I haven't played most of these missions recently enough to have balance suggestions at the moment.

As for rewards, maybe Benedict missions could give Domina XP, directly or via donateable items? Currently, XP comes almost entirely from slave coffins, so the player quickly goes from having only Sustain, or maybe 2nd tier, to having all the powers once they start appearing in the Ungoverned Territories. This should probably be rebalanced so the progression is more evenly distributed through the game. Getting some from missions, increasing the amount from other sources, and limiting the amount per system from coffins somehow would help.

The Corporate Hierarchy seems more inclined to provide material rewards. Their plot missions should probably pay significant amounts of cash, and maybe give access to tech that would otherwise be hard to get. Maybe reverse-engineered chimera tech? They could also grant higher ranks with better discounts. Can they issue military IDs for players who don't have one already, or ignore the requirement for players with high enough rank?

I've always found it strange that the Ares would let the Commonwealth roam free in Heretic. All that alien tech would be valuable to study and it's much closer to Ares space. Is there some reason they only have one tiny research outpost in system?

It would be cool to have to carry the lamplighter data much farther, prompting Ares bounty hunters to attack the player like the Penitents do on the Benedict arc. Maybe have them carry it from St. Kats all the way to Point Juno, so the player has to face Ares sandstorms at a time when they're a real threat. Would need a reason for them to give some random pilgrim the data though.

About rewards...

For Benedict, how about more relationship or attitude. In George's last game, he did not donate enough slave coffins to get powers, and it hurt. Maybe getting some relationship would be nice. Then again, why would Domina care? Also, more attitude with Sisters would be handy for abusing Pilgrim's Aid a few more times. Then again, attitude is such a hidden stat that people who do not source dive probably have no idea how it works.

Huari and the Qianlong reward is fine. As far as I am concerned, having a balanced level-appropriate but too high damage-type is a drawback because the DPS is low, although Qianlong mitigates that with ammo/charge use. Who cares if the damage is effectively unresistable if it is low enough? Having a balanced level 8 or 9 laser weapon is not bad with cheap enhancers because it carves through hull fast despite no WMD. Only armor of eight or nine levels above its level starts to resist under-tier damage too much. As for Qianlong itself, I rather save longzhu spheres for enhancing or repairing stuff. Qianlong is a decent weapon, but longzhu dependency means I do not want to use the weapon.

As for Heretic, if Kate knows about the pteravores, it would make sense for her to give a mission to clear them out first before orbiting the Heretic sun. Orbiting the sun while pteravores are there is rather dumb. Even without Kate, first thing I do in Heretic is kill the pteravores so that I have a safe place to dump loot.

One question I think is useful to answer is: how thoroughly do you *want* to delve into the Domina/Oracus mystery in the game? At the moment it's very open-ended, and I think that actually works pretty well for a game where much of the time you aren't doing anything directly related to any plot or quest. The game (or rather, the gameplay) is more about your journey to the Core than it is about the people you meet along the way and their stories. It's not even really about *why* you're journeying to the Core.

Regarding specific questlines:

* My favorite Chimera mission by far is the shipyards one, where you have to destroy the chimera freighters before they can corrupt too much of the station. There's no immediate threat, but corrupted nodes rapidly start spitting out enemy ships to hassle you. I think we should consider changing the earlier missions so that the station initially has no defenders, but starts spitting them out once it gets attacked.

Regarding rewards, you do get early access to ion and plasma weaponry if you get lucky drops from the earlier missions. And chimeric armor is decent too. So there's potential rewards in that sense. Maybe you could loot a "chimeric enhancer" that gives a +20% boost to any weapon? *shrug*

* The Huari are in a really good spot right now, I wouldn't touch them personally. The Qianlong is fine; it's unresistable damage but not so much of it that it's overpowered. In fact if anything I often find that by the time I get it I have an enhanced thermo weapon that's stronger...but then again I know what I'm doing; newbie players won't necessarily.

* The big problem with the Lamplighter arc IMO is that it requires grinding so much reputation with the CSCs to progress. Spreading it out some and allowing the player to get CSC rep through earlier missions in the Ungoverned Territories would alleviate that.

* Heretic...I think it's worth having a signpost or something near the gate that declares the Heretic System to be a truce zone for all interhuman conflicts. After all, all of Humanity wants to get past the quarantine.

Storywise, you could have the occasional fluff mission where someone in an earlier system asks you to deliver something to someone in Heretic. It'd have to be small, either data or some memento ("my mommy is working hard at the end of the universe! Could you please bring my stuffed microsaur to her? I'm sure it'd help her feel better, it always does for me!"), and there needn't necessarily be a reward, but it'd help tie Heretic into the rest of the game world. At the moment it's in its own little world, really; nothing there relates to anything in the rest of the game except that Kate shows up again, and the Ares will only talk to you if you forego the Lamplighter.

About the only thing I would change with the Huari missions is the multiple "Ïntercept the Sung transport" missions. There are only two other Huari missions and one relies on the presence of an intact Sung station in that system. Unfortunately the player has probably already destroyed any Sung stations in order to get the Huari to be friendly!
So the 'intercept' missions occur continuously until the player qualifies and it can be a bit of a 'grind'.

For the Lamplighter missions possibly the player could meet Juan Carlos in an earlier system (maybe at the Militia fortresses?) and be asked to take the data ROM to the CSC in a more coreward system. This spreads the missions and IMO gives some direction to the player about how to progress in the game.

@ relanat: Not only that, but the intercept missions are safer (no need to attack Earth Slavers). Even if I befriend Huari before the Sung stations are dead, I want to kill Sung stations first to lock in the easy intercept missions.

Hm, Huari mission ideas...

* Take a cargo of slave coffins to another Huari station for decanting. The Sung may attack during the trip, and of course if you stop at any Commonwealth stations they'll take the coffins from you.
* Our systems have been hacked by the Sung and our station defenses are disabled. We suspect they're about to attack us; please defend us until we can get back on-line. (standard station defense mission)
* We're desperately short on supplies; people are sick and starving. Please bring food and medical supplies. I suggest this because my impression is that the Huari are in a pretty bad position militarily/politically, and plague/famine tend to accompany being oppressed. Actually this might be a passive thing you can just do at any Huari station in exchange for reputation, so instead of grinding on missions you can just show up with 100kcreds worth of supplies if that strikes your fancy.

One thing that is happening fairly often in the Lamplighter arc (at least in the last 4 games I played) was that the Antarctica showed up first. The Terra was always 1 or 3 systems later in the game. This can make getting the lamplighter difficult because once interaction has been done with the Antarctica, the mission will continue with incoming Aquila's and new players might not know what to do. Defending the antarctica will make the Terra a static CSC without missions, just a base for free fuel and repairs. No talking to Decker etc.

About the Chimera arc, depending on choice of ship, some missions can be hard, but most are fairly easy with the minotaur. After having played the full arc for the first time the last mission left me feeling like there should have been more to it. Probably also because there as nothing left to loot afterwards because some Gaian processors showed up and destroyed most of the chimera wrecks. Might have something interesting to loot in the destroyed base that can help the player by turning one of the playerships weapons into a more powerful chimeric version.

 Two thoughts:

» Borer rescue/escort missions should adjust the reward based on the distance the Borer needs escorted; say, some base reward value plus a certain amount for each fifty or hundred light seconds.

» The Benedictine tutorial does not allow time between the “final exam” and the Penitent mission to do any additional preparation — grinding credits for better equipment, repairing, or anything else of the sort.

Rumors More missions should have rumors (habitat/pub etc). For instance Benedict 02 and 04 should add rumors about the Penitent ships being seen in the New Beyond. Most of the Chimera missions should add rumors about strange ships being seen!

Less linear arcs Currently all the arcs are pretty linear - the player mostly has to successfully complete each mission in turn. It would be good if the arcs allows some more flexibility so the player could continue even if some missions are failed (or even add branching paths depending on player choice)

Benedict Arc

How much evidence the player successfully collects could affect the outcome of the trial in Benedict 07 (e.g. fate of Sister Ston, how much support player gets to rescue Benedict)

I agree with others that Benedict missions could give sisters attitude or Domina XP

Chimera Arc

Anton should probably be paying the standard corporate privateer rate instead of expecting the player to work for free. In addition the player could be given some intact chimera weapons / armor recovered from the stations.

Add a few optional missions to help quarantine / cleanup some of the chimera wrecks and weapons.

• It is a mysterious and dangerous technology so seems foolish to leave it for the next scavenger / pilgrim to sell for scrap
• Alternatively the player could sell the salvage a rival corporation / blackmarket, but this should have a chance of causing additional Chimera infections.

The outcome of the Gunsan mission should have an impact on the fleet. Some of the CSC Captains or at least Decker should be aware of the attack and mention it (presumably if the shipyard is lost the fleet will start buying ships from other corporations or UAS/NAU)

Huari

There do need to be some more generic Huari missions - or the player should be encouraged to visit more than one Huari station before getting the symbiote. Currently the player mostly gets the intercept transport mission as the other missions require an active Sung station (which the player probably destroyed in order to befriend the Huari!)

Lamplighter

There should be some reaction if the player turns up with the other antimatter weapon. Maybe donating the Qianlong should help the lamplighter research

Heretic

Kate could make several appearances to get support for the Heretic expedition. e.g.

• St Kats parliament (maybe the player is asked to provide additional escort for some government officials
• Similar at corporate station / headquarters
• Recruiting scientists for the expedition
• Getting the Svalbard Explorer ready - presumably it was specially outfitted for the Heretic mission. So could have a couple of missions to Rasiermesser / Taikon

 General idea for all major story arcs: Don’t let Enter advance their dockscreens. It’s very easy to muscle-memory your way right past the plot. Only allow a letter key or click move things along. Also, avoid using letters used by actions on commonly seen dock screens — D, L, and U for example.

 There was further discussion on this during tonight’s stream. There was an idea of using ESC to go straight to the accept/decline dockscreen. I floated a different idea: PgDn, with the little notification at the bottom such as what was used in early incarnations of tabbed inventory dockscreens for stations.

Among the ideas in here, I agree with these the most:

"Rumors - More missions should have rumors (habitat/pub etc). For instance Benedict 02 and 04 should add rumors about the Penitent ships being seen in the New Beyond. Most of the Chimera missions should add rumors about strange ships being seen!

Less linear arcs - Currently all the arcs are pretty linear - the player mostly has to successfully complete each mission in turn. It would be good if the arcs allows some more flexibility so the player could continue even if some missions are failed (or even add branching paths depending on player choice)"

As for my feedback:
Benedict Arc - Could use high-level domina communion reward/s.
Or maybe add a new Domina power which will only work with the weapon rewarded on this arc? Like say a positron/antimatter weapon that you can temporarily fire with after using this new Domina power? As for the story, I think it's best to have a backstory/history about what has Benedict and Fiona been fighting for and how the Penitents are getting in the way. About the "Why should the player care?" part, I think we can have some new sort of domina power time mechanism where destroying more penitent stations would add a slight percentage-based cooldown reduction and the destruction of sisters stations would add a percentage-based cooldown time increase. With this implementation, we could also promote more ship fights between sisters and penitents and/or attacks on sisters/penitents stations.
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As for the Chimera arc, I have a wild idea about owning your very own chimera farm/factory where it produces chimera related stuff i.e. chimera autons, chimera trade products, chimera weapons/shields/armors, and maybe even chimera-type ships. This thing could also have a system similar to a teraton factory where you could "chimera-ize" equipment. Since the player owns this station, they are responsible for "investing" on it like purchasing upgrades, providing supplies to produce chimera goods, providing fuel so that the farm can produce more goods you could sell/trade, hiring staff to support the station, and etc.

Since the Chimeras were considered as "a mysterious technology that threatens all Human Space.", the technology related to them should be just enough to fight against stuff up to Jiang's star.
There's potentially a problem with distance as the player approaches the late-game but I think relocation upgrades are feasible?
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Huari Arc - I think the reward is appropriate given the fact that most players will actually miss this. I haven't even gotten to trigger or encounter this arc as of the writing of this feedback. But I'm working on it by avoiding the Huari and slowly but surely decimating the Sung Slavers.
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Lamplighter Arc - Ferdinand has very good feedback on this. I did not get to encounter this arc on my 2010 playthrough and I ain't even sure if it already existed by that time but if it did, then it must be related to his feedback (quoting him):
"One thing that is happening fairly often in the Lamplighter arc (at least in the last 4 games I played) was that the Antarctica showed up first. The Terra was always 1 or 3 systems later in the game. This can make getting the lamplighter difficult because once interaction has been done with the Antarctica, the mission will continue with incoming Aquila's and new players might not know what to do. Defending the antarctica will make the Terra a static CSC without missions, just a base for free fuel and repairs. No talking to Decker etc."
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Heretic Arc - I think there needs to be a "Mass Effect"(this is a game made by Bioware) inspired scenario for this arc. Like say, we put a scenario where the Iocrym's patience has ended and they are sending a large fleet to decimate St. Katherine's star. With this at hand, the player is tasked to gather and call allies all over the galaxy in order to mount one grand defensive against this fleet. We can have the player's ranking in various organizations to largely affect the allies/ships and/or reinforcements that will join the player and they will be pooled/divided between forces that are present before the defensive starts or as reinforcements that will arrive mid-way depending on their distance from the star system that you assign for this particular event to happen. Maybe we can even have this huge battle to happen across star systems and the player has to come to the rescue of various squads/fleets that make up the whole defensive force - inspired by Starcraft II Terran Campaign: The mission involving the invasion of the Zerg-infested planet of Char. This actually fits this phrase, "left the system promising to return one day for an unspecified reason", found at the bottom of this wiki page:
https://wiki.kronosaur.com/game/factions

Failure happens when the Arcology of New Victoria gets destroyed by the Iocryms and all ships in St. Katherine will commence retreat to Starton Eridani. Remaining undestroyed Iocryms will continue to patrol/guard St. Katherine's star until they are destroyed by the player. Successful defense will establish the player as President of the Commonwealth and he/she will have a say on the Parliament to influence things like prices of goods, production of goods that ran out of stock, sending of reinforcements to the last start system where the player has to defeat the Iocryms, and etc. There's vast potential on this but if there needs to be an easier to implement reward, I suppose it's to have a special ranking on the Commonwealth Fleet and access to "prototype-level" weapons.

Tell me what you think :D

Re: Heretic
There is no need for the Iocrym to invade more of Human Space. Explaining why involves story spoilers, some of which are in Vault of the Galaxy. To be brief, aliens beyond Heretic have a way to fry all of Human Space without going in and getting their hands dirty. Also, I think George has said (on some stream) that the player is not the first pilgrim to exit Heretic, and whenever someone slips through, the gate gets relocked and the next one that wants to exit needs to undergo a different trial to break through. (When you start part 2, the gate to Heretic is already locked behind you.)

Interesting :O
Didn't get to know all those juicy details back in my 2010 playthrough (or I was simply unconcerned about it back then hahaha)

So basically, the Iocrym are like guardians that serve to organize these trials before exiting Heretic?

Almost forgot. To go from Major to Colonel in the militia involves continually recurring Scarab escort missions. A bit of variation there would be nice.

It is quite easy for the player to be completely unprepared for the first Chimera mission. You can get through the initial Privateer missions without needing to upgrade the starter ship at all, then the Earthzone chimeras are almost impossible. Consider splitting the mission into two:

Initially the player just has to investigate / recon the anarchist station - e.g. "An Anarchist station at the edge of the system has been harassing our operations. We've lost contact with the freelancer we sent to destroy it so we need you to go and investigate. Destroy the station if you can, but your priority is to report back."

Then in the second part the player gets a couple of wingmen to help destroy the station.

The Tau Ceti start in general is harder than the Eridani start, with a much more cluttered system with higher-level enemies. Is that a bad thing? Corporate Command presumably is mostly played by people who have prior experience with the game. Hopefully they have well-honed Domina Sustain reactions at least.

I do like the idea of the mission text saying "hey, we lost the last pilot we sent to check up on this" though. Right now there's absolutely no cluing that this mission is unusual, beyond the fact that the station is uncharted and outside the system boundaries.

Benedict Arc

1. Maybe several Benedict arc should became a good signpost to points out some essential gameplay mechanic and stuff. Example: in Benedict mission where player need Stormhound, perhaps Benedict will give player an autosentinel and explain how they works. This would make Benedict arc became more important to newer player.

2. Perhaps they hands out player some cash on several mission. But I think Domina relation would be a great reward.

3. What about additional score? I think currently score is heavily based number of kills (isn't it?). Perhaps every mission should gives out a good number of score.

Huari arc

1. I think it's all right. But I would like to suggest there is two way to makes Huari friendly. First one by default is destroying Sung station. Currently player need destroy several fortresses, but on some occassion, there is not enough fortress during playthrough. Perhaps it should give some points on what player destroyed? Perhaps destroying Sung citadel could make Huari friendly faster than Sung fortress?

Another way to make Huari friendly is liberating certain number of slaves to Commonwealth (of course, donating on Domina doesn't count). This would open a Commonwealth colony mission. Player would meet ex-Huarian and she invites player to Huari fortress.

2. I think Apotamo's dream is pretty similiar with Katherine's dream in Sister story. Perhaps some key character also had same dream? This would be a great links to many arc.

3. I've never use it because the ammo type is really scarce and it more worthy on energy weapon upgrade. Perhaps at certain number of Longzhu sphere used, Qianlong archcannon become unlimited?

Lamplighter arc

1. Add them on Militia mission. That's would be a great to point out Commonwealth fleet mission.

2. I think Rogue fleet is loosely organized faction. Each one is different with other, but many are allied. Some Rogue illegally handling desserted fleet troops to become regular Commonwealth citizen again; several became regular pirate on Outer Realm; other wanted vengeance toward Commonwealth fleet due mistreatment; rest are became specialized informant for other faction. Of course we can't divide them all to become separate faction, but we can create mission based on them.

@ digarw: George is making Jiang's Star a unique system, and one of the features is an overabundance of Sung stations. Soon, you will no longer need to worry about not finding enough Sung stations to kill.

@ megas: I see. That would solve the issues

Addition to my comment: I think I should also add several Fleet mission against Rogue fleet from my mind.

Mission 1

Civilian freighter (EI7000, Antares V, or Scarab) sent distress signal to the Commonwealth Fleet. They has been captured by Rogue fleet (Centauri mission style). Player must rescue the freighter by destroying them off; no requirement to escort. This mission is good for low Fleet rank.

Mission 2

Commonwealth Fleet got information that governor of Commonwealth colony has made a deal to Rogue for illegaly smuggling desserted fleet member to become Commonwealth civilian. Player must go to the colony and interrogate the governor. Then player go to Rogue fleet cache/settlement and destroy them. This might be one-run mission similiar with scientist extraction mission.

Mission 3

Rogue fleet has made a deal to trade Fleet's critical information with the enemy (such as Ares or Ranx). The trade is located somewhere in outer orbit. Player (might accompanied with Fleet squadron) must go there and ambush them. Particularly, player must retrieve the data ROM from Rogue ship leader (Centurion/X). From here, this also would perform unique triangle battle between them.

Mission 4

This mission is similiar with final Fleet mission against Ares. Commonwealth Fleet found out the Rogue has stole their advanced ships and planned to attack them. The ships can be a mass group of Centurion/X, squadron of Britannia, or might be one Aquilla cruiser. This also would explain that Rogue is also bigger threat to Commonwealth fleet.

Now that beta 1 has changed Pilgrim's Aid into a fund where player must deposit credits before using Pilgrim's Aid (instead of donate 750cr worth fuel rod, then refuel big 1 GW reactor for free), maybe simply boosting the fund (enough to refuel a large reactor at least once) could be a useful reward for the "it's on the house" feel with the Sisters.

Want to set up some context for my suggestions - I played a ton of transcendence in 2007-2010, as it was the only game I allowed myself to have (long story) and since then have basically not played it - because I loved it so much it was too easy to just lose a couple hours playing just one more system. I recently had more time and more self control, and so came back to it during the pandemic. I played through a game on 0.97a (mistimed Shatter and so did not beat the Iocrym), then played through a 1.9b2 game. Here are my thoughts on the missions.

Benedict - I think this would be a good set of missions to give beginning players a bit extra of a helping hand, but not need too many big rewards, more play into the storyline more.
- Maybe Stormhound gives the player a fast-fire or targetting rom? Some kind of higher-level disposable missile pod?
- Maybe the player could have a more substantial choice to make during the penitent station raid mission that could then come back and have an impact on a later mission, like the player could chose to spare a guard or pilot or something that could make this mission harder but have some bonus for the Monastery mission?

Huari -
I really feel like some more flavor text before is needed to help a new player understand they shouldn't attack Huari? I also see some additional Huari --> Pentitent antagonism from the background that could mean instead of just 'hunt down a sung transport' mission, there could maybe be some kind of 'stop the penitents' additional mission type

I'd also really like to see the Huari show back up in Jiang's Star - I think it could be a fun mission like 'pilot an Earth Slaver to the Sung homestation, and do a mini-game like the Heretic virus mission then flee back' or something.

Lamplighter - I wonder if there would be the possibility to use Lamplighter to introduce the 3 major alignments in VoTG? Hear me out - you could possibly randomize the type of weapon that the Lamplighter is - it could be nano (biotech), antimatter (mechanist), or something (archaeotech) - and then the nano weapon be some kind of stolen Ares project , the Archaeotech maybe could come from some additional Ringers/Teraton mission branch (or maybe the Sung found something, and if the player completes the extra Huari mission described above raiding the Sung main station, they get some item that would be notForSale and help increase lamplighter chances). Then the player has a little sneak peek of the future, and it also increases replay since you don't know what kind of weapon you might encounter?

Heretic -

I'd like to see player choices in the Benedict line influence what the player can do with the Domina station in Heretic

I think it might be interesting to have a mission arc where instead of just wiping out the Xenophobes, maybe the player could ally with them to get their help to attack the Iocrym? I can see it being the kind of thing where we find out that what the Xenophobes believe is not consistent with the storyline (aka the Xenophobes believe that the Iocrym are going to invade Human space, and they need to stop them) and that wrong belief will let them ally with the player.

I think Kate could also show up if the player succeeded in the Huari missions and ask questions about the Huari stargate. Want to do research, that kind of thing.

Alternatively, Kate could show up in St. K's at the First Contact station to give the player some more hints, maybe some hint about the transspace jump drive, or mentions or rumors about ?Tan-Do-Rem? and the halo gems...?

Another spot is somewhere with a Kobol Warlords camp, and have there be some piece of research that the Kobols have that she needs?