Player-Generated Rescue Missions

[ShadowOblivion]

Overview:
This proposal explores the possibilities of a player, in an escape pod, requesting extraction from a dangerous situation via a mission on the BBS. This proposal would be more multiplayer-orientated, but may also have an AI implementation for single-player.

Explanation:
Upon ejection from a spacecraft, a pilot is left incredibly vulnerable and at the mercy of further hostile action. It also becomes very difficult to navigate to a world where the player may recover. To provide the player with the capability to remedy such a situation and to generate dynamic missions on the BBS I propose the following: Upon the ejection from a spacecraft the pilot becomes capable of posting a Rescue Mission upon the BBS, with the promise of paying an amount of credits for the immediate rescue and depositing the pilot on a major colonized planet or base by another player(in multiplayer), or an AI(in the case of single-player). This will change the game in the following way, Rescue missions would become much more varied in terms of the amount of money some pilots would be willing to offer for their rescue(estimated to range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands or even up to a million credits). This idea would also depend greatly on what the death mechanics will become, and the idea may become defunct, but in the case that they remain as they are now, this idea would prove useful in some situations.

Example:
A player's ship is destroyed and he ejects in hostile space where further attacks and harassment are likely. The player(Pilot) pulls up a dialogue via the Menu and posts a Rescue Mission upon the galactic BBS for 15,000 credits. Another player with a functional ship looks into the BBS and sees that there is another Rescue Mission posted, and accepts it. The Second player then makes his way to the Pilot, fends off any attackers and tractors him in. The Pilot then requests to be dropped on a Planet, where he may call for one of his own ships. Upon arriving at this planet, the Pilot pays his rescuer.

[CLoneWolf]

Let alone the fact that quitting and reloading is cheaper and would prolly be preferred by at least some people in single player mode, I like this idea a lot, especially on the multiplayer side! Roleplaying, chances of new alliances between pilots, faction mates coming to rescue even for free if they choose so because "hey, he's one of us"...

The only issue I see is with real time: ejected pilots are usually quite in a hurry, but missions can only be checked when docked; so maybe when an ejected pilot calls for rescue, other players should get a short notice in the message area (like those about destroyed ships), so that they can decide to dock somewhere and read the details.
On the code side, this is the solution with the lowest impact; the alternative would be to expand the navcomp and be able to read and accept such a rescue mission from it, without docking.

Other than this, you might know already what I think about this... "I'm just fine with rescue missions as long as I'm not the pod"