloud \ Asteroid Belt \ Any enviroment that has low visibility

You have to investigate a large ship \ space station \ Abandoned Mining Asteroid. Mission type has low lighting when inside the ship. 
Mission requires either - saving a person ( rescue ) - Killing a Boss Litch ( Assasination ) or Destroying a Reactor ( Infested Colony ) 

Fun idea.

39 minutes ago, xxswatelitexx said:

• Defend the Objective

Space Station \ Capital Ship is under attack - The ship \ station needs time to repair. Random they may not have the part they need, so you will need to invade the Grineer Capital ship ( that conveniently spawns ) to raid it for the parts and destroy it. 

Only addition is perhaps your crew can get on board that friendly area and repair it like we do our own Railjack - potentially risking failure due to low Revolite, but greatly speeding up the mission.

 

11 minutes ago, Steel_Rook said:

A couple of points here:

The Railjack game mode feels almost entirely hollow at present. We have game mechanics and basically nothing else. It reminds me of stories told of Warfame circa 2013, where you had four Warframes, one tileset, one enemy type, a small handful of guns and a P2W upgrade system. Well, Railjack right now has one Railjack, effectively one mission type with maybe four or five different enemies and very insular design. Hopefully it'll get more content as we move forward. Hopefully it won't take another 6 years.

On the other hand, I've often said that the Railjack approach to missions is just plain old BETTER than the old means of going to instances via loading screen. It's also more in-tune with how people tend to play instances, which is to say "jump in, rush to the end, jump out." Railjack's smaller "points of interest" pretty much fit that description. Rather than being a separate mod all its own, the Railjack ship could serve as our uninterrupted link from mission to mission. Sometimes we'd use the ship for combat, sometimes we'd hid it behind a rock and go in on foot, sometimes we'd Archwing from mission to mission, etc.

I don't think we necessarily need a "campaign map" for Railjack, but I do wish it could be integrated with standard missions, rather than used only in its own mode. DE want to integrate it with the various Free Roam maps, fine, but this is NOT enough. Railjack needs to be integrated with standard indoor missions before I'll personally consider it complete.

Agreed. I'm not sure if they can integrate Railjack with standard missions... but they can integrate standard mission with Railjack. What I mean is, I think there's several technical layers that makes getting starchart  to work with Railjack a nightmare such as the aforementioned loading instances, but that doesn't mean mission types and loot tables can't find their way into Empyrean. We know that they can integrate tilesets into it already, so that's a point in favour.

For example - you fly in, and get presented with a Galleon suffering Void Fissures for a spy mission. Cy says "Enemy ship holds data we can't risk losing by the direct approach. I have located a safe holding area for the Railjack. Crew: get aboard that Galleon, and retrieve that data." and then "Unexpected Complication. Galleon is undergoing void fissures. Cephalon Ordis: requesting Relic supply" and everyone chooses their relics (with some new Ordis dialogue about the relics) before jetting off. You get in, and it's like a traditional spy fissure, on a galleon.

I think that could work out fairly well, and have the desired effect.

[Steel_Rook]

14 minutes ago, Loza03 said:

For example - you fly in, and get presented with a Galleon suffering Void Fissures for a spy mission. Cy says "Enemy ship holds data we can't risk losing by the direct approach. I have located a safe holding area for the Railjack. Crew: get aboard that Galleon, and retrieve that data." and then "Unexpected Complication. Galleon is undergoing void fissures. Cephalon Ordis: requesting Relic supply" and everyone chooses their relics (with some new Ordis dialogue about the relics) before jetting off. You get in, and it's like a traditional spy fissure, on a galleon.

Actually, I think "Railjack Parking" can work as a game mechanic. Define a spot somewhere on the map, say a thick nebula which "scrambles enemy sensors" or some other technobabble. Allow players to take the Railjack there, then "put it in stealth mode" or "shut down the reactor" or otherwise disable the vessel so it can't be used but it also won't be attacked. Put that either in Engineering or attach it to the pilot's console, only available in those select locations. This would allow players to arrive to a mission on their Railjack, park it and then go on an extended EVA, such as clearing a ship of Void Fissures, hitting a few Spy Vaults or what have you, then returning to the ship for some more space combat. Maybe hacking all the vaults triggered an alarm and woke up the Galleon's support fleet, and now we have to fight our way back out far enough that we can warp out.

Right now, Railjack missions are entirely focused around ship-to-ship combat, with even EVA missions having objectives for both the Away team and the Railjack team. Being able to more seamlessly integrate regular missions into the Railjack framework by parking the ship somewhere and not worrying about it would be excellent. As you said - it might not be taking the Railjack to planetary nodes, but it's still taking the planetary nodes to the railjack 🙂

[xxswatelitexx]

4 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

Rather than being a separate mod all its own, the Railjack ship could serve as our uninterrupted link from mission to mission. Sometimes we'd use the ship for combat, sometimes we'd hid it behind a rock and go in on foot, sometimes we'd Archwing from mission to mission, etc.

I don't think we necessarily need a "campaign map" for Railjack, but I do wish it could be integrated with standard missions, rather than used only in its own mode. DE want to integrate it with the various Free Roam maps, fine, but this is NOT enough. Railjack needs to be integrated with standard indoor missions before I'll personally consider it complete.

So integration thing is sort of coming but only next year.

I forget what DE calls them so I am going to call it Star Wars Death Star Event. In Return of the Jedi where Han Solo had to disable the shield generator.

Basically You will be fighting a Galleon \ Large ship \ Station that has a shield - and another seperate Team on PoE will get a "Mission" which they need to disable the generator. Only after the Shield Generator is destroyed can the Rail Jack players proceed.  They showed off the mission earlier this year - maybe someone has a link to the video of it.

 

4 hours ago, Loza03 said:

Only addition is perhaps your crew can get on board that friendly area and repair it like we do our own Railjack - potentially risking failure due to low Revolite, but greatly speeding up the mission.

I like this idea, going to help repair inside the friendly ship. 

[Steel_Rook]

1 hour ago, xxswatelitexx said:

So integration thing is sort of coming but only next year. I forget what DE calls them so I am going to call it Star Wars Death Star Event. In Return of the Jedi where Han Solo had to disable the shield generator.

Oh, I'm aware - assuming that part comes out looking anything like the fake TennoCon trailer. That's not "integration," though, but rather a glorified Alert. When I say "integration," I mean something along the lines of the following:

Jump into your Railjack, travel to a location. Shoot down all the enemies in the area, explore an old Orokin ruin, kill a large Infested boss, go back to your Railjack. Hit the Nav console and go do an Axi Defence fissure on Sedna. You show up near a Grineer Galleon caught in a Fissure, park the Railjack in the Galleon's exhaust plume where it won't be discovered, Archwing to the Galleon, then have a standard Defence mission. Once that's done, Archwing back to your Railjack, maybe fight off a few fighters and jump out. Next, you choose to give Alad V a noogie, so you travel to Jupiter. You break atmosphere with the Railjack inside a region with high static elector-magnetism, kill the engines. You jump out in your Archwing and see three floating rigs. Ordis advises you that Alad V is on one of them, but isn't sure which one, so you take a gamble. You Archwing to a rig at random and arrive at one of its loading docks. From there, you go on a regular ground mission clearing the area until you get to the boss room, only to find a no-name Corpus Sergeant and a resource cache. You get info from him as to which of the other two rigs Alad is on, and also that the other one has another resource cache. After the boss is another dock, which takes you back out into the skies over Jupiter with a new waypoint leading to the rig Alad is on. You find him, kill him, return to your ship and do a Void jump before Corpus reinforcements arrive. Because Corpus fighter squadrons haven't been implemented yet, the game instead fives you a 5 minute "point of no return" timer for everyone to get back to the Railjack and jump out else the mission fails.

This is what I mean by "integration." I mean not hosting Railjack missions as their own independent Star Chart, but rather using the Railjack IN existing missions as an added layer. Rather than hitting a button in our Orbiter, sitting through a loading screen and popping up in the instance, we have to take our Railjack to the general area, go EVA and fly ourselves to the mission, from which point on the mission works as it always has.

[Otaiken]

I just want a dedicated loot mission and I do not want it to be endless mission but now in SPAAAACE. Nor do I relish spending more time picking up rocks than actually fighting.

Railjack imho needs a convoy raid mission. The higehr the level the tougher it is but the convoy also gets more cargo ships/trailers to loot.

Let me fight hard for my materials instead of breaking rocks or semi-afk for hours in a single mission.

[xxswatelitexx]

On 2019-12-14 at 9:58 PM, LocoWithGun said:

I just want a dedicated loot mission and I do not want it to be endless mission but now in SPAAAACE. Nor do I relish spending more time picking up rocks than actually fighting.

Railjack imho needs a convoy raid mission. The higehr the level the tougher it is but the convoy also gets more cargo ships/trailers to loot.

Let me fight hard for my materials instead of breaking rocks or semi-afk for hours in a single mission.

 

I like this idea - having mission that focuses on gaining loot instead of Space Easter Egg Hunt for loot.