Suggestion: Railjack Relic-cracking

[Colyeses]

I think it was Steve that at one point said something about 'content islands'. Pieces of content that are so detached from the main game that you play them once and then drop them once you have your rewards. This makes a lot of content hold less weight and replay value than it should.

Railjack currently falls in this category. It only serves itself, as the only things that can be attained there are Railjack related items. (Barring Archwing mods, but let's be honest, that's hardly an incentive)

To improve this, I suggest hooking Railjack up to the Relic system. No matter how useless a node is on the starchart, people will revisit it if there is a fissure on it that they need. Similarly, the relic system can be used to give new value and longevity to Railjack. 

 

So, what would this look like?

This is just a provisional idea of what a Railjack relic mission could look like, keep that in mind.

In the Veil Proxima, mission nodes can show up corresponding to each of the eras. These mission nodes lead to a battle theater where an Orokin construct resides. This construct is a teleporter that can access relic-cracking forges. 

In order to run the teleporter, various challenges have to be overcome. To start off, the tower must locate an available relic-cracker. This takes 3 minutes, during which an external deep-space scanner must be protected by the railjack, and the team inside the tower has to protect two consoles, á la interception. 

After this, the mission changes depending on the era. 

For Lith relics: That's all that needs to be done. The teleporter fires up, someone goes through and interacts with the relic-cracker to crack the party's relics. 

For Meso relics: Infestation has overgrown a teleporter spool. The indoor team must access the spool's console to expose it, after which the railjack crew must shoot the infestation off the spool. Once this is done, the teleporter fires.

For Neo relics: Once the infestation has been cleared off the spool, the teleporter activates. Once through, the ground team must access four consoles to acquire key phrases, which can then be used to unlock the main console and access the relic-cracker. (This would be the system that was used in... I think it was in The Sacrifice?)

For Axi relics: Once the infestation has been cleared off the spool, it must be recalibrated. All spools will project the same orokin symbol, barring one that needs to be correctd. The ground team needs to enter the right symbol at the right spool's console. Once that is done, the teleporter activates. Once through, the ground team must access four consoles to acquire key phrases which can then be used to unlock the main console and access the relic-cracker.

 

Once the relic-cracker has been interacted with, the entire party's relics will be cracked, they will be offered their choice of the rewards and will be given the option to pick a new relic, after which the ground team is then booted out of the Relic-cracker tower back to the teleporter construct. The system resets, and the party can go through the process again.

 

This method would allow people to play Railjack as a means of cracking relics. If the game ensures that at least one relic-cracker Railjack node is available at all times, alongside the normal fissures, it would create an opportunity to play Railjack for more meaningful rewards. The details of the mission aren't very important, the key part is getting Railjack involved with regular gameplay. 

[(PSN)haphazardlynamed]

Too complicated gave up reading

Why not just use the same mechanic any other Void Fissure does? Mission is unchanged, but enemies (or in this case spaceships) drop Reactant. Just increase the vacuum range so everyone inside the Railjack gets the reactant when the pilot flies close enough.

Be a lot less work for DE than designing a new game mode - we know they're lazy and unlikely to implement anything that takes effort...

[Jackdarsan]

I still don't see people opting for RJ to crack relics since it is way faster with capture/exterminate.

I do see the appeal if you are wanting the option to farm RJ items/intrinsics and such but that can be said for other things in the game. 

I.E make void fissure steel path (SP) to boost rare rate drop, now that most people have all the SP items whos doing SP anymore?

DE likes to add things without thinking long term and they just die off.

[Colyeses]

6 hours ago, (PS4)haphazardlynamed said:

Why not just use the same mechanic any other Void Fissure does?

That would still require an overhaul due to the game's drastically different scale. If each fissure only corrupts one or two fighters, progress would be very slow, and it could even lock up if you don't get enough reactant before mission end.

3 hours ago, Jackdarsan said:

I still don't see people opting for RJ to crack relics since it is way faster with capture/exterminate.

However, this would require these modes to be present in the current fissure rotation. Railjack would likely be a bit faster than a normal intercept, defense or survival fissure.

In addition, waiting out a timer will likely feel worse than a skill dependent factor, which applies to everything higher than Lith in this suggestion.

Then there's the matter of 'some people just want to play Railjack'. A friend of mine has expressed this, but he never plays it because there's no meaningful rewards.

And also, I'm not sure if capture and exterminate would be faster, because the suggested mode would be endless, so you'd save on mission restart times.