Instead of saying "Sorry, no missions are available", it would be good to say why:

Eg:

-No freighters: "Sorry, we don't have any freighters in right now. Hang around a while and they'll probably turn up soon"

-No freighters the player is qualified to escort: "Sorry, but there's no missions you're qualified for. Hang around and there should be one before too long."

With regards to the second of those two, it would be nice if Korolov stations would not only spawn new freighters if there aren't any around, but also spawned a low-level freighter (EI100, probably) if there are no ships the player is qualified to escort. THis prevents the current annoyance of not being able to get escort ranks because the base has nothing but Antares IIs and EI7000s. This should be separate to the current respawn system (since we don't want random ships, we want something we can escort).

Edit: Added the "wait a bit" to the example of not-being levelled.

Also, if a "spawn low-ranked freighter so we can get our first mission/more missions" system is added, having it be triggered by asking for a mission and not getting one because of a lack of suitable ships would be a good way to handle it. Then if we ask again (and the freighter has been spawned as is en-route) we get a "There's nothing here now, but we got a signal from an inbound (freighter type here) that's looking for an escort on its next leg. It's (X) lightseconds away, so if you wait you'll get it" type message.

arkheias 27 Jun 2015:

Alternative mission ideas:
1) They could just do the same thing as the tutorial escort mission where a freighter spawns at a gate (right when you get there, purely by coincidence of course) and you have to escort it to the station.

2) We could also use missions where the freighter's previous escort was killed and so we have to meet them at another station and escort them back.

3) There could also be a 1/1000 chance for a gauntlet mission in which they decide that a freighter just has to pass by every single station in the system, possible getting lost/forgetting something half-way through this and having to backtrack to a station before going on. Then once they get to the gate, they accidentally press their self-destruct button instead of the button to use the gate. Once you get back to the Korolov station you would find out that the freighter pilot thought so highly of you during the mission that he willed everything he owned to you (this is why he backtracked to a station). Unfortunately, the only thing he owned that wasn't on his ship was a crate of illegal counterfeit cabbages that he had in storage on the Korolov station.

johnbwatson 27 Jun 2015:

I, personally, like the possibility of a station not having missions for the player. Transcendence is a roguelike, and having every station behave in the optimal way for the player both breaks immersion and makes different games too similar. Frankly, I think missions ought to be more dependent on the state of the system rather than less.

That said, I'm certainly in favor of the possibility of different missions when a certain set isn't available. Supporting another escort against a particularly tough pirate attack, raiding a Charon cache, or other similar missions would be a great addition to Korolov, taking place when a freighter isn't available.

george moromisato 29 Jul 2017:

This is greatly improved in 1.8 Alpha 3:

  • We show a list of all freighters, letting the player choose which freighter to escort.
  • If the player is not rated to escort a certain freighter, we clearly explain that.
  • If there are no available escort missions, we create one to escort a freighter from a gate.
  • In the unlikely event that there are no missions, we tell the player to come back later.