Special missions for: keys, difficulty, length

I was thinking today that maybe key rushes shouldn’t be the way they are now. Meaning there is a limited amount of key rushes you can play. Perhaps some people accidentally quit or don’t equip any extra lives and fail the mission in the first few waves and cannot retry. I agree that key rushes should be a kind of mission you rarely get to play, but I disagree about the hard limit of 10. If there is a mission type of which there are only 10 in the galaxy, then finding and completing all 10 of them (they should not be assignable) should unlock something. Key rushes only serve as a boost for your key count, so I think they should be a replayable type of mission. For example, every 1,000,000,000 points you receive a mountable ‘key booster’ item that, when equipped before a mission, changes the key spawn rate during that mission to the one used during key rushes.

The second thing I thought about was that if there exists a case of someone who plays CIU without any knowledge of the prior CI3/CI4/CI5, they would never see the full-scale models of the final bosses in CIU, only the parts displayed in waves.

So I had the idea of adding a sort of special event involving them with the following mechanics:

  • Every day, at the daily reset, the three bosses (Yolk-Star™, Egg Cannon, Henterprise) move to a random location in the galaxy. Only one of each is present on the whole map at any given time. Their full image is visible, but not scaled exactly to their cannon size, as large as a moon is enough.
  • They always appear next to planets, not in empty expansions of void. And to hint that they’re end-game content, make The Yolk-Star™ only move to stars (requires Gravity Nullifier), The Egg Cannon only move to hot/cold planets (requires heat shield), Henterprise only move to electric planets (requires EM shield)
  • When entering the orbit of a planet/star where a final boss is currently stationed, a special mission is displayed with 50 waves and max difficulty, and wave 50 is obviously the respective boss. Other than that, the mission has random waves every day.
  • It would be nice if the mission could also include as a description a short retelling of the events in the respective game, what the boss did and how it was defeated.
  • If the mission is completed, failed or surrendered, it cannot be retried again in the same day. And the next day, the boss will move somewhere else. While you could in theory complete 3 of these missions every day, they will often be separated by many light-years of distance.

I initially intended for this special mission to use the same spawn rates for keys as the current key rushes, but perhaps a simple +600% instead of +300% key multiplier would suffice. Either way, I don’t know if this kind of mission is even feasible to create with the current game limitations. I thought it might be possible because we already have supply droids moving around so perhaps we could add more objects with this property. And secondly, in stores the legendary items already change places, so this property also already exists.

I think enough time has passed since the 120th anniversary for it to be replaced in the menu screen. It should still be available to play, just tuck it in a more inconspicuous place. Instead, I think we should honor CI1’s legacy with a never-ending mission. Call it Horde Mode, Infinite Invasion or whatever you want. The way it would work is simple: when started, the game selects a random mission(or wave) from the entire galaxy. If/When you complete the mission, the game simply starts another one from the thousands available. There may be a short pause and black screen while the background changes to the appropriate one for the new type of mission. However, you keep the same lives, firepower and satellites from the previous mission(s) to keep the continuity. The mode ends either when you surrender or you run out of extra lives. Since multipliers differ depending on location and type of mission, the game simply calculates what you would have earned if you had played the missions separately and deposits the score, keys and medals to your account. When the mission ends, you won’t get a post-mission screen tallying your results, but everything will still count towards your statistics. This mode could also become something that has a leaderboard for most waves flown or highest score earned before running out of lives. Missions played during this mode will not be shown in the recent missions tab, but perhaps some players would want to know where to find a mission they randomly happened to play, so I suggest that when the mission name is displayed on screen, add its location in the third row, like so:

Mission Codename:
[Adjective] [Noun]
[Constellation], [System], [Planet]

Including the planet name as well is optional, narrowing the place of the mission down to the system is enough for players to easily find it.

This was a long train of thoughts, so here is a recap of the ideas:

  1. Rework key rushes so that they are still a rare type of playable mission, but not limited in number.
  2. Have the full model of the final bosses visible somewhere in the map in CIU, and have them offer especially difficult missions to the players who approach them.
  3. Reminder that the Feather Fields chapter in CI4 has not yet been included in CIU. Might require new boss.
  4. Change 120th Anniversary mission to an endless randomized mission with its own leaderboards.
  5. Add the constellation and system name at the beginning, when the mission name is displayed.
10 Likes

It was already suggested. Some ideas from NPCS for CIU
But your explanation is better.

2 Likes

I’d like to maybe see them “move around” every time someone completes one - so it becomes kind of a galaxy-hunting rush to see who’s first to the key rush.
I’m sure that would mess with the servers in unhealthy ways, but it’d be cool.
(And it would give us a simple interactive component between players, which is desperately needed)

Not sure about the specific implementation (they can, after all, appear in many regular missions too and I don’t think that should change) but they should definitely be in the game somewhere. Players new to CI probably don’t even understand what’s going on when they fight the Yolk-Star™.

I would hope then when the “bestiary” feature is added you’d see the model there, which (might?) nullify the need to have them show up on the actual galaxy map.

I, too, am eager for this to return.

I think, as you said, 120th should be preserved, but I’m open to an endless mode. idk if it should just be added to the menu, though - perhaps there’s a cleverer way to implement it.

Full support, the rng names are fun and the more places they show up the better.

1 Like

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